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Course” for all the people I had
brought in. Scientology usually pays a 10 or 15 percent commission for
recruitment. I was already too involved in Scientology to realize I had been
working for the Mission for several weeks without pay.
    The Hubbard Qualified Scientologist (HQS) Course packages
many of the basic ideas of Scientology. The student does the Comm Course
Training Routines again, and four additional Training Routines called the
“Upper Indoctrination TRs.” These drill the student to maintain control of
someone through physical contact, but more so through “intention,” or sheer
will power – really by having a very determined approach.
    On the HQS course I learned about several of Hubbard’s many
“Scales,” among them the key Scale of Scientology: the “Emotional Tone Scale.”
Hubbard believed that there is a natural progression of emotional states, and
that any individual can be led through these simply by conversation. The whole
idea of Scientology counseling is to permanently raise the Preclear on the
“Tone Scale.” The scale rises from Death through Apathy, to Grief, to Sympathy,
to Fear, to Hostility, to Boredom, to Cheerfulness, to Enthusiasm. Scientology
seeks to take someone who is apathetic, miserable, anxious, or antagonistic,
and make of them someone cheerful and positive.
    While on the HQS Course, I had my first stab at “auditing,”
or counseling. A friend and I drilled the procedures using an over-size rag
doll as the Preclear receiving counseling. One of us would be the “Auditor,”
and the other the coach, making verbal responses on the rag doll’s behalf.
    Despite painstaking drilling, my first Auditor collapsed
while giving me a session. He was asking me to touch objects in the room, one
by one, and suddenly crumpled against the wall, sinking to the floor in uncontrollable
laughter. The artificial atmosphere of auditing was too much for him. I was
unprepared for this, and felt dizzy and confused. A seasoned Auditor gave me a
“Review,” asking questions about the session and “earlier similar incidents.”
After 20 minutes I felt better. To me it seemed to prove Scientology’s
validity.
    Considering myself a Zen Buddhist, I readily accepted
Hubbard’s ideas about reincarnation. He said that during counseling so many
people had spontaneously volunteered “past life” incidents that he had had to
accept it as a reality. Auditing is virtually impossible without such a belief.
    By the time I became involved in Scientology, “Clear” was no
longer the ultimate attainment; now there were levels beyond. Hubbard used the
word “thetan” to describe the spirit, the “being himself,” and beyond “Clear”
were the “Operating Thetan” (OT) levels. Here the individual would purportedly
break away from the limitations of human existence. Having completed the “OT
levels” one would be able to remember all of one’s earlier lives, to
“exteriorize” from the body at will and perform miraculous feats.
    Such ideas were completely foreign to me. Interest in
psychic abilities is frowned upon in the Zen community as a distraction from
the road to wisdom. What I wanted from Scientology was emotional equilibrium,
so I could win my girlfriend back, make a successful career in the Arts, and
concentrate on achieving Enlightenment. But gradually I was absorbed into the
pursuit of the state of “Operating Thetan.”
    By this time I had a fairly well developed picture of
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. His voice on tape was rich and jocular. Photographs
of Hubbard in Scientology magazines and on the walls of the Mission showed a
smiling man, not a dry philosopher, but a man of action with a tremendous love
for humanity, who had devoted his life to the solution of other men’s ills.
Hubbard seemed to be a true philanthropist; a learned man with a grasp of
science and a comprehension of the mysteries. Hubbard had a sense of humor, and
was given to anecdotes. He was not trying to impress