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{"id":1626,"date":"2012-06-06T09:31:30","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T16:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scientologybeliefs\/?p=1626"},"modified":"2017-10-24T05:14:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T12:14:00","slug":"how-did-you-get-into-scientology-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scientologybeliefs\/2012\/06\/how-did-you-get-into-scientology-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How did you get into Scientology?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I have decided to start a new feature here: \u201cHow did you get into Scientology?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I will start out with my own story and collect up an add stories of friends and colleagues as well. <\/em><\/p>\n

So, to begin, here\u2019s mine:<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1967, I was pretty smug about my life after college, marriage and our first kid. I had graduated an excellent university with a double major while working three part-time jobs. I was the golden boy of the business club I joined, and was earning decent money selling and writing ads for a radio network.<\/p>\n

So when a buddy at the station told me\u00a0Scientology <\/a>could improve my communication skills, I wasn\u2019t impressed. But he made me promise to stop by to talk with the people who ran a small Scientology and Dianetics center nearby. Once I had promised, I had to go.<\/p>\n

In all cold honesty, I didn\u2019t like the first Scientology book I read. I wanted complex answers, bigger words\u2014not these simple ideas any eighth-grader could understand!<\/p>\n

Then I read\u00a0Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science<\/a> <\/em>by\u00a0 L. Ron Hubbard<\/a>. It was a life-changer that I stayed up late to finish. It MADE SENSE of so many things never answered in my college philosophy and psych classes.\u00a0Evolution of a Science<\/em> progressed as a tentative, step-by-step, investigative exploration:<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe this works\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNope. Inadequate benefit to the troubled person. Keep looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTry this. Yes, this works! People get better. Proceed\u00a0this <\/em>direction. It gets results.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an honest narrative of how early research always works. I was encouraged that it wasn\u2019t just someone\u2019s ideas. The methods had been perfected on men and women who reliably got better or got over what was troubling them.<\/p>\n

Strangely, when I went back to read the first book I had tried a few years later, its wisdom cut through\u00a0 the \u201cintellectual complexities\u201d I had self-importantly layered upon myself. Simpler isn\u2019t always better, but if you can dodge around your ego and see simple truth when it\u2019s presented, as it is in that book\u2014Scientology: A New Slant on Life<\/a><\/em>\u2014that is far better than ignorance, bad directions, or intellectual paralysis.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"