a question for (ex)OT III's and above

hi everyone,

im a long time lurker, first time poster.

im not a Scientologist.

i have a question, its a genuine question and i hope i don't annoy anyone.

when you reached OT III and saw the confidential materials for the first time, didn't you think that something wasn't quite right, that the CMs were far fetched?

i consider myself to have average intelligence and the first time i heard the CMs the part that jumped out at me was the part about the DC8s. now if LRH had described a craft that resembled a stealth bomber i would have been impressed. when i heard about the 'DC8's i couldnt help thinking that around the time LRH was writing it, one of the most common airplanes in use was the DC8, so he used a state of the art machine of the time.

Glycol paralyzing the people mentioned in the CM's. hmm, does Glycol actually work like that? im sure it doesn't.

so, my question is, did any of you think "what is this garbage about spaceships and aliens? this has never been mentioned before?" and if you did think that how were you convinced it was the truth?

i just thought of another question, LRH wrote that Scientology was not a religion, i was wondering how the church explains that suddenly it was.

as i said, im not out to insult anyone, im just trying to understand how anyone can hear the CM's and still be 'in'

i suppose, to put it bluntly, i want to know how anyone could fall for it.

thanks in advance

[RLSteve]

I didn't make it up to OT III.

But I have asked some people what they thought when they did reach OT III.

One thing you should be aware, as you get into Scientology and get to know other Scientologists, you learn that they believe that Earth isn't the only planet with civilization and that there are all kinds of other planets in the universe with all kinds of civilizations and advanced technologies. You also learn that they believe that they've had past lives in these "sci-fi" civilizations. They believe people like George Lucas who make sci-fi movies are simply subconsciously drawing upon their past life experiences.

There is a book called Have You Lived Before This Life? that is basically a collection of past life anecdotes from different preclears, and this book contains all kinds of bizarre past life stories. This book is not confidential, either, like the OT III material is.

And often times, when you are getting your lower level auditing (before you reach Clear), you are "recalling" "sci-fi type" past lives.

When I asked my grandmother if she was shocked when she got to OT III, she replied, "A little bit, but it wasn't too shocking compared to all my other past lives that I had recalled."

Even when my Mom told me about the OT III story, and I still had my Scientology beliefs, I thought, "Well.... it could be true... but I understand why it's kept confidential."

By the time you reach OT III, the whole Xenu story seems acceptable in the context of what you've already been indoctrinated to believe in.

By the time I got on OT III and was given the confidential materials, I was already a long time Scientologist and dedicated Sea Org member.
Scientology had worked for me up to that point. So why not OT III? I had no reason at that point to doubt LRH. He was still alive at that point.

So I did not question it. You also are so excited to finally get to see what the "Wall of Fire" is, that you pretty much would believe anything. Plus you already are handling other things on OT 2 that are almost equally bizzarre to the real world, so you are expecting something unusual on OT III.

By the time I got on OT III and was given the confidential materials, I was already a long time Scientologist and dedicated Sea Org member.
Scientology had worked for me up to that point. So why not OT III? I had no reason at that point to doubt LRH. He was still alive at that point.

So I did not question it. You also are so excited to finally get to see what the "Wall of Fire" is, that you pretty much would believe anything. Plus you already are handling other things on OT 2 that are almost equally bizzarre to the real world, so you are expecting something unusual on OT III.

The above sounds good to me. So did you complete OT III? If so, did you feel a big improvement going thru this wall of fire? Did you do the next level, OT IV? When did you decide it was not worth it?