By Birgitta Dagnell more
17 August 1997

Source: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/7bedffad2a1a035a

My story about scientology

Part 1

By Birgitta Dagnell, Sweden

It all started on the autumn of 1970 when I was out for a walk with my baby girl. A man came by and asked me to do a test for finding out more about myself. Later the same day I went into the so called Church of Scientology in Örebro, Sweden for doing the test. I had never heard of this church before.

I found the people in the church very friendly and interested in me. After the test was done I was introduced to the Dianetics book and told that it was a brand new science discovered in that book. I didn't really believe that so I said no about buying a copy. Then I was asked to do the communication course and said no to that also as I didn't think I had any problems with communication. I had been singing in public since the age of six and was used to talk and sing without being nervous. And my public seemed to like me. I was told that those facts had nothing to do with it — the comm. course was entirely different. Anyway — I sad no thanks and went away as this church thing made me a bit suspicious about what it really was about. I didn't want to believe in or join some kind of organized new religion.

In March 1971, I received a letter from them, saying that they wanted me to come to them, some important person was about to hold a lecture. When arriving in the evening I saw a man in uniform walking around and the others told me whispering "this is Captain Bill — Ron's closest man" and I understood that he must be something special, but I wondered about the uniform. He showed a movie about Sea Org and it started very dramatically with the music "Also spracht Zarathustra" which impressed on me. So I signed finally up for the comm. course and started next day.

The years passed by with many courses and lots of auditing and in December 1979, I joined staff and started to work as an Class IV auditor in the Malmoe Org. All the training was paid by myself. In March/April 1980 the Malmoe Org was raided 3 times by the police and they wanted me to handle bad press and public relations. So I had to join the Guardians Office and I was surprised to see that the GO always did know some ten minutes in advance that the police should come to the org and also that the GO did know what the Treasure Sec was telling the police when he was arrested. I was sent to East Grinstead in England for an comprehensive PR-training. I remember I read "Public Relations" by Cutlip and Center, "A spy and his Master" and "Art of War" plus tons of issues from L Ron Hubbard.

I had to understand "Operation Snow White" and other secret operations and programmes.

Back in Malmoe I started to work with PR and actually did good in this.

In 1982 many rumours and turbulence was going on. We had to learn that the mission holders and the whole present management was suppressive and most people in the Guardians Offices over the world. In January 1983 the Guardian of Malmoe received an order from RTC to send all reserves money to Luxemburg, which was complied with. Shortly after that I found myself upgraded to AG Malmoe as the former AG and the other GO staff was ripped off. The AG hadn't sent enough money. So we were two people left in the GO; me and AG SOCO.

In February I was called to come over to FOLO in Denmark for a briefing. I went over and met with the person in charge Allan Hubbert from Special Unit in Los Angeles. He smiled and told me nicely that I had to do a little "spring-cleaning-programme" called DPF (Deck Project Force). Had never heard about it, but he showed me an Flag order written by LRH. I was told that all remaining staff from the GO's in Europe should show up on the DPF. The reason was that we were the cause why the churches didn't expand and that we were enemies of the Church. The GO's should close down and be replaced by "Department of Special Affairs". Only very clean, especially chosen, non-guardian people should be appointed to this Department. We, the enemies and traitors should be put onto the DPF as an rehabilitation.

I found that I had to start on the DPF right away. There was no time to go back home to change clothes or bring more clothes or even to make a phone call to my husband and children. In order to make phone calls one had to write a dispatch, asking for permission and telling the purpose of the call and so on. It took me around one month to get permission for my first call home. So there I was in my black long trousers, black jumper and my mink coat. I learned to use my mink coat as my pillow as well. Those cloths I had to wear for more than one month. I was one of the first on place, of the 82 of us who soon should be collected from all over Europe.

The "rehabilitation" consisted of lots of work, mainly cleaning, and started at 8 AM with roll-call. We had to say "Ay Sir" when called upon or spoken to. We were not permitted to talk to people outside the DPF and later on not to DPF-members from other countries. In that way be became isolated. The first night we were only 2 people in a normal 2-beds room. Next night and the following, we were 18 people in it. We happen to get breakfast sometimes, but that was not normal. I remember one morning when the 82 of us got 16 slices of bread to share and one man took 6 of them. It was near a civil war got started. The meals was eaten in a cellar where we shared the space with lots of pigeons. It was very dirty, filled with bird shit. At one occasion I had to fight with the pigeons to get my meal. The food was never enough for all of us and consisted of rice and beans. No plates, no cutleries and no pots. Once we got soup, and I was lucky to possess a small plastic mug so I could drink it. We used to feel like "the poor man with no spoon when the sky is raining semolina".

The work consisted of mainly cleaning toilets, corridors and hotel rooms or some painting and construction work. Supplies for cleaning was very poor, like brushes with almost no brush left. Only cold water and no washing detergent. I was mainly doing cleaning at Hotel Nordland and the small hotel opposite to Nordland. At one occasion I should clean bathrooms and a long hallway in the other hotel. I had high fever and the floor in the hallway was very dirty. I had to do the cleaning with a toothbrush, crawling on my knees as I wasn't able to stand up. Next day I couldn't get out of my bed, I was too sick in pneumonia. Guards came and tried to get me up, but I couldn't. The day after I had to get back to work again. The working hours was to 11 PM but we were often waked up in the night for doing more work. Sometimes we worked til 5 in the morning with only two breaks of 30 minutes each, during all those hours. We were never allowed to walk or sit down — always running.

Some work was pure evil:

1. One of us was assigned to paint the reception area at FOLO and 3 others of us did the preparatory work. She thought it was quite a nice job and it looked nice and clean when she had finished painting. But after 5 days the colour hadn't get dry and we found out that the paint was mixed without drying substance in it. She had to scrape the whole reception from this wet paint and then she received an SP declare and left.

2. Some others had to wash scrap papers. It was 5 of us, standing on the yard at FOLO, taking scrap papers from sacks, put it into ice cold water, keep it under the water til it was soaking wet and then press out all water and make small balls of it. Then return it to the sack again. The hands ached as it was below freezing outside. The purpose of this washing was to be able to put more paper into the sacks as the air was pressed out.

After a couple of weeks, we got to know that we should start doing ethics in the evenings. We were pleased as that gave us a possibility to sit down on chairs. It was not the kind of ethics we were used to anyhow; first one had to write up all bad actions done (overts) in this lifetime and past lives. Then one was put before an auditor with an E-meter. On each side of the auditor a missionaire was standing (Mike Sutter and Isa-Bella Ferrer) The auditor, his name was Des, read up the overt, checked it on the Meter and the missionaires started to yell at you. This is called gang-bang sec checking. "This is not what you have done, you have HUGE overts, you are the most evil one on earth, we want your real overts..." This screaming could go on for an hour or more til we "recognized" that we really was that bad and evil. Many couldn't stand it. One night an italian man started to cry and admitted to be that evil and became very thankful to the missionaires who had revealed the truth about him. He went down on the floor. Crawled on his knees to missionaire Mike Sutter and kissed his shoes. Mike looked at him scornfully and said "you are declared, get out of here". The italian man had no money and didn't really know how to get back to his country. Later I heard that he had found a cargo ship in the harbor who gave him a free ride to Italy.

Another lady I remember was from Belgium. She got about the same treatment as described above, but she gave them the wrong cognition. In the session she told them that she finally understood how much she had neglected her husband and children because of scientology. After the above treatment she tried to escape but failed. The following week after this incident, she didn't speak with anybody. She sneaked around on the yard, sometimes laughing hysterically for herself. I was told that she went mad. Then she suddenly was gone. I don't know what happened to her, but have been thinking about her a lot.

After a month I got permission to go home and see my children over the weekend. I called my elder daughter, she was 13, and told her that I should come home on Saturday. She became so very happy and should make a nice dinner to welcome me. We were both in tears of happiness when talking about it. When Saturday came, I was told that my permission was cancelled because they thought I shouldn't come back or tell people about what's going on in Denmark. Half of the day was spent trying to convince them that I had to go home to see my children, that they were expecting me and so on. Nothing what I said helped. It was no. As I couldn't stand the thought of my little girl being so happy, making dinner for me, I decided to escape in the evening. So late in the evening I sneaked out from Nordland, walked my way to the ferries and went to Malmoe. I arrived to my home around midnight and waked up the family. We were all so happy to meet again until my husband told me that I had to go back in the morning. I said no, no way, I never go there again. But he persuaded me by saying that I had to go to the RPF or that we had to divorce if I didn't. So I went back.

On my way to Nordland I met Barbara Schwartz from Germany. The two of us were room-mates and friends as I helped her one night when she was gone and they asked me if she had been in her bed during the night. I didn't really know if she was, as I was sleeping, but told them that she was there the whole night. Now, I met her and she told me that she had to report my going away and that I should be sent to the RPF (about the same, but usually is a longer cycle). I convinced her to not report me and she finally agreed as I had helped her once.

So I was back on the Deck again. One night all of us were yelled at by the missionaries. After the yelling one of them asked if we had any questions. I had a question and stretched my hand. As they thought it to be very impudent of me having a question, they should make an example and ordered me to come forward. I was put onto an chair and faced the other 80 people. They told the others to look at me as the real suppressive personality. The three missionaires yelled at me and derided me for two hours in front of the others. Finally my comrades was told to go and I was alone with them. I was sitting on the chair for three hours with them yelling at me, telling me that I had never done anything good in my life. Mike Sutter worked up such an anger that he spit into my face, threw chairs around and threw a table so it hit my stomach. Mike told me I should be expelled from scientology for ever. There was nothing in life I was so afraid of as to listen to those words. I remember I was thinking "expelled, but I'm still alive". After those three hours, I started to cry and told them that I always had been trying to do alright and that I had been following LRH policies all the time on staff.

That became the turning point. I was told that this setup was a test to see if I could keep my position. Now I was their first product! And I was their star! I should become the first officer in the new Department of Special Affairs! I felt very happy and very, very strong as I wasn't broken.