drawer and took out a mimeographed sheet of paper. “You are familiar with the Scale of Being,” he said. I nodded. It was a list showing some dozen states of existence, ranging from enemy at the bottom to clear at the top. “You are a suppressive person,” he said. I blinked. That was one notch above enemy. My Reichian friend was lucky; he was only nonexistent, which was the middle point.
He handed me the sheet of paper which had suppressive person printed across the top. It was an exercise in surrealism, and sounded like a list of admonitions to be given to a kindergarten student. The only unfunny thing about it was that these people were serious, and their activity was intended to have an actual effect on daily life. I became a bit frightened. The similarity to Nazism was becoming more than metaphoric. “Take this home and read it,” he said, and dismissed me.
The paper was a guide as to what constituted a suppressive person, and what such a person had to do to remove himself from that category. I spent the entire night thinking about it, and the next morning walked into headquarters with shaking hands. The situation wasn’t helping my clinical paranoia any. At the hotel I got a clear vision of what was happening: a mass of confused frightened people were milling around the evangelistic teachings of the world’s most recent salvation sweepstakes. Scientology was a racket which played with politics and education and religion and the workings of people’s minds with absolute cynicism and control. It was the perfect symptom of a decaying nation. I freaked.
I told the receptionist my name, and once again had to sign the registration book, and told her I had an appointment in the Ethics Office. She looked at me as though I were a leper and motioned me to sit down. Next to me was a thin, jumpy girl who had been waiting for the Ethics Officer for two hours, and was really pissed off at being made to wait. But like a nun to the Pope, she couldn’t admit that he was simply a little bastard who ought to be kicked in the ass and told to grow up. We talked a bit and she allowed as how she was tired of waiting, but added, “Yet, I understand. They work so hard and have so much responsibility that we can’t expect them to put everything aside to see us any old time.”
For one of the few times in my life, I grew intensely angry.
By the time he was ready to see me, I was furious. I strode into the office. He stared up, unruffled. “Did you read it?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered. “Well . . . ?” he said. I took a breath. “Rarely in my life have I seen such a blend of inanity and viciousness as is exhibited here. I understand the philosophic premises and psychological underpinnings of your scene, but in purely human terms, you are all depraved.”
He was about as impressed as the Spanish fascists were with Unamono’s denunciation. He didn’t bat an eyelash. He reached down and grabbed another sheet of mimeographed paper. On the top of this one was a single word.
It said: enemy.
“You are now in a condition of enemy,” he said.
“How did that happen?” I exploded. “I was just a suppressive person.”
“Please read the conditions,” he said, and handed me a book. It was the Scientology Ethics Handbook. As an enemy, I was informed, I could be beaten up, have my apartment ransacked, and my business destroyed by Scientologists. I took this as serious enough, but learned that I was lucky not to be any higher in the organization. For if I were in an advanced org, i.e., organization, and I became an enemy, I would be confined to quarters, forced to wear a gray armband, and constrained to perform acts above and beyond the call of duty to be reinstated, plus getting the individual consent of every person in the org to let me back in. By this time, I was sweating visibly. I had visions of assassinations.
“What do I have to do to stop being an enemy?” I croaked.
His eyes directed me to the sheet. It had
He handed me the sheet of paper which had suppressive person printed across the top. It was an exercise in surrealism, and sounded like a list of admonitions to be given to a kindergarten student. The only unfunny thing about it was that these people were serious, and their activity was intended to have an actual effect on daily life. I became a bit frightened. The similarity to Nazism was becoming more than metaphoric. “Take this home and read it,” he said, and dismissed me.
The paper was a guide as to what constituted a suppressive person, and what such a person had to do to remove himself from that category. I spent the entire night thinking about it, and the next morning walked into headquarters with shaking hands. The situation wasn’t helping my clinical paranoia any. At the hotel I got a clear vision of what was happening: a mass of confused frightened people were milling around the evangelistic teachings of the world’s most recent salvation sweepstakes. Scientology was a racket which played with politics and education and religion and the workings of people’s minds with absolute cynicism and control. It was the perfect symptom of a decaying nation. I freaked.
I told the receptionist my name, and once again had to sign the registration book, and told her I had an appointment in the Ethics Office. She looked at me as though I were a leper and motioned me to sit down. Next to me was a thin, jumpy girl who had been waiting for the Ethics Officer for two hours, and was really pissed off at being made to wait. But like a nun to the Pope, she couldn’t admit that he was simply a little bastard who ought to be kicked in the ass and told to grow up. We talked a bit and she allowed as how she was tired of waiting, but added, “Yet, I understand. They work so hard and have so much responsibility that we can’t expect them to put everything aside to see us any old time.”
For one of the few times in my life, I grew intensely angry.
By the time he was ready to see me, I was furious. I strode into the office. He stared up, unruffled. “Did you read it?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered. “Well . . . ?” he said. I took a breath. “Rarely in my life have I seen such a blend of inanity and viciousness as is exhibited here. I understand the philosophic premises and psychological underpinnings of your scene, but in purely human terms, you are all depraved.”
He was about as impressed as the Spanish fascists were with Unamono’s denunciation. He didn’t bat an eyelash. He reached down and grabbed another sheet of mimeographed paper. On the top of this one was a single word.
It said: enemy.
“You are now in a condition of enemy,” he said.
“How did that happen?” I exploded. “I was just a suppressive person.”
“Please read the conditions,” he said, and handed me a book. It was the Scientology Ethics Handbook. As an enemy, I was informed, I could be beaten up, have my apartment ransacked, and my business destroyed by Scientologists. I took this as serious enough, but learned that I was lucky not to be any higher in the organization. For if I were in an advanced org, i.e., organization, and I became an enemy, I would be confined to quarters, forced to wear a gray armband, and constrained to perform acts above and beyond the call of duty to be reinstated, plus getting the individual consent of every person in the org to let me back in. By this time, I was sweating visibly. I had visions of assassinations.
“What do I have to do to stop being an enemy?” I croaked.
His eyes directed me to the sheet. It had
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