Flunk. Start.

by Sands Hall

  A few days after Mom left, I stood in a gift shop turning a wine glass this way and that in light from a window. Do I like this wine glass because I like this wine glass, I wondered, or because my mother would like this wine glass?

  And I scolded myself: Sands, you are thirty years old and you don’t know this?

  What was the solution to this astonishing lack of a sense of self? What was the reason for it? It horrified me how much I didn’t know what I wanted from my own life. It was time, long past time, for me to figure it out.

  At the moment, the religion lapping at my ankles seemed to offer solutions.

  And so I headed back to Los Angeles, to Jamie, and to Scientology.

  you could take a look at doubt

  Jamie had figured out why his back continued to be out.

  “I’m allergic to gold!” He held up his ringless left hand. “Those chiropractic adjustments, all those dietary restrictions? No results. But when I took off the ring? Within minutes, all those back spasms—gone!”

  I actually laughed out loud. He was allergic to our marriage?

  Back I swirled into sorrow and confusion. However, the Church is masterful at “handling doubt.” With the assistance of what are known as “Ethics Conditions,” I talked myself out of mine again and again.

  Ethics Conditions are incorporated by Scientologists into every aspect of their lives. One’s ethical status is directly attached to one’s Condition. And one’s Condition has to do with statistics, which in turn have to do with a line on a graph, which clearly demonstrate a degree of success—or lack of it.45

  According to LRH, everything is measurable in production, by a “stat.” In a 1965 policy letter, he likens it to a typist getting five hundred letters written in a week: If six hundred are written the next week, that’s an “up” stat; if the following week she writes just three hundred, that’s a “down” stat. This idea can be easily applied to one’s career (number of résumés sent out, number of hours practicing guitar, and of course amount of income), and certainly to a marriage: Number of times love is made. Number of hours spent arguing. One could graph number of meals eaten together, or hours spent in bed at the same time. With any imagination at all, and a pen and a piece of paper, one can quickly determine one’s “productivity,” and hence one’s ethical status—or Ethics Condition.

  And Hubbard provides formulas to help you work through each Condition, so that you can rise from the lowest, Confusion, to the highest, Power.

  So when I confessed, yet again, to doubts regarding our marriage—and, by extension, my inability to commit to being a Scientologist—Jamie sat me at the kitchen table with a pad of paper, a dictionary, and a copy of Hubbard’s Introduction to Scientology Ethics.

  “Study the Conditions,” he said. “Find out which one you’re in. Then just follow its formula, and you’ll work out of it.”

  I stared at the Introduction to Scientology Ethics, a slim hardcover, but didn’t pick it up.

  “You could take a look at Doubt,” Jamie said, “but it’s possible you’re in a condition even lower than that. So maybe start with Confusion. See if it applies.”

  His blue eyes were kind and full of approval. I loved it when he looked at me like that.

  I picked up the book. Sturdy and well bound, its pages thick and glossy, everything about it was satisfying to the hand. This was something I’d noticed about Scientology books: They were designed for endless use.

  “I’ll be at the office,” Jamie said. Halfway up the stairs he stopped, and practically leapt back down them to kiss the top of my head. “Love you.”

  His stern demeanor always softened when he engaged with the Tech. I resented how much I wanted that approbation, even as I felt myself warming beneath it. I made myself a cup of tea before opening the book, and after reading Hubbard’s thoughts about Conditions in general, I took a look at Confusion.46

  In a Condition of Confusion, the being or area will be in a state of random motion. There will be no real production, only disorder and confusion.

  There was more, but this seemed to describe my state well enough. My marriage contained little “production,” and rather a lot of “disorder.” Above all, I was confused! Should I stay married or should I not? Should I keep exploring Scientology or should I flee?

  The formula to get out of Confusion seemed simple: “Find out where you are.”

  I grasped the idea behind the solution: in order to stop the whirling, the “random motion,” you seize hold of one thing: Where are you? In relation to that certainty, everything else might fall into some kind of place.

  So I touched the round wooden table, shuffled my feet on the worn linoleum, took in the dishtowel draped over the faucet, listened to the clank and hum of the fridge.

  Here I am, I thought. I am here.

  i appreciated that there was a formula to help one out of Confusion—inserting order where there was chaos—and over the coming months, I applied that formula again and again to, among other things, my “wifeness.” (Hubbard tends to attach the suffix “–ness” to many words—doingness, beingness, havingness, to name a few—and in frustration at what I saw as the worst sort of word-mangling, I’d looked it up. I grudgingly had to accept that “–ness” merely adds “the quality of a state of” to the noun to which it’s attached, as in happiness or fastness or even marvelousness. Even so, I resented Scientologists’ arbitrary/ubiquitous use of it and sometimes tried to determine what overt might lie at the bottom of that disdain—unless the disdain itself was the overt.) Trying to sort out where I was as wife—where I was as Scientologist being, for the nonce, on a back burner—I’d take in the sunlight outside our kitchen window, the well-made book in my hands, and, I have to say, the contentment that was attached to reading and applying information. For a moment I’d rise out of Confusion to—

  —Treason. In this condition, Hubbard avows, if a person takes on a post and then doesn’t function “as it,” they will “upset or destroy some part of the organization.”

  Again, this made sense when applied to the “organization” that was my marriage. The “post” I’d accepted was “wife,” and I wasn’t functioning “as it.” It wasn’t just that I didn’t clean house very well. It wasn’t just that I nagged Jamie to come home from the office and have dinner with me. I simply didn’t want to be married to him.

  Did I? And if I left him, would I leave Scientology?

  Of course I would! I’d have to. It was what I should do!

  The world would spin. I’d be confused again. So again I’d figure out where I was, then push my way back to Treason and study its formula.

  Treason’s formula is also deceptively simple: “Find out that you are.”

  In answer to this injunction, I’d scribble pages and pages in which I might reflect that “treason” was an apt word to describe the way I compared my “wifeness,” and what I felt marriage should be, to what Jamie and I actually had. I’d eventually find a way to put a positive spin on things: the sweet love we made, how awful it would be to uproot. I’d accept that our marriage was an “organization” I wanted to be part of, that “wife of Jamie” was a post I’d signed on for. I’d determine that I indeed was. And so I’d grope my way upward to—

  —Enemy. In this condition, Hubbard writes, you must be a “knowing” enemy. You are “avowedly” against the organization.

  That didn’t sound like me (except, perhaps, in my thoughts). Still, it was easy to see that if I wasn’t committed—to my marriage, to Scientology—I was being enemy-like.

  I didn’t want to be an enemy! I wanted to be a friend! I wanted to be good!

  This formula, too, comprises one sentence: “Find out who you really are.”

  Just to be clear, I looked up really.

  “Actual truth or fact. Truly. Genuinely.”

  Okay. I was going to decide that I was truly Jam
ie’s wife or I was not. I was genuinely a Scientologist or I was not.

  But if I was using Scientology to decide I wasn’t a Scientologist, wasn’t I kind of being a Scientologist?

  I wrote pages about that as well.

  One of the steps of the formula to get out of the condition of Enemy is to “deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be a part of . . .” This troubled me. A lot. I’d heard that people who’d doubted Scientology, once they’d realigned themselves with the Church, had used this step to do things like break typewriters (so the “enemy” could no longer write things against Scientology), break windows (e.g., of judges who’d ruled against the Church), and worse. In fact, pondering what might have been deemed allowable by the Church as a result of this step (murder?) usually caused me to crash back to Confusion again. However, once I did manage to climb out of Enemy I found myself in—

  —Doubt!

  Doubt is much like Confusion, but its formula is far more specific. Once you’ve wrestled through the various steps, you are charged to “remain in or befriend the one which progresses toward the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.”

  . . . the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics . . .

  Oh dear. If you were a Scientologist, then the “greatest good” would be Scientology. And wouldn’t that make it possible to persuade yourself that you could do anything, whether or not it was “ethical” in someone else’s understanding of the word, if it benefited Scientology?

  This made me very nervous.

  Again, it seemed impossible to use Hubbard’s Technology and not choose the side that would have you using Hubbard’s Technology.

  Nevertheless, even as I battled with this circular logic, I perceived the benefit of the Conditions, and of Ethics and the comm cycle and ARC=U, etc. Therefore Scientology, and Jamie, won. Every time.

  One of the final steps of the Doubt formula, once you’ve made your decision, is to “announce this fact publically to both sides.”

  The phone call to Jamie, usually at his office, was easy. I’d share the “win.”

  “Well done!” he’d say. “Now, you need to announce it to the other side. You know what that means.”

  It would take me sometimes days to call my parents, time enough to plunge back down to at least Treason. Or I’d get off the phone with Jamie and make the call right then and there. This meant that Mother would cheerfully pick up the phone to find me on the other end “announcing,” out of the clear blue sky, the firmness of my commitment to Jamie. Or that Scientology really, really was such a great thing.

  These conversations were brittle, terrible things.

  it’s possible, if you have your Ethics “in” and your stats “up,” to rise from Doubt to—Liability. The final steps of this formula include “Making up damage done.” My approach to this was simplistic and familiar: apologize. Long before Scientology, I’d offered up “sorry” at the drop of a hat (I felt responsible for that dropped hat). For the spilled wine, the stalled car. For years friends had told me, sharply, “Stop apologizing!”

  Of course, to work out of Liability, an apology is not enough; an appropriate action is also required. Only then may you apply for “permission to rejoin the group.” As far as our marriage was concerned, this might entail scrubbing out a cupboard, or not making a single phone call begging Jamie to come home for dinner.

  Once I’d applied and Jamie had granted permission to rejoin our “organization,” I was in the condition known as Danger. In Danger, the line on the graph (posted on a physical wall or in one’s mind) is steeply down, but that “down” implies an “up” before the stat crashed—or, rather, something made it crash (which meant, of course, that you’d made it crash). Beyond Danger was Emergency and then something called Normal Operation . . . and beyond that, Power!

  Even as I rarely moved beyond the frame of Doubt/Liability, I liked the logic of the Conditions. And I found something deeply engaging about sitting at a table surrounded by books and paper, reading, writing, defining words, delving.

  But I was going to bed alone and waking up alone. Again I was calling Jamie at 7:00 to say dinner will be ready in about an hour! At 8:00 to say it’s ready! At 8:30 to say it’s ready! At 9:00 to say it’s cold! And at 10:00 to cry.

  And down the Conditions I’d plummet, a cartoon roadrunner leaving behind the silhouette of my spread-eagled image as I crashed through the floors of Doubt, Enemy, Treason . . .

  In Scientology, this is called “rollercoastering.” According to LRH, rollercoastering is evidence that someone is “invalidating” you in some way.

  Jamie had long insisted my parents were the problem. They were invalidating our marriage. And therefore me. I must “disconnect” from them if our marriage was to thrive. If I was to thrive.

  I understood this was Church policy. If family or friends have trouble with you being a Scientologist, or they criticize Scientology, you tell them you simply can’t see or talk to them anymore.47 But that idea was unimaginable. Even though it was true that when I hung up from a phone call with them, I often wept. It wasn’t just the tight disapproval in my mother’s voice, or Dad’s jabs at the Evil Empire (eventually shortened to EE). It might be Nana Mouskouri’s contralto rising from an LP in the background and all that voice represented: the family journey to Europe, the travels that seemed improbable in the life I’d chosen, parties, laughter, art, wine, friends, happiness. If you were a Scientologist (or so it seemed in my life with Jamie), you didn’t travel, you didn’t have dinner parties, because you should be on course, or getting or giving auditing. Yes, art was important, we were the ones “dreaming the dream” that would make the culture great—but only, it seemed, if we did so through Scientology.

  So Jamie’s claim that my parents were the problem had validity. Even then I sensed that it was my response to their distress and disapproval—how much it echoed my own distress and disapproval—that was the actual problem. But I had yet to summon the will to face that.

  Finally, Jamie threw up his hands. He made an appointment for us to see someone at Celebrity Center with a terrifying title: the Ethics Officer.

  the ethics officer

  In the 1980s, the mansion that houses Celebrity Center in Los Angeles had not yet been remodeled. And though it was dilapidated, even in places derelict, its bones revealed a once gracious mansion: wide stairs, high ceilings, tall windows. As we walked through this aged elegance, a number of people strode by, wearing billed caps and white jackets loaded with insignia.

  “Sea Org,” Jamie said. “Signed on for a billion years.”

  I nodded. By this time I knew that Scientologists believe that knowledge gleaned in one life can be carried to another (it’s part of what fascinated me—often Jamie’s friends assured me how “Buddhist” Hubbard’s ideas were). Those who joined the Sea Org were seriously committed to the idea. The Sea Org’s maxim is We Come Back.

  The name, as well as the nautical uniforms, had been launched when Hubbard, seeking to avoid legal trouble, sailed the oceans on an actual ship. The uniforms looked out of place, even silly in that elegant lobby. Nevertheless, there was a pervasive sense of bustle and purpose that struck me hard.

  As I followed Jamie up the stairs, I wondered if Sea Org members had to buy their uniforms, as I’d had to do as a waitress, with the ridiculously high cost taken out of the first few paychecks. But if you were in the Sea Org, did you get a paycheck?

  On a second, rather shabby floor, we walked down an unpainted corridor and sat in battered folding chairs outside a closed door. As we waited for the Ethics Officer to finish a previous meeting, I mentioned how run-down everything looked.

  “When there’s so much important spiritual work going on,” Jamie said, “the material world just isn’t that important.”

  Okay, but where does the money go, I didn’t ask, if it isn’t
for a coat of paint? If Scientology was so powerful and effective, wouldn’t that manifest in the “material world”? Wouldn’t that include paint and decent chairs, a rug or flowers, even a waiting room?

  These thoughts—and I was aware they were critical, and so was simultaneously trying to sort out what I’d done, and to whom, that I would have them—were overshadowed by my anxiety about meeting the Ethics Officer. But as often happened when I spoke with people working in the Church, among the many things that kept me engaged, our meeting was full of an affectionate, rueful understanding of the difficulties of life and life’s choices. Scientologists use the word “duplicate” to convey a sense of being understood, and, at least at first, I definitely felt duplicated by the EO, Marty.

  Marty looked rumpled. His jacket was draped haphazardly over the back of his chair. His shirt had been ironed, but at some distant point in the past; his hair needed combing and even a wash, but the sense was that he didn’t have time to pay attention to such things—he was helping people. He let Jamie and me know that he’d also had a tough marriage, bad enough to get a divorce, but he and his new wife, even though they sometimes had typical problems around money, sex, household roles, were able to work things through because of the Tech.

  He asked us what was going on.

  “She has wins,” Jamie said. “She gets excited about the Tech, and then she crashes.”

  Marty looked grave. Jamie leaned forward. “It’s a classic case of Potential Trouble Source. She’s connected to people opposed to Scientology, she’s rollercoastering; she gets better, she gets worse. She’s got a Suppressive Person on her lines. Probably two!”

  The phrase “on her lines” made me think of a cobweb, a spider crouched in wait. But it had to do with “comm lines”: those with whom I communicated.