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Deciphering Scientology:Joining Staff

by Celeste, 08 June 2007

I originally got into Scientology through a referral of a co-worker. I was working for a companythat was owned by a Scientologist, and there were a few employees who were alsoScientologists. I had been going through some marriage difficulties, and this co-worker told methat her church had a great marriage-counselling program that wasn't very expensive and offeredto set me up with it. To make a long story short, my husband and I did the program and got kindof patched up (we ended up divorcing about a year later.)

I was intrigued by the "religion", went to my local library and checked out some books on it,including "Dianetics" and "What is Scientology". Unfortunately my library didn't have availableany of the critical books on Scientology, so I only got the BS information on it that the church

publishes.

But Dianetics really interested me. I had studied hypnotherapy a bit and was disappointed in thesporadic results that it would produce. I liked the idea of having a set procedure that wouldinvariably work. Naive me, I didn't think to ask about the "research" or get verified informationfrom an unbiased source about the actual workability of the therapy.

So I mentioned to the ED of the org that I was interested in training as an auditor. She jumped onthat one and using what I know now were "love bombing" techniques, she talked me into joiningstaff. So I got into it deep pretty quickly. I've always been the type to leap before I look--whichhas sometimes gotten me into a bit of trouble--but this was the worst trouble I've ever gottenmyself in.

I signed on to be on the TTC, which stands for Technical Training Corps. What happens is yousign a 2 1/2 year contract during which time you are trained for free to hold some kind of atechnical post (auditor, course supervisor, case supervisor, etc.) You also sign a 5-year contract,which is to begin once you finish your training and start actually working on the post.

The way the ED made it sound, I would be able to finish my training as an auditor in about ayear, work for five more years and then I'd be on my own to build an auditing practice thatwould make me wealthy.

It sounded like a good idea at the time.

Needless to say, it didn't work out that way. After a year of training, I hadn't even started any of the auditor courses. It had taken me that long to get through all the staff prerequisite and theauditor prerequisite courses. The Pro TRs, Upper Indoc TRs and Pro Metering course allrequired a twin (someone you have assigned to work with you throughout the course), and sincethere was no one else on those courses training full-time like I was supposed to be, I spent a lotof my time helping other students and reviewing materials I had already studied.

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Then after divorcing my husband (which experience is a whole other story), I was talked intotraining as a co-audit supervisor (since a co-audit supervisor still gets to do all the auditor training courses, I agreed) and was sent to Flag.

A lot of my Flag experience can be read about through the second link above, but basically, it

was horrible. The Flag people changed my training line-up with me protesting all the way, andthen wanted to change it again to make me stay longer once I had finished it. I ended up"blowing" and coming home.

There were lots of promises made when I joined staff that weren't kept, and there was a lot of information they left out about being on staff that, if I had known, would have kept me fromsigning on.

I guess to give the basics of the rest of the story, once I returned back to my local org after leaving Flag I went back on staff. I went through an extensive Security Check and did lower conditions for blowing Flag. They decided that I wouldn't be on the TTC anymore and it was

time to start my real post.(One thing I suppose I should also mention. I got married again a few months after getting back from Flag. To my good friend who was also on staff. It turned out that although we made greatfriends, we were lousy as husband and wife. We filed for divorce within half a year.)

I still hadn't gotten any auditor training, so I was posted as the Technical Secretary (the exec incharge of the Technical Division) and I was trained to supervise courses and the Purificationrundown. Then our actual course supervisor was moved to another post, and so I was in chargeof supervising the course room as well as running the Purification and HGC and every other partof the Tech Div. As some of you know, this was physically impossible, so some of the other staff would help cover the posts that I was unable to. Although I felt like it was always held over myhead that they were doing me a favor by helping with something that was my responsibility.

So many things happened during the next few years that it's all just a traumatic blur.

Toward the end there, I was having trouble. To quote myself from my ESMB post,

"I just slowly became unhappy. I was on staff and there were so many little things that happenedthat just seemed wrong, that I disagreed with but couldn't seem to do anything to change. Istarted wondering if there was something wrong with me that I wasn't as gung ho about all theorders coming down from management as everyone else seemed to be.

I started enjoying life less. Enjoying being at the org less. Started disliking being at the org.Hating being at the org. Felt like I was going crazy when I was at the org. Minutes felt likehours--torture. Wondered if I was PTS, a DB, an SP.

I got to the point where the only thing keeping me coming in every day was the huge freeloader debt I knew I'd have if I left without finishing my contract. Had the thought that I could justsuffer through a few more months and finish my contract and then I wouldn't have to worry

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about it. Realized that this was a bad reason to be coming onto post every day.

I told the HAS that I wanted to route off. Got in session. Still wanted to route off. Decided Ididn't care about the freeloader debt. Got on the routing form.

I was still coming in for post, doing MEST work. Was told I was PTS and so couldn't go insession for the Sec Check. Got de-PTSed but then there was no auditor. By the time there was anauditor again I was PTS again.

I decided I no longer cared about routing off properly. Figured they could declare me if theywanted. Thought I was probably an SP anyway, so that would be all right. (Even though I knewthe datum that if you think you are an SP, you're not, I always wondered: what if you were an SP

but knew that datum, and so created the thought that you were an SP to prove that you're not. If that makes sense. )

So I left. At first, I was very torn and wondered if I was just a really bad person, wondered if I'd

made the right decision, or if I'd made the biggest mistake of my life. I went on like that for several weeks until I finally decided one day to check out Scientology on the internet. I wasliterally shaking when I typed "Scientology" into the search field.

Boy oh boy.

I'd never even taken a peek at the net regarding Scientology. I couldn't believe the lies andsecrets that the Church was holding onto. At first, I was seriously doubtful about some of theinformation. But most of the evidence was pretty hard to refute, and after spending basicallythree days straight looking at all there was to look at, I realized I was luckier than I could haveimagined that I'd gotten out as easily as I did.

And now I'm free and happier than I thought possible.

One thing I left out was that during the beginning of the unhappy staff times, I met a wonderfulman whom once I got to know, I was intensely drawn to. He was not a Scientologist, althoughhis children were going to a Scientology-run school. We met at a fund-raiser for the school, westarted dating and before I knew it, we were in love and I was moving in with him.

Before we got together, he didn't really know much about Scientology. All he knew was that the people who ran his kids' school were Scientologists, and that they seemed like all-right people.Once we started living together though, he got more curious about it and started looking into iton the internet. He got pretty worried about me as he could see that I wasn't happy with beingthere and he had discovered what Scientology was really about from getting all the trueinformation from the web.

One thing I have to say, without him I don't know if I would have gotten out. He did exactly theright things by not pressuring me to leave, or trying to get me to look at information that at thetime I would have deemed "entheta." He just would ask me to look at situations that didn't seemright, and to consider other sides of it. When I was wavering on whether or not to leave

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Scientology, he told me that no matter what I decided--he would support me in my decision.

After I had completely gotten out and away from the church, he told me how hard it was for himto say that, and how it was all he could do to keep himself from being more aggressive aboutgetting me out.

But it worked, and thank god for that.

Celeste [on OCMB forums]

For more information see:What is expected from you as a Life Long Scientologist Las Vegas Celebrity Centre Staff Recruitment Video Staff "War Stories" on Ex-Scientologist Message Board