Volume 3, Issue 6, page 5

'eiettiotogg.—B.ack to tie .tane Age
•
lg't~(a14 fote comes
0QE
ALL KNOW that Scientology offers the
fastest and most efficient methods,
even if we're not quite sure what it's
supposed to do. Nevertheless:, I believe
t the duty of every Scientologist ever to
eek faster and faster techniques.

As a Scientologist myself, I spent several
oonths doing just that. And with such success
hat I feel the results should be passed on.

I approached this project with that agreeent of all Scientologists -- that ours is not a
oew science. If this be so, I reasoned, one
Light do well to undertake a study of the hisory of Man, and see if there might be some
rapid and efficient techniques that have been
oat to us. It was with this thought that I
rent to the public library to tap that rich
rein of knowledge -- the Ages.

I must confess that I didn't quite know how
.o begin, but I didn't let that deter me. As a
,entative initial step, I consulted the wall
of file drawers under the letter S -- for Scien.ology, of course; but if there was nothing
order that heading, there should be plenty
rider Self-helps. It was a lead, anyway.

Self-helps there were -- Carpentry, Coueism,
lancing, Diathermy. On and on it went, but all
he subjects were in modern usage. Not being
oncerned with present time, I crossed to the
other side of the room to see what might be
awned up under the heading, Old.

Thumbing through the cards -- Oldsmobile,
906 patent rights; Old Lace, Lavender and -- a
clay in three acts; Old Snob, an affectionate
oiography of Emily Post -- got nowhere. I deciled to ask the clerk.
"Back in the past?" he said. "I'm sorry, but
everything written over a hundred years ago
las just been transferred to the new Bridey
!urphy wing, and there's a waiting list. Put
'our name on it and come hack in a month."
The library was playing a game, too, but
'd expected as much and when the month was
rp, there I was back in the library, just as
he doors opened for the day.

I spent that whole day working. It wasn't
ill late afternoon, either, that I found anyhing at all on my beloved subject. What I
'ound was a small, unpretentious volume writen by an ancient Roman. It was entitled "Comnnicatus Laggitus", and I fairly flew over to
he desk with a slip for it, and another for a
,tin-English dictionary. Then a bell rang. It
ras closing time.

Next morning (I had camped on the library
steps all night), I was the first one in. I
;ot my books, and spent all day on the transation. However, I'm sorry to have to report
hat it had nothing to tell us which we don't
.lready know. For example, one of the statetents made was that "Pwo-way communication
hould be universal, and the single exception
;o this is foundations". What modern Scientologist doesn't already know that?
But I was not discouraged, and in the weeks
:hat followed (I had pitched a cot in the li>rary and sent out for meals), I read through
one book after another, translating from many
different languages, and from various places
along the time track of Man as a race.

As I began to mas ter fluency in translation,
was able to attack the next problem. By
efying the social postulate that one can't
udge a book by its cover, I learned how to do
j
By JIM BARTLEY
t et
ea(149 Whet

ust that, and as quickly as possible. Soon I
was able to save hours of time by refusing to
open certain books, regardless how close they
might be to my subject.

I remember one that had been written several centuries ago and in Polish. It bore the
unfriendly title, "Goo Waiye Zn Btch". I did.
Then there was an antediluvian Teutonic work,
pur"clear", ortinto tell us just what it's like to
be and written by one Ronne von Hauzer. I didn't even open that one. Another, in
Chinese (circa 4000 BC) dealt with the etiquet
of the auditing session. I knew that if my explorations were to be thorough, it would be
necessary to learn Chinese as well as many
other tongues, and so I added a Chinese dictionary to the growing pile beside me. I found
Chinese to be one of the most difficult languages in the world. Example: A circle with a
dot in its center means "eye". Add a parallel
arc, below the circle, with a vertical line
drawn down from that, and you have "eyecrutch", or glasses.

The first two chapters of this Chinese work
were devoted to an exhaustive study of the
proper greeting between unworthy auditor and
exalted pre-clear, and the humble opening of
the session. I felt I was getting nowhere with
this one, and stole a peek at the middle of
the book to see if the session might possibly
have started there. It hadn't. The auditor and
pre-clear were very politely discussing the
pros and cons of removing honorable glasses
before the session. I felt I could not be
blamed for my impatience at having to translate such inane stuff as this:
"Pre-clear who keep glasses in pocket during session crack case."
"Of all the nonsense!" I exploded.
"Thissee not nonslence!" the next paragraph
began, but I shut the book.

It was then that I remembered a phrase from
back in the days of the First Book (circa
1950), "Go earlier". I asked the clerk how
this was done and he directed me to a special
room with shelves holding long rows of stone
slabs. I first thought it was a cemetery, and
the slabs were not only difficult to read, but
even more difficult to lift. In those real
early days, the entire human race seems to
have been stuck at 1.5 on the tone scale,
which made my task still more unpleasant. And
all I could find on my favorite subject was
some Neanderthal's irate attack on Short Eight,
which he claimed was dianetic, indecent, and
Cro-Magnon.

You can imagine my discouragementwith the
whole project by this time. I'd found nothing
that could help the present-day Scientologist
one small bit. I'd been deciphering ancient
drivel for weeks and weeks, and felt I'd done
my bit for the science. If nothing else, I had
at least cleared the way a little for other
researchers who might wish to take up where I
left off.

Suddenly, I thought of a little story I'd
once heard. It was about a pre-clear who'd
roamed the world in search of happiness, only
to find it at last -- right in his own back yard.

His own back yard! What was my back yard,
researchingly speaking? Certainly not the
Alps, or the Nile. It was my own country, my
own native lanni! And how far could I 20 back