When I was young, I worked at a large animal hospital. I started out in the kennel and worked my way into being a Technician. Today they call them Nurses in that setting. By the time I was 19, I had worked my way into the lab and was running the lab five days a week. The way the lab was set up, I had constant interaction with the doctors as they passed through in-between appointments.

My boss was a firecracker, and the rumor was that he was manic-depressive. Translate today: bipolar. During my time at the hospital, and given my young age, you might say it was quite impactful for me. At times the atmosphere was high stress and chaotic. Sometimes there were seven doctors running around, and the hospital was just slammed. Other times it was emergencies that would come in that would be highly stressful. Watching a doctor have to make a decision to stop CPR on an animal was never a good moment. There was plenty of sadness at times due to animal deaths as well. Then there were your normal run-of-the-mill employee issues. However, this was a family-owned practice. There was the founding father, and two of his sons. To give you some idea of some of the chaos I encountered, here are just a few incidents I recall. I witnessed father-son arguments during surgery. I even saw one son sucker punch his brother just after he had scrubbed up for surgery. I got to witness the retaliation from the other brother not soon after. Dysfunction was obviously present.

This particular day the hospital was super busy, and apparently the managing brother was having a beef with one of the doctors in the practice. It was one of those days that the stress was so high you could cut the tension with a knife. I have no idea what the beef was about, but the brother was being very disrespectful to her. I had finally had enough, and I decided to speak up. I told him he needed to calm down and that he was being disrespectful. Can you imagine a 40-year-old man who is supposed to be a professional doctor running a veterinary practice being told by a 19-year-old kid that he needs to calm down and stop being disrespectful? I wasn’t nasty, but I wasn’t exactly nice about it either. He got in my face, and I stood my ground. What I learned later is that his fist was clenched and behind his back ready to swing. I got saved by the interruption from a partner doctor in the business. He stepped in the middle of us. As you might guess, I got called to the brother’s office later that day. Of course, he didn’t take any blame for his behavior. I recall us having a conversation about respect and how I had to earn it. Ultimately as a young 19-year-old kid with not much experience at this type of situation and for the sake of my job, I went along with the conversation. Today I would call BS on that.

The word spread throughout the hospital that the primary managing brother hired an outfit to help improve the practice. We were all actually thinking this was a great idea. An employee meeting was set, and it was announced that a company was hired to help improve efficiencies and introduce a new business model of administration. It was announced that we would all have to take a test.

This test is known as the Oxford Capacity Analysis. The OCA is a test that measures change in how people feel about themselves. It is comprised of 200 questions designed to measure 10 traits common to all. The better summary of this test is that it is a personality test.

It was an odd test at best. Many of the questions on the test are scenario-related. Here is an example: If someone causes you trouble at work do you? a. walk away b. stand your ground. C. negotiate. Here was my favorite. Do you whistle while you work? There was something peculiar at the end of the test that I noticed. At the bottom corner of the test were the words: Written by L. Ron Hubbard. I knew what that meant. No one else did. I told many people about this little-known fact, but no one knew what to do with it. For reference, L. Ron Hubbard is the founder of Scientology. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew something was about to go down.

The way I came to understand the way the results from the test were used was to identify strong and weak people. Soon after the test was administered, it was announced that there was going to be a re-organization of people. The first thing that happened was the people that we as employees would have identified as the last person to have a management role and had weak personalities became the manager of their area. If we thought that was crazy, then people started getting let go and fired. Good people. The best employees and people with strong personalities started finding themselves told to leave, pushed out through some odd scenario, or plain old fired after they were provoked. One by one, people were dropping like flies. When you were fired, it wasn’t just straightforward firing. There was usually some crazy story as to why that person was fired that went with it.

Then it was my turn. The managing brother of the practice had asked me to get blood from a dehydrated bird. This was a very common request, and so I thought nothing of it. There was no blood coming from this bird by veins. It was too dehydrated. When you only needed a little bit of blood from an animal and you can’t get it from a vein, the best method and common practice is to cut a nail short. I had to cut at least 3 or 4 nails to get enough blood for the test from this bird. Styptic is always used on the nail to clot the blood to keep it from continuing to bleed. About 20 mins after I had collected the sample the doctor came to me and told me that he had gone back to check on the bird and found blood everywhere and if that bird died I would be fired. I had a backup job that was part-time as a phlebotomist at a local hospital that I worked at part-time. I abruptly gave my 2-week notice. Today I believe that brother got exactly what he wanted. Me gone. I did go back and check up on that bird, and there was absolutely no evidence in or around the cage. I even checked the garbage for evidence. Nothing. My 19-year-old ego was too big to step down from that one and off I went to work at the hospital. For the record, that bird did not die.

I had many relationships at that animal hospital. Some of them closer than others and what was going on at that hospital was always finding its way to my ears. I was so glad to be gone. I heard countless crazy stories, and they only got crazier.

One of the relationships I had at the hospital was with a woman who was much like a mother figure to me. She had helped me get the job as a kennel attendant at age 14. She had crazy stories that kept on getting crazier. The first one was how this brother who was now involved in Scientology unbeknownst two her came to her and professed his lust for her. The next story was that money was missing. The story continued to unfold. The brother’s wife was now acting crazy. The brother told a client he wasn’t a doctor but rather a healer.

From my experience working at the veterinary practice, I became quite skilled at drawing blood. Believe it or not, the bigger key to taking blood from animals is having a good holder. I was one of the doctor’s favorite expert holders for blood drawing and other procedures. Eventually, I was given the needle and taught how to draw blood from animals. For cats and dogs, blood is typically drawn from the jugular vein. However, when that doesn’t work, you go for the front legs and, worst case, back leg or rear inner thigh. I also took blood from smaller animals and tons of birds. The best place for drawing blood in a bird is in their legs. You better have a super thin needle and don’t forget a really good holder.

Since I could hit small veins, it was fairly easy to land a part-time job at the local hospital drawing blood in the evenings. When I gave my two-week notice at the veterinarian practice, I knew I had an alternative job to fall back on, and so the hospital is where I landed. I quickly became the on-call guy to get the tough sticks. I really enjoyed the ER as that was the most exciting place in the hospital. The stress level matched what I was used to at the veterinary practice less the crazy family chaos.

I didn’t always work in the ER, and one night the lady working the ER came in and said they had a real wild one down in the ER. He was a doctor, and he told everyone he wasn’t a doctor but rather a healer and, in addition, he was a turtle in his past life. They had brought him in by ambulance on a voluntary commitment to the psychiatric ward. As they were getting him out of the ambulance he bolted for the woods. Security chased after him and had caught him. The story that was shared was that one of the security officers had fallen and injured his knee during the chase. The man they just captured put his hand on the security officer’s knee and told him he was healed. The man they had captured was put into the hospital system as an alias name to protect his identity as they understood him to be in a potentially harmful situation.

Not too long after that I saw my friend again, and she told me about the latest craziness at the animal hospital. The managing brother had been suspended from the hospital by his younger brother and his father because they had determined where the money went that had gone missing and they knew the managing brother was not well. They had changed the security code to the hospital and one evening the alarm went off, and the police arrived on the scene. They found the managing brother who had been suspended in the building and through a series of events calling family and health professionals they got him to agree to voluntarily commit to the psychiatric ward. Turns out the managing brother was our crazy guy at the ER!

During the next couple of weeks, the “Business Management Group” would send several delegates to the animal hospital. The owners had finally realized that this “Business Management Group” was not legitimate and they had been programming the managing brother. Even with all this information, they still did not know what to do.

That is when I reiterated to my friend that the test we took was Scientology. I told her to have another look at the test we took to see that, in fact, it was written by L. Ron Hubbard.

Thankfully, the animal hospital recovered from that, and harm to all was over, and the healing began.

I have another friend of mine who encountered this same scenario years later in a small dental practice she worked at. My advice to her was RUN! She, however, needed the job she had, and so she stayed with caution. We ended up using her experience as a method to learn more about the process of Scientology. They are not only after the business owner and the money from the business, but they are also after the employees as well. Their goal is to get as much money from anyone they can to support their ideology. They host larger conferences and workshops for the business owners themselves as well as for them and their employees. They keep the people up long hours and feed them food high in vitamin B to keep them going. The goal is to program them into their line of thinking in an effort to get them to give money to their cause.

The last time I encountered Scientology was about 10-12 years ago. I had found a dental practice that I liked. The doctor was always nice and personable. Being the type-A personality I am, even with my mouth full of dental equipment I can still find a way to talk. We got talking about spirituality at a previous appointment and she brought up the subject again during the next visit. Then she asked me if I wanted to read a book that she had on spirituality? I was game, so of course, I answered yes. She handed me the book. I was still in the chair making my next appointment as I skimmed through the book. I found these words on the Author Page.

WRITTEN BY: L. RON HUBBARD

When it was time to go, I was directed to the front desk to check out. I paid my bill and handed the book to the receptionist. I told her to please cancel my appointment. She had an odd look on her face as I had just made the appointment. She asked, “Would you like to choose another date?” I said, “No, I am done here.” The receptionist then asked me why with an even more odd look.

I told her I was very disturbed by the book that the doctor had given me and that not only did I not want to be a patient at their practice, but that she too should look into what is going on at their office and run for the hills! I referred her to the Author Page of the book and told her to look up the author. Then I ran for the hills!

You might be asking: Where is the hope in all this, Phil? Here is my hope for you and others. This story is about a harmful organization that will take from business owners and their employees at all costs for the sake of their ideology. If you ever come across or know someone who is experiencing similar events in their life, this information can help you stop the destruction that this organization inflicts on unknowing subjects. So, yes, run for the hills! However, first, stop and help someone avoid harm!

WRITTEN BY: PHIL MESSINGER