As I tell you about my life I real­ize that you are not a Sci­en­tol­o­gist, you are what we call a “Wog”.  The word “Wog” In my reli­gion is used to describe a non-Scientologist.

Because you are a Wog there are many terms I use that will be unfa­mil­iar to you, so I will try to explain them to you as I tell you about my life. Being born and raised in this reli­gion, its ter­mi­nol­o­gy is close­ly inter­wo­ven into my education.

Sheridan, OT, and my Parents:

I was born in Port­land, Ore­gon in 1983. My moth­er Marj and my father Ted worked at a Sci­en­tol­ogy school called Del­phi in the near­by rur­al town of Sheridan.

They were both in their ear­ly 30s when I was born and from the pic­tures I’ve seen looked like hippies.

Grand­pa Ander­son­’s farm — Birds Land­ing, California

My father grew up in a beau­ti­ful, and fair­ly small Cal­i­for­nia farm­ing town called Birds Land­ing in the wheat cov­ered rolling hills of Solano Coun­ty between San Fran­cis­co and Sacra­men­to. The claim to fame for this sleepy farm town is that it once had the small­est post office in all of the Unit­ed States. It’s here that my fam­i­ly came in the 1850s on a ship hail­ing from Den­mark. The Andersen’s (as we were spelling our name at the time) are from the same island as the famous sto­ry­teller Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen as my Grand­fa­ther tells it and swears that we are most like­ly related.

Real­iz­ing that he didn’t want to be a farmer my dad was pur­su­ing oth­er careers and search­ing, search­ing for some­thing more. This some­thing more turned out to be Sci­en­tol­ogy and then my mother.

My moth­er Marj was born in Mis­souri and while she didn’t grow up on a farm had a life of out­door adven­tures as a wildlife biol­o­gist, camp­ing, explor­ing the out­doors, rock climb­ing and cav­ing. She would regale peo­ple with sto­ries about catch­ing snakes and squeez­ing into tight caves research­ing bats. It was while cav­ing that an inci­dent occurred, one that would be her most pow­er­ful sto­ry and the one that seemed to set her on the path of search­ing for answers, look­ing for some more mean­ing to life. An out of body expe­ri­ence while cav­ing near St George, Utah.

My Mom at prom in 1969

My mom always tells a sto­ry about how on my first Christ­mas in this world I played baby Jesus in a play at Del­phi. It seems who­ev­er built the manger that I lay in didn’t do a very good job, as short­ly after the play start­ed it broke, and I was saved by my 4‑year-old broth­er, a wise king as it were.

Short­ly after I was born my moth­er did her OT lev­els. OT is short for “Oper­at­ing Thetan”. A Thetan is you, your true self, you don’t have a Thetan but are a Thetan (pro­nounced “Thaytin”). As my mom explained it to me “It’s not your soul. Peo­ple believe you have a soul like you have a pair of shoes.”  The Thetan is not a thing but a cre­ator of things. It is you in the purest form.

The “OT Lev­els” are high­er lev­els of coun­sel­ing in the Church where close­ly guard­ed secrets of the ori­gins of the uni­verse are revealed to you. But only when you are ful­ly ready and have done all of the nec­es­sary steps that lead up to it. If you are not ready and you some­how dis­cov­er the secrets con­tained in OT III, “The Wall of Fire” as it’s called, you can get very sick and die. My friends have told me about peo­ple going insane when they learned about the secrets of OT III. It’s very pow­er­ful stuff.

When my mom walked through “The Wall of Fire” and dis­cov­ered the secrets of the his­to­ry of the uni­verse con­tained in OT III she decid­ed that there was no bet­ter pur­pose in life than to devote the rest of this life­time and a bil­lion years here­after to the cause of sal­vaging this sec­tor of the uni­verse from its dwin­dling spi­ral of existence.

She signed her bil­lion-year con­tract and pre­pared to join the Sea Org.

The Sea Org and CEO:

The only prob­lem was that my dad didn’t know if he could live up to the high stan­dards of the Sea Org. This leg­endary, mil­i­tary-style intim­i­dat­ing group. But as my mom told me “Once he met some Sea Org mem­bers in LA he saw that they weren’t a lot dif­fer­ent from him.” They also had two kids; My broth­er Hansen was born 3 years before me.

The Sea Orga­ni­za­tion (Sea Org for short) is the man­age­ment struc­ture of Sci­en­tol­ogy and con­sists of the most ded­i­cat­ed Sci­en­tol­o­gists. It was cre­at­ed in the 1960s when our Founder Mr. Hub­bard took to the seas to man­age Sci­en­tol­ogy from afar, away from the peo­ple look­ing to destroy the Church. In order to join, you must get rid of all debt, most of your pos­ses­sions (a house for exam­ple) amongst oth­er strict require­ments for sign­ing up. After sign­ing your bil­lion year con­tract and being approved to join, you go through a rig­or­ous train­ing pro­gram of course­work and phys­i­cal labor that usu­al­ly lasts 3–4 weeks. Mem­bers receive $30 a week ($50 in 2005), are pro­vid­ed with a dor­mi­to­ry to live in with oth­er Sea Org mem­bers of the same gen­der. Meals are pro­vid­ed for as well as a naval style uni­form. Meal breaks are 30 min­utes each. You have about 4 hours on the week­end to clean your room. If you have been pro­duc­tive, (more pro­duc­tive than the week before) then every oth­er week you can put togeth­er a sub­mis­sion for a day off on the week­end. In prac­tice, though mem­bers rarely get a day off as they are so busy.

It’s a high­er cause as they are work­ing to make the world a bet­ter place. A cause I will join when I am old enough. These are the peo­ple who are actu­al­ly doing some­thing about the degrad­ed state of this plan­et. They ded­i­cate their lives (and mil­lions upon mil­lions of future lives) to sal­vaging the human race from its dwin­dling spi­ral of existence.

My par­ents both joined the Sea Org, and so at the age of 1.5 years, I was moved to Los Ange­les a city with the high­est con­cen­tra­tion of Sci­en­tol­o­gists on earth. I was placed in a nurs­ery with a bunch of oth­er babies. The nurs­ery was in an old build­ing on Bron­son Boule­vard in Hol­ly­wood. They called it the “Cadet Estates Org” or “CEO” for short, in keep­ing with the naval/military theme of the Sea Org.

My dad’s first assign­ment was as the nan­ny or super­vi­sor of the nurs­ery I was placed in. This didn’t work out so well as I want­ed all my dad’s atten­tion to myself and didn’t take too well to him attend­ing to oth­er Sea Org mem­ber’s babies. Mov­ing me to anoth­er nurs­ery away from my dad was the solu­tion to this prob­lem. And thus at the age of 1.5 years old, a pat­tern emerged that I’m not sure will change as I grow up. Per­haps it’s because of this that I don’t real­ly miss my par­ents all the time when they are gone. Per­haps I start­ed to get used to it at the age of 1.5 years.

I’m 8 years old