Volume 2, Issue 9, page 3

Bodyless Fiead Just Lies in [Bed By JIM BARTLEY

Better Than Being Aberrated

"a ATTEQM a series of Scientology meetings in New York for about
a year. The meetings are
held once a week. I attended the third in the series, then number
eight (or was it nine?).
And then I dropped out a few months. Recently, I dropped in for
another.

It's this last one that I want to report on. At all the earlier
meetings I was greatly
impressed by the friendly smiles I saw all around me, which by
this time are fixed by ridges.
Then, at subsequent meetings, I was utterly bowled over by the
lack of results I saw all
around me. But at this last meeting-well, I'll just have to tell
you about it. Results? You
want results? Keep reading.

I was sitting there in the meeting hall idly running the other
side of the dichotomy
(letting the spots spot me) when I noticed the woman sitting next
to me. She looked like a
typical Scientologist except that she was wearing a voluminous
cape. I got to wondering if she
were hiding anything (Scientologists can see each other's ridges.
you know). While I was
looking at the cape, a hand came up from inside the collar and,
palm outward, gave an upward
tug, adjusting the cape more snugly, and promptly disappeared. I
looked behind, but the
innocent smiles of those in the row showed they'd had "no hand"
in it. Well, who had, then?

I decided to ask the woman herself. I knew it was a personal
matter but If she was going
to accuse me of rudeness. I was prepared to counter with the
remark that only the lowtoned
block communication. So I went right ahead and asked her. She
gave me a Scientology smile
and, with both of us letting the spots spot each other, she told
me her story.

It seemed that her case history, B.S. (Before Scientology, not
what you think), she'd
been just a normal woman, or, in other words, highly aberrated.
Then she started coming to
meetings. She didn't notice any change at first, but after awhile
her left arm began to grow
shorter. As it did so, and it did so quite rapidly, another arm,
at an equal rate, was
growing out between her shoulder blades. Now she had two good
arms again--a right arm and a
back arm. This explained the unusual cape adjustment bit. The
matter now fully settled, she
returned to her spots.

I said. It was all I could think of to say.

She read my thoughts, however. (They can do this, you know.) She
said, "I know what
you're thinking and it was a little awkward at first. But if this
is the price of going clear,
then I'll take more of the same." And , noting my expression,
which was really a lot of
expressions at once, she added, "You think this is anything? You
ought to see Father."

After the meeting, what could I do but persuade her to take me to
see her father.

He was a dignified gentleman, even though he was in bed when she
introduced us. Since
only his head could be seen above the covers, there was little
else I could tell about him.

But, when his daughter (by way of further introduction) pulled
the blankets down from
his chin, there was still just his head. There didn't seem to be
any body. There were feet.

But these feet, up to their ankles, were, attached somewhere to
the back of his head. He
looked like what might happen if you went into Toulouse-Lautrec's
valence and didn't get back
out in time.

"You see?" said his daughter.

I saw in one sense, but not in any other.

"The Reverend said it was nothing to worry about. Probably a
little too much mock-out
and not enough mock-in. At least, Father isn't worried. Are vou.
Father?"

"Not in the ieast." He was smiling at us very Scientologically.
"The body is nothing but
a burden."

"Yes, but how can you--I mean, don't you find it a little--" I
didn't know what I meant.

He smiled at my childish but pardonable alarm and turned to his
daughter who was now
seated beside the bed. (To do this, he had to stand on one foot.)
"Have I ever complained to
you, my dear?"

"No, Father. You've been very high-tone about it, and why
shouldn't you be? You're going
clear."

'(Precisely." He turned to look at me now and stand on both feet
again. "It is better
than being aberrated, isn't it?"

"But don't you suffer any inconvenience at all?" I couldn't
understand it.

He nodded, rocking slowly, heel and toe, heel and toe. "At first,
yes. But just one, I
was arrested twice for not wearing clothes. I had my lawyer sw
itch the charge to indecent
exposure." He would have shrugged if there'd been anything to
shrug. "Nothing to expose," he
said. "I avoid all that now by staying in bed."

"And you mean to say," I asked him, a little more in present time
but certainly not all
the way, "you have no regrets whatever?"

I thought I detected a touch of sadness in his eyes as he looked
at me, but before I
could be sure, the old Scientology smile was there in full bloom.
"Perhaps just one regret,"
he said, "but I'm resigned to it."

"And what's that?"

He shook his head slowly, a feat he accomplished by standing on
one foot, then on the
other, back and forth, till my question was answered fully in the
negative, and then he
spoke. "Because of the position of icy feet in relation to my
head, whenever Igo out walking,
which is seldom, all I can see is sky. So, you might say that my
one regret is that 17W feet
come out the back of my head. In all honesty, I must confess I'd
feel somewhat happier if,
instead, they grew out of my chin."

Well, the Reverend

in charge is trying to
sign me up for a full
course, but I I-
to

can't se make

UP MY

19.56 The ABERIREE 3