MY EXPERIENCES IN THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
with
TORTURE
including
SLEEP AND
AND FOOD DEPRIVATION
Torture is defined as "the intentional inflicting of extreme duress
with some form of pain, including psychological means in order to
intimidate, punish, gather intelligence or coerce a confession. It is
typically used for Propaganda or Political Purposes and its main
objective is to break the will of individual subjected to it and
therefore to control groups that are viewed as a potential threat.
Those who earn their living by exercizing torture on others have in
recent years sought refuge under an umbrella of unscrupulous lawyers
and attorneys and through a crafty exercize in semantics and euphemisms
to label their actions as "within the confine of the law and morals"
Nevertheless Sleep Deprivation, Diet manipulation, Public Degradation
and Ridicule and (in Scientology terms) Supression (which is best
defined as the preventing another to have or to reach and enforcing
having or reaching to someone who doesnt want it) do fit the definition
of torture, when done over extended periods of time, hard enough or
when calculated to cause extreme duress. (It also completely fit the
definition of Implant, per the Scientology Dictionary)
According to the definition given above, I have been subjected to
torture, therefore I know what I speak of.
1- Extreme duress, Based on the embellishment and out of context
statement by L. Ron Hubbard on a taped lecture given on June 12th 1971:
"Welcome to the Flag Internship". "A comma missed on a worksheet is a
High Crime. And when you find yourself having audited at that level for
some time, you will find yourself a flubless auditor".
Therefore utter perfection, not only per Scientology scriptures, but
per the interpretation of it new management was routinely expected.
Mere excellence was deemed inacceptable. Not once, or even most if the
time, but always.
As time went, simple errors became reclassified as "High Crimes", on a
par with rape, arson and murder.
This is one of the key reasons I became a Class XII auditor and most
who attempted it failed. It is not because I did "kiss ass" to take a
vulgar sour grapes statement subsequently made by a failed auditor who
never even tried to become one, but because I learned to become
extremely tough and hardened and capable to withstand supression, can't
haves, enforced haves and even degradation without being the adverse
effect of it. In fact it is because I was able to never compromise with
my own
integrity that I was able to survive. Many people who agreed to
compromise with their integrity by knowingly doing things that were
harmful to others "because they were afraid" or any other reason, have
found themselves in dire condition after leaving the church. most find
themselves still unable to overcome a deep sense of guilt or fully come
to grip that by fullfilling the agenda of the Church at the expense of
their own integrity, they were actually setting themselves up as a
perfect scapegoat.
The following OT maxim from the unpublished Upper OT Levels written by
L. Ron Hubbard, whchc coincide with my own private research on the
subject states:
"If you really know the tech(nology) of how to do something and can do
it, then You cannot become the effect of it"
In 1976 LRH gave an order to put 100 people on the TTC (Tech training
Corps) and get them trained to Class XII. (I was not one of them). out
of the more than 200 that were put on the TTC to train to Class XII
from scratch only one (Miriam Stave - nee Lahlou) made it.
I know hundreds of stories where an auditor made a mistake of one kind
or another, some big, some small, and they were thoroughly humilated
and degraded. The purpose was to instill terror. That purpose was
indeed duly accomplished, resulting in hundreds of people abandoning
auditing or Scientology altogether, whereas a sane approach in
accordance to the original principles would have shown that to become
an auditor was not very hard and that in accordance to the principles
that ""any
auditing is better than no auditing" and simple logic and common sense,
only through practice and experience will any be able to execute a
craft such as auditing in a truly expert manner.
The maxim ""any auditing is better than no auditing" was voiced for the
first in 1958 during the 5th Los Angeles Advanced Clinical Course
Further the original and acceptable philosophy (seemingly by all but
the current church leadership) professes "no mistake can be made by an
auditor which cannot be remedied either by himself or by another
auditor" L. Ron Hubbard, The Modern Science of mental Health.
The words in HCO Policy Letter of 7 February 1965 "If you can’t
graduate (students) with their good sense appealed to and wisdom
shining, graduate them in such a state of shock they’ll have nightmares
if they contemplate squirreling (i.e. altering the standard way of
doing processes), have been interpreted in the most savage way
possible, especially in view of the except from the same Policy letter:
" (describing the failure of an instructor to correct a student as the
only failure: Instructor
A didn’t jump down Auditor B’s throat, that's all that happened." and
finally (referring to Closing the door on incorrect application) "is
seldom done with enough ferocity".
A senseless application of the doctrine that one should use duress as a
primordial tool for training and apprenticeship has led to an Orwellian
regimen and nothing more. Both my years inside the Church and outside
has proven beyond any doubt that such an approach DOES NOT WORK,
anymore than a Gulag has ever been capable of producing masterpieces of
craftmanship.
2- Sleep deprivation. In 1992 David Miscavige and his cohorts of
hand-picked executives decided to experiment upon large scale "Sleep
deprivation" as an additional control mechanism.
Sleep and Food Deprivation were not unknown tools for the Church Senior
Management. In the 1980s after coming to Power staff member at the
Internationl management Complex in California were issued "team cards".
Loose too many "demerit points" and you find yourself refused entry to
the dining room, denied access to your bunk and no permission to exit
the base to gather food or eat and sleep somewhere else. The system was
viewed as highly workable. The most casual inspection would have
revealed that people working such as system produce very few products
of actual value and seek to compensate their shortcomings through PR
and accusing others, a system as workable as you are high on the
organizing board. The poor fellow at the bottom, however has nobody
under him to front for him and had to take the brunt of the punishment.
While Statistics for Gross Income and delivery were at the lowest in a
nearly a decade, and the number of disatisfied public was at a new
high, the "Top Brass" would see nothing wrong about continuing the
extravagant meals with generous helping of bacon and cake" while the
"downstats" (Scientologese term mean those producing little of value -
short for 'down statistics') were served unseasoned baked beans and
white rice, with tap water as the only available drink. Vitamin
supplements were the sole responsibility of the staff members, who on
most case did not get enough money to buy them, much less had the time
or permission to go and buy them. The lowered production was seen
"proof" of counter-intention or moral turpitude on the part of the
victim, when the opposite was the simple truth
In 1989 the entire team of auditors who were being trained to deliver
the "Eligibity checks fro OT8", of whcih I was a member of were put on
food deprivation. Needless to say our auditing skills deterioted in
short order and afetr 4 days senior Management had to come to grip with
the fact that we needed to be fed at least the minimum dietary
requirement for human beings.
Unfortunately, food Deprivation as control technique reared its ugly
head again in 1992. This resulted in my failing to notice an important
read. since this failure was not reported, it was promptly labeled as a
false Report (the worst of all Scientology Evils) and because the
absence of read was a pointer that the person may be improperly fed (or
more likely some undetermined factors were behind it, it was flasely
and broadly promoted in Church literature ever since that I was in the
habit of auditing people that were not sessionable(hungry). The fact
that teh pc in question gave plenty of evidence of being well fed and
well rested and had eaten a copious and healthy meal moments before was
completely disregarded to satisfy their propaganda. That fault has been
taken up again and again and brought up against me since by individuals
who have made it amply clear by their actions that Truth, honor and
accurate information are concepts entirely alien to their personal
philosophy.
As a direct result of the food deprivation, in 1992, I found myself
hospitalized, my immune system having becomed impaired and I suffered a
massive infection.
It became amply clear to me at that point that I had to find a way to
leave or I would end up dying at the hands of a sadistic self appointed
elite.
3- Sleep Deprivation.
It was not unknown at all for staff to be workn up in the middle of the
night to satisfied the whims of Senior Managements.Routine tasks that
were most likely not yet done because of a lack of foresight by the
leaders to find adequate personel to do them (such as filing backlogs,
cleaning stations or folder prepartions) were suuficient grounds to get
personle sleeping in their quarters up at 2 or 3 O'Clock in the
Morning. This did not constiture an excuse to be exempted from work,
quyite on the contrary. As an auditor I was expected to audit without
any signs of tiredness 6 to 8 hours in a day. Most auditors addressed
the problem through a copious intake of coffee and chain-smoking. I do
not smoke and I am intolerant of caffeine. (I never drink coffee,
decaffeinated or not), so I found myself in a predicament. A few times
I found myself victim a an episode of Micro-sleep while auditing, This
was always seen by my superiors as a sign of moral turpitude and I was
repeatedly
punished for it.
Later on in 1992, under the guidance of David Miscavige, John Eastment,
then Senior C/S Int (now reduced to menial tasks: he is the only Class
XII auditor made on the Apollo that still remains in the church, the
rest have all gone) announced gleefully that all auditors will start to
drill in a classroom at 7:00 AM (breakfeast started at 7:30AM, which
means no breakfeast of any kind possible until Noon) impossibly short
meals break of 15 minutes for both lunch and dinner, and back in the
course
room from 10PM to Midnight. Adding time needed to travel to one's
bedroom (several miles away), shower and prepares clothes for the next
morning, one was lucky to get more than 5 1/2 hours of sleep. After one
week of that Food and sleep deprivation regimen, my mental state had
sunk dangeroulsy close to zombyism.
4- Public Degradation. Upon the "discovery" in 1992 that I had failed
to report and important read, the next leap in logic was to assume that
an error that was the direct result of food and sleep deprivation was
actually routine and solely due to my own recklessness, and that it was
just part of an elaborate plot at destroying the lives of well meaning
people.
(Outside of Scientology Circles such beliefs of seeing such wrongness
in others are simply defined as paranoia)
A staff meeting that I was forbidden to attend announced poisoned and
fabricated description of my auditing where I was portrayed a degraded,
incapable and ignorant individual. A few individuals were brave enough
to voice their disagreement. They were shunned by the rest of the group.
Later I was subjected to a "gang-bang" Ethics Interview" where no less
than 5 people surrounding me (at the lead of Barbro Weinberg) yelling
at me that I would greatly benefit from a "Rehabilitation program".
Knowing full well the technical nature of that program (called the RPF)
and the fact that by then its sole purpose had degenerated into
breaking an individual's into utter submission and make him obey
without challenge or reservation any and all orders generated by Senior
management, no matter how unethical, illogical, destructive or against
the philosphy of Scientology they may be. Due to my knowing the
technology of Ethics and Auditing, being completely familiar with
implanting techniques and a very high case level, I had no real
difficultly in standing tall and dismiss their pleas as nothing more
than a bunch of flimflam.
At that point nothing else could lead me to stay in the Church and I
left. Knowing well the strcuture of the organization and policy I was
able to find a way to leave openely and honorably from the Church.
I did leave the Church through the front door.
