A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

WONDERLAND: THE FLATTENED APPLE

Someone told me once Los Angeles was the Flattened Apple. You take New York City and squish it down like a pancake and you've got Los Angeles. Someone else told me that the Big Apple is full of worms. Well. If Los Angeles is any indication, that statement goes well beyond *truth.

There are parts of LA that are quite beautiful. The parts the wealthy live in. But that was sure not the part I was living in. My first station in the Sea Organization was on Hollywood Boulevard.

My first real memory of Hollywood was viewing the nightcrawlers. The tacky, ****** prostitutes of both sexes on the corners. The Street Preachers looking only a half step above the subjects of their ardent sermons. I had never had any real encounters with homeless people where I was from. Hollywood was a magnet for them it seemed. Their hair askew, and shopping carts with stuttering wheels de rigueur. The touristas. Japanese with their ubiquitous cameras. The Midwestern jons seeking the hookers (of both sexes). The stars on the Hollywood sidewalks seemed to have fallen from the smoggy sky, to lie tarnished amongst the refuse, inanimate and human. It was like a sledge to the chest... and broke my HEART.

I was given some worn, old-smelling sheets, and the address of the place I was to be sleeping for the next few weeks. It turned out to be a flop-house. At first I thought there had been a mistake. But I was not the only SO member to be entering. I went to my room... so small you had to go out into the hall to change your mind. The toilets were communal and up the hallway. My sleeping arrangement? A twin-style matress on the floor. No other "furniture" graced the room....

... **WELCOME TO *"CHURCH".

the mirror you stand in is a reflection of
a river you stand in, a reflection of a
stone that in the heat of the day
is warm by the coming of sunset

earth's last wrinkling seed is decaying, and superseding it
are the ophanim-head many-winged nightcrawlers who weep
gamma rays and pray, behind their stargazing eyes,
to remember the home they remembered several lives ago

oh sonar, oh radar, oh radiophonic monarchy
please boost your signal so our kin can hear
our pleas for a tomorrow that we begged for yesterday
and let us wade in that river. amen.

I drink of Darkness
Under the pure skin of night
Where Shadows pool
In my cupped hands.

I drink of Darkness.
I drown in it.
I Revel in its sorrow
It's oily tears.
I sink under its billows.
The Bellows of its lungs.
Which fill with the phlegm
Of the countless dogs
Who drink of it.

I look up at the auburn sky.
For the sake of the devil
Starless.

I drink of Darkness.
Like a pool which is a
Septic morass
Of nightcrawlers.

I drink of Darkness.
Bailing with no raft.
A soul eclipsed

By nothing.

Do not disturb the sleepers,
let be the dreams they make.
Surfing in the slumber
is like trying to catch a wake.

The nightcrawlers will **** their brains
until there is no more to be had.
The defenders stand by;
tall, strong, armor clad.

Soon they engage in battle,
a spectacle for space and time.
To the victor go the spoils,
and untainted mind.