Lines. Reception, for the checkout form. Accounts, to pay over $700 for the Solo Course. Housing, where I told the Housing Officer that I had already found accommodation at a Scientology dwelling. The bookstore, where I bought an E-meter for $150. The clerk persuaded me to also buy some of Ron's writings that I had already purchased in New York. As he handed me the receipt my "money considerations" screamed inside. He had talked me into buying the books just to raise his stats.
Director of Training, a matronly woman with an Eastern European accent, asked me if I knew why certain materials were classified "confidential." "Because," I stumbled, "if non-Scientologists get ahold of them they'd misuse them?" "More than that," she said. "Seeing these materials can severely damage anyone not ready to confront them through proper auditing preparation. Such a person can get mentally and physically sick just looking at them."
A staff member ushered me into the Solo classroom. The Instructor gave me the course checksheet and a small stack of bulletins called "Saint Hill Orientation Pack," and told me to find a vacant spot at one of the folding tables.
A bulletin listed "Formulas for Ethics Conditions."
The "Conditions" are Hubbard's system of classifying everything in the universe. They apply to individuals, organizations, governments, households, even animals or objects -- but most crucially to oneself. Each Condition is defined by a Formula, a succession of steps leading to the next higher Condition. One's Ethics Condition is determined by the Formula he appears to be following. For example, when one starts a new job, he is in Condition of Non-Existence: (1) find a comm line; (2) make yourself known; (3) discover what is needed or wanted; (4) do, produce and/or present it.
The execution of this Formula leads up to the Condition of Danger, where the key step is by-pass the junior normally in charge. Above Danger are Condition of Emergency (basically, promote), and Normal Operation (don't change anything). Higher Conditions are Affluence and Power.
Below Non-Existence are the Lower Conditions: Liability, Doubt, Treason and Enemy. Even people in the Lower Conditions are not beyond redemption, through declaring their allegiance and making reparation.
The checksheet called for students to make clay demos of the Ethics Conditions which had to be passed by the Instructor. A bulletin described clay demos as extremely beneficial to students, as they give physical reality to Scientology words and concepts. Demos show the "glib student" for what he is: one who talks convincingly in the abstract but doesn't really comprehend. When confronted with the clay and directed to make a demo, the glib student "generally panics." The meaning of a clay demo must be easily graspable. Each component of a demo is labeled, and another label for the whole demo is turned face down. If the Instructor knows immediately from the demo what the concealed label is, he passes the student on it.
The Instructor, a short English OT I, announced coffee breaks by shouting "That's it!" and resumption of study with "All right -- START!" He exhibited his dry English humor whenever he came by to check out demos. If he couldn't identify a demo he would, straight-faced, ask slyly ridiculous questions about it. A demo of a Condition of Ethics has to illustrate each step of the particular Formula. Since there are as many as eight different steps to a Formula, we had to mould forms so tiny they were almost unidentifiable. It taxed my resourcefulness to render in clay a concept such as "Don't Change Anything." It took me the better part of two days getting checked out on the demos.