Page Three.

Nothing is impossible to a brave heart

Jacques Coeur's motto.

5. An escape; directions for use.

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 them as they 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 shaked like a rag doll, insulted and threated but I refused to wake up. There was the girl with the chest infection I had just helped among my torturers... I instantly got 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 laïque 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 strenghts add to our strenghts.

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'm 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 untasty coffees.

-Now, will you say that again to me ma'm, 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.

Operation: passport rescue.

- 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 (personel 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 an 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!

Operation: car rescue.

I had a little car which was my unique space of freedom which I wouldn't have abandonned for nothing in the whole world. So we got inside the Fort Harrison garage, security gards 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 batalion 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 backflash, superbly arrogant:

-I am blowing! (meaning to leave the cult)

When I got into my car, I noticed that he hadn't move. 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 successfull manoeuvre in the very cult parade ground that he was just exhilarating. He was shouting " yahooo, 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 earings and necklace jewels I always wore under the SO uniform or the gulag teeshirt. 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 pocketfull 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 allright now, he said.

I never felt so sincerely thankful for anyone before. I shall never know my taxi driver's name. If he had cow boy'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 privation 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 Petersburgh 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 immediatly 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.

If reason builds a man, feelings lead him.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloïse. 

6. A goal; rebuild one self up.

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 refferred 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 rections 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 does'nt succeed everytime.We can find examples of severe and bizarre indoctrination in sectarian "literature". " Human emotion and reaction has an terrifying definition in the green dictionnary (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 those informations, yet he has to ask for them. If he needs to talk, allow him to do so; he may desperatly 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 did'nt speak about it simply because there were'nt 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 hardwares and personal archives, they still repeatadly 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 manufactoring 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 Pignoti, Margery Wakefield, Hanna Whithfield 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, intelectual 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.

End of first part STORY OF AN ESCAPE part 2

April 1997

Nefertiti

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