A night of engrams and clears

At the Scientologists' birthday bash for the late L. Ron Hubbard, it all comes down to the e-meter.

By Sara Kelly

Apr 3, 2002 | Imagine my surprise at receiving an invitation to a dead man's birthday party; who knew they even threw those anymore? Birthday boy L. Ron Hubbard -- LRH, in Scientology speak -- would've been 91 if he hadn't "dropped his body" right smack in the middle o f Reagan's second term. The Church of Scientology wanted me to come help celebrate.

A few days after I RSVP'd, a Scientology P.R. flack called back to calmly rescind my invitation. Why? I asked. Hadn't he himself invited me to learn more about his Tr avolta-tainted faith after I savaged the film adaptation of LRH's "Battlefield Earth" in the Philadelphia Weekly? Didn't he relish the opportunity, at last, to represent for "Dianetics"? Actually, no. If I were to write about Scientology again, he implied, it would be on Scientology's terms. Though he offered to meet me personally to explain LRH's mysterious thrall, he said my attending the birthday bash "would not be appropriate." OK, so I'd have to crash it.

A smiling greeter clad in black-and-whit e evening attire ushered us into the Ben Franklin-founded Philadelphia Free Library. Inside the white marble great hall, Hubbard's candy-colored volumes sent more sober tomes packing. Posing as a married couple, an accomplice and I claimed a table for fou r in a basement hallway outside the building's bathrooms. Some 80 eager buffet grazers and a blissed-out guitarist strumming white noise outside the men's-room door transformed the place into a South Bend church social circa 1969.

We weren't seated l ong before a suited man approached as much to check us out as to proselytize. He asked how we'd wound up there. By invitation, of course. He asked if we'd read "Dianetics," which true believers and snickering cynics know as the Church of Scientology's bib le.

"Parts," I admitted. Which was true. In fact I have my very own copy, complete with Post-its marking favorite spots.

LRH on constipation: "Excreta can be caused or cured by positive suggestion with remarkable speed and facility. The uri ne system can also be controlled."

LRH on gynecology: "There is no such thing as a guaranteed way to abort a child, not a knitting needle or the douche bag."

LRH on constipation and gynecology: "Let us take an engram [the spir itual scar of physical or emotional trauma] that comes from one of Mother's bowel movements. She is straining, which causes compression, which brings about 'unconsciousness' in the unborn child."

The suited man -- I'll call him Ken -- told us the bea uty of "Dianetics" is that it's completely literal. He then explained his work with the church, which consists mainly of performing "audits" on people in a process that has nothing to do with taxes, but instead involves a handy piece of Atomic Age technol ogy called an e-meter. This device, which measures galvanic skin response, is similar to a lie detector. It is supposed to measure the brain's resistance to memory-triggered engrams. After some 150 hours of auditing in which senior Scientologists tried to isolate the physical remnants of his emotional pain, Ken had been declared clear of pesky engrams (or became "a clear," a liberated spirit) and graduated to performing audits himself. Ken showed off the Medic Alert-type bracelet that advertises his statu s. I asked what exactly happens during an audit. "At those levels," Ken said, "it's confidential."

Soon another couple joined us at the table. Both born-again Christians, they had been chatted up by Ken, too. But he fed them better stuff: According t o Scientology, we learned, all of us were once spiritual blank slates -- thetans -- thousands of years ago. Over time we became corrupted by everyone from the ancient Romans and the crusading Christians of the Middle Ages, clear through to Pavlov and Freud and all their dirty psychiatry-spouting peers. The story goes on, but alas, the show hadn't even started. e

Next Page: Sept. 11: Another reason to audit

• View blog reactions