My Marriage

     I don't know about you, but I was having a terrible time with my marriage.

     I was cheating on my wife and justifying it. She was, it turned out, doing things too. We were constantly arguing. We enrolled in a group counseling session with our church and while he was very friendly, and we talked a lot, the marriage continued downhill.

     One day, I was surprised when I shouldn't have been, she announced that she was leaving to get a divorce. You see, we were then living in the Philippines, and she had to fly to Reno, Nevada to get her divorce.

     I cried, and she wept, but she left me at home with our six children.

     I then started looking for answers -- it seemed to take this drastic change after 20+ years of marriage.

     I found one psychology book that stressed the importance of telling the truth, and resolved to do that. When she returned to the Philippines, she moved back in with me, but now a divorced woman.

     I resolved to confess all the transgressions of my married life with her -- over many years of cheating. I unloaded it all!

     Oh, I should tell you that, before the divorce, she told me that "If you ever cheat on me, don't tell me!"

     Well, I told her all -- just unloaded.

     I suppose it helped me, but it sure didn't help her.

     We went our separate ways, and for a while there was intense bitterness there.

     One of the other books I read, besides that psychology book, was a book that I thought was just "another science fiction story" I had picked up in the Manila Book Store -- it was Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health.

     I read that AFTER I dumped all my sins on my ex-wife. If I had read it before, perhaps the marriage could have been saved.

     You see my wife had been very religious. I had, by then, become an agnostic and went to church every week just for the show. (An "agnostic" is a person who doesn't know whether God exists or does not -- it is different from an "Atheist" who asserts that "God doesn't exist."

     But, she would tell me, "Loren, God talks to me. He tells me that I must leave you."

     What do you do with "voices in the head?"

     I asked my minister -- who I truly admired. He said, "Loren, I believe in 'voices from God,' but I don't think they urge a woman to get a divorce!"

     I couldn't argue with her-- she had the authority of God telling her to leave me.

     In just one page of Dianetics I found the complete explanation of "voices" that commanded obedience of a person. It helped me understand her.

     I also recognized more of the causes of our failed marriage.

     By the time I learned more about Dianetics and Scientology, I realized also how powerful a "proper" confession is. Had my wife and I had the advantage of someone hearing our confessions of transgression, we could have salvaged that marriage.

     As my ex-wife went her way, I went mine, and I found a new woman to share my life with. Since both of us are Scientologists we have no trouble applying the simple rules for keeping a marriage winning and happy.

     In the last 20+ years with Bonnie we marvel at the unhappy marriages we see around us -- people who don't have the simple technology provided by Mr. L. Ron Hubbard -- technology which keeps you straight and honest with your mate -- and keeps a marriage not only together, but happy.

     We love one another now as much as when we first met. It is a wonderful and stable part of my life to know that my wife and I, now, are a team, facing the world together.

     I would love to tell you more about my experience, and help you, perhaps, either salvage a relationship, or make sure that a new relationship remains pure, true and happy.

     I mentioned above that I had been an agnostic when I was living in the Philippines. I'd like to tell you a bit about that.

     I had been a "normal Protestant" kid -- which means that I went to church with my grandmother, while my own parents never went except at Christmas.

     Then, I had a conversion to another religion. I won't mention its name here, but I really got into it. At the age of 15, when all my other school friends were playing baseball, etc., I was actually reading the Bible every day, preparing my "lessons" for my Sunday School.

     So, I was truly a believer. I prayed every day, and knew God would help me if I needed it.

     One day, actually one night, I was up in my bedroom and heard my parents fighting -- again. They fought a lot -- about the same way I fought with my first wife.

     The fight grew loud. I crept out of bed to the top of the stairs and listened. I couldn't hear all the words, but I knew that my mother and father were fighting.

     Then, I heard that fateful slam of the door as my father left. He never returned to that marriage. Oh, he came back to the house to pick up stuff, but that was the end of my happy home.

     I was fifteen at the time, and, as I said, reading the Bible every day.

     As I've described the incident, above, is how I remembered it for many years -- a very unhappying part of my childhood.

     I continued to go to church every Sunday, and read the Bible every day.

     Somehow, though, subtly, my life changed -- of course it would change, I was growing older.

     Skipping some years, I arrived in College where I met "Dorothy." We were immediately attracted to one another, mostly by sexual interest, but she was serious and so was I. So, right from the beginning we talked of marriage.

     And, to show the seriousness, I would go to her church one Sunday and she would go with me to my church the next Sunday -- while we were in the small University town in Athens, Ohio.

     I would complain to her that HER minister was a hypocrite. She would complain to me that my church didn't have any meaning in her life.

     We found that we had more mutual interest than church, so both of us drifted away from our church activities.

     At that time I would have hotly contested anyone who told me that I was an "agnostic."

     As time went on I made larger and larger salaries and we had more and more children, with servants to do most of the household work. We lived in many different foreign countries (Africa and Asia) and I came to be in the Philippines when I was just 40 years old.

     I had six children and a terrible marriage. I was cheating on my wife and getting ready to throw away a job that was paying, in today's terms, well over $250,000 per year!

     That was where I was at when my wife left me. I was going to church every Sunday, but I had no more faith in God and was looking at psychology books for answers.

     So, I read Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.

     That is some powerful book!

     It describes a technique which you can DO with another person -- without any more training than you get from reading that Book.

     So, I read that Book while my wife was off getting a divorce. I tried to interest her in it when she returned, but she wanted nothing to do with me.

     So, I found a friend who agreed to read the Book.

     I then proposed that we, each of us, use this Dianetic procedure on each other.

     We did!

     One session that lasted less than one hour changed my whole universe -- not to even mention my life!

     Let me tell you about it.

     Mr. Hubbard describes in this Book, Dianetics, how we each have a "mind" called the reactive mind which records everything that ever happens. You'll have to read the Book to better understand this.

     So, I thought to myself, there is this unhappy incident in my life, when I was fifteen, and perhaps there is something hidden from my view within that incident. Perhaps my friend, using the Dianetic technique, could help me view this stuff and I would somehow get better.

     I'll shorten the story, but I'll tell you that it was a marvel to unfold this mystery that had remained hidden for twenty five years!

     Within this Dianetic procedure done by my friend, I went back to this incident when I was fifteen. I had no trouble talking about the incident -- at least at the level of detail I described above.

     But, as I was describing this incident I began to "get" pieces of the incident that had been hidden from me for twenty five years!

     It didn't come in a blinding flash, until the end. I had to work at it. But, eventually I got it all.

     I had knelt at the head of those stairs, hearing my father and mother fight, and I had prayed to God -- I prayed with great force.

     I recovered the exact words I used -- after twenty five years.

     I said: "Oh God! Don't let this happen! Oh God! Don't let this happen!"

     At that point in my prayer, my father slammed the door and left.

     My prayer to God had been hidden from my recall for twenty five years.

     I then began to realize that I had asked God for help and he had failed me!

     When you are as religious as I was then, at fifteen, reading the Bible every day, and you ask God for something which is VERY important, and there seems to be no help there, what are you going to do?

     That prayer, and the lack of an answer from HIM, dropped completely out of my conscious awareness. I never recalled that part of the incident until I had gone through this one simple hour of Dianetic procedure.

     I realized from reading the Book, Dianetics, that things that are "out of your awareness" can have command influence over you.

     I had a secret voice, in my "reactive mind" telling me that "God has failed you!"

     The natural thing to do, wouldn't you think, would be to lose faith in God?

     It took those full twenty five years, but at the end of that period I had become thoroughly convinced that God was not a part of my life -- I didn't assert his absence in the scheme of things, but I didn't think he related to me in any personal way.

     In other words, I lost my faith in God, and became an agnostic.

     Dianetics helped me understand this whole journey.

     I no longer had a secret voice (my own) commanding me to "forget God -- he won't help you at all!"

     I recovered my faith in God from that one-hour session with Dianetics.

     That's not bad for one hour!

     But, more importantly, I began to see myself regaining faith in myself, and in others.

     In other words, that one hour Dianetic procedure, my first, changed my life completely. It started me on a new road of life -- toward more understanding of myself and others.

     I could and would go on with you -- for in the past 26 years the wins and gains from my Scientology experience have gone far beyond what I would have ever imagined.

     One last such thought.

     I am currently a very successful author, with thousands of published pages. I took Latin in my private high school, and my reading vocabulary is very high. As was my IQ in college and when I got my MBA degree from Harvard.

     After I had been in Scientology for several years I took another IQ test and found that I had gained about 30 points beyond what had already been very high.

     But, interestingly, I am currently taking a training course in the Church of Scientology -- a training course that started with a mind-blowing course which involved vobcabulary and grammar. I, an accomplished author and college graduate, discovered that I had tremendous areas of ignorance of my own language -- areas of ignorance which Mr. Hubbard had discovered to be almost universally true for everyone.

     I took this course, called the Key To Life Course, and very greatly improved my ability to write and communicate. It happens to be a course which you can take, starting tomorrow. It would be YOUR Key To Life.

     I'd like to hear from you. I'd like to tell you more about my wins and successes in Scientology.

     More importantly, I'd like to use MY understanding of Scientology to help YOU discover more about yourself -- toward the possibility that you could have wins and gains similar to mine.

     I have so greatly improved the quality of my life with my 25+ years in Scientology that I can do no more than be eager to share with you.

     I promise to answer, personally, any personal message I recieve from you.

     Over to you . . . . . .