Blown for Good Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology Read Online Free PDF Page A

other courses on how to study the Scientology way. This course, though, was way more than I thought it would be. In addition to reading all of the L Ron Hubbard teachings on how to study, I also had to listen to 15 hours of L Ron Hubbard’s public lectures given in the 1960s. What’s more, I was quizzed daily on what I had studied and asked definitions of words and to explain concepts. This was not much different than what was done at Delphi, but most of the stuff we were studying there had some practical application and was useful everyday stuff that made some sense. Now I had to really bend my mind to see how the stuff Hubbard was talking about had anything to do with what I was studying. Sometimes he just appeared to be rambling and, because someone was recording it, you got stuck with it. Also, if you did not pass your quizzes and routinely flunked exams, you would get in trouble. It was not like school; these people were pissed at you for not taking this stuff seriously.
    My friend and I decided to go to the movies one night instead of to course, and the next time we showed up for course, we were told that we were going to go to Ethics. Ethics was where you got your punishment assignment for doing something wrong from a Scientology viewpoint. The Ethics Officer told us that we had to do a “Danger Condition” and get back to course.
    “Conditions” are about a dozen different formulas L. Ron Hubbard wrote up, and someone applies the steps of the formulas to their life to change how they are doing. The worse you are doing, the lower the condition you have to apply. But in reality, they are mostly used to punish people. Usually, when you are in the higher conditions, people are not around chasing you up for conditions write-ups. You had to write up what you did for each step of the condition and get it checked by someone to make sure that it was okay. As soon as you are in trouble the first thing you get asked is “What condition do you think you are in?” or “You are assigned a condition of Confusion!” Conditions are also used as an incentive. For example: “You can’t have time off until you are out of your Doubt Condition!” They were used as a threat, such as “If you don’t get this work done, you are assigned a Liability Condition!”
    I never liked this because it was usually up to the person approving or assigning conditions to decide what condition formula you did. It was completely arbitrary and widely abused by one and all. Hubbard originally developed the conditions for staff and they grew into an entire subject, which became much broader and open to negative interpretation.
    After several months on course, I completed the Student Hat and passed the final exam. After completing this course, the first thing I had to do was go see a guy at the organization whose job was to sign me up for my next course. I was ready for a break and not planning to do any more courses right away. Since my mom paid for the course and I had no money, I did not sign up.
    After a few months my best friend, Jesse and I went on to do the E-Meter Course. This seemed easy enough and would get our parents off our backs for a few months about doing more courses.
    The E-Meter Course was a course on the manual for the E-Meter and some exercises that taught you how to operate the thing. In Scientology, the E-meter is a tool pretty similar to a lie detector. It is used in all counseling and is said to detect areas that need to be addressed. It is also used by ethics officers to find people with withholds (crimes) and who have done things they don’t want found out about. So the E-meter is central to many activities in Scientology and it was considered important to learn how to use it. After we completed this, we stopped going to course.
    Over the next few months, I spent more and more time with Jesse. I stayed at his house a few times a week and since we went to the same school, it worked out great for me. My mom was starting to