http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/pignotti/ My Nine Lives in Scientology 1/10 by Monica Pignotti (1989) (en Francais) Contents: Introduction How I Got Involved The Bait The Franchise My Father's Attempted Intervention Mind Control Techniques -- The Early Months Alienation from the Outside World I Begin My First Steps on the "Bridge to Total Freedom" My First Contact with the Sea Org TRs the Hard Way OT III The Sea Org The Flagship Apollo The Flag Auditor's Internship The Commodore Arrives The RPF My LRH Commendation The Mission to New York The Rock Concert Here We Go Again -- Another Rollercoaster Ride The Lesson of the RPF I Begin My New Life Introduction The following is an account of my life in Scientology, a group I was involved in from December 1970 to August of 1976 -- about 5 years and 9 months. From 1973 to 1975 I lived aboard the Flagship Apollo ("Flag"), the home of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Dianetics and Scientology. On Flag, I trained to be an auditor (a Scientology counselor). My life on Flag was a continual roller-coaster of ups and downs. One day I would receive a personal commendation from Hubbard and be held up as an example of what a Flag auditor should be and then, just months later, Hubbard would take away all my certificates and send me to the RPF (Scientology's prison camp) for an auditing error I did not even commit. On Flag as auditors, we were under continuous pressure to be perfect, the standard of perfection being the whim of L. Ron Hubbard. Many people, no doubt, have read horror stories about what occurred on Flag and I can personally attest to the fact that they are true. This might lead one to wonder why a person would join such a group in the first place. How could anyone put up with such abuse? In writing this testimony, I hope to give people some insight into this question. The fact is that I didn't join Scientology to be ordered around and abused and I don't know anyone who did. The group I thought I joined, as an idealistic eighteen-year-old, bore little resemblance to what Scientology actually was and still is. When I found Scientology, I thought I had found all the answers to the great mysteries of life. I had found the Truth -- or so I thought. What I didn't know at the time, however, was that I was involved in a destructive cult that used deception, followed by subtle, but very effective techniques to control my mind and the minds of many others. I didn't realize the full ramifications of the impact of this experience on me until years after I left the group. I now realize that this group has caused me tremendous harm -- that I was a victim of mind control. My purpose in writing this account of my experiences is to make people aware of how it feels to be a Scientologist, what attracts people to Scientology and to show the techniques that are used in Scientology to control people's minds. It is not a pretty picture, but having this knowledge is essential if you wish to help a friend or loved one to free themselves from the clutches of this very destructive cult. As painful as my experiences were, I am very happy finally to be free, once again, to make my own choices in life. However, some people weren't so fortunate. Quentin Hubbard, L. Ron Hubbard's son and a very close friend of mine, committed suicide at age 22 because he could see no way out of the trap he was in. Having been born into Scientology, he could not envision living outside of the cult, but could not stand living in it. It is too late for Quentin. He is gone and no one can undo that the damage that was done to him, but it is not too late for others. If writing this gives someone the insight to get their loved one out of Scientology, then perhaps, my years in Scientology will have served some purpose. How I Got Involved I have always been, and still am, a very inquisitive person about the questions of life and human nature. As a teenager, I kept detailed journals of my experiences, my thoughts about them and my insights about life. I was very aware of the serious problems that existed in the world and I wanted to do something positive about them. Many of my friends took drugs to escape the pressures of life, but I didn't join them. I was a very strong-willed person who didn't give in to group pressure. I was, in my mother's words, a "free spirit." I was very interested in ideas that were departures from the accepted norm. What the world needed, I felt, were innovative ideas and solutions and I hoped someday to make a contribution that would make a real difference in people's lives. I read anything I could get my hands on that might provide me with some insight into human nature and how we could achieve our full potential as human beings. I very much believed that to change the world, we had to change as individuals, so when I heard about a book called Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, by L. Ron Hubbard, I was very interested. It was the fall of 1970 and I had just started college at the University of Utah at the age of 17, with a major in music. I had been studying music since the age of four, having come from a family of musicians. I had always assumed, up until then, that I would be a musician, but that year I was beginning to question that assumption. This caused me to feel intense inner struggle, as it was, in my mind, a rejection of everything my parents wanted for me, but, at the same time, I knew I had to follow my own path. This inner struggle, not uncommon to people my age, was one factor that made me vulnerable to Scientology. I became very interested in the subject of Psychology and was taking an introductory course on the subject which was biased, mainly in favor of the Behaviorist school of psychology. There was very little emphasis on other forms of psychology, which probably would have appealed to me more. Given the limited information that I had, I concluded that the establishment had very little to offer and began to look outside for insights into the field. There was a music professor at the University named Sally Peck who was involved in Scientology. Sally was principal violist of the Utah Symphony and a respected member of the community. It was one of her students who told me about Scientology and took me to a free lecture on Communication in December, 1970, shortly before my eighteenth birthday. There was nothing profoundly earthshattering in the contents of the lecture, but I was very impressed by the people involved. Many of them were artists and musicians who seemed to be having great insights into the nature of life and their work as artists. After the lecture, I bought the Dianetics book and spent my Christmas vacation back home in Michigan reading it. I just couldn't put the book down; I was fascinated. L. Ron Hubbard, it seemed, had developed an innovative theory about the human mind and the cause of all human abberation and he had developed a technique called auditing, designed to put this theory into practice and thus, bring about a world free of war and insanity. And so my journey began. Upon returning to Salt Lake City in January, 1971, I started my first Scientology course. The Bait I think it is important, at this point, to explain more fully what it is about Scientology that appealed to me. Every cult, no matter how sinister it seems, has something positive about it that is used as bait to attract people. After all, if everything about a cult were negative, nobody would join. I don't believe that it is human nature to be masochistic; people don't want to suffer the humiliation and degradation that is rampant in cults. People join cults because they believe that the cult has something that will help them, in some way, to change some unwanted condition in their lives and to grow as a person so they can live happier and more fulfilling lives. In Scientology, auditing is the bait used to attract people. Auditing is a process that occurs between two people: the auditor (therapist or counsellor) and the preclear ("PC", the person being audited). The auditor's job is to ask the preclear a question, listen attentively to the answer the PC gives and acknowledge what the PC says, by saying "thank you", "good" or "ok" after the PC has answered. The PC's job is to look into his own mind and answer the question. One basic rule of auditing is that the auditor never evaluates for the PC, meaning that the auditor never tells the PC what he thinks the answer is to the question or how the PC should think. Thus, the PC is encouraged to look within him/herself for answers, rather than relying on someone else to give the answers, promoting self-determinism. The premise behind auditing is that the answers lie within each of us and that we are fully capable of finding them. I found this idea very empowering as well as mentally and spiritually stimulating. What I didn't realize at the time, however, is that this idea of asking questions and getting answers is one that has been around for a very long time -- it goes all the way back to the Greek philosophers and there are legitimate forms of psychotherapy that do not revolve around cults that are based on the same premise. I thought that Hubbard had come up with something new and wonderful, as did many other people who were drawn into Scientology. Hubbard claimed to be anti-authoritarian. After all, we had only to look within ourselves to find the truth. It was completely unnecessary to rely on any person who called himself an authority. Any authority, that is, except him, and this is where all the contradictions come into play. The Sea Org, Scientology's inner circle, is one of the most authoritarian groups imaginable. Many people, such as myself, who were originally attracted to Scientology because it advocated independence and self-determinism later found ourselves living under a totalitarian dictatorship on a ship with L. Ron Hubbard at the helm. Hubbard had said, "There are no absolutes", but the closer one gets to the inner circle of Scientology, the more one discovers that Hubbard's authority is an absolute, never to be criticized or questioned. If only I had known in these first few months what I know now. If only I had known that any assertion of self-determinism that ran contrary to LRH's whims was severely punished. If only I had known that the universe LRH created was one in which no one could be trusted; where "friends", even relatives, wrote up knowledge reports on one another. If only I had known that L. Ron Hubbard's son, Quentin committed suicide after several earlier attempts because he found life under his father's control unbearable. If only I had known that Hubbard had, in fact, created exactly the opposite kind of world to the one he promised us -- that he betrayed everything he professed to value -- that he betrayed and shattered the dreams of myself and many, many others. If only I had known all this in January, 1971, when I took my first Scientology course, I would have run as far away and as fast as I could. But destructive cults, such as Scientology don't tell you those things. Deception is used to draw people in and then techniques of mind control are used to trap them and that is exactly what happened to me. The idea of giving and receiving auditing appealed to me enormously. In auditing, I saw tremendous potential to really make a difference in people's lives. Many people involved in the arts are attracted to auditing because they feel that the process helps them to discover and realize their creative potential. They have no idea that the price they ultimately pay is to become enslaved into a cult that stifles any possibility of being creative. There are celebrities who are involved in Scientology, such as Priscilla Presley, Karen Black, John Travolta, Chick Corea and others who, I am sure, would disagree with me. Even though these people have done many advanced courses, the powers that be in Scientology have made sure, for obvious PR purposes, that these celebrities never see the dark side of Scientology. They are given very special treatment in centers set up just for them called Celebrity Centers. When they are guests at Scientology organizations, such as the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, they get the best rooms and are served by uniformed waiters in an elegant dining room. They are not shown the parking garage, where the backsliders in the Sea Org are sent to live, as punishment. This is something that Priscilla Presley has never seen; you can be sure of that. She and her daughter have never been locked up in the chain locker of a ship, something I witnessed happening to young people and others several times while I was aboard the Apollo. She still sees Scientology as I saw it when I first joined and will never be allowed to see anything else, nor will she allow herself to believe written testimonies, such as mine. In those early months, I saw Scientology as a group of very powerful, but gentle people who were working together to free people from their mental prisons and thus, to create a world without insanity or war where each person was granted dignity. As the months passed and I became more indoctrinated, I decided that Scientology, and only Scientology, had the tools to create such a world. I concluded that there was nothing more important than for me to be involved in Scientology. By March, 1971, I had dropped out of college to become a full-time Scientologist. One of my music teachers who I had been close to, Chris Tiemeyer, saw what was happening to me and became very concerned. I "handled" him by pointing out that Sally Peck, principal violist of the Utah Symphony and a respected member of the community, was involved in Scientology and felt it had done her a lot of good. (Sally was another example of a Scientology celebrity, on a local level.) Even though Chris continued to have some reservations, I eventually got him and his wife to come into the center and get some auditing. Neither of them got involved very deeply, however and their involvement was very brief. I think they were just curious to see what all the fuss was about. Meanwhile, I was in my "honeymoon" phase with Scientology and felt I was making new discoveries each day about the secrets of the universe. It was exhilarating. I felt that I was living out the purpose I had been seeking all my life. The Franchise My first two years in Scientology (1971-1973) were spent working as a staff auditor at the franchise in Salt Lake City, when I wasn't away at a higher organization ("org") receiving training as an auditor In franchises, at least in those days, the heavy ethics (Scientology disciplinary tactics) that existed in higher orgs didn't exist in franchises, especially not the Salt Lake City franchise. The purpose of the franchise was to bring new people into Scientology. Franchise holders were allowed to earn a modest, but adequate living for themselves and gave ten percent of what they earned to Scientology. All this changed in 1982, when the franchises were taken over by a fanatical group in the upper echelon of Scientology and many franchise holders expelled. In 1971, however, the franchise was a very pleasant place to be. As a staff auditor, I received a small salary and lived in a house with 4 or 5 other Scientologists next door to the franchise. We shared the rent, which was $125 a month. Living conditions were not bad -- I'd say they were comparable to the average college student living off campus. In addition to my salary, I was also receiving $200 a month from my parents at the time, which I saved up to take more advanced Scientology courses. Deon Satterfield, the franchise holder and my boss was a Class VI auditor and had achieved the state of OT III, considered in Scientology to be a very advanced state of awareness. Before becoming a Scientologist, Deon has been a harpist with the Utah Symphony. She and I developed a warm, close friendship and I admired her very much. She became my mentor. In many ways, Deon was a very independent person. Her dislike for higher Scientology organizations (not the courses or the auditing, but certain people in them) was obvious, though never openly stated. She was a kind person who never applied heavy discipline to her staff. As a result, working for the franchise was quite pleasant. She once told me that she could never work for an org. She said, "I'm just not an org person", but never explained herself further. She didn't dare. Later, I came to understand exactly what she meant. My Father's Attempted Intervention In 1971, there was no Cult Awareness Network and no exit counselling. The only alternatives concerned parents had was either forcible deprogramming or to try to get their children out on their own. When my parents found out I had dropped out of school, they became very concerned. Years later, my mother told me that she and my father went to the library and did detailed research on Scientology. What they found out alarmed them even further. My father flew out to Salt Lake City all the way from Michigan to show me articles they had discovered and a book written by Paulette Cooper called The Scandal of Scientology -- a book she was to be endlessly harassed by Scientologists for writing. I read the articles and the book and summarily dismissed them as lies perpetuated by Suppressive Persons ("SP"s). An SP is a Scientology term for anyone who is against Scientology. Paulette Cooper, to me, was the very incarnation of evil. I pictured her as a miserable, tortured person who wanted to bring everyone else down with her. Her book told horror stories of Flag, LRH's home. I didn't believe them because I hadn't experienced anything like that at the franchise. I threw the articles and the book away and told my father it was all a pack of lies created by the press. I couldn't believe that my father has flown all this way to show me such rubbish! After seeing my reaction, he had no choice but to back off, but he let me know that he loved me and was very concerned. Mind Control Techniques -- The Early Months My father's intervention was unsuccessful because, even in the first few months, mind control techniques were being used on me that I wasn't aware of. Here are some of the methods of indoctrination that were being used on me. Loaded Language As a newcomer, I was introduced to a whole new language -- the "nomenclature of Scientology", as Hubbard liked to call it. Here are a few terms or phrases that I learned that were used to manipulate me and others: "Q&A" Defined as the failure to complete a cycle of action, which means a failure to finish something started. This was expanded to mean any questioning of an order given by someone senior to the person or any expression of disagreement. This was a device used to get people to follow orders given to them, no matter how ridiculous. 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