"THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY"

OR

THE GURU'S GULAGS

STORY OF AN ESCAPE Part 2

 

By NEFERTITI

 

Page Five.

 

 

4) Ann Rosenblum's testimony

RPF at Flag, Clearwater, Florida, 1978.

Extracts:

... " Auditing in the RPF almost destroyed me. For one thing, I had trouble going " Backtrack" into past lifes. After I finally learned "past track remedies" where you say anything that pops into your brain, like monsters or fighting space wars, or whatever, my imagination ran wild and I began to have two or three pictures popping up at one time, I wouldn't know actually which one was actually a past life or if it was my imagination or if they were all past lifes but at different times, or what. I was " run" on stuff I'd already been run on. I had 3-4 drug rundowns, "re-verifications" of my method 1, 35 hours Op-pro-by-dup (a process where you walk back and forth examining and describing a book and a bottle, hours on end for weeks), etc, I was getting upset and the more upset I became, the more I was subjected to auditing. As my auditing program" deteriorated, I became more of a security threat and they then put me on security checks to go over all my overts and withholds. I finally just shut up, submitted, and let them audit whatever they wanted on me.

This led me to Expanded Dianetics. This is where you audit out or "run out" all your "evil purposes", and evil intentions and handle your "Rock Slams" (a particular reaction on the E-Meter that shows a person is completely psycho) Evil purposes that you run out are "to destroy" or "to kill" etc, I must have run dozens of these evil purposes, then we turned to my R/S handling. By now it's somewhere around the beginning of 1978, I think. I really have very little sense of time here- for one thing, one day was just like the next. There was no variation. Week-ends were the same as week-days. It's all sort of big lump to me- especially after I started on my Expanded Dianetics and my brain really started to come apart. I was in sort of a cloud or a daze most of the time, that's the only way I can describe it.

My R/S handling I think was the point where my brain wasn't just falling apart, but it started to get fried. I was running out all these evil purposes connected to the R/ses, and I started spouting out the weirdest things like," to be somebody else", "to blow up a planet","commit suicide", "to never grow up","to kill myself", " to destroy bodies",". The list was endless. My brain was just getting fried on all of this. I mean I had to have been the most evil and craziest person that ever existed. I don't know how to describe what happened other than my brain was frying up. I felt like I was in a daze half of the time. I'd do things, sort of like watching myself doing them but not realizing it, as it was somebody else, except that I know it was me. I'd scream at my auditor, I'd throw down the cans to the E-meter that I was holding, I'd refuse to get auditing. I just created a real scene. So, of course, I ended up in ethics, and had a"body guard" put on me.

This whole thing was a period of weeks, I think. But actually, in the state I was in, it could have been 2 days or it could have been 2 months.

... Then I walked out of the garage, jumped over the wall, and just kept walking. No one noticed me, I don't think anyone knew I had left Sick Bay, so I was not guarded all the time.

I walked as a zombie for about 15 minutes, at least I think it was about 15 minutes. I began to realize I had just jumped over the wall. I was in serious trouble. I was petrified and wanted to return but if I did, I would be under guard again and placed in the RPF's RPF. I would also again be placed on their Bad Indicators (BI) list, which consisted of people who were under guard at all times. I was on the B.I. list when I was taken off the C/S post, except no one knows I left the sick room, so they hadn't assigned a guard to me yet.

I'm not sure where I was, somewhere on Fort Harrison Avenue, I think. I sat down on a stairway to figure out what to do. Then I remembered I had made that phone call to get my friend's number, so I walked to a 7-11 and called her. I received directions to her house. It was approximately 4-5 miles. I walked it, and when I got there, there were 4-5 guys waiting for me. I completely broke down when I saw them, crying and carrying on. I told them I wanted to talk to my friend alone. I was pretty incoherent talking to my friend. I wasn't making too much sense by this point, and the tears were just flowing. I kept crying about how I couldn't handle the RPF anymore. That, it was not them but it was me; I said that I needed Expanded Dianetics and I had to get myself handled because I was psychotic, but I couldn't get it handled while in the RPF because I was too "restimulated"; and therefore, I would never get out of the RPF. I was just rambling. Meanwhile, my friend was convincing me to return to the RPF. She said I would be a fool not to go back because I'd have such a "freeloader bill" that I could never pay it back. She told me of a friend of ours who had left Scientology, and then was killed in a motorcycle accident. If I left I'd probably pull in a "motivator" like that (Scientology believes that if you do something bad, then something bad will happen back to you-called a motivator). Finally, I agreed to go back, and route out" of the "Sea org".

So I was escorted back by the guys, and put under immediate guard. I think by now it's about the beginning of August. The next few weeks until I actually left are pretty hazy to me- sort of like mass of confusion. I know I got a " Court of Ethics" and a "Committee of Evidence" and a " Fitness Board". All of these were ethics actions showing how bad I was for wanting to leave. If I began to"doubt" about Scientology the MAA woult tell me that I was not doing the formulas right and to go back and do them again. I was slowly becoming crazy.

Meanwhile I was under guard and refused to work most of the time, I was a real "basket case". I finally reached a point where they would let me sit and do nothing, or work on my condition formulas all day long whith someone watching me. Sometimes they would have 2 people watching me. One of the MAA's tried to throw me to the RPF's RPF, but I screamed and yelled that I would "bite" him if he touched me. So they just let me sit, except for hassling me during the day about being a freeloader". They would say:"Don't you think you should do a little work, at least to pay for the food you're eating?" I usually replied with a "no". Sometimes I agreed to work. I think they were at a point they just didn't know what to do with me anymore.

I finally announced that if I didn't leave I would become insane.

... On September 2, 1978, I boarded an airplane to Colorado with pre-paid tickets from my parents.

If I could sum the RPF up in just one sentence, it would probably be: IT IS A PROCESS BY WHICH THEY MAKE YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE PSYCHOTIC, AND THEN YOU ACTUALLY DO BECOME PSYCHOTIC."

 

Ann Rosenblum was a CMO executive; she held an important post in West Headquarters, La Quinta, California. In the RPF, she indeed received many a sec-check. Among those security checks, she says in her testimony she received a special security check written by the CMO on everything she had been involved with or knew as a Messenger. How ironical it was for her, since she had herself written a classified Confessional of limited distribution! On the 3 March 1977, just a few months before her being assigned to the RPF, she wrote a sec-check, 231 questions long, which she signed by her name and post: Commodore's Messenger and approved by Hubbard...

Ann Rosenblum was just 23 in 1978. She managed to reconstruct herself partly because of her parents' love.

Her 15 pages testimony on the RPF is moving and very complete.

 

5) Monica Pignotti's testimony in 1989:

"My nine lives in Scientology"

RPF on board Apollo, 1974

Extracts:

The Lesson of the RPF:

In January 1975, I was once again on the RPF. This time, however, it was not like the RPF in 1974 that I had been through the first time. This group of RPFers did not pull together to help each other through and it was not so easy for me to get out. A new feature of the RPF had been invented called the RPF's RPF, for people who got into trouble on the RPF. A person assigned to the RPF's RPF had to work deep down in the engine room of the ship all day, cleaning out bilges and was supposed to sleep in the chain locker. No communication with anyone was allowed exept for the RPF's ethics officer. The first person assigned to the RPF's RPF was an executive from London named Ron Hopkins. I caught occasional glimses of him on his way to and from the engine room. He was covered with muck from the bilges and looked miserable. He still had a chest cough from a bout of pneumonia he was obviously still recovering from.

... Life on the RPF was hard, beginning each day at 5.30. We were divided into groups of 5-7 people. The women's team cleaned all the heads ( bathrooms) on the ship, certain passageways and lounges, such as the aft lounge. Cleaning the heads didn't mean just swishing some toilet bowl cleaner around and going on to the next one. We had to scrub down the entire bathroom, including all the bulkheads(walls) and ceilings. After we cleaned an area, it had to pass a white glove inspection. If the glove came up dirty, the person who cleaned that area had to run laps from bow to stern of the ship(about 1/5 of a mile each). One time, when my senior wasn't satisfied the way I cleaned a bathromm, she ordered me to " take a lap". I protested because I thought she was being unfair and her reply was: " Don't Q&A with me. Take 2 laps." I objected again and she said:"Take 4 laps!" This went on until I was up to 10 laps, which I eventually had to do. Another time, I was ordered to run laps and I walked them instead. The person in charge of the RPF at the time, Homer Schomer, caught me walking and ran after me. I tried to run away from him, but he was too fast for me. He caught me by physically grabbing me and I ended up having to do more laps. The lesson we were to learn on the RPF was to obey orders without question, regardless of how we felt about it or who was giving the orders. This was a lesson that I was, obviously very unwilling to learn. I had not learned it my first time on the RPF, so I was back a second time. Blind obedience violated everything I had ever valued. I had thought that Scientology was about independence and self-determinism, not blind obedience to authority.

... I felt desolated. There seemed to be no hope for me getting out of the RPF. I can remember on day when I completely broke down.I went down to the lower hold where the RPF classroom was and cried like I have never cried before in my life. It felt like I was never going to stop. I felt totally out of control. Finally, Ron Hopkins went to the medical officer and got me some Cal mag which was supposed to calm me down so I could get some rest. It seemed to work for a few hours, but the next day, my grief came back. I went through several days wher I couldn't stop crying.I was in a deep state of mourning. ...On an emotional level, I had come to the realization that Scientology was a sham, but only on an emotional level. I had no words to describe my loss at the time. There was no exit counsellor or deprogrammer around to help me see what was really happening. All I knew was that I felt worse than I ever had in my entire life.

David Mayo noticed the state I was in and seemed very concerned, but not even the senior case supervisor could fix what was wrong with me.I felt I had lost everything.I had come with great dreams and visions about what could be and I had worked hard to make those dreams a reality.

... I had lost my ability to be angry. All I could do was cry. As unhappy as I was, I believed that life outside of Scientology would be much worse.

... And so it came to pass that on May 26 1975, I was assigned to the RPF's RPF. I spent very long days down in the engine room, cleaning foul smelling muck out of the bilges and then painting them. Fortunately, Ron Hopkins showed me some mercy and I didn't have to sleep in the chain locker. I was assigned a condition of ennemy and to get out of it, I had to write up the formula, which was "find out who you really are". I wrote the formula and submitted it to Ron Hopkins, but he wouldn't accept what I had written. I didn't know what he wanted me to write. For days, I struggled to find an answer that would satisfy him. Who was I? At that point, I really didn't know. If I had known who I really was I would have let them throw me out and gotten as far away from the ship and everyone aboard as I could. But leaving Scientology was a possibility that I was not willing to consider. I felt that leaving Scientology would be worse than whatever hell I was going through on the ship.

I spent 5 days on the RPF's RPF, but it seemed much longer. I wasn't allowed to communicate with anyone except Ron Hopkins. I determined that I would hang onto what little sanity I had left. The way I did this was to shut off all my emotions. It was a matter of survival. I finally wrote up my formula to Ron's satisfaction and got me out of the RPF's RPF. I had been broken after a long hard struggle. When Ron Hopkins said:" that's it, you're assigned to the RPF's RPF on May 26, 1975 in the aft lounge of the Flagship Apollo, something snapped in me and I no longer had any urge to fight back.

I was no longer angry; I was no longer sad; I was no longer happy; I felt nothing. I simply did as I was told.

At long last, I had learned the lesson of the RPF.

... Up to this point, I have not been at a loss for words in describing my experiences but now I feel myself feeling that I have little to say about the period that followed my being released from RPF's RPF. Perhaps this is because ther was very little of me during that time. My cult identity had taken over and I had become a Rondroid, a robot for LRH. I had stopped causing trouble and did as I was told."

 

 

Monica Pignotti lived in Scientology 6 years from 1971 to 1976. She was only 18 in 1971 when she was working as a staff auditor in Salt Lake City Mission. In 1973 she joined the SO at AOLA; she was already OT 3 and a Class VI auditor. As her reputation of being a good auditor was growing, Mary Sue Hubbard (the guru's wife) invites her personally to go to the Flagship Apollo where Hubbard lived. That was considered to be an honor. She lived there 2 years and witnessed unbeleivable incidents onboard the ship. She told her experience very accuratly in her excellent testimony. She was arbitrarely assigned to the RPF twice and once to the RPF's RPF onboard the ship.

When she finally emerged from those terrifying emprisonments Monica stayed a little while at the Flag land base after the Flagship had been sold in 1975. She held against her wishes the post of D of P at AOLA in May 1976. In August 1976, after she was threatened to have a Com Ev (equivalent to a court martial) she took a bus to Michigan the day after. She went to her mother's and during 9 months, she did nothing else than trying to understand what had happened and to adapt herself to her new life. She went to the Michigan University and passed a BA, then a Masters Degree in Social Work, passed her licensing exam (CSW) and is now a certified mental health professional in New York.(Since update August1996).

 

6) Larry D. Wollersheim's affidavit, 4-2-1980

RPF onboard "Excalibur" 1974?

 

Extract:

... Finally the cult assigned me to the RPF, which meant I was evil and that I had to rehabilitate myself. That experience was the most degrading experience of my life. The RPF on onboard the "Excalibur" was moored at San Pedro, California. We were emprisoned except when we had to clean the ship decks which was a small area. The food was so bad that a person called Bill Yaoude was hospitalized because of malnitrition. I spent my days wondering why I was so evil and rebel to the cult orders and to cult policies. They were "saving mankind" and I was then against the only organization working to save the planet! I was audited and corrected on past auditing again and again, until I could no longer take it. Then I secretely planned to jump overboard. When I tried to do it, I was caught and maintained onboard until the Ethics officer came and told me what would happen to me if I left; I would be declared an SP and in treason. I bought the threat and went back to the RPF. Long weeks afterwards, I was freed from the RPF and told I was put there on a mistake".

 

Larry D. Wollersheim has been suing Scientology since 1985. When he launched his civil case he placed the OT levels in the court record. (Lamont.) He won a 2.5 $ which was never paid by the cult. Instead, Scientology has incessantly been appealing and taking advantage of the justice system to continue to harass Wollersheim and not pay him. In the Net, it is commonly referred to "Wollersheim the V"!

Julia Darcondo tells in her book ;Voyage Au Centre de la Secte * published in 1987, how she helped Larry to escape from Copenhagen RPF. Larry could not endure to sufferring through an other RPF and managed to escape. ..." He had run right in front of him, on the deserted streets. He then saw me carrying my suitcase. He knew me from sight and that I was a public from Paris Org. He then staked his all, risking his being denounced. His expression was still charged with terror." (extract from Julia Darcondo's book)

* Copyrights of that book were mysteriously bought by the cult!.

...Continued.

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