I was a Scientologist!

 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Launch my journalism career by going undercover as a Scientologist.

My first job after college was working for Coffee People, basically a smaller, less ubiquitous Starbucks, founded by a husband and wife hippie-team in the vein of Ben and Jerry’s.  I worked in the bakery, which meant I had to be there at 7am every day.  Because I was hardly a morning person, I would sleepwalk through most of my shift, and the other people working there nicknamed me “slowboat.”  These were three women, all of whom hated me with a passion I could not fathom.  Even though I was barely awake, I was always on time, and always worked hard.  The only reason, it seemed, that they disliked me so much was because I had a penis.  For what these girls did, aside from occasionally baking and kneading, was to talk about how much men sucked, how they were inferior to women, and how they should all die.

I started wearing a walkman to work, to block out their diatribes, but even so, the looks they would send me were withering. If the estrogen in that place could have somehow been converted into energy, we would be able to eliminate our dependency on foreign oil immediately.

One day, after a lengthy speech by the head baker, the queen bee, who announced that men had the intelligence of children at best, animals at worst, I realized that I had forgotten to set the timer for the cookies I had put in the oven, and they had burned to crisps; hours of work, gone.

Upon seeing my mistake, she merely pointed at me and said: “There you go girls. Proof positive of man’s utter stupidity. Can they do anything right?”

That was it.  I walked over to her, and before I knew what I was doing my hands found the bowl that was in front of her, half-filled with raw eggs.  As the other girls watched in horror, I picked it up and dumped it all over her.  Unfortunately, she jumped back just in time, and I only managed to get it on her apron and shoes.  Still, it was something.

She was totally unfazed, and simply stood there, smirking. “You are so fired,” she said, chortling. “Girls, we’re finally rid of this asshole.”

I was pretty sure that she was right, so I went into the manager’s office, told her exactly what had taken place, and asked for the money I’d earned that week.

What happened next came as a complete shock.  She said that the turnover rate in the bakery was incredibly high, and that I had lasted longer than most. She said that she admired my honesty, and that another Coffee People store needed a barista, and offered me the job.

I accepted straight away and thanked her profusely.  As I was leaving the office, my nemesis walked in.  She cackled as I passed her, convinced I had been let go. But I didn’t say anything. I just smiled. I knew that I had won.

Unfortunately, my new job didn’t last very long either.  It was located in a big shopping center that had just opened, and so the crowds were immense.  We were slammed day and night, and for my entire shift I’d be busy as hell, waiting on a long line of people, desperate for their caffeine fix. It made me almost miss the bakery.

After about a week, I was really starting to hate it, and it showed.  Never one for customer service, I was now outright rude, especially to those who proved to be demanding.  At the end of a long and busy day, a bear of a woman ordered a mocha with extra chocolate and extra whipped cream, and then complained because I hadn’t used skim milk.  I told her that there was hardly any difference between the skim milk and the one-percent I put in there, and added that if she was concerned about such things, she should maybe try drinking water, or, at the very least, regular coffee, and not mochas.

When she asked to speak to the manager, I told her that I was the manager.  When she asked to speak to whoever was above me, I told her that there wasn’t anyone, that the store was mine, and if she had a problem she could go fuck yourself.

After that she stormed off.  So did half the customers in the line.  When I turned around, I expected a standing ovation from the other employees.  “Way to go, Russ,” I thought they’d say.  “Way to show it those customers!”

Instead, they all looked at me like I was from another planet.  And so, before the real manager returned from lunch, I left him a note telling him that I quit.

I found another job a few days later.  A friend of mine, who worked for a local paper, got me hired as a film critic.  The pay sucked, but I got to see a crapload of films for free.  Soon, I was also writing music and book reviews.  And while this was all well and good, after a while, I grew bored.  I wanted to write actual stories, to try my hand at real reporting.

I asked Julie, the editor, if this would be okay, and she said fine, as long as she liked the idea. The next day I had it, she loved it, and I eagerly began preparing for my new undercover adventure. Following in the footsteps of Hollywood’s finest – John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Juliette Lewis – I was going to be a Scientologist.

I was equally fascinated and freaked-out by them, and always wondered what went on in their centers, a number of which dotted downtown Portland. So one afternoon I walked up to one, which had a large sign outside that read: “Free personality test. Inquire within,” and went inside. A man met me in the lobby, and I told him that I was interested in pursuing my spiritual development, and that his organization seemed like the right place to begin. He greeted me warmly, telling me that I was indeed correct, that he could help me, and led me to a room with a copy of the test. He offered me some coffee, which I politely refused, having watched too many documentaries on cults – the Moonies, the Branch Davidians – and was worried that it was laced.

The test was extremely long, filled with ridiculously general questions, many that seemed to overlap: “Have you ever felt depressed? Do you sometimes make remarks you later regret? Are you prejudiced against your own school or team?” Some were just plain stupid: “Does emotional music have an effect on you? Do you bite your fingernails?” The thing was obviously designed to play to one’s insecurities, to make the person taking it appear like they were beyond reproach, and how lucky they were to have taken it under the auspices of Scientology, where they could be saved! I answered the questions as truthfully as I could, and when I finished it I handed it to the man, who immediately processed it.

Upon viewing the results, I was planning to act suitably disaffected and in dire need of help so they would take me seriously, but I hardly needed to. What should have been a rising and falling graph depicting my emotional status, was instead a straight line that ran across the bottom of the page, underneath the mark that said: “Normal.” It made me out to be depressed, paranoid, anxious and suicidal. The guy watched as I looked at the results and then stared deep into my eyes. “It looks like you’ve come to the right place.”

He then introduced me to one of his associates, a very pleasant and upbeat woman who took me into another room, a copy of the results before her. She echoed the man’s sentiments, and said that I had chosen wisely to seek help from them, as it looked like I really needed it. I played right into this, and told her that since college I’d felt alienated and alone, was prone to mood swings, and was at a loss at to how to proceed. She said that scores of others before me had been helped, and all I had to do was to sign up for an introductory course, which started at seventy-five dollars.

“But you guys are a religion, right?” I said. “Like a church or something?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Well, going to church doesn’t normally cost anything.”

“You still have to give to the collection plate.”

“True, but that’s like what? A dollar? I’m sorry, but I can’t afford the class.”

“But I really think you should take it,” she said, smiling and opening her eyes wide, wide, wide.

“Think about it this way: what’s money compared to spiritual happiness? A small investment now is nothing compared to the future riches you’ll acquire with greater self-esteem and strength.”

“But I don’t have the seventy-five dollars.”

“Couldn’t you save up if you wanted to?” she asked, her smile fading. “It’s really not that much when you think about it.”

“Isn’t there any other way? Could I work it off? Sweep the floors or something?”

“No, I’m afraid we don’t do that.”

This sucked. I needed more information to write the story, so I asked her if she wouldn’t mind telling me a little bit about the organization, what they were all about, what I’d learn if I did take the class. To this she gave me a vague explanation about how their founder L. Ron traveled extensively with his grandfather who was in the navy (do they allow small children on naval vessels?), and what he witnessed all over the world greatly disturbed him: everywhere, people were unhappy. Also, people were struggling to survive (he was fucking astute). He decided he wanted to find a way to make people’s lives better, and used his science fiction books to finance extensive psychological research (a small investment for future riches?). Thus, Dianetics, and eventually Scientology, was born.

She went on to describe the basic philosophy. According to Hubbard’s research, which was essentially a bastardized version of Freud, the brain was divided into two parts, the active mind (conscious) and the reactive mind (subconscious). The former housed all productivity, artistry and positive thought. Everything that held someone down, whether it be fear, insecurity or painful memories, was located in the latter. To bridge this gap, his program worked to completely eliminate the reactive mind. The successful candidate was then “clear,” and able to live a healthy, productive, unobstructed life. I didn’t really get this, and didn’t think it made much sense, let alone jived with my own personal philosophy. I was all about the subconscious.

“What about dreams?” I asked her. “They stem completely from the subconscious. Do you guys stop having them or something?”

“We don’t really deal with dreams,” she said, growing annoyed with my questions. She handed me a brochure of the various classes they offered, and told me again that I should really think about taking the introductory class. Then she stood up and said there was something else she needed to take care of, and led me to the exit.

I left extremely disappointed.  My Scientology career was over before it had begun. I practically had nothing to write about, so I resorted to an exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek rendition of my experience. I described how I was never left alone like in a real cult, how the people I met had twinkling, other-worldly eyes like Charles Manson, how I was expecting at any second to be kidnapped and brainwashed, where I would ultimately have to be rescued and deprogrammed, costing my parents a fortune in the process. I also included a copy of my personality test with the flatline at the bottom. Because I had heard horror stories about acts of retaliation from the group, I wrote the piece under the alias L. Russ Hubbel.

When the issue came out, nothing much happened.  There wasn’t much reaction, except for mild amusement, and I was sure that my fears had been unwarranted. Then, a few days later, we started getting reports from people that they couldn’t find the paper anywhere, that none of the stores or kiosks that usually carried it had any in stock. We always printed off more copies than were necessary, and this had never happened before, so my first thought was that the story was so good that people were nabbing them left and right. But the truth was that the Scientologists had gotten wind of it, and went about collecting every issue they could find.

Then we began receiving a series of threatening phone calls from them. At first, they simply declaimed the piece, forcefully requesting to speak to me, wanting to know my home number, my address. When they realized that this was not going to happen, they started calling back repeatedly, not even saying anything, just to tie up the phone lines. They did this for weeks, apparently having operatives working around the clock with nothing to do sans dial and re-dial our number.

Then it got worse. They began showing up at our office, several of them at a time, demanding to speak to me. What they wanted I had no idea, but they were so aggressive and ill-tempered I didn’t want to find out. Following Lisa’s advice, I stayed away from the place, and didn’t even leave my apartment, for fear I’d somehow be recognized and attacked, kidnapped, killed. I became a virtual hermit, only venturing outside to go the supermarket, and even then I’d wear a hat and sunglasses like a celebrity attempting to avoid the paparazzi. I was scared to death, although, truth be told, it was pretty exciting. My first real piece and people wanted to kill me.

Eventually, the Scientologists backed off, and I was able to return to my normal life.  However, after that, just to be on the safe side, I went back to the film reviews.

Published in We’ll Never Have Paris: Volume 2.

©2010 Russ Josephs