one sentence. It read: find out who you are.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Whoever had put this thing together had constructed the nightmare down to its final imbecile conclusion, and the whole scene was held together by an impeccable inner logic. I looked up at the fish. “I have spent my entire life, and will spend the rest of my life, doing little more than asking myself that single question, and you dare to present it to me in this debased and mindless form. Fuck you!”
He wasn’t impressed. He took a folder off the desk and put it into a file drawer with a large lock on it. “What’s that?” I said. “Your file,” he answered. I gazed at the file cabinet, horrified. In that file was everything I had said to Lana, the countless papers I had signed, a documented transcript of all my political crimes. The FBI had my life story in their files, but the Scientologists were cataloging my soul.
My mind raced ahead. What if they did become the political influence they were trying to be? What if they assumed real power? I screamed inside.
“You may go,” he said.
I was a broken man. “Is there any way for me to stop being an enemy?” I asked. “Not unless you meet the condition,” he said. “Or . . . every so often L. Ron Hubbard issues a general amnesty. The last one was two years ago.” He pointed to a telegram tacked to the wall above my head. Sure enough, the man had ordered that all political crimes be forgiven and all files be destroyed.
“As of now,” he said, “you may not enter any Scientology office, and if you do come back, you may not progress beyond Level Four.”
At that, he motioned to another man in the room, and the two of them escorted me to the door.
For the following month, I saw Scientologists everywhere. I suspected cabdrivers, people walking next to me on the street, delivery men. I was certain that I would come home one night to find the Ethics Officer calmly waiting in the kitchen, smoking Balkan cigarettes, pointing a small-bore pistol with a silencer on it at my chest, with Aster lying naked in the bedroom, having achieved her revenge by betraying me to the foe.
There was nothing for it. I had to leave. My free-lance work offered no satisfaction, the air in the city was unbreathable, everything I touched crumbled, and anything I had thought to be a stable influence in my life was proving to be yet another menacing illusion. I arranged to sell my pad and furniture and books, and reduced all my possessions to what would fit into the back of a station wagon. I decided to go west!
I gave a farewell party to which I invited everyone I knew, some hundred and fifty people who had been and were lovers, friends, close acquaintances. It was like a cheerful wake. Although most of the people didn’t know one another, since all my scenes were scattered, everyone was able to communicate using me as a focus. And through a fog of low, warm conversation, I drifted around, saying my farewells to each of the people there, giving them what seemed like my final words.
Since then, I have had almost nothing to do with Scientology, except for meeting people who were in various states of rapture or disillusionment with the organization. There has been some public recognition of Scientology in the popular press. England has declared them a menace, although they flourish in South Africa. William Burroughs brought his junk-addled mind to bear on the problem, and after being processed emerged with an odd attitude of complacent criticism.
Meanwhile, the Sea Org has some seven yachts, roaming the seas of the world, calling unobtrusively at all the ports of all the nations, gathering data. And late at night, the dreams are spun, of how there will be a government of the world centered in North Africa, where all the countries will send their kings and presidents. And this world union will have its own army, the only army, while each nation will be allowed its own internal policing. And behind this
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Whoever had put this thing together had constructed the nightmare down to its final imbecile conclusion, and the whole scene was held together by an impeccable inner logic. I looked up at the fish. “I have spent my entire life, and will spend the rest of my life, doing little more than asking myself that single question, and you dare to present it to me in this debased and mindless form. Fuck you!”
He wasn’t impressed. He took a folder off the desk and put it into a file drawer with a large lock on it. “What’s that?” I said. “Your file,” he answered. I gazed at the file cabinet, horrified. In that file was everything I had said to Lana, the countless papers I had signed, a documented transcript of all my political crimes. The FBI had my life story in their files, but the Scientologists were cataloging my soul.
My mind raced ahead. What if they did become the political influence they were trying to be? What if they assumed real power? I screamed inside.
“You may go,” he said.
I was a broken man. “Is there any way for me to stop being an enemy?” I asked. “Not unless you meet the condition,” he said. “Or . . . every so often L. Ron Hubbard issues a general amnesty. The last one was two years ago.” He pointed to a telegram tacked to the wall above my head. Sure enough, the man had ordered that all political crimes be forgiven and all files be destroyed.
“As of now,” he said, “you may not enter any Scientology office, and if you do come back, you may not progress beyond Level Four.”
At that, he motioned to another man in the room, and the two of them escorted me to the door.
For the following month, I saw Scientologists everywhere. I suspected cabdrivers, people walking next to me on the street, delivery men. I was certain that I would come home one night to find the Ethics Officer calmly waiting in the kitchen, smoking Balkan cigarettes, pointing a small-bore pistol with a silencer on it at my chest, with Aster lying naked in the bedroom, having achieved her revenge by betraying me to the foe.
There was nothing for it. I had to leave. My free-lance work offered no satisfaction, the air in the city was unbreathable, everything I touched crumbled, and anything I had thought to be a stable influence in my life was proving to be yet another menacing illusion. I arranged to sell my pad and furniture and books, and reduced all my possessions to what would fit into the back of a station wagon. I decided to go west!
I gave a farewell party to which I invited everyone I knew, some hundred and fifty people who had been and were lovers, friends, close acquaintances. It was like a cheerful wake. Although most of the people didn’t know one another, since all my scenes were scattered, everyone was able to communicate using me as a focus. And through a fog of low, warm conversation, I drifted around, saying my farewells to each of the people there, giving them what seemed like my final words.
Since then, I have had almost nothing to do with Scientology, except for meeting people who were in various states of rapture or disillusionment with the organization. There has been some public recognition of Scientology in the popular press. England has declared them a menace, although they flourish in South Africa. William Burroughs brought his junk-addled mind to bear on the problem, and after being processed emerged with an odd attitude of complacent criticism.
Meanwhile, the Sea Org has some seven yachts, roaming the seas of the world, calling unobtrusively at all the ports of all the nations, gathering data. And late at night, the dreams are spun, of how there will be a government of the world centered in North Africa, where all the countries will send their kings and presidents. And this world union will have its own army, the only army, while each nation will be allowed its own internal policing. And behind this
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