The following article will clearly show how the principles contained in the “Brainwashing” manual or “Psychopolitics” manual have been applied to the Sea Organization.
This manual was said to have been written by Russian communists, but was in fact written entirely by L. Ron Hubbard. (See Psychopolitics Manual for evidence of this)
The Sea Organization:
The Sea Organization was begun in 1967 by L. Ron Hubbard, a.k.a. Ron, LRH, the Commodore and “Source.”
Hubbard’s megalomania-inspired story was that in an earlier incarnation he was a galactic good guy and leader who defeated forces of evil, and that he had been supported by his “loyal officers.” He says that these same individuals are now drawn into joining the Sea Org, so that they may rejoin their fellow “loyal officers” from millions of years ago.
A 1997 issue of the Sea Org magazine (#20), the High Winds, tells new recruits:
“It’s not the first time you’ve been part of an elite… The fiery rush of pride that’s been resting in your soul will remind you: This isn’t the first time we’ve been together. Welcome home shipmate.”
While hailed as “custodians of the O.T. levels,” most Sea Org members have never seen even one secret level, and must wait patiently for the day when they will be able to do the exalted level of “O.T. 3.”
The Sea Org provides a source of cheap labor for the day to day management and servicing of Scientology organizations. Its members sign billion year contracts, wear uniforms, and are subject to extreme forms of Scientology “ethics.” They are expected to obey orders unquestioningly.
Here individuality is an “out-ethics” indulgence. Parents see little of their children. Bonds between married couples are weakened. Children receive indoctrination as Sea Org “cadets” and become subject to all aspects of “Sea Org ethics.”
Sea Org members are expected to report the most minor infractions by friends or family. Such infractions include not only actions, but also unacceptable opinions and questions.
“…the only loyalty which should exist… is to the State… [Scientology]”
The Brainwashing Manual:
“In rearranging loyalties we must have a command of their values. In the animal [individual] the first loyalty is to himself. This is destroyed by demonstrating errors to him, showing him that [without Scientology] he does not remember, cannot act or does not trust himself [is a ‘lie filled’ and ‘implanted’ humanoid]. The second loyalty is to the family unit, his parents and brothers and sisters. This is destroyed by… lessening the value of marriage, by making an easiness of divorce and raising the children whenever possible by the state [Scientology/Sea Org]. The next loyalty is to his friends and local environment. This is destroyed by lowering his trust and bringing about reportings [‘knowledge reports’] upon him allegedly by his fellows… The next is to the State [Scientology/Sea Org] and this, for the purposes of Communism [Scientology], is the only loyalty which should exist…”
Sea Org Ethics under Commodore Hubbard on the Flagship
Until late 1975 the headquarters for the Sea Org was the “Flagship Apollo,” which cruised about the Mediterranean and east Atlantic, populated with two to three hundred Sea Org members and L. Ron Hubbard their Commodore. It was here that Hubbard first instituted “Sea Org ethics.”
With “Sea Org ethics” Hubbard had the opportunity to apply aspects of the Brainwashing Manual that required complete control over a person and his environment, such as could exist on a ship at sea. (These applications, in contemporary times, are usually relegated to remote fenced-in locations, or guarded areas -usually in basements – in large buildings or building complexes.)
A Sea Org member’s “ethics condition” is measured by his obedience to orders, and by his “statistics,” which are supposed to reflect his degree of production for Scientology. Those assigned a low “ethics condition” – called “down stats”- must work their way up through those above. These conditions are:
Power
Affluence
Normal Operation
Emergency
Danger
Non-existence
Liability
Doubt
Enemy
Treason
Confusion
“Ethics” included the imposition of degrading and exhausting labor, prohibition on bathing, food and sleep deprivation, and prolonged confinement in various dirty and sometimes dangerous locations, such as the space used to store the chain that held the ship’s anchor. For a time, Hubbard instituted “instant ethics” for auditor trainees. (Mostly for those training to be the then highest level “Class 8s.”) This consisted of the offender being thrown over the side of the ship, sometimes blindfolded.
The accounts that follow are a sampling of the many that have been provided by former members.
Some former members are afraid to speak publicly of their experiences with Scientology. Those quoted here are among the bolder ones. They are also some of the stronger personalities, having removed themselves from Scientology, and regained their independence of thought on the topic.
John Ausley , former Sea Org member (and “Class 8” auditor)- interviewed several years after leaving Scientology – on the topic of “going up the ethics conditions” on the Scientology Flagship Apollo:
“You had to do 48 hours nonstop amends in ‘doubt,’ at which point you were upgraded to ‘liability.’ Then you’d have to do another 24 hours of non-stop amends – I’m talking about hard physical labor – at which point you’re upgraded to ‘non-existence.’ You then had to do 12 more hours with people all over your physical ass and your mental faculties. And as the person winds down, he becomes more and more vulnerable. So it’s a will trip.”
Otto Roos, another Sea Org member (and “Class 12” auditor) after ending his involvement with Scientology, wrote of his time aboard the Flagship, and his determination to avoid the most unpleasant aspects of “Sea Org ethics”:
“Having myself experienced the atrocities of war, unlike many of my friends, I swore I wasn’t going down into those old rusty [bilge] tanks, for up to a week without sleep, chipping rust, while Masters at Arms checked outside to ensure the chipping didn’t stop…”
“Refusal to let them sleep over many days…”
The Brainwashing Manual:
“The body is less able to resist a stimulus if it has insufficient food and is weary…. Refusal to let them sleep over many days, denying them adequate food, then brings about an optimum state for the receipt of stimulus [indoctrination.]”
Hana (Eltringham) Whitfield, another former Sea Org member, (who became a “Class 6” auditor prior to the inception of the Sea Org), on the travails of “out-ethics” Sea Org crew:
“They were treated like criminals…
“They would get their food delivered by way of buckets, lowered into the [air] ducts. The punishment lasted from 24 hours to, on a few occasions, a couple of weeks.
“Since they were not allowed to use the toilet facilities, duct inmates had to find some corner in which to relieve themselves best they could, creating the stench of human excrement and urine throughout the ducts.”
Hana Whitfield described one of several incidents of “Sea Org ethics” being applied to children:
“He [Hubbard] put this 4½ year old little boy, Derek Green, into the chain locker for two days and two nights. It’s a closed metal container… It’s wet, it’s full of water with sea weed… it smells bad… But Derek was sitting up on the chain in this place on his own in the dark for two days and two nights. He was not allowed to go to the potty. He had to go in the chain locker on his own soiling himself… He was given food. I never went near the chain locker while he was in there, but people heard him crying. That is sheer total brutality.
That’s child abuse.”
There were several first hand accounts of this occurrence, including one provided by the child’s mother, who left the Sea Org some time later.
ubbard mentioned the presence of children on the “Flagship” in writings from the early 1980s. The Sea Org magazine, High Winds (#20), quotes “Source” from these writings:
“In 1968 on the Apollo, then named the Royal Scotman, the first messenger stood watch…. The first messenger was a little boy whose parents were Scientologists.”
While the first Commodore’s Messenger was a little boy, the vast majority of Messengers were (and are) teenage girls. According to Hana Whitfield:
“The main Commodore’s Messenger duties at the time were to walk around with LRH, carry his ashtray and light his cigarettes, and carry messages for him and answers back to him.”
Tonja Burden was a Sea Org child, and became a Commodore’s Messenger at age 13. In 1977, at the age of 18, disillusioned with Scientology and its founder, she – with some difficulty – left the organization. In a 1982 legal affidavit she wrote of her early training to become a Messenger:
“During the Training Routines myself and two others practiced carrying messages to LRH. We had to listen to a message, repeat it in the same tone, and practice salutes.
“ ‘Ghosting’ was on the job training where I learned how to serve LRH. I followed another messenger around and observed her carry his hat, light his cigarettes, carry his ashtray, and prepare his toiletries.
Eventually I performed these duties.
“As his servant, I would sit outside his room and help him out of bed when he called ‘Messenger.’
I responded by assisting him out of bed, lighting his cigarette, running his shower, preparing his toiletries and helping him dress… He frequently exploded if he found dust or dirt or smelled soap on his cloths. That is why we used 13 buckets to rinse…
“While on the Apollo I observed numerous punishments meted out…On a number of occasions, I saw people placed in chain lockers on the boat on direct order of Hubbard. These lockers were small, smelly holes, covered by grates, where the chain for the anchor was stored. I saw one boy held in there for thirty nights, crying and begging to be released. He was only allowed to come out to clean the bilges where the sewer and the refuge of the ship collected…”
Messengers, in Scientology, are supposed to be literal extensions of L. Ron Hubbard, and their sole purpose is to serve him. They have their own “Org” called the Commodore’s Messenger Org. With Hubbard absent, they are the absolute servants of whomever represents Hubbard.
In the Sea Org magazine (High Winds #20) there is an advertisement that states:
“Young Scientologists wishing to join this elite group may apply at any one of the CMO Continental Offices.
Qualifications are high ethics level, unwavering dedication to salvaging this planet and a burning desire to help Source.”
The magazine also includes quotes from Hubbard addressing the “CMO”:
“You can function only so long as Simon Bolivar policy applies. Commodore’s Messengers have power
because they are Commodore’s [sic] Messengers.”
The Simon Bolivar policy letter is about “power,” being connected and contributing to a “power.” (This is commonly phrased as “flowing power to power.” The Power being Hubbard, of course.) The Bolivar policy of 12 February 1967, formally titled Admin Know-How, The Responsibility of Leaders, sets a mood that is representative of the darker inner regions of the “Scientological Onion” where amoral expediency is standard operating procedure:
“…always push power in the direction of anyone on whose power you depend. It may be more money for the power, or more ease, or a snarling defense of the power to a critic, or even the dull thud of his enemies in the dark…”
As with adult Sea Org members, if the desired mind-set does not occur in a child or teenager, actions must be taken to correct the situation.
The “Rehabilitation” Project Force
The Running Program Track is used for punishment. The Rehabilitation Project Force uses the track to force offending members of the Sea Org to run consistently in circles, without stopping, for up to 12 hours at a time.
As with “ethics” on Hubbard’s “Flagship,” the RPF utilizes prolonged menial labor and mild to extreme sleep deprivation. One’s environment, including one’s movement or confinement, is controlled by another.
RPFers wear special outfits so they can be identified, have to address non-RPFers as “sir,” and run wherever they go. RPFers are useful for tasks such as cleaning and renovating various Scientology properties.
Per original RPF instructions, food consists of leftovers or table scraps, remaining once the rest of the Sea Org crew has eaten. Sleeping quarters are crude at best, filthy and cockroach infested at worst. Under these conditions RPFers are also subjected to indoctrination and guided “self-critical” introspection.
The RPF does not appear on Scientology’s “Grade Chart” and is kept behind the scenes. New recruits to Scientology usually don’t know it exists. The original RPF writings commenced on 3 January 1974 with the issue of Flag Order 3434, followed by 28 further additions. They are confidential. According to Flag Order 3434-1, the RPF was “created by the Commodore so that redemption can occur.”
The final act of someone completing the RPF is to write a mandatory “success story.”
Pathetically, there are Scientologists who have spent months – or even years – in this indentured servant-type existence, scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets, being used in building renovation for such tasks as scouring paint off of walls, etc., who will praise the “gains” they made on the RPF. “Gains” that make it possible to become “standard in-ethics Sea Org members.” (There was even an account by a long-term Sea Org member – who had recently left Scientology – of how much he “loved” the RPF. Like a “lifer” in prison, he had grown numb to the constraints and degradation. Pre-RPF, as an “up-stat,” he had been rewarded by being sent to work at a rural “elite” location – one frequented by the administrative hierarchy. He reminisced on how he enjoyed working outdoors, and on how delicious the food could be. Food that had been prepared for the
“hierarchy,” with the well-behaved RPFers allowed to feast on the leftovers.)
Laurel Sullivan was L. Ron Hubbard’s Personal Public Relations Officer for several years, finally leaving Scientology in the early 1980s. She had this to say in 1986:
“The Church of Scientology is truly a fulfillment of George Orwell’s 1984. That it has gained such support amongst Americans is testimony to the unawareness of so many who don’t want to hear about accounts of Soviet dissidents such as Soltzhenitsyn and others.
“Life in the Sea Org is parallel to living behind the iron curtain. The types of censorship that are imposed on Sea Org members, the selective truth, the priorities and the emphasis on the ‘group above all,’ under the guise of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number,’ so closely parallel Communism.
‘In 1976 I was ordered to go to Paris to receive an honor on behalf of LRH as a writer.
“At the same place there was a showing of some paintings by a Soviet dissident, who had recently come over to the West. I had a series of meetings with him and some other dissidents. That was the first time I realized the degree to which I was intellectually disaffected with the Sea Org, yet for various reasons I stayed on for some time. I began to understand this man’s life and why he was exiled to Siberia. It all sounded so similar to LRH’s Rehabilitation Project Force…”
“…filthy food, little sleep, and nearly untenable quarters…”
The Brainwashing Manual:
“There is a curve of degradation which leads downward to a point where the endurance of the individual is almost at an end… a soldier held prisoner can be abused, denied, defamed, and degraded until the slightest motion on the part of his captors will cause him to flinch. Similarly, the slightest word on the part of his captors will cause him to obey, or vary his loyalties and beliefs… Experiments on German prisoners have lately demonstrated that only after seventy days of filthy food, little sleep, and nearly untenable quarters, that the least motion toward the prisoner would bring about a state of shock beyond his endurance threshold, and would cause him to hypnotically receive anything said to him. Thus, it is possible, in an entire stockade of prisoners… to bring about a state of complete servile obedience… and implant in them adequate commands to ensure their future conduct, even when released…”
”. …hypnosis is induced by acute fear. They discovered it could also be induced by shock of an emotional nature, and also by extreme privation…”
In 1985 former Sea Org member Howard Schomer described his time on the RPF, on the Flagship Apollo:
“…we lived separated from the rest of the crew on the ship. We could not talk to them unless they originated something to us, first. We slept in the lower hold of the ship most of the time on mattresses that were supposed to have been thrown out… luckily they weren’t – because otherwise we would have been sleeping on the floor.
We ate after the rest of the crew ate, and ate what was left over…”
Gerry Armstrong, who was also on the Apollo, left Scientology in the early 1980s:
“There is no way to really describe the RPF experience. The hopelessness. The humiliation. The horror. It
seemed to go on for ever. The same blue boiler suits like prison garb, day after day. The same questions in the same security checks…
“Hubbard’s purpose in creating the RPF, and running it as a prison with assignees considered criminals, was the breaking of people’s wills…
“He achieved his purpose so well with me that I thanked him for the opportunity of doing the RPF…”
When the era of the “Flagship” Apollo came to an end in October 1975, the RPF continued at the Sea Org’s new headquarters at the “Flag Land Base” in Clearwater, Florida, and at other locations.
In 1997 Professor Steven Kent of the University of Alberta, Canada, interviewed former RPFers. One time Sea Org members “Pat” (pseudonym used) recalled working on building renovation in southern California in the 1970s:
“…the pressure kept mounting every day with the renovations. Every day that passed there was greater
pressure to get renovations done… until it got to the point that we were – and I swear to God this is true – we worked thirty hours on, three hours off. We worked shifts of thirty hours at a time…
“…[When it was time to sleep] we’d go to the roof of one of the buildings [under renovation] where it was cold and there were these damp, disgusting mattresses that we would just fall onto and sleep.”
From the same time period, former member Jesse Prince recalled:
“…some people went what they call psychotic – just kind of lost their minds – no longer could associate who or what they were, [or] what they were doing, and had to be put in isolation…”
And Forbes magazine in a 1986 article on Scientology described the RPF:
“In these sadistic detention programs, staff members would be coerced into performing hard labor, eating
leftovers out of buckets and sleeping on floors. Some were reportedly kept against their will.”
“…the first loyalty [to himself]… is destroyed…”
Brainwashing Manual:
“…we must have a command of their values… the first loyalty [to himself]… is destroyed by
demonstrating errors to him…”
The RPF places special emphasis on “confessional” counseling. It’s “axiomatic” to an “RPFer” that he or she has done lots of bad things and has many evil intentions. It is accepted that the RPFer will recall and confess these things. This includes misdeeds from the RPFer’s pre-Scientology life as a “Wog,” plus specialized Scientological misdeeds, such as having “unkind thoughts about LRH,” and also a vast supply of evil intentions and misdeeds from degraded earlier lifetimes.
The idea of “past lives” in not automatically invalid because it is exploited by Scientology. But the issue is not “past lives.” The issue, here, is that an organization with a hidden agenda is using deception to recruit or convert the unsuspecting; then, in the course of their “training” and labors for the organization, judging them to be not sufficiently “cooperative” or “productive,” at which time it imposes penalties. The individual is reduced to an overwhelmed and subservient state, and in that state, repeatedly expected to “demonstrate errors in himself”- errors that must be there.
One extreme form of “confession” is called “gang bang security check.” In 1994 Stacy Young, a former Sea Org member, wrote of her experience:
“Two very large, strong men… 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.”
“____________Degradation and conquest…”
The Brainwashing Manual:
“Degradation and conquest are companions… degradation can be accomplished… by consistent and continual defamation. Defamation is the best and foremost weapon of Psychopolitics on the broad field.”
In 1997 former Scientologist Moira Hutchinson described her brief encounter with the RPF:
“They would come in [the Org’s kitchen] to eat after everyone else had left… Everyone was dressed in dark blue overalls. They did not walk, they shuffled with their heads always bowed low, and no one would utter a word.”
David Mayo was involved with Scientology for twenty years, becoming the “Senior Case Supervisor” at the Scientology “Flag Land Base” in Clearwater, Florida in the middle 1970s. He exited Scientology in the early 1980s, started his own group and, eventually, after the passage of several years, was finally able to speak frankly about his experiences.
In 1986, talking with author Russell Miller, he had these observations regarding “Sea Org ethics,” and events which led to the establishment of the RPF.
“[Hubbard] dodged paying taxes in the US, and bankrupted orgs in the US, and skipped the country. He ran afoul of the Home Office in England – I don’t believe there was a shred of truth [to Hubbard’s stories regarding] the persecution of Scientology… Then he went off to Rhodesia, [in 1966] and was kicked out of Rhodesia…“[In 1968 on the ship] Hubbard ordered everyone to be put on the e-meter, asking if they had any doubts or disagreements with his use of ethics. If the meter read [reacted] the person would be put in a ‘Condition of Doubt.’
“…On the ship [The Royal Scotman, later named the Apollo] there was an old man… who he made push a peanut around the decks with his nose. He had to get down on his hands and knees; he had to go around the deck, quite a long distance, in a race with one or two others also in trouble. The first one back got let off, and the last one got a double penalty… Charles Reisdorf.
“The surface of the deck was very rough wood, prone to splinter, so after pushing peanuts with their noses, they all had raw, bleeding noses, leaving a trail of blood behind them.
“I not only saw it, but the entire crew of the ship was mustered – a mandatory attendance. We were required to watch this punishment… [Charles] Reisdorf… His two daughters were [Commodore’s] Messengers, they were eleven or twelve at the time, and his wife was there also. It’s hard to say which was worse – to watch this old guy with a bleeding nose, or his wife and kids sobbing and crying at being forced to watch this. Hubbard was standing there calling the shots, yelling, ‘Faster! Faster!’
“It was indignity, degradation, and breaking a person’s will, and making people watch. It was disgusting…
“They used to have people locked up in the chain locker, including small children. The length of time for children would vary, but no one was there less than a day. Three weeks was about the maximum. Age didn’t matter. The youngest kids were five, six, or seven…
“He [Hubbard] had a birthday party on March 13, 1968. There was a woman who he ordered locked in the chain locker. During the party he had her brought out. She was filthy, covered with dirt and rust… She had been in there for a week… He said he was giving her a reprieve but it was just flaunting her degradation. Afterwards she was put back in.”
The children and teenager’s RPF
While there are accounts of Sea Org “ethics” applied to children dating back to the Flagship days, the “Cadet org” with its own Cadet RPF was not formally established by Hubbard until 1976.
TV news reporter Larry Blunt, from KOCO of Oklahoma City, described a scene, during August of 1989, from outside a Scientology building complex in Los Angeles:
“…a Scientology bus loaded with young people dressed in black pulled up. They jogged into the Scientology complex. A recent defector of Scientology told me they were from the Church’s Rehabilitation Project Force. They were found to be a problem and needed a attitude adjustment.”
The Clearwater Sun, in a 1984 article, told of an encounter between a reporter and a young RPFer:
“A young man – by all appearances a teenager – crouched in the dark, narrow stairway as he scrubbed the sixthfloor landing in the former Fort Harrison Hotel, the ‘Flag Land Base’ headquarters of the Church of Scientology.
“ ‘Are you in RPF?’ queried a reporter.
“ ‘Sir?’ he asked quietly, peering up from his work.
“ ‘Are you in RPF?’
“ ‘Yes sir I am.’
“RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force… which, depending on who is speaking, is either a businessman’s approach to improving an employees lagging job performance, or a form of punishment for Scientologists who are punished to severe penance for their misdeeds and ‘bad thoughts’…
“Two others – adult men who, like the youth, were dressed in blue shorts and faded blue shirts – worked two floors below, also cleaning the stairs. They spoke not a word. Former Scientologists say that those in the RPF are not to speak unless spoken to.
“Those who have spent time in the RPF at the Fort Harrison tell a harrowing tale of long hours of work – as much as a hundred hours a week – and of months of humiliation and mental abuse at the hands of other Scientologists.
“But their vivid recollections of hard work and abuse contradict current Church of Scientology statements that the RPF is ‘an entirely voluntary program.’ ”
“A certain amount of fear…”
The Brainwashing Manual:
“A certain amount of fear or terror must be engendered in the person under treatment [being indoctrinated] so that this person will then take immediate orders, completely and unquestioningly, from the psychopoltical operative [Scientology]…”
“On the subject of obedience itself, the most optimum obedience is unthinking obedience…”
Punishments from Scientology to Scientologists have the added significance of being administered to persons who believe the source of that punishment is the ultimate authority on all things having to do with the mind and spirit. Scientology promises infinite pleasure to those who cooperate with it, and infinite pain to those who don’t. It also has access to the membership’s private thoughts and personal experiences through detailed counseling files, and has a history of using personal counseling information in any way that it deems furthers its own ends.
The RPF’s RPF
Those who don’t respond to the “redemption” offered on the RPF are sentenced to the RPF’s RPF.
According to Flag Conditions Order of 24 April 1974, RPF RPFers are:
“(1) Segregated from the RPF members with regard to work, messing [meals], berthing, musters, and any
other… activity. (2) No pay (3) No training (4) No auditing (5) May only work on mud boxes in the E/R
[Engine Room]… [or at comparable land based labor] … (6) Six hours sleep [berthing time] maximum. (7) Is under the RPF MAA [A Master at Arms is a Sea Org ‘ethics’ officer]… (8) Standard ethics penalties that apply to them to be triple for each offense… (9) May communicate only with the RPF MAA…”
While it’s possible that Scientology’s non-staff member “paying public” might glimpse a well-behaved RPFer on rare occasion, he or she would not see an inmate of the RPF’s RPF. Such an inmate would be out of sight, having been “segregated from the RPF members,” and allowed to “communicate only with the RPF’s Master at Arms” or “ethics officer.”
The confinement aspect of the RPF, and the RPF’s RPF, can be understood as a logical extension of Hubbard’s non-confidential writings on “psychotics” and on the subject of “leaving.”
1) The Scientology counselor’s (auditor’s) code states that counselors are “not to let the preclear
[person receiving counseling] end session [leave the session]on his own determinism…”
2) Hubbard Bulletin of 31 December AD 9 (1959), Blow Offs, states that, “People leave because of their own overts [harmful actions] and withholds [secrets].”
3) Hubbard Bulletin, entitled Psychosis of 28 November 1970, describes as a sign of insanity, “They often seek transfers or wish to leave.”
4) According to Hubbard in Science of Survival, people judged to be psychotic should have no rights,and be “uniformly institutionalized.” (“Anti-Scientology” = anti-social personality = psychotic.)
5) The Anti-Social Personality/The Anti-Scientologist of 27 September 1966 is reprinted in the book Scientology Ethics. It states: “…if Society were to recognize this personality type as a sick being [as] they now isolate people with smallpox, both social and economic recoveries could occur.”
A person’s level of sanity is to be determined by his opinion of Scientology. Those who persist in
expressing “critical” opinions of Scientology, in a Scientology society, would be institutionalized.
Scientology doesn’t have this power, but can sometimes institutionalize (lock up) its own people.
6) The idea of confinement is mentioned in the Policy Letter of 18 October 1967, Penalties For Lower Conditions: “Liability: Suspension of pay and a dirty gray rag on left arm and day and night confinement to org premises.”
7) The 20 February 1974 Bulletin Introspection Rundown – Additional Actions, refers to what to write on notes, slipped under the door, to someone in confinement. “Dear Joe. What can you guarantee me if you are let out of isolation?… I’m sorry but no go on coming out of isolation yet.” (This Bulletin was written one month after the first RPF issue, and two months before the first RPF’s RPF issue.)
The Scientological mind-set is that, “People only want to leave Scientology because they’ve secretly done bad things.” Since Scientology is their “only hope,” preventing people from leaving would be a good and noble deed. A not sufficiently “cooperative” Sea Org member, finding himself in a condition of forced confinement, will likely have conflicted feelings about the matter.
The idea that someone can be held against his will becomes, then, complicated by the possibility that the person’s independent will, may have already been largely “handled” – or “erased” – as “counterintention” to “LRH Intention.” Sea Org members are expected to be unquestioning conveyances for “LRH Intention,” also called “Command Intention.”
Professor Steven Kent notes in his Brainwashing in Scientology’s Rehabilitation Project Force, under the category of forcible confinement:
“[Former Sea Org members]… spoke about either being forcibly confined themselves… or seeing others who were… Jesse Prince insists that he saw metal cages in the RPF’s RPF in the basement of the [Los Angeles] Cedars Sinai building where the inmates ‘were locked up at night to ensure that [they] wouldn’t try to escape.’ On the east coast, Dennis Erlich [while on the RPF] joked about his RPF assignment, and, in accordance with Hubbard’s policy [against joking about the RPF], wound up in the RPF’s RPF in Fort Harrison’s basement. Guarded down there for ten days, Erlich states that he spent the first day or two ‘locked in a wire cage’… Hana Whitfield swore that, while she was on the RPF in the Fort Harrison [in Clearwater, Florida], Lyn Froyland was assigned to the RPF’s RPF and was ‘chained to a pipe down there [in the basement] for weeks, under guard. She was taken meals and allowed toilet breaks but no other hygiene.’ ”
To put accounts of mistreatment on the RPF and RPF’s RPF into perspective, from the standpoint of Scientology doctrine, keep in mind that those being “rehabilitated” would likely be considered in a state of “confusion” – which is two “ethics conditions” below“enemy.” At “enemy” a person is not considered to have “any civil rights of any kind.” It’s not surprising, then, that being an RPF’s RPFer can be a physically and psychologically perilous activity.
New recruits to the Sea Org have no idea of what awaits them, should they find themselves suddenly demoted from the status of “the elite of the elite” of Mankind, to the lowly status of “degraded being” and “psychotic.” And then, having been “broken down,” with their sense of self diminished or deflated, they are to be re-inflated with a new sense of self in the image of Scientology.
Sea Org writings and taped lectures – with rare exception – are inaccessible to all but Sea Org members. And even they are shown them only on a “need to know” basis. References to such things as confinement, punishment, obedience, sleep deprivation, etc., can be found in this segment of Scientology doctrine.
Inaccessible as these writings are, they nonetheless have degrees of confidentiality within themselves.
Some are formally labeled “confidential,” some are “highly confidential.” A better understanding of what happens to Sea Org members, and those subjected to “rehabilitation” by the Sea Org, would no doubt be possible were its doctrinal materials fully available and examined. And Scientology is determined that this not occur. Sea Org strata policy and tech issues include:
Aides Orders, Base Flag Orders, Base Orders, Central Bureau Orders, Flag Bureau Data Letters, Central Office of LRH Executive Directives, Commodore’s Staff Orders, Executive Directives for Area Estates, Executive Directives Flag, Executive Directives for Flag Admin Org, Executive Directives for Flag Advanced Org, Executive Directives for Flag Bureau, Executive Directives for U.S. Base, Executive Directives for Worldwide, Flag Conditions Orders, Flag Divisional Directives, Flag Mission Orders, Flag Orders, and Sea Organization Executive Directives.
The Five Card “Team Share” System
Sea Org members not on the RPF or RPF’s RPF are, nevertheless, subject to the behaviorist system of reward and punishment.
One such system previously in use was known as the “Team Share” or “Five Card System.”
Sea Organization Executive Directive 3490 International introduced the new system:
“A brilliant system is being put into your Org, which heavily validates those staff who are actively working on contributing to and achieving your org’s purpose of 5.4X statistics [meaning to increase one’s production by 5.4 times before Hubbard’s birthday.]
“At the same time, this system penalizes down stat [statistic] staff who are not actively contributing.
“There are five team shares and you, as a team member of the group will be issued five cards.
“1. Social Card (blue)
“2. Bonus Card (green)
“3. Allowance Card (orange)
“4. Berthing Card (yellow)
“5. Chow Card (red)”
The Social Card permits staff members to “participate in any social activity such as liberty, parties, sport events, special meals, outings and the like.”
The Bonus Card allows them to have a “bonus in addition to the regular Sea Org allowance.”
The Berthing Card makes possible space in which to sleep.
The Chow Card allows the staff member to receive food at meal times from the organization.
A staff member who “is pulling his weight and taking responsibility for the org as a whole” is allowed to keep all five cards. Having all five cards he is then entitled to wear a “Silver Star.”
If a staff member is “being downstat or generally unproductive, or uncooperative,” he starts losing his cards one at a time. Loss of one card results in the loss of his Silver Star.
Loss of all cards means the person “goes on rice and beans while living in pig’s berthing.”
The Directive continues:
“The Sea Org is the most ethical group this planet has ever known or will know. Star high standards are
enforced… Those who have other fish to fry show up fast on the Team Share System and can be quickly handled.”
In 1987 Vicki and Rick Aznaran left the Sea Org. The following is a 1988 account of their experience of the “Team Member Share System,” also called the “5 card system”:
“[The Team Share System consists of] privately issued money in exchange for food, board, pay, bonuses and liberty. The Team Member System required that the [Aznarans] be given one of each of these cards when the Church administration was satisfied with their work production, and loyalty to the organization. Any dissatisfaction with the work output or ‘attitude’ of [the Aznarans] would result in revocation of tokens, thereby requiring [them] to work long hours with no days off, no pay, no board, requiring them to sleep outdoors on the ground, and substandard nutrition consisting only of rice, beans and water. When [they] had lost all their cards, as a matter of course, they would be sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force…“[They had been subjected to] …lengthy interrogations, sudden involuntary and forcible separation of spouses… for many months… deliberately inducing fatigue by physical abuse and deprivation of sleep; forcing [the Aznarans] to be housed in animal quarters; deliberately confining [them] to premises under the control of [Scientology] and under threat of physical harm, without allowing [the Aznarans] to leave of their own free will; and threatening [them] that [their] failure to submit to the power and control of [Scientology] would result in their becoming ‘fair game.’ ”
Despite efforts by Scientology to silence former members, accounts of the RPF, the RPF’s RPF and related activities, and “tech,” are becoming more numerous, and many make the preceding account seem mild in comparison.
“The technologies of psychopolitics…”
The Brainwashing Manual:
“The technologies of Psychopolitics are graduated upon the scale which starts somewhat above removal of the individual himself, upward toward the removal only of those tendencies which bring about his lack of cooperation.”
In possession of all five cards, and proudly displaying his “silver star” upon the lapel of his jacket, the “in-ethics” Sea Org member would praise this system of reward tokens used to enforce behavior – a system, interestingly enough, which is similar to that used in some mental institutions.
The Brainwashing Manual:
“The psychopolitical dupe [Sea Org member] is a well trained individual who serves in complete obedience to the [Scientology/Sea Org] psychopolitical operative.”
Scientology 101 