All of them, those in power, and those who want the power, would pamper us, if we agreed to overlook their crookedness by wilfully restricting our activities.
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By Nefertiti
|
1. The decision |
"When one falls, one never falls well." |
To flee, I must flee, but how? I don't know, I'll find a way, I must leave from here, that's it, I have to think...
How could I do it, without money, without passport or leave with my hands in my pockets? Yes, then we'll see...
No, no, concentrate, concentrate, make a plan, there, calm down I need a plan, they know I want to leave but I just mentioned it once only once, they didn't take me seriously, I am plain and docile they don't really suspect me, she'll break one day that's what they think...
All the better for me, all right, I can think, I manage to reason, good girl... A plan, I need a detailed plan to get myself out of here, to leave and leave fast before they suspect it, and without being impeached, to leave before I find myself with chains in my feet, for God sake! It isn't even a metaphor...
This is the inside speech of an adept on the verge to flee from what she would have never suspected to be a cult. The sole idea of it would have never driven home though she doesn't question her profound beliefs yet. It's a fixed idea, obsessive. To leave, it's just a matter of survival.
A question often asked is the following: "But what happens in the head of those people?" I don't know but I do know what happened in mine.
In my concern to truth and accuracy, I'll try to reproduce, analyse and put the most coherent words on thoughts that followed a tortuous course at the time. This jerky speech is voluntarily written in a way a purist would qualify as clumsy or stupid.
This is not a schoolish work nor it is a pleasant essay an academic would have imagined one night fairly bored... This is not an imagined stylistic composition; everything here is true. Trying to translate a disturbed state of mind acquired by a severe ten years indoctrination is not an easy task. An adept who suddenly decides to run away from a sect, it is pathetic indeed, but the wonderful paradox lies in the fact that despite the promised damnation, threats, exclusion, fear, absolute loss of all her goods, absence of landing place, of job, of family, and diplomas making it almost impossible to find a working place in society, despite all that and much more, the wonderful paradox is that this adept has not lost her free will and chooses freedom.
Yesterday they told me:
— "You want to leave? Then you no longer belong to our group. You must wait in another group, follow me."
I followed him shattered; so there was another group? Worst than this one? That could not be. Let's see it after all that time in the gulag without realizing there was also the gulag's nick?
I finally knew where they were taking me years afterwards (see chapter 3). I had to crawl through a narrow door and walk bent along a tunnel where humidity would rise to my throat. I arrived to a maze of ways on which I had not have the "honor" to work on yet per the motto: "One job, one place, one time." That is to say, fully comply with orders, without flinching as a convict on forced labor on a rhythmical pace with no right for pause or even talk with no salary — only a detail — for a fixed ten long hours everyday. The rest of the time, five hours were reserved for "study", let it be understood by the word study "special gulag indoctrination" only reserved to recalcitrant adepts of the sect (i.e. RPFers).
A door opened on a dark and stinking space. Something was moving in the back, I thought there were rats and it almost made my stomach heave. My eyes getting accustomed to the dark, I saw an unbearable sight. In the back, a form, then a woman, in her thirties, feverish, the entire body poured with sweat was wearing chains. She had a chain about twenty inches long linking her two ankles so she had to do small hasty steps. She was performing an imprecise and nasty job which I still fail to grasp the sense but it seemed that among other tasks she was pouring water in and out. We found ourselves in a place that might have been a sort of laundry place with machines and pipes everywhere. I guess the kind of place situated on the basements of hotels. The swine said:
— "So, you'll work here until new order is given."
The poor woman hadn't even paused, made no comments but slightly threw me a glance. We were suffocating, the stink was nauseating, my "promotion" frankly worrying, and perspectives of survival quite alarming. Left alone I ventured staring at her chains:
— "Where the hell are we?"
She hesitated. I insisted:
— "Why are you chained?"
She answered very fast.
— "This is the RPF's RPF" (RPF's hole). "I need to rehabilitate myself in order to go back to the RPF (detention camp and forced labor) which is my group."
— "I don't understand, you were already in the RPF, weren't you?"
— "Yes but I have been assigned to the RPF's RPF because I have failed to uphold the duties of my group which is the RPF."
The poor woman looked so wretched. She kept mechanically repeating those sentences. She was quite obviously disturbed. Her look was blood red out of fear and out of distress... I had never seen such a look; a gaze from a hunted animal.
— "I'm not supposed to talk I have to work don't ask any more questions."
— "Wait a minute" I said; "he's gone, tell me how long will you be wearing chains?"
Her face terror-stricken and the shadows under her eyes emphasized a deep fatigue. Her legs were floundering in blackish waters. She was extremely dirty and both her physical and psychological states were appallingly alarming.
— He'll come back, they know everything, I can't stop I must not stop.
I looked at her powerless and remained silent. I let myself glide along some wall where I could stay dry. Crouched down I meditated on the fact that I had touched the bottom of insanity. What had that poor woman done? That night I found out that she had sent a letter to her husband — member of the cult, revealing some details on the RPF. One is not supposed to talk about the gulag. She had violated the gulag's law of silence. It is exactly at this moment that I decided to leave the RPF's RPF, the RPF, gulags, holes, nicks and other detention camps and as I was at it, the entire cult.
The next day I left this nightmare.
2. Analysis of the trigger mechanism |
"Guess if you can, choose if you dare." |
Because of the incriminatory atmosphere I secretly built a plan structuring it the best that I could in three essential parts.
A: to recover my passport and to elaborate a strategy in order to do it without drawing attention and ensure I had someone to fall back on, just in case.
B: to find the money to buy my ticket plane and pay the services of a taxi-driver to help me out also just in case.
C: Get sufficient rest to serenely face many a peripeteia and succeed in my escape.
Yes, to escape, that's what it was all about! I suspected I would be forced to remain if I insisted on my routing out the SO (leaving the Sea Org) I had sensed that terrible sanctions would be imposed on me if I ever failed to succeed from the first time. And I was utterly right; years afterwards I found out from ex-members' affidavits, testimonies and books how they suffered being imposed sanctions and were illegally kept against their will! One is not free to leave from a cult's gulag, one has only the right to submit to illegal military discipline. And they call themselves a CHURCH?
As far as I was concerned, I remember very clearly that I refused to continue to "play the game" ( their words for conquering the planet!)
That wasn't a game; that was plain slavery. I was no longer willing to accept those horrendous living conditions until my "redemption" from the RPF occurred and whose criteria were highly hypothetical. I refused to expose my body and my soul to unknown practices, RPF's secret practices which were the opposite of those for which I had joined the so-called "elite group" (Sea-Org). Constraints, threats, humiliations of all kind didn't have the expected hold on me. They just could not manage to terrorize me. I had seen the devastating psychological effect of staff-members — some were friends, coming out from outrageous "ethical handling" (basically mental manipulation accompanied by humiliating punishments). I have witnessed at least two cases of hysteria coupled with sobbing as a result of "ethics handling". I therefore knew that the last thing I wanted was to mess up with "ethics" and usually agreed with whatever was ordered to me until now (I did not hold a responsibility post) I just successfully avoided those cross examinations called "security checks" followed by endless confessions. Most of them were fictional since in order to have a bit of peace they were reduced to invent every kind of imagined crimes — at least three people talked to me about that. So I could get away from those mad practices because I never openly expressed any disagreement or opposed a categorical refusal.
Somehow, I always managed to bypass the enemy without much damage that is, as long as I had faith. My rebellion was inside of me. But now, I was forced to bend and suffer through the "sec-checks" (endless interrogatory Gestapo like) since I was in the RPF and that was just unacceptable. I had the weird feeling that if I didn't make it to leave right after my decision I would never be able to do it afterwards. With the passing of time, I realize how right I was; many adepts have eventually succumbed because they lacked the courage or the strength to escape in time before efficient and rotten disinformation and brainwashing practices being applied to them. The words for those tools? "False Data Stripping" and " False Purpose Rundown". In fact, they are thought reform tactics twined by lists of mandatory confessions of all the crimes existing in the "time-track" (also see Tabayoyon testimony extract). In other words, the person is to confess his supposed crimes committed in every supposed previous life!!! At this level of advanced indoctrination the poor chap either falls over a robotic submission close to the zombie, either he topples over madness. Without mentioning of course "reverse auditing" or "black dianetics" consisting in applying elaborated mental tortures and mind control techniques. Those techniques are common place in the RPF. And yet, for a ten year-period, I had never heard of them, in or out the cult. Never heard of the RPF's RPF either. Oh yes, secrets are well kept by a handful of cult leaders next to Hubbard or Miscavige, ready to command, apply or be in collusion with their gurus. Some high executives have been dismissed and repudiated after an entire life devoted to a chimerical cause. They have been subdued to those shameful practices and they talked. Overwhelming testimonies concur and they all agree on the devastating effect of mind control techniques. Those testimonies are all to be read on the Web (Internet).
I repeat that those practices were unknown to me before joining the SO (organisation formed by the so-called elite, chosen people bound by a billion years contract) as from the majority of the members. But as a witness in the RPF of numerous practices against the dignity of man — I'll talk about it later — added to the revolting conditions of detention endured during my imposed imprisonment period forced to slave away regardless elementary security rules not to mention the work laws or family laws, I have had the immense "luck" to feel what I call the trigger mechanism: I was suddenly aware of all I had not been aware before. When I saw that terrorised woman wearing chains, I realised all of a sudden the horrifying lie in which I was trapped. I could have howled like a wounded animal. Personal failure is all the more cruel since it is an intellectual rape added to a real psychic suffering. I had then sacrificed everything I had for a vast scam? There is only one thing I am proud of: I kept my head and remained strangely calm on the moment I felt that my life was nothing but emptiness. I said to myself: "my God they'll make me wear chains if I don't leave. I won't bend. I am not a criminal. I am not willing to accept degradation. I don't understand what is going on but there will be time enough to find out in due time. Now I must leave."
That is what I thought, heart aching for the decision was not an easy one.
I am intimately convinced that had I not reacted at the crucial moment it would have been a point of no return.
3. What is the RPF? What is the RPF's RPF? |
As I have already said, one is not free to leave the RPF, one must escape from the RPF. One would be tempted to say it is a prison whereas detention conditions and current rules in use in industrial countries' prisons would be similar to those existing in Club Meds (French vacations clubs located on paradisiac beaches) compared to RPF's detention conditions. Gulag is the word, military detention camp, forced labor camp, re-education camp.
People abusively sent to those camps are cult adepts who would begin to ask questions about finances or about workability of technical practices. Someone (registrar) not bringing enough money or someone who would have rightly called his senior in rank a fool, someone who would have decided to have sex with his or her chosen one by — passing a prior authorisation, even more serious someone who would want to leave the cult.
In the "Modern Management Technology Defined", p. 441, from Hubbard we can read among other obscure definitions the following:
"The RPF has been created by the Commodore (the guru had self-named that title) so that redemption can occur."
Redemption from latin redemptio meaning redeem. Redeeming or being redeemed, deliverance or rescue especially from evil ways. (Oxford Advanced Dictionary)
There is a Flag Order (policy) 3434RB, 7/1/1974, called "The Rehabilitation Project Force" about 10 pages long, which is confidential and is not to be found outside the RPF. It consists mainly of the RPF rules of which nobody can have a free access to that delicious reading — here are the broad lines:
Roughly speaking, the person not only is fallen from rank but also from his civil rights, social rights and even family rights. The RPFer — as he/she is called — is not allowed to live with his/her spouse and children, is not to have a sexual relationship even with husband or wife. He/she can't use a car or a bicycle, can't talk to people unless being spoken to. The RPFer is some sort of sub-class man deprived from freedom of speech. The person only receives a third of his pay which is already quite meager and finds him/herself with 4 or 5 dollars a week if no other disciplinary sanction has been taken against him/her. The person must take meals segregated from the rest of the group provided that the meals are made of leftovers from other's meals. The person must sleep in the worst accommodations and must put on black and dirty clothes on. A distinctive mark: the person is to wear a black ribbon to signify he/she is ostracized (p. 302 on the admin dictionary: "personnel without privileges of etiquette.")
The RPFer is to answer "yes sir" to any communication addressed to him/her (even a woman), is not allowed to walk but must run at any time. The RPFer must slave away 7 days per week, 10 hours a day with 30 minutes a meal, 30 seconds for a shower and must suffer special gulag indoctrination 5 hours every day. The RPFer is to perform the hardest work of renovation and menial work. It can consist in falling down a wall by a section (name given to a small group of RPFers) formed by young ladies — one of which might be pregnant — but who cares if she has an abortion in the "process" (as it already happened.) Or it can be the garbage detail which is quite hard when one has a fragile morphology and even dangerous without gloves, without adequate clothing or a garbage collector training! The RPFer is denied the right to question anything whatsoever. If anything else than "yes sir" should unluckily go out from his/her mouth, the RPFer would immediately be ordered to run preferably under a blazing sun around a tree or a pole for an unlimited number of laps — only deciding the "garde chiourme" in charge until RPFer's complete and total allegiance is obtained.
The "Running Program" is the severest punishment. It consists of running for 8 hours long around a pole until the person becomes a robot. Constant watch over is kept and no privacy is tolerated. A "twin" (buddy or rather companion in misfortune) is assigned to him/her. It is a very efficient system to keep control of the RPFer moreover, it is quite Machiavellian; each one keeping a close eye on the other one does not allow solidarity.
The RPFer has no day off, no spare time, no music, no radio, no games, in short he can only hope to achieve his "program" decided "up lines," whose long-lasting period can reach years. An average from 3 to 4 years would be quite respectable...
Anyhow, let it be quite plain to everyone it 's by far preferable to be imprisoned anywhere else except perhaps in China, North Korea or Siberia...
To whom adore exact references here are some real gems of the gulag's famous internal rules: it is a 10 pages long Flag Order called The Rehabilitation Project Force 3434 RB, 7 January 1974.
"A member of the RPF is a member of the RPF and nothing outside of it, till released." (sic)
Do we have to conclude that being imprisoned, the member of the RPF no longer belongs to mankind and will only regain his human condition once released?
Follows a catalogue of restrictions. The first list is entitled: "Restriction of RPF from Flag crew", which is followed by a list called: "The RPF do NOT"† which then turns to a long list with a charming title: "PERSONAL RESTRICTIONS AND PENALTIES."
There are 45 restrictions and penalties in this Flag Order.
However, out of benevolence, the guru Hubbard established a very thin list of personal rights. One of which is: "4. Normal meals providing no crew member is in any way deprived thereby." (sic)
Nonetheless, it is not specified whether the RPFer has the personal right of normal sleep too...
The Motto of the RPF is:
"THE RPF IS WHAT WE MAKE IT." (sic)
"THE RPF IS WHERE WE MAKE IT." (sic)
The Stable Datum for the Unit is:
"ONE JOB, ONE PLACE, ONE TIME." (sic)
Those 3 sentences are regularly shouted during the 3 daily mandatory roll-calls.
There are at least 4 RPFs:
1) Flag in Clearwater, Florida
2) PAC (Pacific area) Los Angeles, California
3) "Happy Valley" Hemet, California (desert)
4) Copenhagen, Denmark
As far as RPF's RPF, that would be the equivalent of French oubliettes, English donjons, Roman galleys; extremely hard to survive on it. Conditions are unbelievable, only worthy a 18 century novel. It's the gulag's nick. The person cannot but start praying because within such poor conditions he/she can maybe resist 3 months that is, if he/she is in very good health condition from the very start.
We can find the definition of RPF's RPF in the Admin dictionary p.451. It is a dismaying one:
"RPF's RPF: the following restrictions are applied to members:
1) Segregated from other RPF members with regard to work, messing, berthing, musters and any other command activity.
2) No pay.
3) No training.
4) No auditing.
5) May only work in mud boxes in the E/R may not work with RPF members.
6) Six hours sleep maximum.
8) Standard ethics penalties that apply to them to be tripled for each offense they are found guilty of, until they fully join the RPF of their own determinism.
9) May communicate only with RPF MAA.
10) May not join RPF fully until acceptable amends made to all RPF members.The first RPF's RPF assignment was made because the person was unable to recognize a need for redemption or any means to affect it. Until such time as the person recognize this need and of their own self-determinism requested to be included in RPF redemption actions, the restrictions applied."
End of quote.
† On number 17, it is written: "And if dismissed from the Sea Org is to sign a confession of his crimes before leaving the Base."
4. A classic day in the RPF |
"I am dirty. Lice are eating me
away. When they see me, swines puke." |
Basically, it consists in getting up early before everybody and going to bed very late after everybody else. Fatigue is omnipresent. Just 7 hours sleep is not enough to compensate for a forced labor work in a hell cadence. The person's resistance, even in good health conditions begins to decay. At this rate, after a week of forced pace — I would not wish to my worst enemies (except Miscavige and other bastards) — I felt my strengths lowering. Cramps becoming more and more frequent were all the more painful since I had to continue running no matter what. Aching all over, sweat had also become a fearful enemy. Florida's hot and humid climate with the accelerated rhythm of constant effort provoked an important sweating which was responsible for an accumulation of bacteria. The thing was to protect ourselves from potential wounds at all cost. No preventive measures was ever taken and of course, no medicine, not even antiseptics or antibiotics were allowed in case of injury or illness.
Actions stations would occur by 7AM. All I had was 5 minutes to be ready; get dressed with a dirty black trousers, a dirty black tee-shirt, and remember the black ribbon around the left arm. Well well! like Jews with a star sewn on their torn coat during the second World War of evil memory... or like the red letter sewn on the heroin's dress of a famous novel; The Scarlet Letter from Nathaniel Hawthorne. Standing for adulterous, the letter A stigmatized the woman's "sin" heavily reproved and socially condemned by puritan moral prevailing in 17 Century Boston. Hester Prynne is sentenced for adultery to be put in the stocks. She is to forever wear the symbol of her sin, the big red letter A sewn on the bodice of her dress.
In the RPF, the dark ribbon is the representation of discrimination; the illegal and arbitrary segregation of the person. The person is plainly ostracized. It is the same thing really except that we no longer live in 17th Century. Of course the RPF is contrary to the Rights of Man, violates every Constitution and must be forbidden by the Governments would they only bother to assume their responsibilities and make proper legislation so that no intern prison belonging to any group or "religion" call it a labor camp, gulag or RPF be tolerated on their soils. I guess that the will of politics would be awakened when a politician's daughter or son were to be be ensnared by a cult and be interned in one of those camps or worse, were to commit suicide.
The RPF illegal forced labor camp is all the more intolerable since this humiliation is presented as an expiation for adept's so-called "crimes" and which is forced to accept his need for Redemption. On top of that imagined by a perverted madman, sadistic and paranoid schizophrenic guru.
But let's come back to the story.
As a precautionary measure, I always wore a clean tee-shirt underneath the black and dirty one. Fortunately, I had a dozen tee-shirts in my suitcase. Every night after the 30 seconds shower I coated my body with talc in order to protect my skin against sweat. We all suffered from heavy sweating. I recall this young woman terribly suffering from an important infection which had been developing under her breasts. Instead of healing, the wound had been expanding to such a degree that purulent blisters had reached her navel. When I saw that infection I told her: "Here, have some talc, take mine." She looked at me puzzled.
— "I think you should wear a cotton tee-shirt under your bra in order to isolate your breasts. That may help to stop the infection." I added.
She answered that she didn't have any so I spontaneously gave her 2 tee-shirts of mine.
— "You can wash your tee-shirt every night so you will always have a clean and dry tee-shirt for the day after."
She had a sort of trembling.
— "Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?" she asked.
With the passing of time, I realize how pathetic was this woman's reaction. How was it possible that someone should help her? She had lost the notion of solidarity! (something very present in regular prisons or prison camps.)
To me it was just a matter of assisting someone in danger; her infection had definitely become too large to ignore it. Unlike others, I felt compassion. In the RPF, it's every man for himself.
Among the 8 girls living in the same room I was the only one to offer some help. But each girl was having her share of suffering, each girl was trying to survive the best she could and then I had just arrived to the RPF, therefore I was not weakening yet. I could still afford to help someone...
We used to take a bus taking us to the Fort Harrison. That bus was infested with cockroaches. First, I refused to sit down since the bus was crawling with cockroaches which did not mind to step on us but then with fatigue overpowering me, I relinquished to sit down. Every moment of rest had become a priority so we all just merely move our hands or feet once in a while to dismiss bigger ones...
At the RPF "mess" (room in which meals are eaten in the Armed Forced), it was a matter of feeding ourselves the best we could. Cereals in the form of unappetizing porridges were proposed. To hold out and despite my disgust in eating solid food in the morning, I reluctantly swallowed every kind of soups or pigswills, as long as they had milk in it. The RPFer in charge of bringing the food was warmly welcomed by everybody since he had managed to find a milk gallon; I watched as he was being applauded and sadly deduced that milk was not an obvious foodstuff in the RPF.
"Muster" or "roll-call" would then take place. The shabby-looking gulag battalion pastiched military muster for review or inspection. Everyone is supposed to answer his name by "Hi Sir". Any delay, be it one second, is heavily sanctioned. The sorry spectacle of four RPF tottering columns was a wretched sight; twenty people struggling to stand to attention looked far more as an East German extermination camp than a glorious glittering "corps d'elite" Sea Org members. I could not help thinking that it was impossible avoiding to relate the cortege of mere shadows that we had become with the flashy group in full uniform pictured in the cult propaganda magazine and supposed to lead mankind on "the road of total freedom." Ironically, we were imprisoned and carrying the same chains we had all come to set man free from. Quite obviously, there was an horrendous booby trap I could not figure out.
The first standing order of the day was to clean the Fort Harrison stairs (approximately 15 floors) I was given a bucket, a floor cloth and a twin, in this case a very young lady barely18 years old.
As we started to clean the steps one by one on our knees, she asked me the reason of my RPF assignment. I answered in a relaxed off-hand manner that since I wanted to leave the best way out, I had come up with was to violate the SO ethical code, that is to say never have sexual relationship outside marriage.
— "I went out 2D" (esoteric language for having sexual intercourse.) "And you know what?" I added, "we didn't even have time 'to materialize' because they caught us just before we did!"
She burst out laughing and she told me her story. Roughly, her situation was the following; she didn't agree with some decisions from up lines management, she stood fast and didn't allow herself to be swayed (thus sent to the RPF).
Being born in the cult, having known but the cult, perspectives projected by her towards the exterior world were extremely reduced.
— "I have no diploma, I could never work in the 'wog world'" (racist term to signify everything that do not belong to the cult.)
— "Do you have any family outside?" I ventured.
— "Yes, my mother is in England. I don't know her and she is 'declared'" (a person declared is a person arbitrarily declared a "suppressive being" by the cult: i.e. ostracized.) "I don't have the right to see her. Besides, could I adapt myself in a country I do not know with a mother whose face I don't even recall? If I failed to get in tune everything would be over for me. I have no choice; I must endure."
This lucid, clear-minded 18 years old young lady, with her long blond hair saying that she had no future outside the cult was deeply moving. Suddenly, I realized the horror of isolation to which every youngsters born and raised in the cult are abandoned to. They can't escape, and how could they? They are prisoners inside of the life they will never get to know outside...
She glanced a fearful look at me: was I going to betray a confidence she shouldn't have ever made? I reassured her with a smile.
— "Don't worry. I won't say anything. Well, the outside world is not that terrible you know, after all, I've come from out there!"
I'll never forget her sad and resigned look. She said dreamy:
— "Yes, maybe, who knows?"
In fact, she was an Exec from CMO INT (high executive from the International Commodore Messengers Org, very senior org in the cult.) She was to stand up for me once when one of the RPF warder took it out on me with no apparent reason. She literally jumped on the bigot:
— "If you don't leave her alone immediately I swear I'll remember you when I get out of here and you know that I'll get out before you do!" (RPF warders are on RPF program too.)
Anyway, the guy was nailed to the spot; not only did he forget all about me but everyone kept a respectable distance ever since. It is true that in the cult complex hierarchy CMO INT execs have almost every power. Thinking it over, I think I gave her a little hope; it wasn't that bad outside...
The day would continue with the cleaning and scouring of every toilet of Fort Harrison building reserved to the "public" (scientologists coming from all around the world for "services") We actually "liked" to do it since it was deliciously air-conditioned inside and frankly, compared to other RPF hardship, sponging up sinks had almost become our idea of having fun! I only feared that someone should recognize me in such a slave get-up, with a hand brush, bent over a bowl-shaped part of a toilet.
A misfortune buddy almost fainted when cleaning a mirror; she stopped dead staring at her own image with horror. Well, the poor girl didn't already look well but now she had just turned green. We were all looking dreadful, dirty, shaggy-haired and were quite in a bad shape. The thing was to carefully avoid meeting our face. She started to cry. She just could not afford to breakdown. She was putting herself at risk by sobbing in front of scientologists. It was awfully "bad PR" (bad public relation). Suddenly one of us said with her nasal Oklahoma twang:
— "Well, what should I say? Look at me! I look like Frankenstein whereas you only look as if you had seen him!"
Everybody laughed and the poor girl somehow pulled herself together. She then cautiously kept avoiding every mirror reflection. There was a sort of solidarity but very rare and punctual. Relationships were mostly lived in terms of power struggle. Orders were constantly shouted, we were hustled from morning to evening, no slowing down even in the sun, sanctions would shower on us:
— "Take a lap! Take two laps! Take five laps!" ( a lap consists in running around the Fort Harrison garage ramp.)
The mirror young lady had a hard time to follow the pace. She would stumble over, fall, get herself hurt, and would always be behind the pack (late) and I would tremble for her. RPFer's bosun (warder) was pretending not to see her. So I thought that she would be spared as she was obviously of a frail nature. In fact, it's highly probable that her fall was programmed. I witnessed an odd conversation looking like bets in racecourses:
— "That one, I give her 2 weeks!"
— "I don't give her another week myself!"
Well I will never know what happens when the person can't take any longer (maybe she's assigned to the RPF's RPF) for I chucked out before it ever became my turn. I don't even dare to think about it... There were the dangerous tasks to perform. The garbage detail was particularly strenuous for the fair sex. Men would challenge us making fun of our poor efforts to get up enormous and filthy garbage cans. Some girls would exhaust themselves out in vain; I would just save my strengths protecting the best than I could my fingers, my feet, my body in general. An accident might happen and no treatment would be granted, furthermore there is no hospital in the RPF; there is not even an emergency kit.
There was a definite lack of everything; salary already reduced to the third part was suspended for the vast majority of the RPFers. So everybody would soon become indigent. Suddenly, you can no longer buy cigarettes (only unrestricted items allowed), your toothpaste, soap or deodorant... Would you allow me to stress that women still having their periods, find it extremely degrading not having enough cash to buy a box of tampax (some women suffer from cycle troubles due to stress and fatigue; same symptoms occurred in concentration camps.) At least, this is what I could experiment for myself and I was utterly happy to have some tampaxes in my car gloves locker. How humiliating it is to find oneself in complete poverty when one has given away a fortune for the cause and is subsequently working as a beast of burden! What a despair it is to notice one is reduced to slavery whereas one had come in pushed by the winds of freedom in order to align in the ranks of those working so that man would be set free!
The end of the day would be a piece of anthology. As I said, there was the special gulag training (5 hours training = 5 hours indoctrination) Such a training was mandatory of course and consisted in a cortege of forced confessions of imagined crimes and treacheries of every kind (mental torture called O/Ws). By any means, I knew that before I got there I had to restudy the same HCOBS & PLs (guru's nonsense) I already knew by heart. Well then, I shall continue to act stupid; I would spend hours on a 10 pages long bulletin called "Keeping Scientology Working" and pretended to be busy by turning the dictionary pages which would allow me to remain seated most of the time. You see in the RPF and other gulags, luxury is motionlessness. The thing is just to remain in complete stillness. Moreover, RPF's indoctrination is delayed but, who wants to think about it? Anyway, two RPFers had noticed my little game and as they were up to the same one themselves we would once in a while glance at each other in beaming mirth! That's what being called "mutual out ruds" (esoteric expression meaning a negative conniving attitude, being a party of something or someone.)
At the end of the day, coinciding with the end of special gulag indoctrination, we were supposed to — well at least it was highly encouraged — take the floor to say how pleased we all were and how wonderful and fabulous it was to follow a convict's program without forgetting to stress we were all thankful to hope that one day Redemption would occur thanks to the marvellous technology of the best friend Earth had ever bore! I always refused to participate to this farce where we had on top of that to applaud everyone's fantastic gains! I would simply put a mongoloid grin on my face which actually fitted very well on submission grounds and approval of every nonsense that could be heard. As long as I seemed to agree to the whole masquerade and as long as I looked vaguely stupid, I knew I would be allowed to vogue over relatively peaceful waters. Anyhow, I was delighted I had done some theatre acting when I wondered; under the false aspect of a tranquil lake, furious roaring fortieth currents and other howling fiftieth wind streams were preparing devastating tidal waves...
5. An escape: directions for use |
"Nothing is impossible to a brave
heart" |
I have already described the main lines of my state of mind at the time. Today, 10 years after I have complete remembrance of my escape and I reproduce it as it happened.
The morning following my decision to leave I took my first risk. I simply refused to get up at 7 AM because I knew I needed to make up some hours of sleep. Nothing could make me change my mind and decided to stick to what I had decided to do. I was kicked in the kidneys — I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor — I was shaken like a rag doll, insulted and threatened but I refused to wake up. There was the girl with the chest infection I had just helped among my torturers... I instantly went back to sleep when they were gone and decided I would only wake up at twelve. On the dot of 12 being fresh and alert, I packed a quick suitcase with whatever civil clothes I had left; of course I had to leave behind most of my belongings but again they don't represent a thing when freedom is at hand. I took a great deal of pleasure to dress me up with my clothes out of good quality, the clean touch of my linen shirt over my skin, my well cut pants which were luxury sensations after having been forced to wear a prisoner's "outfit"... Recovering my clothes was the first civil and laic act, the first step towards the recovery of my identity. I even pushed my self-claims by using make-up, use a hair style and perfume! — high crime! — since perfumes are utterly forbidden by a policy letter written by the guru Hubbard himself. Perfumes might have awakened a vague impulse in this impotent and libidinous old man.
When I looked myself in the mirror, I was surprised; I had forgotten how good-looking I was. I encouraged myself with a great smile, I was ready to fight. Vauvenargues was right; the feeling of our strengths add to our strengths.
I went out of this room; a twenty square meters room where we slept 8 people on the floor. I went out of the den; the sun was shining and I remember I smiled when I saw the sky was so blue. I guess I had forgotten how limpid a sky could be. Staff lodging was located a few miles away from Flag Land Base (as they call it.) I knew no one would remain there on "duty hours", so I just walked away with my suitcase and civil outfit praying God nobody would see me. I called a taxi from a cabin outside. I continue to trust my luck and the cab came almost immediately. The taxi-driver was young, smiling, and curly blond. With a face like that, I thought he couldn't possibly be cursed with an innate streak of evil and decided to stake one's all.
— "Listen, I need your help. I need to go back to my country. I have different things to do. Leaning on him I said that I would pay whatever was necessary." He had this marvellous smile when he answered:
— "All right ma'am whatever you say!"
I then perilously launched a whole detailed operation; he then parked his car at a cafeteria where he did invited me to have a coffee. It was a typical flavorless American coffee which nevertheless turned exquisite on my palate in every respect; for it was the taste of natural things normal people usually do when gathering together in a common place to accomplish a social act. Today, I still have a special fondness for tasteless coffees.
— "Now, will you say that again to me ma'am, slowly please?"
My taxi-driver would repeat every sentence after me staring wide-eyed at me and scratching his biceps. Once in a while, he would slap his thighs to mark every step. "— So", I get started or "— Then", I wait for you. Every time he understood something, he would swallow big gulps of coffee. An adept running away from a sect to go back to her country was perhaps more exhilarating than shadowing cuckold husband's wife. Anyhow, he was extremely helpful to me; without his help, I might have failed.
— "Wait for me here please. If I do not come back within 15 minutes you can go to the police with this ID card (it was my sports club card) and you tell them I am being kept without my consent: you tell them the whole story."
My taxi driver would stare at the ID saying:
— "Oh my God..."
I entered the Org (short for organization) a separate building from Flag to see the HCO officer (personnel office.) He kept every staff's passport in a safe. With a big smile, I explained I needed the passport — "oh just a mere formality!" — to get my divorce. In a joking tone, I said I was delighted with the rapidity of the Florida court that only one more stamp was required, that I promised to bring it back within the day, that I was summoned to appear before the judge right this minute. Trusting my good spirits, he handed my beautiful passport. I must have had a funny smile whose intention was much more matching a polite invitation to go to hell than reiterating usual allegiance. Seeming to understand, he stood still and I threw him a perfectly blatant salute. A few yards away my taxi driver was waiting for me.
— "Go, go ahead fast!"
Shooting off, he told me someone was running behind the car shouting and making big gestures.
— "I've got my passport, I've made it!" I shouted.
— "Good girl!" he said, "good girl!"
I had a little car which was my unique space of freedom which I wouldn't have abandoned for nothing in the whole world. So we got inside the Fort Harrison garage, security guards did not recognize me since there was probably a difference between the RPF rags I used to have on and the tailor suit I was wearing. My car had to be pushed but my taxi driver was behind the car and I was behind the wheel; we went out hands down. I really had the luck of the Devil but I still needed my briefcase locked in RPF premises. At this hour of the day, I knew the bulk of the gulag battalion was attending to grand toilets curetting activities under the warder's flood of insults. I just needed a few seconds to take my briefcase and run. An RPFer was standing there not recognizing me the first 2 seconds. He did recognize me the last 2 seconds and without moving he tritely said:
— "What are you doing?
Because I knew that my car was 5 yards away, because I had been successful at every previous "operation", I found the necessary contempt to backlash, superbly arrogant:
— "I am blowing!" (meaning to leave the cult.)
When I got into my car, I noticed that he hadn't moved. He was supposed to howl in order to drive a crowd of RPFers-by, yet he didn't move, he said nothing. Perhaps he thought it was useless to intervene since I was out of reach. Maybe did he envy my gesture and respect that choice he knew a perilous one and of no return.
My taxi driver was so excited to witness such a successful manoeuvre in the very cult parade ground that he was just exhilarating. He was shouting " yahoo, yahoo" revolving his left arm, was smoking with his right hand and was driving with his left knee. As far as I was concerned, I simply felt I was back to life.
— "Taxi driver, bring me where I can sell my jewels!"
Without flinching he took me to a kind of warehouse store. He participated to the transaction as if he were a close friend of mine, he bargained in my place. I had a beautiful set of Cartier earrings and necklace jewels I always wore under the SO uniform or the gulag tee-shirt. My steel and blue dial Rolex watch disappeared along with my fine three gold collar... for a little more than the equivalent sum of an international air plane flight! When I got back to the cab I suddenly thought that fate would decide whether my taxi driver was to rip me off the little money he knew I had. On the contrary, he took me to a car warehouse where I could sell it for another pocketful of dollars. There again, he made the deal. He was there all the time assisting me. At the end, I gave him the amount of money he asked which was far from being excessive. He told me he was happy he could help but if I had nothing else urgent to do he was apologizing to leave me since he had to hit the road. I took his two hands inside of mine, squeezing them for a few seconds, I felt a weakness rising inside of me.
— "You'll be all right now", he said.
I never felt so sincerely thankful for anyone before. I shall never know my taxi driver's name. If he had cowboy's manners, he also had the heart of a prince. You can't forget a prince who saved your life. I bought my ticket plane. The following day, I was to leave this land of nightmare where I had known but hostility, coercion, detention, sleeping deprivation and lack of basic health care. Later on, late in life, I was to know the humiliation of a vast lie, the shame of having trusted and adhered to a huge scam. For the meantime, all I had left was the despair I felt since I had sold everything I had in "church donations" which in fact, weren't anything else than witchcraft's practices (upper levels). I had given up everything in my life, a job I liked, a country where I had been taking down roots, I had left the man I loved.
The only thing I wanted was to remain alone. Simply alone and feeling protected in my little car. I had found a calm place to park my car. It was a very nice wooden pier in front of St. Petersburg's bay. The view was enchanting, the coast was sparkling out of thousands lights, the deep blue night sky competing with a million stars, night was so peaceful... I was living a revolution inside of me. I was by turns thinking of drowning myself or committing mass murders. I spent the night in a waking state; my hand very close to the car key. However, I managed to relax; I put on a cassette. I closed my eyes. If I am asked today the following question; "what is freedom?" I invariably answer that freedom is when you are listening to Joan Baez inside a little car on a starlit night in front of the Mexican golf just after having escaped from a cult's gulag. The following day, I went to Tampa airport. I immediately asked to be put under the Consul's protection. Police officers invited me to sit down in one of the customs offices. They told me they would safely escort me to my plane and I had nothing to worry about. I was offered coffee. They were telling jokes to each other and I smiled. One of them asked me who or what I was afraid of. A voice came to my rescue:
— "Leave her alone, she told you, the lady's going home."
I was moved by this police officer's thoughtfulness. I nodded and concentrated on my cup of coffee. Out of tactfulness, they left me alone for a while. The one who had come to my rescue escorted me to my seat in the plane. In a protective manner, he taped my shoulder saying those words I shall never forget:
— "You're not the only one, you know, running away from that bloody 'Church of Scientology.' You'll be fine."
That is one of the most beautiful sentence I was ever told.
6. A goal: rebuild one self up |
"If reason builds a man, feelings
lead him." |
To conclude my story, I'd like to pay homage to the taxi driver, to the police officer, the first 2 anonymous persons whose help and compassion had been capital. I had the impression I was coming back to civilization, I had the feeling I was binding links with human kind. Spontaneous help was then possible? I had forgotten. The "wog's world" (derogatory term and racist term to signify anything outside the cult), the outside world constantly and fiendishly referred to as complete evil, could offer help and compassion. Every adept is frightened at the idea of making the move because when he has reached the point to ask for help, he is sort of repudiating himself. Many of them prefer to take refuge in a total mutism — in which I, myself remained during the ten-year period following my escape — rather than talking about a painful experience very unlikely to be understood anyway... It is also a matter of dignity. Sectarian phenomenon being very unknown, the ex-adept is likely to be immediately stigmatised. What is more, in order to talk about it, one must be able to find adequate words for it. Most of the case, the person is not ready yet to give a testimony. It takes quite a long time for a victim to rebuild oneself up. Then, the cult neologisms have replaced language. The victim finds himself using words only understood inside the cult.
The person's emotions and reactions are clues that are used by the person to show his distress. And that is only too natural. A cult victim needs to show his suffering, but doesn't succeed every time. We can find examples of severe and bizarre indoctrination in sectarian "literature". " Human emotion and reaction has a terrifying definition in the green dictionary ("Management Defined"), p270. Definition made up by a detestable, abominable monster called Hubbard who was indeed devoid of any human emotion and reaction. HE&R (short for human emotion and reaction) are but negative "emotions and reactions which aberrated human beings express". In other words, emotions are to be barred from human behaviour. But if emotions are excluded from human behaviour, man is simply dehumanized. That is what he wanted: Hubbard the vulture never wished anything else than nice complying robots, never pretended to better man's condition. This example taken among many, many others indoctrination examples, checks the victim of the cult to express his suffering which is deeply repressed.
The person is conditioned not to show his feelings.
It takes years to begin to express feelings towards the cult to talk about it simply because it takes years to replace loads of lies, to learn social behaviour again, to find new interests in life, to find one's own place in the "outside world", form a new couple sometimes and, if very courageous, have a new family. It is wrong to say: one can't change how one's made. It is really wrong; one can self-reconstruct partly thanks to anonymous people who little by little grant self confidence. One slowly rebuilds oneself and I'd say in different ways and step after step. Just as a house is not constructed all by once, but brick after brick, going from one room to the other. The mind has to get together as a puzzle, piece after piece. The only difference would be that there are far more pieces in a mental puzzle than there are bricks in a house...
Above all, the person reconstructs himself when he is ready to receive information; he can first be started by an information of the sectarian phenomenon, then, by information of the specific cult he has been a victim of. An ex-adept badly needs that information, yet he has to ask for them. If he needs to talk, allow him to do so; he may desperately need to put in words some of his experiences! In fact, when the victim begins to talk about his experiences, that means the person is healing. As far as I am concerned, I didn't speak about it simply because there weren't any "valid" interlocutor of course, but also because the Internet only came "home" 6 months ago. The web is fabulous because everything an ex-adept needs to find out is there ready to be read on the net. It gets him in contact with other cult ex-adepts who can hear, understand, inform and help him. Internet allows the person to remain anonymous, the web allows to be consulted at home, freely, at any time by the person. I think it is the best tool a person victim from a cult or totalitarian group can use in order to rebuild himself. It is significant to note that Scientology is deadly scared because of the impact of that extraordinary netcom; they tried to banish freedom of speech on the net, they attacked CAN (Cult Awareness network) which went bankrupt last year because of abusive legal proceedings, they outrageously raided private homes, steeling hardware and personal archives, they still repeatedly try to intimidate those who dare to use their Constitutional Rights to criticize them. It is, by the way, very amusing to see that the more they try to silence people, the more they get criticized by thousands of people in the net, they are thus manufacturing the worst publicity they could think of since they are now known at large for what they really are: a sinister and dangerous cult.
Scientologists follow their policies; nobody can change or adapt a policy — per Hubbard's policy. But the thing is that Hubbard is dead in 1986 failing to write a policy on Internet, he was already too sick to understand the web phenomenon. As nobody can change his policies, they find themselves awkwardly trapped and consistently make huge blunders... I guess they will stick to apply inadequate policies which is an extremely good news since most policies just don't work anyhow... So let them try to go on trial to impede freedom of speech which is an unbearable right for a totalitarian cult to tolerate. Internet has become the free international communication net: an enemy scientologists chaos merchants have swore to kill. It is true that Internet is being breezed by "wogs' free winds"!
Epilogue |
It is only when I discovered mid 1996 on Internet, moving testimonies from Monica Pignotti, Margery Wakefield, Hanna Whitfield and many others, that I have decided to write the story of my escape in January 97. There are thousands ex-adepts somewhere around the world who have suffered and have important abuses to denounce. I sincerely hope that those few anonymous pages will encourage those thousands cult victims to speak out, that is, anonymously if necessary.
Modern plague of this ending century is taking on a threatening form; cult proliferation is alarmingly vicious. We, who have been victims from cult's abuses must denounce and speak up for every psychic rape, intellectual and financial scam.
Write them up! Post them on the WEB!
What follows is a compilation of testimonies/affidavits from Scientology victims about the cult gulags. They tell the horror of those prison camps where special indoctrination is twinned by forced slave labour called RPF. I found them on the web, and I reproduce here only RPFs extracts. My commentary is added to situate the passage or summarize the situation. Reading those testimonies is a terrifying example of what those RPFs are and give, I think, a diversified look about those horrifying gulags.
RPF testimonies extracts listing |
| 1) Tonja Burden's affidavit, 1980 | RPF at FLAG Clearwater, Florida in 1977 |
| 2) Hana Whitfield's affidavit, 1989 | RPF at Flag, Clearwater, Florida in 1978 |
| 3) Dennis Erlich's testimony, 7-3-1996 | RPF at Flag, Clearwater, Florida in 1978 |
| 4) Ann Rosenblum's testimony | RPF at Flag, Clearwater, Florida, in 1978 |
| 5) Monica Pignotti's testimony, "My nine lives in Scientology" 1980 | RPF on board Apollo, in 1974 |
| 6) Larry Wollersheim's affidavit, 4-2-1980 | RPF on board Excalibur 1974? |
| 7) Stacy Young's affidavit,13-10-1994 | RPF at PAC , Los Angeles, California, in 1982 |
| 8) David Mayo's affidavit, 14-10-1994 | RPF at "Happy Valley" near Hemet, California, in 1980 |
| 9) Andre Tabayoyon's affidavit, 4-4-1994 | RPF at " Happy Valley" near Hemet, California, in 1987 |
| 10) Mental control techniques listing used in the RPF | André Tabayoyon: affidavit, 4-4-1994 |
Testimonies extracts from ex-adepts victims from physical and mental abuses on them and/or on others when assigned in the Scientology's gulags called: RPF and RPF's RPF.
1. Tonja burden's affidavit, 25-1-1980, Las Vegas, Nevada |
RPF at Flag, 1977.
Extract:
"... In the RPF you were labeled 'treasonous' and forced to work 18 hours a day.7 days a week and oftentimes received only 'rice and beans' and water. During this time I personally observed a person chained to pipes in the boiler room in the Fort Harrison building for a period of weeks. In the RPF I saw people screaming and crying during the constant auditing on the E-meter. RPF prisoners were forced to undergo auditing in order to audit out their evil purposes against Hubbard and Scientology. I cried virtually the whole time I was in the RPF."
Tonja Burden had been working in the SO since she was 13 years old and did not attend regular school. She was there simply because her parents had been recruited by the SO. Tonja escaped Flag RPF in November 1977. She was 17 and illiterate. She was kidnapped by 2 Hubbard's agents from whom she managed to escape. Tonja filed a 16 millions $ suit in April 1980, alleging she was used as slave labour by Hubbard in the CMO and was kidnapped a second time after she escaped. This was the case which forced Hubbard to go into hiding from Gilman in 1980. The requested damages rose in 1985 to 45 millions $†
† Ref.: "Who's who in Scientology". Lamont. Actualised in February 1997. (Newsgroup)
[rh: More about Tonja Burden]
2. Hana Whitfield's affidavit, 8-8-1989, Los Angeles, California |
RPF at Flag, Clearwater, Florida, 1978.
Extracts:
"... RPF members at that time were completely segregated from "normal" staff and slept, lived and often ate in the Fort Harrison garage in the midst of continual fumes. They were not allowed to talk to, mix with or eat with "normal" staff. They wore old, tattered, ripped up navy jump suits or boiler suits and looked like derelicts from skid row. Women were not allowed to use any makeup or have any hairdos. No jewelry was allowed. Even in the incredible hot and humid Florida summers, women were not allowed to wear shot cut-offs but had to wear longer shorts or skirts or long trousers. No clothing lighter than the heavy material the jump suits were made from could be worn initially. RPF members had to run all the time. They were not allowed to walk. They had to run while doing their cleaning assignments in bathrooms and toilets, while doing the garbage details or while going up and down the 12 flights of stairs in the Fort Harrison building carrying buckets, brooms and heavy cleaning equipment, and sometimes buckets full of heavy construction material. RPF members were not allowed to use the elevators, not even the service elevator. To prevent zoning, health and other city inspectors from seeing the RPF conditions as they really existed, all RPFers were practiced and skilled in transforming their normal RPF sleeping area into what looked like a regular furniture storage space, and doing so in a very short period of time. I often wished that someone from the city would spring a surprise visit on the Fort Harrison kitchen or garage or nursery but it never occurred. This is how we really lived in the RPF. Some of us slept on mattresses on the bare cement floor. Some had crude bunk beds. There was no place for clothes, so we lived out of suitcases and bags which were kept on the bare floors. Some privacy was maintained by hanging sheets up between bunks beds and between floor mattresses. The women and men had separate bathrooms and toilets but they were very small. We were not allowed to shower longer than 30 seconds. We had time only to run through the shower and out the other end. There was no spare time for talk or relaxation. We awoke at 6.30 A.M. or earlier at times, did hard labor and heavy construction work and cleaning until late afternoon. After a quick shower and change of clothing, we had to audit each other and "rehabilitate" ourselves until 10.30 P.M. or later each evening. There were no days off, no vacations. We worked seven days a week, four weeks a month. We ate our meals in the garage or at times in the dining rooms AFTER normal meals had ended. Our food consisted of leftovers from staff! On occasions which seemed like Christmas, we were able to prepare our selves fresh meals if leftovers were insufficient. The RPF maintained a very strict reform code which tolerated no insubordination or resistance of any kind whatsoever. Any resistance of such was dealt with by immediate push ups or running up and down the garage innumerable times. The slightest infraction earned hard and harsher penalties. Every rule had to be followed regardless of its correctness or applicability at any given point in time."
This is what she says about RPF's RPF:
"Certain infractions caused the person responsible to be assigned to the RPF's RPF, a place in the lower boiler room under the Fort Harrison Hotel, among the boilers and hot waters pipes which rambled and hissed 24 hours a day. The place was only dimly lit. It consisted of interconnecting-spaces through which one had to crawl on hands and knees at times past or underneath huge pipes and massive 10 foot high boilers. It had a dark, forbidding, somewhat scary place. One of my buddies was assigned to the RPF's RPF for two months for refusing to divulge confidential information for which she had been bonded in the Guardian's Office. She was kept in that space excommunicado for the entire time, with limited bathing and toilet privileges, all the time being threatened and verbally harassed by RPF superiors. She finally emerged a broken, silent, sullen person who soon after managed to escape from the RPF and the Fort Harrison Hotel. Her name was Lynn Froyland.
... Towards the end of 1978, I finally escaped. I left the RPF without approval and flew to New-York to friends. But within a week, the senior Ethics person at Flag, Tom Provenzano, located me and by phone threatened me with a Suppressive Person declare and with being sued, followed and never being left in peace again for the rest of my life if I did not immediately return to Clearwater. I broke down completely. I flew back to the RPF, but only after Provenzano had promised me I could speak with him about my assignment to the RPF when I returned. Of course, no such thing occurred. I had no idea that his "promise" was made solely to get me back to Clearwater. Once back to the RPF I succumbed. I returned to working and running and sweating and pain. After a year, I finally "graduated". I was a subdued quiet, obedient robot, a far more subservient and compliant one than at any time previously.
... I desperately hunted for a way out of my situation. I desperately wanted time to sleep, rest, think and above all, escape from the madness of the world I was in. I had no one to go to if I left, no money to go anywhere with and nowhere to go to anyway. My family lived overseas. I had no means to get to them and they had no means to assist me."
Hana Whitfield lived 15 years in the SO from 1967 to 1982. She originally was a nurse from South Africa. She was the Ethics Officer on board the "Avon River" and then promoted Captain directly under Hubbard's orders. Her first affidavit is very instructive about her experience in the cult. She was assigned to the RPF at Flag because she was critical of Hubbard and the SO.
Hana Whitfield left the SO three years later in 1982. It wasn't until 1984 that she discovered the menacing side of the cult. She had to follow a medical treatment for her headaches and dental treatment as well for years. She wrote a second affidavit where she reveals the harassments of Fair Game she's been subjected to for years...
[rh: More about Hana Whitfield]
3. Dennis Erlich's testimony, 7-3-1996 on WMNF — Radio Activity |
RPF at Flag, Clearwater, Florida, 1978.
Extract from the transcript:
"Rob Lorey:.. You were locked up by the church?
Dennis Erlich: Yeah, in the sub-basement of the Fort Harrison Hotel. I was placed in a cage, under guard, for about 10 days. I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone; I wasn't allowed to phone anyone; I was a prisoner there.
RL: Why were you locked up?
DE: I made a joke about the RPF — the Rehabilitation Project Force — which is their "re-education" work camp program, where it's sort of like in Russia, where they used to send people to work camps, to re-educate them, and they have this thing called the RPF where you get up, you're segregated. When I was in it, we slept in the garage, in the parking structure of the Fort Harrison Hotel, on the third floor. And you know, we had to breathe the exhaust of fumes from whatever cars and get woken up in the middle of the night, and we were up at the crack of dawn, you know, scrubbing toilets and dumping trash, and we worked until late at night and it was, you know, basically a prisoner program.
RL: ... Are you the only one that's been held against your will at the 'Church of Scientology' in Clearwater?
DE: Oh, no by any means. No, no, it's sort of a standard practice for them to incarcerate people who object to things — object to activities that are going on — so when I was in the basement, there was a woman — I can give her name; she was Lynn Froyland — and she was chained in the basement when I was there. And I have witnesses. There are other witnesses to that. There are people who have been kidnapped and taken, you know, all the way across the country and locked in rooms and — no, it's sort of a standard practice.
... Scientology basically is an occult practice that deals mostly with exorcism; more that's a fraud; that people are locked up and tortured. I have posted a bunch of this documentation to the internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, and I think I poked a hole in the... in their balloon, as far as their scam working."
Dennis Erlich had been the Chief Cramming Officer at the Clearwater headquarters of Scientology for about 15 years. When he refused to redo an "RPF program", he left in 1982.
Note: Hana Whithfield confirms this testimony; she had seen Lynn Froyland at Flag in the same year, 1978.
[rh: More about Dennis Erlich]
4. Ann Rosenblum's testimony |
RPF at Flag, Clearwater, Florida, 1978.
Extracts:
... "Auditing in the RPF almost destroyed me. For one thing, I had trouble going " Backtrack" into past lifes. After I finally learned "past track remedies" where you say anything that pops into your brain, like monsters or fighting space wars, or whatever, my imagination ran wild and I began to have two or three pictures popping up at one time, I wouldn't know actually which one was actually a past life or if it was my imagination or if they were all past lives but at different times, or what. I was " run" on stuff I'd already been run on. I had 3-4 drug rundowns, "re-verifications" of my method 1, 35 hours Op-pro-by-dup (a process where you walk back and forth examining and describing a book and a bottle, hours on end for weeks), etc, I was getting upset and the more upset I became, the more I was subjected to auditing. As my auditing program" deteriorated, I became more of a security threat and they then put me on security checks to go over all my overts and withholds. I finally just shut up, submitted, and let them audit whatever they wanted on me.
This led me to Expanded Dianetics. This is where you audit out or "run out" all your "evil purposes", and evil intentions and handle your "Rock Slams" (a particular reaction on the E-Meter that shows a person is completely psycho) Evil purposes that you run out are "to destroy" or "to kill" etc, I must have run dozens of these evil purposes, then we turned to my R/S handling. By now it's somewhere around the beginning of 1978, I think. I really have very little sense of time here- for one thing, one day was just like the next. There was no variation. Week-ends were the same as week-days. It's all sort of big lump to me- especially after I started on my Expanded Dianetics and my brain really started to come apart. I was in sort of a cloud or a daze most of the time, that's the only way I can describe it.
My R/S handling I think was the point where my brain wasn't just falling apart, but it started to get fried. I was running out all these evil purposes connected to the R/Ses, and I started spouting out the weirdest things like," to be somebody else", "to blow up a planet", "commit suicide", "to never grow up", "to kill myself", " to destroy bodies",". The list was endless. My brain was just getting fried on all of this. I mean I had to have been the most evil and craziest person that ever existed. I don't know how to describe what happened other than my brain was frying up. I felt like I was in a daze half of the time. I'd do things, sort of like watching myself doing them but not realizing it, as it was somebody else, except that I know it was me. I'd scream at my auditor, I'd throw down the cans to the E-meter that I was holding, I'd refuse to get auditing. I just created a real scene. So, of course, I ended up in ethics, and had a "body guard" put on me.
This whole thing was a period of weeks, I think. But actually, in the state I was in, it could have been 2 days or it could have been 2 months.
... Then I walked out of the garage, jumped over the wall, and just kept walking. No one noticed me, I don't think anyone knew I had left Sick Bay, so I was not guarded all the time.
I walked as a zombie for about 15 minutes, at least I think it was about 15 minutes. I began to realize I had just jumped over the wall. I was in serious trouble. I was petrified and wanted to return but if I did, I would be under guard again and placed in the RPF's RPF. I would also again be placed on their Bad Indicators (BI) list, which consisted of people who were under guard at all times. I was on the B.I. list when I was taken off the C/S post, except no one knows I left the sick room, so they hadn't assigned a guard to me yet.
I'm not sure where I was, somewhere on Fort Harrison Avenue, I think. I sat down on a stairway to figure out what to do. Then I remembered I had made that phone call to get my friend's number, so I walked to a 7-11 and called her. I received directions to her house. It was approximately 4-5 miles. I walked it, and when I got there, there were 4-5 guys waiting for me. I completely broke down when I saw them, crying and carrying on. I told them I wanted to talk to my friend alone. I was pretty incoherent talking to my friend. I wasn't making too much sense by this point, and the tears were just flowing. I kept crying about how I couldn't handle the RPF anymore. That, it was not them but it was me; I said that I needed Expanded Dianetics and I had to get myself handled because I was psychotic, but I couldn't get it handled while in the RPF because I was too "restimulated"; and therefore, I would never get out of the RPF. I was just rambling. Meanwhile, my friend was convincing me to return to the RPF. She said I would be a fool not to go back because I'd have such a "freeloader bill" that I could never pay it back. She told me of a friend of ours who had left Scientology, and then was killed in a motorcycle accident. If I left I'd probably pull in a "motivator" like that (Scientology believes that if you do something bad, then something bad will happen back to you-called a motivator). Finally, I agreed to go back, and route out" of the "Sea org".
So I was escorted back by the guys, and put under immediate guard. I think by now it's about the beginning of August. The next few weeks until I actually left are pretty hazy to me- sort of like mass of confusion. I know I got a "Court of Ethics" and a "Committee of Evidence" and a "Fitness Board". All of these were ethics actions showing how bad I was for wanting to leave. If I began to "doubt" about Scientology the MAA would tell me that I was not doing the formulas right and to go back and do them again. I was slowly becoming crazy.
Meanwhile I was under guard and refused to work most of the time, I was a real "basket case". I finally reached a point where they would let me sit and do nothing, or work on my condition formulas all day long with someone watching me. Sometimes they would have 2 people watching me. One of the MAA's tried to throw me to the RPF's RPF, but I screamed and yelled that I would "bite" him if he touched me. So they just let me sit, except for hassling me during the day about being a freeloader". They would say: "Don't you think you should do a little work, at least to pay for the food you're eating?" I usually replied with a "no". Sometimes I agreed to work. I think they were at a point they just didn't know what to do with me anymore.
I finally announced that if I didn't leave I would become insane.
... On September 2, 1978, I boarded an airplane to Colorado with pre-paid tickets from my parents.
If I could sum the RPF up in just one sentence, it would probably be: IT IS A PROCESS BY WHICH THEY MAKE YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE PSYCHOTIC, AND THEN YOU ACTUALLY DO BECOME PSYCHOTIC."
Ann Rosenblum was a CMO executive; she held an important post in West Headquarters, La Quinta, California. In the RPF, she indeed received many a sec-check. Among those security checks, she says in her testimony she received a special security check written by the CMO on everything she had been involved with or knew as a Messenger. How ironical it was for her, since she had herself written a classified Confessional of limited distribution! On the 3 March 1977, just a few months before her being assigned to the RPF, she wrote a sec-check, 231 questions long, which she signed by her name and post: Commodore's Messenger and approved by Hubbard...
Ann Rosenblum was just 23 in 1978. She managed to reconstruct herself partly because of her parents' love.
Her 15 pages testimony on the RPF is moving and very complete.
[rh: More about Ann Rosenblum]
5. Monica Pignotti's testimony in 1989 |
"My nine lives in Scientology"
RPF on board Apollo, 1974
Extracts:
The Lesson of the RPF:
In January 1975, I was once again on the RPF. This time, however, it was not like the RPF in 1974 that I had been through the first time. This group of RPFers did not pull together to help each other through and it was not so easy for me to get out. A new feature of the RPF had been invented called the RPF's RPF, for people who got into trouble on the RPF. A person assigned to the RPF's RPF had to work deep down in the engine room of the ship all day, cleaning out bilges and was supposed to sleep in the chain locker. No communication with anyone was allowed except for the RPF's ethics officer. The first person assigned to the RPF's RPF was an executive from London named Ron Hopkins. I caught occasional glimpses of him on his way to and from the engine room. He was covered with muck from the bilges and looked miserable. He still had a chest cough from a bout of pneumonia he was obviously still recovering from.
... Life on the RPF was hard, beginning each day at 5.30. We were divided into groups of 5-7 people. The women's team cleaned all the heads ( bathrooms) on the ship, certain passageways and lounges, such as the aft lounge. Cleaning the heads didn't mean just swishing some toilet bowl cleaner around and going on to the next one. We had to scrub down the entire bathroom, including all the bulkheads (walls) and ceilings. After we cleaned an area, it had to pass a white glove inspection. If the glove came up dirty, the person who cleaned that area had to run laps from bow to stern of the ship (about 1/5 of a mile each). One time, when my senior wasn't satisfied the way I cleaned a bathroom, she ordered me to " take a lap". I protested because I thought she was being unfair and her reply was: " Don't Q&A with me. Take 2 laps." I objected again and she said: "Take 4 laps!" This went on until I was up to 10 laps, which I eventually had to do. Another time, I was ordered to run laps and I walked them instead. The person in charge of the RPF at the time, Homer Schomer, caught me walking and ran after me. I tried to run away from him, but he was too fast for me. He caught me by physically grabbing me and I ended up having to do more laps. The lesson we were to learn on the RPF was to obey orders without question, regardless of how we felt about it or who was giving the orders. This was a lesson that I was, obviously very unwilling to learn. I had not learned it my first time on the RPF, so I was back a second time. Blind obedience violated everything I had ever valued. I had thought that Scientology was about independence and self-determinism, not blind obedience to authority.
... I felt desolated. There seemed to be no hope for me getting out of the RPF. I can remember on day when I completely broke down. I went down to the lower hold where the RPF classroom was and cried like I have never cried before in my life. It felt like I was never going to stop. I felt totally out of control. Finally, Ron Hopkins went to the medical officer and got me some Cal-Mag which was supposed to calm me down so I could get some rest. It seemed to work for a few hours, but the next day, my grief came back. I went through several days where I couldn't stop crying. I was in a deep state of mourning. ...On an emotional level, I had come to the realization that Scientology was a sham, but only on an emotional level. I had no words to describe my loss at the time. There was no exit counsellor or deprogrammer around to help me see what was really happening. All I knew was that I felt worse than I ever had in my entire life.
David Mayo noticed the state I was in and seemed very concerned, but not even the senior case supervisor could fix what was wrong with me. I felt I had lost everything. I had come with great dreams and visions about what could be and I had worked hard to make those dreams a reality.
... I had lost my ability to be angry. All I could do was cry. As unhappy as I was, I believed that life outside of Scientology would be much worse.
... And so it came to pass that on May 26 1975, I was assigned to the RPF's RPF. I spent very long days down in the engine room, cleaning foul smelling muck out of the bilges and then painting them. Fortunately, Ron Hopkins showed me some mercy and I didn't have to sleep in the chain locker. I was assigned a condition of enemy and to get out of it, I had to write up the formula, which was "find out who you really are". I wrote the formula and submitted it to Ron Hopkins, but he wouldn't accept what I had written. I didn't know what he wanted me to write. For days, I struggled to find an answer that would satisfy him. Who was I? At that point, I really didn't know. If I had known who I really was I would have let them throw me out and gotten as far away from the ship and everyone aboard as I could. But leaving Scientology was a possibility that I was not willing to consider. I felt that leaving Scientology would be worse than whatever hell I was going through on the ship.
I spent 5 days on the RPF's RPF, but it seemed much longer. I wasn't allowed to communicate with anyone except Ron Hopkins. I determined that I would hang onto what little sanity I had left. The way I did this was to shut off all my emotions. It was a matter of survival. I finally wrote up my formula to Ron's satisfaction and got me out of the RPF's RPF. I had been broken after a long hard struggle. When Ron Hopkins said:" that's it, you're assigned to the RPF's RPF on May 26, 1975 in the aft lounge of the Flagship Apollo, something snapped in me and I no longer had any urge to fight back.
I was no longer angry; I was no longer sad; I was no longer happy; I felt nothing. I simply did as I was told.
At long last, I had learned the lesson of the RPF.
... Up to this point, I have not been at a loss for words in describing my experiences but now I feel myself feeling that I have little to say about the period that followed my being released from RPF's RPF. Perhaps this is because there was very little of me during that time. My cult identity had taken over and I had become a Rondroid, a robot for LRH. I had stopped causing trouble and did as I was told."
Monica Pignotti lived in Scientology 6 years from 1971 to 1976. She was only 18 in 1971 when she was working as a staff auditor in Salt Lake City Mission. In 1973 she joined the SO at AOLA; she was already OT 3 and a Class VI auditor. As her reputation of being a good auditor was growing, Mary Sue Hubbard (the guru's wife) invites her personally to go to the Flagship Apollo where Hubbard lived. That was considered to be an honor. She lived there 2 years and witnessed unbelievable incidents onboard the ship. She told her experience very accurately in her excellent testimony. She was arbitrarily assigned to the RPF twice and once to the RPF's RPF onboard the ship.
When she finally emerged from those terrifying imprisonments Monica stayed a little while at the Flag land base after the Flagship had been sold in 1975. She held against her wishes the post of D of P at AOLA in May 1976. In August 1976, after she was threatened to have a Com Ev (equivalent to a court martial) she took a bus to Michigan the day after. She went to her mother's and during 9 months, she did nothing else than trying to understand what had happened and to adapt herself to her new life. She went to the Michigan University and passed a BA, then a Masters Degree in Social Work, passed her licensing exam (CSW) and is now a certified mental health professional in New York. (Since update August1996).
[rh: More about Monica Pignotti]
6. Larry D. Wollersheim's affidavit, 4-2-1980 |
RPF onboard "Excalibur" 1974?
Extract:
... Finally the cult assigned me to the RPF, which meant I was evil and that I had to rehabilitate myself. That experience was the most degrading experience of my life. The RPF on onboard the "Excalibur" was moored at San Pedro, California. We were imprisoned except when we had to clean the ship decks which was a small area. The food was so bad that a person called Bill Yaude was hospitalized because of malnutrition. I spent my days wondering why I was so evil and rebel to the cult orders and to cult policies. They were "saving mankind" and I was then against the only organization working to save the planet! I was audited and corrected on past auditing again and again, until I could no longer take it. Then I secretly planned to jump overboard. When I tried to do it, I was caught and maintained onboard until the Ethics officer came and told me what would happen to me if I left; I would be declared an SP and in treason. I bought the threat and went back to the RPF. Long weeks afterwards, I was freed from the RPF and told I was put there on a mistake".
Larry D. Wollersheim has been suing Scientology since 1985. When he launched his civil case he placed the OT levels in the court record. (Lamont.) He won a 2.5 $ which was never paid by the cult. Instead, Scientology has incessantly been appealing and taking advantage of the justice system to continue to harass Wollersheim and not pay him. In the Net, it is commonly referred to "Wollersheim the V"!
Julia Darcondo tells in her book ;Voyage Au Centre de la Secte† published in 1987, how she helped Larry to escape from Copenhagen RPF. Larry could not endure to suffering through an other RPF and managed to escape. ... "He had run right in front of him, on the deserted streets. He then saw me carrying my suitcase. He knew me from sight and that I was a public from Paris Org. He then staked his all, risking his being denounced. His expression was still charged with terror." (extract from Julia Darcondo's book)
†Copyrights of that book were mysteriously bought by the cult!
[rh: More about Larry Wollersheim]
7. Stacy Young's affidavit, 13-10-1994 |
RPF at PAC, Los Angeles, California, 1982
Extracts:
...177) " Miscavige charged me with being an agent who had been sent in to destroy Scientology. He claimed that I was working for Michael Flynn, an attorney who was successfully litigating against Scientology at that time. He ordered me to submit to what was known as a " gang-bang" sec check. Two very large, strong men, André Tabayoyon and Rick Aznaran, locked me in a room and interrogated me for hours. During the interrogation, they screamed and swore at me. They accused me of all sorts of crimes against Scientology. They demanded that I confess to being an enemy agent.
178) Miscavige had also ordered me to do the " Running Program" as part of the requirements for getting off the RPF. This consisted of running around an orange pole for 12 hours a day. I was supposed to do that until I had some sort of realization about what was wrong with me, whereupon, presumably, I would stop being critical of him.
179) After one of the gang-bang sec check sessions, I was extremely upset. I was not paying sufficiently careful attention to where I was placing my feet as I ran around the orange pole. I ran straight-legged into a pothole about a foot deep and smashed one of my sacroiliac disks. This put me flat on my back. I was unable to walk. I was under orders from a doctor not to move because he thought ther was a danger that I might suffer paralysis from movement before the swelling in the disk subsided. I paid for the doctor myself, since Miscavige had ordered that no one give me any assistance whatsoever and, indeed, I was not paid at all for several months on the RPF.
180) Despite my medical condition, diagnosed by a Scientologist doctor, Miscavige issued orders that I be sent to Florida to get me as far away from my husband as possible. Miscavige said he was afraid I would turn my husband against him. A Commodore's Messenger burst into my room one evening and ordered me to pack immediately so that I could catch a flight to Clearwater that night. I was to be transferred to the RPF at the Flag Land Base, another Scientology compound. I protested, she continued to insist that I get up until I was finally able to get her on the phone with the doctor, who told her the church would be responsible if I ended up paralysed.
181) Although Miscavige allowed me to remain in Los Angeles, I was imprisoned, under guard, on the seventh floor of the building, so that I could not escape and reach my husband. We were not allowed to see each other at all for 3 months and even our letters to each other were intercepted. Neither of us knew what had happened to the other and it was agonizing for both of us. I was under threat of expulsion and I believed that if I were expelled I would never see my husband again. I was deathly afraid that Miscavige would lie to my husband about me and turn him against me. I finally convinced Miscavige that I was not a threat to him, and my husband and I were allowed to see each other again. Miscavige Rules Via the Sea Organization: There is No Corporate Integrity.
182) Horror stories like this could be told by any Scientology staff member who had worked in close proximity with Miscavige. The only people who will talk about him, however, are those who have left, because as long as they are inside he virtually holds the power of life and death over them. He can separate them from the spouses, separate them from their children, keep them from sleeping, keep them from eating anything but rice and beans, imprison them for years in the prison camps known as the RPF. Miscavige's power is absolute, and it has nothing to do with corporate boundaries. As did Hubbard before him, he wields his power via the Sea Organization, which is an unincorporated, fiercely dedicated, group of Scientologists. It is the Sea Org that actually runs all of Scientology."
Stacy Young held several executive posts during the 15 years she worked in the SO; from 1975 to 1989. In direct contact with the new guru called Miscavige whom she was the scapegoat, her testimony is extremely revealing, all the more interesting since she held key posts in Management; Office of the Guardian (OSA) and ASI.
[rh: More about Stacy Brooks Young]
8. David Mayo's affidavit, 14-10-1994 |
RPF at "Happy Valley" near Hemet, California, 1982.
Extracts:
... 14) On August 29, 1982, David Miscavige, and others, acting on the orders of L. Ron Hubbard, kidnapped me and subsequently kept me captive and physically and mentally abused me for 6 months during this period, Miscavige, an officer and director of RTC, told me in the presence of Vicki Aznaran, President of RTC, Mark Yaeger, Commanding Officer, CMO INT of CSI that if I ever escaped, he would personally see to it that the resources of the Church of Scientology would destroy my character and reputation internationally. During that 6 month period of captivity, I was forced to run around a tree in the desert in temperatures of up to 110 ° for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 3 months. I was under tremendous coercion and duress, I was refused medical and dental treatment (after escaping activity I lost 6 teeth and required thousands of dollars of dental work to save the rest of my teeth) I was not permitted to make or receive phone calls and all letters I wrote were read by Scientology security guards. I was awakened during the night and interrogated (mainly by Jesse Prince) In early February 1983, I was told by Rick Aznaran, Director of Security, RTC, (husband of Vicki Aznaran, President of RTC) to get the idea of leaving out of my head because I would never leave the property alive.
...17) I was in extreme danger and under substantial duress during the 6 month period of captivity and torture. The duress affected me even after my escape."
David Mayo was Senior C/S Int until 1982 and an initial trustee of RTC. He had worked directly with Hubbard, was his former Senior aide. He says he was the primary source of NOTs and Solo NOTs, he was Hubbard's auditor on NOTs. Theoretically, he was the testamentary heir as far as the cult technology was concerned, but he was arbitrarily taken out, along with many others, by David Miscavige after a power struggle in which he won absolute control over the multinational cult. David Mayo headed a breakaway movement called "The Advanced Ability Center" in Santa Barbara until it was closed in 1986. David and Julie Mayo have been living in the Dominican Republic since 1988. Needless to say that they have been constantly and outrageously harassed ever since they left Scientology. In August 1994, David Mayo was even sent in jail in Santo Domingo accused of "practising Scientology without a licence"; he was released the day after without being charged since he had not committed any crime.†
† Ref: Julie Mayo's posting on Newsgroup.
9. Andre Tabayoyon's affidavit, 4-4-1994 |
RPF at " Happy Valley" near Hemet, California, 1987
Extract:
..." 72) In 1987, I observed Miscavige order Vicki Aznaran incarcerated at a place called Happy Valley. Happy Valley was a ranch 11 miles away from the Gold base near Hemet. It was then one of the RPF Scientology correction and detention facilities. Vicki had been the Senior Executive in RTC. Miscavige won a power struggle and took her off that post. He ordered her into the RPF which was part of Gold, a unit in CSI.
73) I was at the Happy Valley complex when Vicki was driven up. She arrived in one car. Miscavige arrived in another car right behind her. After Vicki and Miscavige had left the respective cars in which they arrived, I heard Miscavige scream at Vicki: " You're going to do the f---ing RPF". I didn't see or hear Vicki make any response. I saw her go into the berthing facility.
74) A short time later, I spoke to Miscavige during his inspection of the stairs and patio of a building which was under construction at the base. He was wearing a new captain's uniform, a rank to which he appointed himself. I complimented him in his new uniform. Miscavige told me that Vicki, Jesse Prince and Spike Bush. He said: " I'm almost positive they won't make it through the RPF. They're criminals".
75) Vicki spent 120 days on the RPF. As Director of Renovations and Construction Gold, a CSI department at the Gold base, I was in charge of supervising the work performed by the RPF at the time. Miscavige instructed us to keep a close watch kept on Vicki because he feared she would try to escape.
76) For 12 hours every day, for the duration of her stay, except for the few occasions when she was too ill to move, I saw her run around a pole (" the running program"). This is one of the most severe forms of RPF. It is reserved for persons deemed to be in a very low ethics status. It is often regarded as a program to contain persons regarded as crazy by the Scientology hierarchy. In addition to the running program, Vicki was also working on other projects for an additional 5 hours a day.
77) Eventually, Vicki successfully escaped from the RPF. She is now suing Scientology."
Note: Strangely enough, Vicki Aznaran did not even mention her RPF "experiences" in her own affidavit, 7-3-1994.
[rh: More about Vicki Aznaran]
10. Mental control techniques listing used in the RPF |
André Tabayoyon's affidavit, 4-4-1994
Extracts:
... 11) The indoctrination I received in the Sea Organization was extensive. It fully acquainted me with the coercive methods that Scientology uses on its staff and public. My training included the following courses which had the content as indicated below:
A) FLAG EXECUTIVE BRIEFING COURSE (FEBC)
All the policy ever written by Hubbard about the running, debugging, and if needed the creation of a complete organization using thought reform ideas and practices in conjunction with coercive persuasion on the staff and public.
B) ORG EXECUTIVE COURSE (OEC) (same as above)
D) REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE INDOCTRINATION TRAINING
E) REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE SECTION OFFICER HAT
F) REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE MASTER AT ARMS HAT
I learned in the above courses how to use thought reform processes to make persons amenable to persuasion.
G) REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE TECH IN CHARGE HAT
I learned how to administer various thought, ideological and social reform procedures to reorient now compliant subjects of thought reform- to accept Scientology goals as articulated by Hubbard and / Miscavige.
H) REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE QUAL IN CHARGE HAT
This training taught me how to recognize misapplication of thought, ideological and social reform procedures so as to maximize the effect that coercive persuasion had on subjects under my supervision.
I) REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE SUPERVISOR TRAINING
I was taught how to use thought reform procedures to change the most fundamental aspects of a subject's personality and exact a commitment from the subject to further Scientology's goals of clearing planet Earth.
J) REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE AUDITOR TRAINING
I learned how to use thought reform to coerce subjects into confessing their crimes and sins against Scientology as a step towards their "rehabilitation" as dedicated Scientologists.
K) ROLL BACK TRAINING
I received training on how to trace rumors, statements of disaffection or anti-Scientology thought back to its source so that it could be obliterated and sources of disaffection eliminated.
L) BLACK PR RUNDOWN TRAINING
This training was to teach you how to find out who is spreading negative information and to fully handle him with coercive mind practices. I learned how to ferret out negative information about Scientology; once you found out, those who are guilty become targets for internal " fair game" tactics such as the RPF's RPF or general mental abuse.
M) TRUTH RUNDOWN TRAINING
I learned how to use thought reform to correct improper conduct by persons spreading rumors or black PR about Scientology.
N) INTROSPECTION TRAINING
I learned Scientology techniques to reach persons who had suffered psychotic breaks during the thought reform process. Persons in this condition were not capable of relating to the real world. For the most part, introspection training focused on limiting the stimuli to which the victims were exposed with the hope that over time they would recover.
O) FALSE PURPOSE RUNDOWN TRAINING
These are a whole series of thought reform practices used to change people's way of thinking. I learned how to supervise auditors reforming thoughts of people while on the RPF.
P) FALSE DATA STRIPPING TRAINING
This is a technique to ferret out and remove out tech (Non-orthodox Scientology) ideas and to replace the out tech ideas with Hubbard's information.
Q) TOO GRUESOME TRAINING
This training teaches a supervisor how to instil complete terror and abject fear in subordinates so that subordinates will comply with the supervisor's orders without questions. I have been a member of various Churches of Scientology for 21 years from 1971 to 1992. During this time, I received extensive and intensive training as a Scientologist.
...16) The Sea Organization is to Scientology what the Communist Party was to Soviet Russia and the Gestapo was to Nazi Germany. Indeed, Sea Org members were not allowed to read communist doctrines, or magazines and books about mind control and thought reform because of the similarity to the Sea Org life that these documents present.
... 18) As a Sea Org member, I received thousands of hours of training in basic Sea Org policy. In 1977, I was assigned to the RPF for 18 months. In 1980, I was assigned to the RPF for another 2 1/2 years. In 1987, I was again assigned to the RPF for another 18 months. Accordingly, I spent approx. 6 years in total on the RPF. During these 6 years I also spent time-- 19 full days-- on the RPF's RPF. The RPF's RPF is designed to totally destroy any individual determinism to not want to do the RPF. RPF is a totally involuntary type of gulag or concentration camp. In order to get out, and stay out, you must prove that you have altered the ideals, morals, social and emotional attitudinal values of another member of the RPF of a long duration as evidenced by the physical actions and motions of the person so altered. One must also prepare written evidence in the form of success stories of how wonderful and voluntary the RPF was.
André Tabayoyon has had the courage to write a thirty pages testimony which is an unbelievable account of the life lived inside secret headquarters of the cult. I just took extracts having to do with RPF, but reading the entire affidavit is extremely enlightening. In fact, each testimony, affidavit, book, from which I have presented an extract, show a particular sinister and hidden part of the cult of Scientology.
André Tabayoyon escaped the cult after 20 years of loyal "services" taking with him his wife Mary† but failing to locate his 21 years old son whom he has not seen since. He left Hemet base in December 92, since he felt he had suddenly fallen from grace to Miscavige's eyes. He knew he would have been ordered to run around a pole 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for months if he didn't leave in time. He already knew all atrocities committed on others...
I shall not throw the first stone at someone who took the risk of writing such a stunning affidavit, but still, I have this strange feeling about André Tabayoyon; he never, not once in his testimony, showed the slightest hint of remorse, or compassion towards horrors practised on staff. But looking at the dates, there is no wonder; only16 months separate the time he left, to the time he wrote the affidavit.
[rh: More about Andre Tabayoyon]
† Mary Tabayoyon has written a breathtaking affidavit on systematic abortion practices demanded of all Sea Organization personnel.
End of second part
Posted in May 1997
Nefertiti
A BUG FOR CO$
END of Nefertiti's story of an escape from Scientology's RPF