Almost Sea Org

The Sea Org recruiter looked at me sympathetically from across the desk.

"It's too bad about your daughter. Fortunately, your husband and parents are around to look after her when she gets out of the hospital. The ticket's booked, and you need to be on that flight."

I stared back at her is disbelief. Something was terribly wrong. She couldn't possibly mean it.

It was Monday morning, and I'd had a sleepless night.

On Thursday, I'd signed a Sea Org contract, and my 5-year-old daughter and I were scheduled to leave for LA on Tuesday. I was being trained in PR, and when that was finished, after however many months, I'd be returning to Toronto. My husband knew; my parents didn't.

Friday night, my daughter started throwing up and running a fever. Nothing to be concerned about. Probably flu. She'd be fine by Monday. But I learned she was blaming herself for this.

"This is my fault. You told me we were going away and not to tell anybody. I told one of my friends at school - and now I'm sick."

The fever persisted, as did the vomiting, and she had diarrhea. She pointed to a glass of water and said, "Pass me the alligator." Hallucinating a bit from the fever. Flu symptoms. Perfectly normal. We've all be there, right?

At 3 AM Monday, she woke us up crying with stomach cramps. We caught a cab to the nearest hospital and sat in emerg while they did a spinal tap. They wheeled her back and said they were just waiting for the results. The diagnosis: meningococcal meningitis. Beyond knowing it was serious, I wasn't sure what we were dealing with.

The doctor said they would put her on IV antibiotics at once, and he gave us a prescription as well. Then he said, "Go home and get some sleep."

We got home shortly after 7 AM, and the call came at 10 AM that the emergency doctor was sending her by ambulance to Sick Children's Hospital. She'd stopped breathing, and he was afraid, if they kept her there, they'd lose her.

I'd stopped at the Org on my way back from the hospital to let the Sea Org recruiter know I couldn't leave. And now this. Her intention never wavered. There was no doubt in her mind how this would play out, no question that I had to "make it go right." It wasn't a suggestion or an invitation. It was an unequivocal order.

I was exhausted, distraught - and wondering which of was insane. Everything seemed unreal, so I was pretty sure it was me.

But I was even more certain I wasn't going.

There was clearly no point in arguing. I thought, "Fuck you," stood up and said flatly, "I'm not going," and walked out. It was a while before I stepped foot inside the Org again. And it was the last time I considered joining the Sea Org.

It all turned out well in the end. My daughter was in the hospital for a month, and had two surgeries to drain fluid from around her heart. But she recovered fully, and is now a happy, successful business owner and mother of two teenage boys - and a staunch and devout non-Scientologist.

My declare

After my resignation, there were a couple of half-hearted attempts to recover me. No doubt Toronto staff had bigger fish to fry. I would have been pretty low on their list of priorities.

I did receive a call from a former Toronto colleague who'd gone on to Flag or LA asking what had happened. "Come on, Sue, I know you. You're not suppressive! Surely you can go back into the Org and work this out. I suspect you were just mishandled." I assured him I hadn't been, and that everything had been done according to policy. The irony was lost on him.

When he persisted, I finally said, "Rick, the fact is that I have some basic disgreements that just aren't going to get sorted out."

"Like what?"

"Like KSW."

He couldn't get off the phone fast enough.

My declare arrived in the mail a month or so later. The first thing I noticed was my name. It was misspelled - both my first name and my last name. No surprise there: Scientologists are notorious for not being able to get these things right. Still, it was disappointing.

Then I read the allegations. It's been 27 years, so I don't remember the details, but some were fabricated, some were true but done by others, and the balance were things I was frankly proud of and didn't regret for an instant.

I raged briefly at the inaccuracies and injustice of it, and went outside to walk it off.

And as I walked, a thought occurred to me: Scientologists in good standing can't associate with suppressives because it can cause them to become PTS and lose any gains they'd made in Scientology. (Don't know if I got that right, but that was my understanding at the time. And if I got it wrong, don't tell me and spoil my joy!) That meant that even OTs, cause over life, couldn't risk talking to me, a mere Clear, for fear of what I might do to them.  Now, that's power!

Since then, I've never thought of my declare without smiling. I was done with them - and they were done with me!

To exscn.net

(This post just keeps morphing and morphing as I try to make sense of yesterday.)

As of yesterday, only 4 people in the entire world even knew this blog existed - including me.

What was intended as a light-hearted and humorous look at Scientology has been tweeted and posted on your forum and commented on ad nauseam. And my cheeks are burning.

I didn't expect my blog to be noticed, or to draw any attention from the ex-Scientology community. I've been out of the loop for almost 30 years, and hadn't even heard of Mark Rathbun or Mike Rinder until recently. After all, my involvement was quite boring in the big scheme of things - but awful for me nonetheless. But I guess I'd assumed that, if it was noticed, it would be met with indifference.

So it was a bit unnerving to read comments from people who presume to know anything about me based on a few blog posts. And I was bemused that anyone thought I was an OSA op. (Not sure what that is, but it doesn't sound good!)

One person contacted me directly, and she was friendly and open, forthcoming with her story and interested in mine. Thanks, Elli!

I don't know any of you, and I don't know your stories, so I can't comment on what you have or haven't been through. But I wonder, if we sat down with a pot of coffee and talked about other things, if we'd like each other.

P.S. - For a non-Scientology view on psychiatry, you could read Reality Therapy or Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health by William Glasser, M.D., a board-certified psychiatrist.


P.P.S. - Thanks for the tip on spellcheck!

The boomerang effect

Apparently, misunderstood words weren't entirely effective at getting others to tow the line. Something else was required. So LRH concocted "overts".

An overt is a harmful act.

And when we commit acts that harm others, we tend to "natter" about those others.

(Natter = complain, criticize, find fault with)

This indoctrination teaches that the only time we natter about others is when:

1. we've done something harmful to that person, or
2. we've done something similar ourselves that we haven't taken responsibility for.

Quite smooth when you think about it - and very, very effective.

Any disagreement you have with LRH, Scientology, other Scientologists, or staff members is due entirely to your own prior misbehaviour - even if it's true, even if it's justified, even if it's reasonable.

As soon as you even think about complaining, this mechanism kicks in and you think, "Oh, no! What's wrong with me?!"

And there is no mechanism for dealing with an actual grievance either because it was ultimately your own fault. Someone assaulted you? Stole your wallet? Slept with your spouse? So what did you do before that to cause that (or, as they say in Scientology, to pull that in)?

CAVEAT: The exception is any transgressions against the C of S or any of its executives by non-Scientologists. Those are bad, suppressive, and crimes of the highest order because only Scientology is good - and it is always good!

Hook, line, and sinker

So let's put it all together:

The hook

It could be Dianetics. It could be a Superbowl ad. It could be a personality test. But it's something connected to Scientology that you can wholeheartedly agree with.

And if this is true, then surely everything else is true, too!

The line

Keeping Scientology Working - This policy letter firmly ensconses LRH as Source. He's a war hero, a nuclear physicist, an explorer, an adventurer (none of which are actually true). He alone does not stand on the shoulders of giants. He alone discovered and developed a map out of hell on earth. He gives no credit to any of those whose ideas he plagiarized - with the possible exception of Buddha. But that's okay, because he alludes to the fact that he's the reincarnation of Buddha.

The point is, LRH is Source. He is always right, always infallible, always compassionate, the greatest humanitarian of all time.

And if you take issue with anything in this policy letter, we'll move on to...

The sinker

The misunderstood word. Here's where you learn unequivocally that any and all disagreements you may have with anything LRH ever wrote are because you have misunderstood words. It must be the case. LRH said so! After all, "everybody knows" that to understand is to agree.

Failing that, there's always the boomerang effect. Once you buy into that (covered in the next post), every critical thought boomerangs back at you and causes you to wonder what's wrong with you!

(It's worth defining critical  and critical thought. Both are off limits in Scientology.)

Misunderstoods - a good idea taken too far

The concept of misunderstood words as the root of all evil is - dare I say it? - sinister.

There's a common misconception that LRH has incorporated into everything he wrote on misunderstood words:

Understanding = Agreement

In other words: If you understood, you would agree.

If you don't agree, it's because there's a word you don't understand.

Get it? It may seem inocuous, a small point, but everything else in Scientology hinges on you buying into this.

Not sure you agree with something LRH wrote? The course supervisor may smile at you indulgently (after all, you're still new) and say, "That's because you have misunderstood words! Let's clear those up!"

When you've been around a while, though, they're a little less indulgent. Actually, a lot less indulgent.

So how seriously do Scientologists take misunderstoods?  They're obsessive - and with good reason.

From a Policy Letter dated 23 December 1965:

Any repeated or continued violation of the five points of out study tech listed below, after two Courts of Ethics for violation of these points, subjects the person to a Committee of Evidence on the charge of committing an act or omission undertaken to knowingly suppress, reduce or impede Scientology or Scientologists, and if found guilty
beyond reasonable doubt, the person may be declared suppressive and expelled with full penalties:

1. A person may be summoned to a Court of Ethics or Executive Court of Ethics if it be found that he has gone past a word he does not understand when receiving, hearing or reading an order, HCOB, policy letter or tape, any and all LRH written or printed
materials including books, PABs, despatches, telexes and mimeo issues which resulted in a failure to do duties of his post, without his at once making an effective effort to clear the words on himself, whether he knew he was missing them or not, as the source of his inaction or damaging actions.

The charge is neglecting to clarify words not understood.

Because to understand is to agree!

"What's true for you..." - another hook

"Will you walk into my parlour?"

said the Spider to the Fly.

Mary Howitt, 1929

It all starts off perfectly reasonably. I was told:

"What's true for you is what you yourself have observed."

No problem with that! The 2013 Super Bowl ad says:

"You're here to think for yourself, to look for yourself, to make up your own mind.

The one thing that's true is what's true for you."

But as you read through the rest of these posts, you'll begin to realize that that is only true when you're being audited.

Outside of that, this - and only this - holds true:

"If it isn't written [by LRH], it's not true."

And at the moment you buy into that, you stop thinking for yourself, looking for yourself, or making up your own mind.