This is a difficult sort of thing to write about.

          The Scientology Applied Religious Philosophy has had such a profound effect on my life, in so many ways, that I could certainly write for hours and still not cover them all. At the same time, it has become increasingly difficult to remember the pre-Scientology me and to extrapolate from that what might have been, in order to offer any sort of comparison.

          Scientology, at least at the lower levels, is very much a process of removing the shackles that hold us back as beings. The removal of such shackles gives an extraordinary experience of relief and freedom, which we all too soon become used to. We manage to forget how we were and accept the new us as "normal." L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, talks about this as "Negative Gain."

          I suppose, however, that the single area of my life which has seen the greatest level of improvement would have to be communication.

          In Scientology, we frequently refer to the ARC Triangle. "It is called a triangle because it has three related points: affinity, reality and the most important, communication. Without affinity there is no reality or communication. Without reality or some agreement, affinity and communication are absent. Without communication, there can be no affinity or reality. It is only necessary to improve one corner of this very valuable triangle in Scientology to improve the remaining two corners. The easiest corner to improve is communication: improving one's ability to communicate raises at the same time his affinity for others and life, as well as expands the scope of his agreements." (Scientology Abridged Dictionary).

          The term ARC is "a word from the initial letters of Affinity, Reality, Communication which together equate to understanding. It is pronounced by stating it its letters, A-R-C." (First part of definition 1, Technical Dictionary, originally from L. Ron Hubbard's Definition Notes.)

          My pre-Scientology communication "skills" were, at best, pretty ordinary. This, in turn, limited my ability to experience affinity with other people, to share a common reality with them and, above all, to understand them. It was truly a revelation to me to learn exactly how communication between two people actually takes place and to learn that communication is, in fact, a cycle. A cycle with certain very well defined steps, all of which must take place for effective communication to be able to happen.

          Once I had learned how to communicate (much) more effectively, I very quickly found that I was far more able to have affinity for others. I became far better at accepting the reality, the "world-view" of another person. And, ever since that time, my ability to understand others, in terms of both what they say and why they act the way they do, has literally soared.

          That was powerful medicine indeed and my quality of life has been immeasurably improved thereby.