My March 31 Friend

The last day of my month of making friends is here! I got lucky with beautiful 80 degree weather and clear skies. I paced around my usual favorite parks and explored the city.

I wondered where I would find my last friend of the month. And then I saw it. The Church of Scientology was open after almost one year and I just had to go inside and check it out.

Marquita greeted me and I told her that I had never been in this building soI was curious to learn more about the history and members.

The Scientology building used to be the old TransAmerica building and before that was a bank managed by the founder of Bank of America. The religion has a pretty substantial following and has growing membership in San Francisco.

She shared her journey of finding Scientology shortly before high school ended. Her friends were going down a path she was not interested in so Marquita wondered what direction to take her life.

As she tried to reconcile what was next, her brother introduced her to Scientology. Marquita read Ron Hubbard’s book on Dianetics and really resonated with using data to drive decisions, pinpointing the origin of pain and misfortune to correct next steps, and experiencing things for oneself.

Marquita truly believes that:

“You are who you are and you are what you experience.”

This sounded reasonable to me and I appreciated how she did not try to shove her beliefs on me. Instead, she encouraged me to do my own reading and research and follow what makes sense to me.

I asked what people come to the building to do and she explained that there are seminars on Dianetics and also “auditing.”

“Auditing” is their term for counseling. Here, a professional works with you to improve your emotional regulation, reactivity, and mind-body connection.

In Dianetics, the belief is to revisit painful memories of the past to dissect your feelings and grow into a stronger being with those lessons learned. I read a similar principle in Ray Dalio’s book and the concept seems to make sense.

At the end of the day, it’s all data and each data point you gather in life informs your decisions and pattern recognition.

With all of her values and beliefs placed before me, I just had to ask what was all the fuss about Scientology. I asked Marquita why people call it a “cult.”

She responded that like anything that gains momentum and popularity, there will always be naysayers and people who actively try to sabotage the success.

But again, she was not interested in pushing any agenda. She reminded me that we should all do what makes sense to us and make informed decisions based on our experiences and the data we’ve gathered.

Marquita met her husband through Scientology and is grateful for him — he is her best friend.