When we last left our heroine, she had just uttered the words every Scientology practitioner wants to hear: “That worked! What is this stuff, anyway?”
It was like a lion spotting a gazelle across the savanna—except the gazelle was right in front of him. No hard work needed here, folks.
“I’m glad you asked,” said Jim. “There’s so much more you can do in Scientology, and it’s all about you achieving TOTAL SPIRITUAL FREEDOM.”
And the award for Most Gullible 1987 goes to…
All I could think to say was, “Wow! I want that!”
I mean, I’d been looking for answers for years. Here they were, being handed to me on a silver platter. Plus, I couldn’t have been any more vulnerable than I was at that point, so I was a prime target.
Jim showed me a framed chart on his wall, called “The Bridge to Total Freedom”. This was a list of all Scientology services, training on one side, auditing (counseling) on the other. It started from the bottom at Introductory Services, all the way to the top, Total Freedom.
Oooh! Exciting! So if I just take these steps, I can be totally free? Jim assured me that was possible. In fact, he showed me where he was on the chart. It was pretty high up. I figured he knew what he was talking about.
He then said, “Why don’t we start out with some introductory services, to see if this is the right thing for you?” Sneaky. Introductory services are a few hundred dollars at most—the same amount I’d have spent for a few hours with a psychologist.
“OK, I’ll try it,” I said.
I think I paid about $500. Jim said we’d start the next day, with some “Life Repair” auditing to handle specific things in my life that I wanted to take care of—the sex, drugs, and rock & roll, as it were. Well, not the rock & roll…
I went home that day thinking that I’d found something great. I told my friend Bev about it and she didn’t know much about Scientology either, so was of course supportive of anything I wanted to do.
“Life Repair” Begins
Life Repair was interesting. Jim had informed me that I wasn’t allowed to drink any alcohol for 24 hours before any auditing session, and I wasn’t allowed to take any drugs for at least a week. It would, as he said, “dull my senses and not enable me to achieve the highest levels of spiritual progress.” He also said I needed to be well rested and well fed.
The night before my first Life Repair session I ate a full dinner and went to bed at a reasonable hour. I couldn’t sleep, however, because I had a major headache, so I took a Tylenol. I figured by “drugs” he meant the stuff I was doing recreationally.
The next day, in I went for my first Life Repair session. I sat down and Jim asked me if I’d slept and eaten. I said that I had. He asked if I’d had anything to drink. I said no. He asked about drugs. I said no, just a Tylenol.
“I can’t audit you. I’ll see you in a week,” he said.
What? For a Tylenol?
“No drugs of ANY kind, not even an aspirin,” he told me.
This made me angry, but also made me curious. I really wanted to know what this auditing was all about if I couldn’t even take a Tylenol!
So I waited a week, no drugs or alcohol, then went back.
As an aside, I obviously wasn’t addicted to anything if I was able to stop drinking and doing cocaine for a week with no problems. Wish I’d realized that at the time—I’d probably have saved a lot of money and many years of pain. Oh well…
So in I went, for my first Life Repair session. I don’t even remember how it went, but I do remember that I had some great realizations about why I couldn’t leave the person I was having an affair with. I made the decision then and there to break it off. And in fact, I did just that.
I also never touched cocaine again after that week of Life Repair. So there was something to this after all.
Truly, I felt better than I had in years. I had some control back in my life. I thought I was finally moving in the right direction.
That’s how they get you. They dangle the carrot of “Life Repair”, which is pretty simple and basically just gets you to look at areas of your life where you can turn from effect to cause. I mean, if Life Repair was that good, how great would the rest of it be?
I was about to find out. Bye bye, money.
Next time: How I enrolled in a Communication Course and soon “communicated” all my money (and then some) over to Jim.
My Scientology Story 