The great thing about Scientology is that it is a body of knowledge which can be studied to gain a greater understanding of oneself and others. This can be used to improve one’s abilities and condition. Scientology is like a toolbox, full of tools that one can use to improve conditions and increase one’s awareness. In order to use a tool efficiently, it is necessary to get trained in using it. Scientology is intensely geared towards application of the knowledge. With that as a background, I want to give an example of applying knowledge to improve a condition.

     I have found myself in this situation: I have had a real good relationship with somebody, and then I have done or said something which made the other person go sour at me, and I have not understood why. The change in mood may be quite fast, or take a little while. OK, you know you have to “clear the air”, but exactly how do you get this done? You get this done by getting the person to find exactly what it was that made him or her go sour, and when the person tells you the correct thing, the mood will improve at once.

     So this may seem easy, and you ask the person to tell you what happened, and you expect him to tell you and that it will all clear up. What is likely to happen, however, is that the person says, “You said ’blah, blah, blah, blah, and that is not fair and therefore you made me angry”, something like that – - the person is still just as sour. O.K., what the person said about what happened may be absolutely true (you did say “blah, blah, blah, blah”), But now you have to know the above, that “when the person tells you the correct thing, the mood will improve at once”. So you at once know that he did not tell you the correct reason why he got sour, even though what he did tell you was true.

     There is another thing to know, and that is that the person does not himself know the right reason why he got sour; if he says he knows it’s because of some thing or another, and he is still sour after having said so, then that is never the real reason. I have been able to simply tell a person this , that “Yes, what you say is correct, but since you’re still sour then that is not really the reason why”. And when I’ve prodded the person to look a bit more, then we find something else, sometimes something totally unexpected that had nothing at all to do with what the person first said., and 3 seconds later there is no trace of any sour feeling left at all. It’s just like magic. “Bang”, totally gone.

     This is a small example of applying a piece of knowledge. There are very exact laws underlying this, and their ramifications and exactness of application goes far beyond this example. They are part of the Scientology life tools that you yourself can pull out and apply to improve things in your own life.

     It is said that knowledge is power. For me Scientology means knowledge about life, giving one the power to improve one’s own life.