Success Stories: Mandatory or Optional?

[Tru2form]

Normally, in Scientology and at Scientology schools, every time you finish a course, or a reading level, or anything of consequence, you are asked "Would you like to write a success story?"

Almost everyone just says 'yes' and writes one. And not-so-strangely, all the success stories read almost exactly the same. "I had fun on this course and I learned a lot." I mean, word for word. I remember leafing through the pile of success stories at one point and wondering why they were all exactly the same. Even at weekly Friday after-school graduation, when the teachers from each class would round up some students to give verbal success stories, the words were exactly the same. "I had fun on this course and I learned a lot."

At one point, when I was testing my limits, I finished a course that I had done OK on, but not particularly liked that much. After the exam was wrapped up, the examiner asked me the usual - would you like to write a success story?

"Naw, that's OK."

She stood up, grabbed a success story form and slammed it down on the desk in front of me and said, "Just write one."

I wrote one. "I had fun on this course and I learned a lot."

I never pushed this very hard, because I felt had bigger ideological fish to fry at the time - but now this strikes me as kinda... I dunno. Wrong somehow. Shouldn't a success story only be written if you really made so much progress that you personally decide you want to share your wins with everyone?

[astra]

this subject cracks me up!
We were always made to write success stories. When I was really little, maybe 6-8 years old, we would draw a picture for our success story. Then I remember being told that I had to write something. So I would write 'it was fun'. All the other kids wrote the same thing. Never more, never less. I think "it was fun" was code for "can't I just go home and play with toys like other kids?"

[Tru2form]

This is a funny subject, and I thought I was the only one as a kid who said "No". I will never forget attesting to my first auditing action ever at a small mission. I was probably 12 years old. The Examiner asked me if I wanted to write a success story and I said no thanks, and that was that. She looked at me like I was an alien and kind of didn't now what to do about it. After I put the cans down, she went into a little huddle with some other execs there. I was like "What's the problem?" She then had to convince me to write one without telling me to. From then on, I understood that you had to write one in order to attest....even if you didn't want to.