Um, uh, well… let’s cut to the chase. Yes, I am a Scientologist. I fail to see where we discovered something new there, but many people ask me questions about what it means to be a Scientologist, what is Scientology, and how I came to follow the Scientology religion. So without further ado, here are some answers to anticipated questions.
Let’s start at the beginning. For those of you reading who don’t know me or who haven’t read the “About Me” page, my LinkedIn, MySpace or Facebook profiles, or who aren’t stalking me from across the street with binoculars and a telephoto lens, here’s a brief intro.
My name is Sam Butler (I hope you noticed that by now) and I work in the Church of Scientology. It’s hard to find the right preposition for that sentence though, because I could equally say “at”, “for” or “with”. “On” could be employed in rare cases too, such as the nights I spent renovating our new Church in the City of London back in ’06! So that’s what I do; I’m a ‘professional Scientologist,’ you might say, in much the same way as a member of the clergy in a Christian church is a ‘professional Christian.’
Like most people, I have two parents. Nothing odd there. Both of them are Scientologists. I was not brought up in a religious environment nor indoctrinated into any faith. My parents helped me to use my own abilities when I was younger and I’d say they did a good job. I was the first to pop out; my brother followed 6 years later. When I was very young, we lived in Manchester where the major Church of Scientology for the North of England is. Before that we had lived in York, where both my parents had served as staff members of the Scientology Mission there. A Mission is a small Church of Scientology that delivers basic life improvement courses and Scientology processing, which I’ll tell you about in a bit.
So, over in Manchester my dad had been a staff member while my mum worked as a nurse, which she had done for the State before I was born. It was there that I first experienced the Church as I was babysat while my parents were in the courseroom upstairs studying, or at a Scientology event or service. Those bigger Churches have a slang name—”org”, for “Scientology organisation.” So, I got the gist of it. L. Ron Hubbard was the guy who started it all, everyone was friendly, and the parquet flooring was great fun for anyone under the age of 4 with a penchant for sliding around on lacquered wood!
Fast forward. I grew up in York, which is where I was born. We moved around a lot within the city, for various different reasons each time. I guess life was fairly normal; I went to school and didn’t like it until I left, I had rows with my brother, I went out later than I should have, I didn’t always do my homework, and so on. I’m no superhero but I always enjoyed helping people. I don’t need to make a big deal of it, but I know times when I’ve helped my friends and even strangers, and it was never a bad thing. When I was coming to the end of secondary school, I decided to look into Scientology a bit more and to find out what it was my parents had been doing. They always left things up to me and gave me space to think for myself. Actually, that’s an important part of Scientology, but I think it’s pretty good common sense.
So, my dad invited me over to Manchester to help do some leafleting for the Church’s Volunteer Minister Cavalcade, a touring tent that travels around with a bunch of Scientologists and either provides whatever help is needed, gives people information about Scientology, or both at once. I donned the yellow t-shirt (it’s the Volunteer Minister colour) as we walked beside an old open-top double decker painted yellow with jive/swing band the Jive Aces playing on top to warm up the brisk northern air.
Afterwards I went in the tent and my dad made me an offer. “I’ll get you one of the booklets and the course,” he said. “Just go in and choose what you want to learn about.” I had a peek at the info panels and decided I’d stick with my original purpose: I wanted to help people. So that day I started on a basic course from the Scientology Handbook that’s all about helping people. I guess you could say that from that point on, I considered myself to really be a Scientologist.
After college I became a staff member at the ‘org’ in Manchester. A Scientology organisation has many jobs (or ‘posts’) that need to be done in order to provide services to Scientologists and the general public. Now, you’re probably wondering what these services are and what Scientology is all about. So here goes…
Scientology is an applied religious philosophy. It’s goal is increased ability, and whereas other philosophies have sought to solve a person’s problems for them, Scientology helps you to become better able to solve your own problems. The main thing is that it’s an applied philosophy, which means it’s something you use; something you do. And the reason Scientology is one of the fastest growing religions on Earth is that the philosophy works. Er, yes, it’s that simple. But don’t take my word for it; as I mentioned, an important principle in Scientology is thinking for yourself. If you want to find out more, be my guest.
So, what services are provided at these orgs? Easy. Three main groups of services exist. First there’s your ceremonies such as marriages, the naming ceremony (for newborn babies) and the funeral service, along with the weekly Sunday Service. All of these services are completely free and are delivered by an ordained Scientology Minister. The next group of services is known simply as ‘training‘, and by that we mean courses on Scientology principles for improving some area of your life or in how to apply Scientology to help others. Lastly and most importantly there’s what we call auditing, also called processing, which is a kind of spiritual counselling usually delivered one-on-one but sometimes done in a group. The word ‘auditing’ comes from the Latin word audire, which means ‘to listen’, since an auditor is ‘one who listens’. Auditing is an entire subject and if you want to know more, check it out.
So, back to the org. If we want to deliver all these services, it takes a bunch of people. Starting with the obvious, you need at least a course supervisor and some auditors, a Minister, and someone to do administrative work. Cut all that up and put it in a hierarchy so you have someone in charge of each area and an overall Executive Director, and you get an idea of the organising board that we use. Once you get more and more public you need more and more staff which means people need to delegate jobs to other people. Luckily, the organising board is designed so that you do all the jobs below your position on the board if they are not assigned to a specific person. As you expand, you simply add more people. I took advantage of the need for a specific post to be filled, and began working on it in Manchester immediately.
So what do I do? Well, while the rest of the staff are servicing the public with Scientology services, I take care of external affairs. You’d be surprised what it takes to maintain an organisation to serve the public. Whether you’re Mother Teresa or Bill Gates you still have to comply with laws, rules and regulations, and you’d do well to talk to people in your community. The guys focussed on delivering Scientology services don’t have time to worry about fire safety risk assessments or meetings at the town hall. And what if the media are interested in something (they’re always interested in something)? Well, you need a person to do all of these things, and that’s where I come in.
I’m in charge of what we would call ‘public affairs’ or ‘external affairs’ that are not directly related to servicing Scientologists and the public with those three classes of services I mentioned above. The people I deal with are mainly outside the Church, are not Scientologists, and may have little or nothing to do with the Church of Scientology or the Scientology religion. More importantly however, communication is a big part of Scientology, so it’s only natural that we would want to have dialogue with community and civic leaders, our neighbours and other charitable organisations.
Obviously, we’re interested in improving the society in general. I recognise that there exist problems with literacy, crime, drug abuse and with generally declining moral standards. I’m not alone in the recognition of these problems, and a lot of people are trying to do something about it, whether they’re Scientologists or not. In talking with people in the community around their Churches, many org staffs found that help was needed in overcoming these social problems, particularly drug abuse. So over the years we’ve developed programmes and formed organisations, both as the Church and as individual Scientologists, often working with others regardless of religion. The programmes developed in response to this need for help are completely separate from the Scientology religion, so staff in the orgs can continue to concentrate on what they do best, delivering Scientology. In external affairs however, we often work to coordinate the volunteers who do the groundwork on these programmes, and I personally have done work in the fields of drug abuse prevention and human rights.
It’s a multi-faceted role as you can imagine, representing the Church but also doing humanitarian and social projects, both in an executive role where you’re directing others, and hands-on, getting down and doing it yourself. You’ve got to have your wits about you and you’ve got to want to help. It’s a big responsibility to shoulder, especially when dealing with legal requirements such as health & safety and data protection. It’s no walk in the park!
So if you see me talking to the press about Scientology, it’s because it’s my job. If you see me standing up for human rights, it’s because I care. If you see me championing drug prevention, it’s because I know something can be done about it. And if you see me helping someone, it’s because I am who I am—I’m Sam Butler, and I’m a Scientologist.