Training has a high value within Scientology. The reason is that the stated goal is to bring a person who is willing to work at himself to a very autonomous, self-determined state where he can share live with all its facets and enjoy it.

Of course this only can work out if the person is freed of inhibitions and compulsions – this should be reached with the help of auditing. But at the same time he should be equipped with knowledge with which in the future he can better estimate and judge all kinds of situations. And for this training or eduction is necessary

In Scientology there is no training for the sake of training. Every gathering of data, every study only has a purpose if to be used in life to be able to improve a condition. Thus the intention of the student should be at all times to apply his knowledge in life to achieve an improvement for himself and his environment.

Thus it is necessary to find out with which things in life the person has troubles and in which area he is really interested and wants to find out more. These could be things like marriage difficulties or trouble in the job, problems with time management or handling children. If for example it is found that somebody has trouble with communication, he or she is taught some basics of communication. Instead of giving merely theoretical advice one works out together with the person how the things learnt could be applied in his or her life. In this way the student gets data about the subject concerned which are amended by a lot of practical exercises in which he can apply the things learned before he can enter them into his life.

A course supervisor will help the student to understand the materials, but there is an important aspect to this: In Scientology every student is asked to test the data for himself to find out whether they are true for him, whether he really can observe them and finally apply them. If this is not the case for this student, the data will be useless for him and the study without value. This is a very basic consideration, because in Scientology it is considered important in studying, too, to respect the judgement of every individual and to further it – we do not use data dogmatically as this would be contrary to the over-all goal.

Another part of training is to learn how to audit or how to supervise courses, i.e. training other people. Auditing can be learnt by everybody who wants to help. In the same way the different steps are built on each other for the client (see „The bridge„) the study of this method is arranged in steps. In this way it is easy and doable for everybody to learn all steps for helping somebody else through the application of the techniques of Scientology. For that you have to learn theory, too, but mainly there are a lot of exercises up to the final steps of internship where the trainee under thorough monitoring of a supervisor for the first time audits another person in a session. The internship is completed when the trainee has a certainty on how to apply the techniques of this step of the bridge to somebody else to the satisfaction of that person. To achieve a good result there will be continous corrections during this process. If the auditor makes a mistake, which is common for a newcomer, he will be corrected by the supervisor so that his skills are improved and completed.

A highly recommended form of training is co-auditing. Under this approach two students work together who both learn to audit the processes of this step of the bridge. During the internship they audit each other on these processes – thus they not only have the knowledge about the respective auditing techniques, but also have gotten one step forward on the bridge, at the same time helping another through this step and taken responsibility for him. And of course it is much more fun to work at the achievement of one’s goals together.

When we study something in Scientology we always want to achieve understanding, similar like in auditing. Understanding resolves confusion and false data can break apart. In this way you can have wins in studying similar to auditing, because it will increase understanding of the processes of life. You learn to watch more closely, perceive developments, compare things, understand people and their behaviour better because we know the mechanisms which lie behind those things. And thus the student is able to bring more harmony to his life and to help others. For many this view of the subject „learning“ is contrary to their bad experiences which they might have made in school or in their professional training. Because of that L. Ron Hubbard has developped a study technology which every student can learn and which makes him able to absorb data faster and to really understand mechanisms. Additionally these tools can be used to find out where the difficulties lie when somebody gets bogged – and they are applicable universally, to every subject. The basics of study technology can be read in the chapter „Study technology“ amongst the workshop materials.