After a person has completed withdrawal successfully, he is ready for the next step.

This step is called the Purification Program.

Purification means the action of making someone physically pure by removing drugs and other toxic substances from the body. Toxic substances are drugs, chemicals or any substance shown to be poisonous or harmful to life. The word toxic comes from the Greek word toxikon, which originally meant a poison in which arrows were dipped.

A program is a plan of procedures and activities to be followed.

The Purification Program is done by anyone who has successfully withdrawn from drugs. It is also done by someone who may have stopped taking drugs some time ago. A person does not need to have been drug-dependent to do this program. It can be done by anyone who has ever taken drugs or toxic substances into his body—which today means just about everybody.

Drugs, radioactive wastes and chemicals of all types are found everywhere today. For example, some of the preservatives put in canned vegetables or soup are probably toxic. Findings also seem to confirm that chemicals floating in the air to give a pleasant smell at the local supermarket are actually toxic and can end up in the food sold there. Painkillers and sedatives are widely available. Pesticides and other toxins are found in the atmosphere. Industrial and agricultural chemicals are used more and more. Then there are the illegal drugs that include marijuana, LSD, cocaine and other street drugs. These too are, of course, harmful to life.

The number of toxic substances affecting people today has created a biochemical problem.

Biochemical means the interaction (action or influence of persons or things on each other) of life forms and chemical substances.

Bio- means life, of living things; from the Greek bios, life or way of life.

Chemical means of or having to do with chemicals.

Chemicals are substances, simple or complex, that are the building blocks of matter. The human body itself is made up of chemicals and chemical compounds. Complex chemical processes, meaning continuous actions or changes, go on within it all the time. But toxic substances can block or change these natural body processes. They can make the body ill or even kill it.

So detoxification is the action of removing toxic substances from something, such as from one’s body.

As we saw earlier in this course, not only LSD but other chemical poisons and toxins, including preservatives, pesticides, medicinal drugs and street drugs (heroin, marijuana, cocaine, etc.) can remain in the body tissues for years. As long as those substances remain in the body, they can cause restimulation of the mental image pictures recorded in the person’s mind when he took them. This restimulation can reduce his awareness and abilities. When the drugs and other toxins are removed from the body, they are no longer there to restimulate the person.

The Purification Program rids a person of the drugs and other toxic substances that have built up in the body. The program, which is closely supervised, includes the following:

Exercise: The person starts each day of the program by running. The purpose of running is not to make the person sweat but to increase the blood circulation. The blood goes deeper into the muscles and tissues so that toxic residues are broken up and released.

Sweating in a sauna: After the running, the person goes into the sauna to sweat. The toxins can now leave the body through the pores.

Nutrition (including vitamins, minerals and oil): When we speak of nutrition we are not talking only about food, but about vitamins and minerals as well. We are not, however, talking about “diet.” The person eats what he normally eats. He should make sure he gets plenty of fresh vegetables and that the cooked vegetables he eats are not overcooked. He also takes daily quantities of vitamins and minerals.

Oil is taken because toxic substances get caught mainly (but not only) in the fatty tissue of the body. The body will probably hold on to something it is short of. If you try to get rid of something it is short of, it won’t give it up. But if the person takes some fat in the form of oil, the body might exchange the bad fat with good fat that is free of toxic residues. That is the basic theory.

Niacin, a B complex vitamin, plays a vitally important part in the success of the program and deserves special mention.

Niacin can produce some very beneficial results when taken along with the other necessary vitamins and minerals in the correct quantities. It appears to break up and release drug residues from the tissues and cells of the body. A person takes the niacin at about the same time he runs, so that when he goes into the sauna immediately after running, the drugs and other toxic substances released by the niacin are sweated out of the body.

A properly ordered personal schedule: It is important that a person who has started on the program stick to it sensibly and not skip days or do it in an irregular fashion. It is important that he get enough sleep. If he goes through the program on a properly ordered schedule, he will get the full results from the program.

The Purification Program does not replace the actions described earlier in this course for those who are just coming off drugs. The program would be done only after those earlier steps had been completed.

As the person rids his body of toxins, an improvement should be visible in his physical condition. The result is a purified body. However, the purpose of the Purification Program is not to handle the body.

The program was developed to make it possible to free the individual spiritually.

A person is not his body or his mind, but is a spiritual being. This is a fundamental truth discovered in Scientology. The spiritual being who is the individual is known as a thetan. This word comes from the Greek letter theta which means thought or spirit. The thetan is not something you have; it is you. You have a mind and you have a body, but you are a thetan. The thetan uses the mind to help him communicate with and control his surroundings.

It has been found that a person who has used drugs is not able to achieve greater freedom as a spiritual being—which is the mission of Scientology. The mental image pictures of these toxic substances, as long as those substances are in the body, can restimulate you—the thetan. When they are gone from the body, the constant restimulation can cease. So the Purification Program is actually a spiritual action. It frees the person from the restimulative effects of drugs and other toxins. With that out of the way, he is now able to follow a path to spiritual improvement.

At five hours a day a person should be able to get through the whole program in three to four weeks. Some will take more and some will take less. Regardless of length, the Purification Program provides you with a way to take a vital step toward a toxin-free, drug-free life.

The Purification Program is available under expert supervision in Scientology Organizations and Missions around the world. The book Clear Body, Clear Mind: The Effective Purification Program tells one exactly how this program is administered and describes all of its steps.