My interview with the CO$

It was about 4:20 in early February as I walked across the street just as a tan four-door pulled in the modest parking lot outside the CO$ Peoria Mission on Prospect Rd. An old man, say, 65 years young, got out his key to unlock the door. I approached him and introduced myself to Mr. Smith (names have been altered to protect my ass from the CO$'s team of superlawyers) as Ryan Turner (a pseudonym, of course) , of the community college periodical "The Pulse", and asked if he could answer a few questions about the CO$. He mumbled something incoherent and walked inside, holding the door open for me behind him. I walked in the cramped office, crammed to the ceiling tiles with LRH books. The only seating was an old leather couch on the right. "I'm with "The Pulse" and I just wanted to ask you a few basic questions about Scientology." He told me that they had a 45 minute video that would answer all of my questions. "I actually don't have the time to watch it tonight, however I would be happy to come back tomorrow if you could answer some of my more specific questions tonight." (I had no intention of returning for a 45 minute brainwashing session) He told me that he was just leaving, and that he'd be there from about 7pm to 10pm. "Would it be okay if I returned later this evening?" He said it would be fine, and I got his name, shook his hand and left.
When I returned that evening, I was greeted by a fresh faced thirtysomething, who called the man I had spoken to earlier in his office. She took a few minutes to introduce me to a piece of Scientology propaganda, “Overcoming Up's and Down's In Life”, which I later found out cost $82 including the corresponding course. After pretending to take notes in the notebook that I had brought with me, I she returned the book to it's proper place on the shelf. I tried to ask her why she became a Scientologist, but she brushed off the question, saying that she was very busy. After that little exchange Mr. Smith came in and escorted me down a short hallway into his office.
Behind his desk was a huge bookcase that stretched wall to wall, filled with L.R.H. propaganda, including roughly 16 red volumes of technical bulletins and about nine black books covering management techniques and applied Scientology. At least that's what he told me. Dotted around the walls were various diplomas from the CO$. One declared him to be a Level V Auditor, and he had a Doctorate in Scientology.
We spoke briefly about his background and why he went into Scientology. He served as a medic in the European theater of WWII, and was living in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1950 when he attended a lecture at his alma mater, UC Berkeley. It was about Dianetics, of course. A friend of his had previously lent him Dianetics, and he wanted to learn more. “That lecture changed my life”, he said. After the lecture, he approached the lecturer about getting an audit. Audits cost, in 1950 dollars, about $500. “Even if you had the money, there are only 29 certified Auditors in the world, and most of them are on the East Coast. But, we are currently building a facility in LA.”, the lecturer said. The Hubbard School of Scientology was being constructed in Los Angeles. The auditing classes and services there were free, so long as new auditors would work for the CO$. He had to borrow $500 from his friend to get to LA. In exchange, he agreed to audit his friend pro bono after he took the course.
He told me he has been continuously auditing and supervising for 57 years, and has achieved OT VIII. He also was instructed by L. Ron Hubbard himself, and has a picture of him with L.R.H. hanging to the left of his desk. I asked him a few more questions: “What are the main holy books of Scientology?” He responded quickly, “We don't call them 'holy books'. We call them the 'basic books'. There are thousands of books, but only 18 basic books.” These books occupied the lower shelves of his bookcase. Many looked to be over 500 pages.
“Is there a system of rank or hierarchy in Scientology?” His response was to bring out a large sheet of the various organizations and groups within the CO$ and their relationships to each other. It was a complex hierarchy that made no mention of the Loyal Officers or any other “high-level” entity.
After I followed with some other docile questions about his time with the CO$, etc... I turned to some other more...hostile questions. I prefaced this new breed of inquiry by claiming that my editor gave me some other questions to ask, and that he following questions were not mine but his.
“Who was Xenu?”, I asked.
Mr. Smith bristled at this question, obviously caught off-guard by a question aimed at high-level information allegedly unattainable by the public. “There are groups, hackers, on the internet who try to disseminate information that attempts to discredit the teachings of Mr. Hubbard and Scientology.”, he replied. I apologized, saying, “I'm sorry if these are stupid or irrelevant questions, but I have to ask them.”
“Who were the Loyal Officers?”, I asked.
He replied with the same line as before, claiming “hackers” propagated this strange information in an attempt to discredit Scientology.
I noticed he was getting a little hostile after that last question, so I decided to cut our time short. I stood up and told him, “I'm what you call an SP. I feel it's my duty to let you know that there will be a protest outside your building February 10th.”
I marched out of his office and right out the front door, thanking the secretary for her help. I walked to my car and drove away, taking in what I had just done.

I never expected to have the opportunity to “interview” someone who was in as deep as Mr. Smith. I went home and typed out my notes, trying to excavate useful tidbits from my faulty memory as images and events faded, forever lost. I have a bad memory :-)