Michael Pattinson's Experiences with Scientology - Part 6

By Michael Pattinson

Source: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/1f8424e33b0d8923

Part 6

While I was a resident of Monaco for 2 years (Monaco-Monte Carlo is in the south of France, near Nice) I painted, audited O.T.7 full-time and worked at improving my art promotional slide-show.

I went back to Flag every 6 months or so to get verified as to my progress on the level. It was 1983-84-85. I stayed out of the internal power-politics of the whole scene and minded my own business while getting through O.T.7. In 1985 it seemed that the situation had settled down and was pretty bearable even though the spirit had gone from the group to a very large degree.

I went to Mexico to promote my art and did quite well there after getting through the awful sickness of reaction to either water or food for a few terrible days. I made some money, some friends and some new art prospects in a short period, some Scientologists and others not. I was, however, very very shocked at the disparity of wealth and income between the Scientologists and their employees. I visited their factories and understood that the people working there earned about $60 a month but the "boss" (an O.T. 7) was getting over $50,000.00 a month for showing up occasionally. He was donating heavily (hundreds of thousands of dollars) to Scientology (I don't want to name names here, but there were about 12 people I knew in similar situations) and getting Scientology accolades for being so "upstat" and admirable.

It was disheartening and sickening to see the lazy bosses in their marble palaces with Olympic size swimming pool in the living room, while the families of the workers struggled to even have food and makeshift shelters. This was, surely, a problem of Mexican society, not of Scientology, but it was eye-opening to me to see the truth behind the "upstat" donors and their ego-trips being made on the backs of exploited workers. "Exchange" was not "in" but it didn't apparently matter to those receiving the donations in the "church". One senior Mexican O.T. 7 was in business in the clothing industry. Their way of doing business, so I found out, was to go to Spain, buy attractive baby clothes, take them back to Mexico and copy the designs for free as plagiarized styles. I got really sick of the attitudes there and moved to Clearwater to be near Flag and complete my O.T.7.

I moved into a building near the Sandcastle Hotel, where O.T.7 was being supervised. I continued the level and attended Flag events. For those who don't know, the annual menu of "events" in Scientology are a great part of the "group bonding" of the whole world-wide structure. typically, the biggest events were on March 13th for Hubbard's Birthday, May 9th for 1950 launch of Dianetics Book anniversary and New Year Event. At Flag the Sea Org anniversary, I think it is some time in September? was a big deal. At these events, which resemble each-other dramatically, Scientology International management makes its rare public appearances, all "dressed to kill" (hmmmm) in tuxedos or naval uniforms and give off shopping lists of "wins", "breakthroughs", statistics (usually with blank graphs without actual numbers), victories over psychiatrists, results in the fight against pharmaceuticals such as Ritalin etc., legal victories over insane suppressive enemies or ex-members who were yapping too loudly and new incursions into social fields such as education, drug abuse rehabilitation, prisons or mental health.

Attendees, such as myself and the 2,000 or so other people at these packed Flag Auditorium events, got regular exercise during the proceedings due to the yo-yo effect of giving Ron Hubbard's big stage photo standing ovations every few minutes due to the grandiosity of the "news" and the apparently overwhelming successes Scientology was reported to be having in the world. The Management regime took turns at giving, from their own specialized areas, the "impressive successes", amazing breakthroughs for sale, new books and courses for sale, new art properties for sale, new auditing actions for sale, donations (sales) to further pet management projects, and awards to the most "upstat" donors to sell the idea that others should follow suit by giving huge donations too, etc. After the events the public people (clients) would habitually be met by a wall of staff members all selling the new releases and getting commissions on the sales. With the paltry amounts they usually earned they were almost hysterically motivated to sell anyone anything on the spot.

These events were the medium to cement the group together several times a year and to over-ride individual upsets, disagreements, annoyances or doubts about being a dutifully contributing member. The cheering of Ron, the hip-hip hoorahs yoy-yo repetitive process, the amazingly admirable successes, stats, awards, releases... all went to bond me and the other attendees into the group anew whatever pain or frustrations I was going through while trying to get to O.T. 8 and the powers and abilities that were "surely" there. The group enthusiasm was contagious to a point of being addictive. This may explain a few
things to more than a few people.

By this time the dry-land navy (Sea Organization) had found a way of getting a big ship to sail on. The answer was simple....get the Scientology public to donate one! We were asked, over and over, to make Ship donations for the New O.T. levels "that could not be delivered on dry land!!" Wow, well I did donate a bit but not too much. Others, mostly Mexican businessmen (ahem) donated hundreds of thousands of dollars each, some others, Americans, Germans, French, Israelis and more...donated millions in part-payments and packages for OT8 and OT9, with Ship Accommodations, named cabins, were being sold in large quantities. Eventually the cruise ship "Boheme" was purchased for about $30million and extensively renovated. It was later named the "Freewinds" and was based in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, just north of the Venezuelan coast.

It was being readied for "NEW O.T.8 !!!!!" Wowwwww! To my mind, if OT8 had to absolutely be delivered at sea it must be because it made us so powerful that landlubbers must not be alarmed or overwhelmed by it all. Something of the order of "A being at Cause over life, matter, energy, space, time, both subjective and objective"... as was advertised on the Hubbard Grade Chart!

Well, back to reality; my attempts to get "cured" of being gay per Hubbard's book writings that he could do so by my using his tech (as was a constant factor in all my auditing endeavors) met with results that were up-and-down, on-and-off, and temporary to say the least. It was not working and I could see no real results that lasted more than a few hours or a day or two. It was still ruining my life as a Scientologist and I got sent to "ethics" over and over and over for "handlings", ethics conditions, repairs, reviews, ad nauseam. It was as if I were trying to do away with a part of myself that, according to the group, "shouldn't be there" and was an aberration to be erased. No amount of releasing (apparently) of dead space aliens and dark entities from my body had a lasting effect on my being gay or straight, even when I got special "tailor-made" auditing on the subject.

By the end of 1985 I was still plodding on relentlessly with hopes and aspirations about getting to be a heterosexual disembodied causative spirit with amazing powers of telekinesis and effective thought projection. We heard Ron's tape (cassette) of his 1986 "New Year's Message" where we heard the voice say that OT8 was ready to be delivered. The picture I had of Ron being there on the Ship to greet us and make us superhuman was mentally surrounded in dazzlingly bright lights of hope and accomplishment.

In January 1986 those lights went out. (see part 7)

WHAT I SAW, WHAT I LEARNED LATER ABOUT SOME OF THESE MATTERS:

1. Although the lawyers and tax-IRS-related personnel who actually owned Scientology (such as those in "Church of Spiritual Technology", C.S.T.) were manipulating and running a lot of corporate things which affected our lives they were never seen or heard of by us at events. They were "non-existent" as far as we were concerned. Such people had a "zero profile" to the membership. Apart from seeing them at events, the management's daily activities or dealings, handling of vast amounts of monies was "invisible" to even staff at any lower level. Where the money went was anyone's guess. The actual use of monies by management still remains a big mystery today, but some data is available on the internet.

2. The Ship, Freewinds, was needed by the Sea Org (so their little navy could be re-hydrated) and the I.A.S. (so it could have an off-shore command centre from which to attack various governments with outrageous P.R. etc...Germany was one). The full page ads with black propaganda against foreign governments were framed and displayed by the I.A.S. offices on deck C of the Freewinds. It was/is a floating base that can move away from retaliations.

3. OT9 was sold in huge quantities but never has been delivered to anyone. It may not even exist in fact.

4. The actual statistics given out in wildly ascending graph trend lines at the events I attended may have been often false and misleading. Realities often bore little resemblance to the dynamics of "stellar" (a frequent buzz-word) stats and expansion when I visited many orgs and missions with my art show. The states and conditions of things "on the ground", I could directly observe, were wildly at variance with the glowing reports and adrenalin-rush "astounding science fiction" feats of magnificence given out at events. On many occasions while I was giving art lectures and pep talks as a celebrity in orgs and missions (I gave over 200 events in about 40 cities from 1980 to about 1989) the local top executives would confide in me their difficulties on post etc... so I had a very good over-view of what the realities were when compared to the management reports to us. It got worse and worse as time went by.

[Previous] [Next]

Scientology Critical Information Directory

Michael Pattinson's Experiences with Scientology - Part 6

By Michael Pattinson

Part 6

WHAT I SAW, WHAT I LEARNED LATER ABOUT SOME OF THESE MATTERS: