1978 was a crazy year, very tumultuous.
LRH arrived back to La Quinta in January of 1978 after Mary Sue had moved to LA to handle her criminal case from the Snow White FBI Investigation.
While he was gone, during the last half of 1977, the messengers and most of the crew on base were preparing for the making of the tech movies. During 78 and 79 we called this the Cine Org; it was not named Gold until later years. Recruitment had been done to get more people for this unit and we messengers had typed the scripts LRH had sent us via mail.
So when he arrived back to La Quinta he got straight into setting this Cine Org up. I cannot explain how stressed everyone was through this time period. Almost no-one had any movie making experience and certainly none of us messengers. He wanted to make the movies his way, so if there were a few people who had some experience, they obviously did not know what they were doing as far as he was concerned. Creating this movie making unit involved establishing people to make sets; costumes; makeup; acting; lighting and then of course the camera work.
LRH bought some fancy video cameras and then studied their manuals when we put him to bed at night. Then the camera people had to train on them. This is where David Miscavige comes in, as he became one of the cameramen along with Terri Gillham.
I was not part of the Cine crew – however, I did act in 2 movies, one was the Tone Scale and I was cast by LRH as Cheerfulness……for this movie, each actor for each tone level had to say “A E I O U” in the tone level you were. I remember sitting on a blanket, dressed all pretty as though I was on a picnic and then say over and over again A E I O U…in a cheerful voice….until I got it right! Ugh it was awful because as time would be ticking by I was NOT feeling cheerful anymore and LRH was just getting madder. On top of that it was in the hot desert sun.
Even though I was not part of the crew I was a watch messenger, so frequently ended up being on watch during shooting time. My job then was to take care of LRH’s needs, cigarettes, ashtray, and water, maybe run a message or two to some of the Cine people or take dictation. But I also had to hold the bullhorn up to his mouth when he was directing. There were many times that I held it up with my arm outstretched towards his mouth, and simultaneously had to hold down the button when he wanted to talk into it – well, for some reason the bullhorn would screech when I depressed the button. LRH would get so mad at me and throw the darn thing on the ground. I hated that bullhorn. I am sure some of you who were there can remember me and the bullhorn..
LRH somewhat enjoyed shooting the movies, but at the same time, it was frustrating for him as he was dealing with people who were not professional and at times just could not get his vision. We did night shoots as well and sometimes were up very late into the night to get the right shots.
It was extremely stressful for everyone and most of the time it seemed as though nothing was satisfactory to LRH. He yelled and screamed constantly. Most of the crew, even if they had been on the Apollo, had never seen him act this way. It was crazy.
His anger and fits did not just stay on the movie set. Doreen Smith Gilham and I were more often than not assigned to the infamous morning watch. Doreen was pretty good at calming LRH down and to a certain extent me too. But this morning watch was the worst thing in the world. He woke up screaming and being angry. It could be because of the way we helped him get dressed, or that his cravat wasn’t tied properly, or his breakfast was not good, or clothes smelling, it could be any trivial thing. Many times we would also elicit Kima Douglas to help us calm him down. From this point on I noticed a big difference with him. Before it had been these sort of outbursts every now and again, but now his was happening every single day and most of the day. Additionally, when Mary Sue was living at the base she would also be a calming person to him but with her now gone to LA, it was just horrible.
One day I remember waiting for the messengers on watch to turn over the watch to me, so I was sitting in the messenger office that adjoined his, waiting for them to come out. I could hear him yelling and screaming……I thought to myself and will never forget it – that I must never forget the year 1978 as it was the worst year ever as a messenger. I was under constant stress and I could not even talk to my husband about it. Nobody. I was scared to go on watch and actually lost quite a bit of weight (and I didn’t need to lose any). I really did not want to be a watch messenger anymore, but what could I do? Nowhere to go and I certainly did not want to end up on the RPF.
During one of his tirades, and I cannot remember what it was about – but he was not only yelling and screaming he was walking from one end of Rifle house to the other, going into the kitchen, offices, the courtyard. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to “handle” whatever it was that was causing this outrage. When it was all over and he had calmed down and was now in his office, I tried to find the other messenger who was supposed to be on watch with me, she had seriously disappeared and I was the only one there. She had not been there from the beginning of the outburst. Well, I found her hiding in the large closet we had in our messenger office. She was scared out of her mind. At the time I was pissed at her but now I realize and see she had every right to do that. She was a junior messenger and had not stood many watches with him before, so I could understand how terrifying it must have been for her.
During this time period David Miscavige virtually never stood a watch. At the most he stood watch as a messenger maybe 3 months in total.
LRH GOES INTO A COMA AND ALMOST DIES – August
August 1978, during the hot desert summer with temperatures frequently between 118 and 120 degrees, we were on the set. In those days we had a motorhome on set for him. That way he could eat his lunch or dinner and relax for a little bit. He started feeling sick and did not look good. Kima was there and took his blood pressure and pulse and they were sky high. She immediately took him back to his house at Rifle. The messengers on watch rushed back to the house. Kima tried to get him to go to the doctor but he absolutely refused. He got worse and actually went into a coma. We all thought that he was going to die right then. At this point in the history of Scn, one has to realize that Mary Sue was not there, but in LA, about to go to jail. There was no higher management set-up, no Watchdog Committee, and the CMO were not running scientology, only LRH. If one thinks about that now, who knows what would have happened had he died right then. I think Mary Sue would have taken over, even if she was going to go to jail.
LRH had been stressed. Cine was kind of going along, but he was frequently upset about that; he was worried about the GO upheaval and court cases that had begun and he was also concerned the management of Scn was not really going well due to the movie making……..there was a lot for him to be worried about.
Doreen Gillham was in Los Angeles on a mission, I think it had something to do with Revolt In The Stars movie script – trying to get it sold. I am not 100% sure, but Kima and a few of us older messengers had her find a Scentologist doctor, blindfold him and bring him to Rifle. She found Dr. Denk and he was brought to the house and immediately started treating LRH. Even though he wanted LRH to be in a hospital, he was concerned he would survive the drive, that’s how bad he was. It took a few days to get Denk there and in the meanwhile LRH was in and out of a coma. I only remember him lying on his bed for days, not talking and trying to feed him sort of porridge and I am not sure that he was even able to eat anything.
Once Dr. Denk was there he immediately started to get better, but it took a couple of months before he was able to return to shooting movies again and get onto a normal schedule. During this recovery time, we also had a chiropractor come out — a Dr. Keppler. At the time, I had never heard of a chiropractor before or even what that was. He would come into the office and put bottles of vitamins in LRH’s hands and then he would push down on his arms, and if there was no strength, he would then tell LRH that he was lacking those vitamins or minerals or whatever. My first thought was that this was voodoo and why would LRH believe this when we as Scn’sts were not supposed to “mix practices”. Now one can see that chiropractors are part of the Scn acceptable practices.
Per an interview with Kima, she said LRH had a pulmonary embolism, not a heart attack. I always thought it was a heart attack.
As far as I am concerned and from what I witnessed, Dr. Denk saved LRH’s life and so did Kima Douglas (who had pretty much saved his life on 2 other occasions as well).
We also got David Mayo, who was at Flag as the Senior C/S FSO, to La Quinta. LRH had previously been audited by Paulette Cohen and for some reason she got in trouble and was not his auditor anymore. So now David was the most highly trained auditor/C/S, so we got him there to audit LRH. This was the start of LRH and David working on NOT’s and many other tech breakthroughs which came out in the following couple of years.
DIANETIC CLEAR –SEPTEMBER 1978
For some reason, unknown to me, I was receiving Dianetic auditing – I do believe it was the new New Era Dianetcs which he had just worked on, even though I had had a lot of Dianetic auditing from my childhood until 1978. LRH and David Mayo were CS’ing my folders (could have been due to research). I went into this one session and of course, I was supposed to go back, back, back for whatever thing we were handling. I got so sick of this that I seriously had a wobbly in session and started yelling & crying that I was sick and tired of going back to past lifetimes and that I felt that I was just making it all up! I was really performing about this. I actually shocked myself. By the time I got out of session I felt scared. I thought that I was going to be in big trouble and was obviously a “no case gain.” I had no idea what was going to happen and was quite nervous. About a day later I was told I had to go to the examiner and wow – the examiner tells me that I have been declared a Dianetic Clear. First off I had no idea what a Dianetic Clear was, but I was so relieved that I was not in trouble. I wrote the following letter to my Mom:
Dearest Mommy, Here is the HCOB LRH wrote after my thing, it all happened because of me!! Anyway it explains it all. I think we will have many Clears now. I am on Solo right now and will be on OT 1 shortly.
I then attached the HCOB of 24 September 1978 ISSUE III DIANETIC CLEAR. The first 2 paragraphs as follows:
The state of Clear can be achieved on Dianetics.
I have now determined there is no such thing as Keyed-Out Clear. There is only a Dianetic Clear and he is a Clear.
I was floored but actually felt like a fraud, how could that be that I am now Clear? I also received my Clear bracelet which states that I was the first Dianetic Clear. I have only in recent months told this story of feeling like a fraud to my husband and close family members.
NOTORIOUS LIST ONE R/S (rock slam) ERA
The time period from early 78 to late 78, LRH had given orders for the Cine Org; PAC area and Flag to have staff members sec checked on the List One (these are questions about having evil intentions against LRH/MSH/Scientology) and if anyone R/S’ed (rock slam on the e-meter) they had to immediately be sent to the RPF. It was one of the most awful time periods in the SO (at least up to that point). Auditors were misreading the e-meter and were saying a certain needle reaction was an R/S when it was not. Almost 50% of the staff in those SO areas ended up on the RPF. It was a major witch-hunt.
Fortunately for me I did not end up being sec-checked as I had not made any “goofs” to warrant the sec check, but I can tell you that I was scared out of my mind and a nervous wreck, because if you made one slip-up, off to the sec-checker you were sent. Especially when you saw people close to LRH being sent to the RPF.
One day LRH realized that a couple of messengers were missing and when asked where they were, he was told they were on the RPF due to the List One R/S program, he also noticed there were less and less staff in the Cine Org.
He got this checked into and found the problem and then reprieved pretty much everyone.
GANG OF FIVE
I have no idea who wrote the Gang of Five account which was posted on the Scientology-Cult.com website but whoever wrote it knew what was going on and I can attest fully to their truthful account and therefore I felt it prudent to re-post a portion of it here applicable to 1978 and will post more as I go through the years.
“In January ’78, LRH returned to La Quinta and got into shooting training films for Scn. While LRH was gone, the messengers were training on various fields of Cine. Dave ended up Deputy/Camera Man and later became Camera Man. While doing this, he was also the Action Chief and would run missions when not shooting films (an evaluation done in the late ‘80s found that though DM bragged about having run a successful Action Bureaux, the eval found that the Action Bureaux in the late ‘80s had a better success rate than Dave did; this eval never got approved as it would have made Dave look bad). He was a decent Mission Ops and there were many missionaries that liked working for him as he seemed to duplicate what his Missionaries were reporting or when they had trouble but he was always very determined to get things done on a “now” type basis.
Mary Sue was always a calming influence on LRH and when she was around him, he was not as moody. However, with her gone to LA, he had major mood swings. Those that had not worked with him for long had a hard time confronting these outbursts. It was during these rough days, though, that Dave Miscavige was around LRH – so he never really experienced what LRH was like when he was not stressed out about his wife and others being tried and jailed.
During the year of ’78, many people including some Messengers were being assigned to the RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force) as “List One R/Sers” meaning there was supposedly evidence that they harbored an evil purpose toward Scientology. Later the adjudicating criteria turned out to be false.
Anyway, during the shortage of messengers Dave stood a few watches with LRH but the majority of his time was spent behind the camera. He never had the status of being a Senior Messenger of the Watch and in fact did not spend very much time around LRH in his day to day work. Early ‘77 to mid ‘77 as Traffic Messenger, and then Jan ‘78 to end of ‘78, he was mostly on the camera and not doing much in the way of watches with LRH. In ’79 Dave spent little time with LRH as he was “too busy” handling management traffic. So in all honestly, Miscavige did not have much history of seeing how LRH dealt with orgs and missions on a long term. The time Dave did spend with LRH was one of the most tumultuous and upsetting periods of LRH’s life.
In late ‘78, while making training films, we were out on location using a golf course for one of the films. This was at Gilman Hot Springs. It was found that the place was up for sale, so LRH had it purchased with the intention of using it for summer headquarters and using La Quinta properties for winter headquarters — they were only about 90 minutes away from each other. Gilman Hot Springs became the Int/Gold Base outside of Hemet.
It was during this time we had a breach of security with some staff going to the press about the location of LRH, which made LRH very concerned about being served with legal papers.”
www.Scientology-cult.com/gang-of-five.html
See the earlier installments of Lois’ story here:
The Lois Reisdorf Story: Part 1
Lois Reisdorf – Part 2 LRH on the Apollo
Lois Reisdorf – Part 3 LRH Moves to the US
Another great story. Thank you for sharing
I was also a patient of Dr Gene Denk and chiropractor James Keppler. I was sent to see Denk after I tested positive for HIV (no-one on the ship informed me that I had even been tested for HIV, let alone tested positive.).
I walked into Denk’s office, he was sitting at his desk and his first words to me were “They didn’t tell you did they”. I said “Tell me what? ” Denk told me that I needed to go to the AIDS clinic in LA and had his staff get me an appointment which was 5 weeks away. That seemed to be a long time to wait considering my legs were going numb from neuropathy and I could not walk very far and I had just been diagnosed with a fatal disease. His nurse also drew some blood for a confirming test (known as a Western Blot.) There was another Freewinds staff member who had been ordered to take me to see Denk. He had been in Sacramento seeing “doctor” Keppler (Keppler is not a licensed medical doctor) as he had a back problem which was only partly resolved before he had been ordered to pick me up to take me to see Denk. This was mid May of 02. Since Maiden Voyage was coming up he was concerned that he finish getting his back handled because he knew that he was likely to be recalled to the ship whether his back was fully handled or not due to the obscene amount of work that has to be done before the arrival of DM on the ship. He talked to the Chief Officer on the ship, who called Keppler, who told him to send us both back there . Keppler advised me not to take the HIV meds the real doctors would perscribe as they were “worse than HIV”. Meanwhile my wife and my former wife Sharron (now Weber COFSSO) were sent for HIV testing and both tested negative. Keppler was treating my HIV (actually it had progressed to AIDS years earlier) by first taking X-rays of my back, giving me a number of back adjustments and having physical therapists at his office working with me and giving me herbs. As I was living at Keppler’s house and was still in the Sea Org at that point, I pretty much had to do as I was told. Meanwhile my wife had been told by the Captain that I was going to die and that no-one could do anything for me.Yet in conversations with Denk and the ship’s doctor, I was told that they had good medications for HIV. Yet I would not receive any meds until I was all but dead. Both Denk and Keppler told me that they had known LRH, but gave few details. My impression was that they were both excellent in their fields, but Keppler was not a doctor (although his patients caled him doc) and his insistence that I not take medical drugs (backed up by the ship) very nearly cost me my life. I had dementia and no longer recognised my wife and my T-cell count had reached zero before I received any real medical treatment. When I finally got proper treatment I recovered fairly quickly. It was still a while before I recovered my motor abilities as I had had no sense of
balance and could barely walk.
I am a last lifetime Clear. This came up on a correction list in 86 and I was C/Sed for the CCRD. I received the CCRD.It was going Ok; We date located where and when I went clear and the auditor asked me what the process was I went clear on. He steered me to the answer with the meter which seemed like bullshit to me at the time “Advanced Procedure” . I worked in the NOTs HGC known as an AO. So was I telling the auditor that I went.clear on NOTS? I felt that the hell with it, I couldn’t have gone Clear. It was just about like Lowie says happened to her. The folder went back to the C/S and then I was sent to the examiner to attest to Clear!
Later I read the book Advanced Procedure and Axioms which says that people are cleared with Advanced Procedure. The book was published 3 months before the date at the same place that I had come up with on the Date/Locate.
I realized that I left an important part out of my comment. I got the HIV from blood transfusions in 1989 after I lost a massive amount of blood from a bleeding ulcer and due to to the fact that I am a hemophiliac. I had not had sex with anyone other than my wives in the 23 years I was in the SO.
Bill you seem like a really strong man. Every time you tell some of your story I am amazed at how you survived. That’s how I see you, as really really strong. I hope your life is going better these days and the symptoms and problems are in check, sending best wishes to you. – T.J.
Ditto that TJ
Thanks for telling your remarkable story, Bill.
Thank you TJ, Cindy and Mirildi. I have had no symptoms of HIV/AIDS for over 13 years. Other than being older, I am just as capable as I always was. In 2007 I redid the purif at a field group in Granite Hills (An SPD came out in 1996 re public with HIV that states that persons with HIV cannot do the Purif at an org but must do it elsewhere. This is strange considering the same issue says that HIV is not transmitted by sweat. I just realized while writing this is that the reason can only be that they do not want homos in their sauna. (HIV is majorly transmitted through homosexual sex; next most likely is sharing needles while shooting up drugs. They know damn well that I am not a homo or a needle junkie but they don’t care. But they don’t want homos or what other names they are called in their sauna as they are homophobes. I have nothing against them.(I’d better not if I want to live. The majority of the people working at the HIV research Clinic are homosexual.)
Anyway, when I did the Purif I had to do the IQ test. I scored 150 on it and the person administering the test stated that he had never seen anyone finish the test in 20 minutes with such a high score instead of the 30 they are allowed. I actually did it in 15 minutes but looked over my answers for 5 minutes before turning it in. This is not bad considering that the neurologist who ordered a CAT scan of my brain noted ” marked brain volume loss” for my age. Some people with big heads are as dumb as a post. I believe it has a lot to do with necessity level. In my opinion, one has to be smart to survive in the SO. For at least 10 years I used to tell people that the only way off of the ship was in a box. I guess they didn’t get it so I had to demo it for them.(joke) No, the only thing I need now is a good job. I learned the hard way not to tell potential employers that I have/had AIDS. Someone would ask why I am no longer working on the ship and I told them the truth. They would say Ok, we will get back to you soon, and then you never hear from them again. Now that the story is all over the internet anyone can type my name into a search engine and up pops the whole story. I don’t really care
Who knows the story. If it cost me a job, I’m better off not working for them anyway.
“…for this movie, each actor for each tone level had to say “A E I O U” in the tone level you were.”
Wow, I remember watching that film!
Me too. Although my short term memory is terrible, I vividly recall Lowie saying AEIOU in the movie which I have not.seen in 20 years. Though there was I time when I had AIDS when I could not have picked my own wife out of a lineup.
Re: “From this point on I noticed a big difference with him [L. Ron Hubbard]. Before it had been these sort of outbursts every now and again, but now his was happening every single day and most of the day.”
I’d start having outbursts all the time if David Miscavige came into my space, much the way “Scrooge McDuckavige” did in the final days of L. Ron Hubbard’s life.
ML,
Fred G. Haseney, an “extremely bitter ex-scientologist”
Hi Lowie, you have told it factually and well. We are proud of you. Amazing the interest anything said about LRH generates. I first met him in 1961at the Congress in Johannesburg South AFRICA and saw him once again in 1966 when I went to collect my wife after she had completed a clearing course run by him in Salisbury Rhodesia for a number of South African staff. He was fit and well in those days and had no steward’s or messengers with him.All he had was an LRH comm Katie Botha.
Gary, like me you got a Roll’s Royce of a wife from your days in Scientology. Look after her well. I am sorry to see the considerable bypassed charge you have around. I just wish my friend Neville, lowies step dad, was still around to give you a session or two. Perhaps your view of tin cans may not have been so bad with a great auditor of good intent. We look forward to seeing you both in SA sometime in the future.
David and Molly married for 54 years, no longer in the Church, happily declared, still applying Scn to life and doing incredibly well.
Thanks Dave. I am sorry I didn’t get to see you and Molly as Lois did recently. You both are wonderful people and I value your friendship dearly. 54 years of marriage is unbelievable.
I’ll NEVER forget the most enjoyable week or so that Lois and I spent with you both in Swaziland.
I like to look at any form of self-help that one wishes to participate in is fine with me as long as the organization or procedures do not harm others. My son who is disconnected from us is welcome to practice whatever he wants and I would not attempt to stop him. I abhor disconnection, Fair Game, forced abortions, destroyed families, harmful ethics policies, slave labor, Snow White type programs – I could go on.
I was born into SCN as my father read Dianetics before I was born, in 1953. I never had the opportunity to discover it. It was an integral part of our family. My father spent his entire life and all of his money pursuing greatness that SCN had to offer and ultimately died of cancer in his 70s. As you know, Lois’ mother, after spending most of her adult life living and breathing SCN, died of a brain tumor at 58 years old. I was also ripped out of High School to go on the Apollo at 17 along with my 2 younger sisters. When I blew in ’82, I never really wanted to ever be involved with it in any manner or form again. Of course I kept the peace and didn’t rock any boats and let all those around me do as they please regarding SCN. I also did not have any idea of any abuses that existed. I eventually looked at my 11 years in the SO as a previous life.
When I do reflect on what I did gain from SCN, I think of my wonderful wife and now my 3 sons. Were it not for my father dragging me off to the Apollo, I would have never met her. I also met so many wonderful, well-intentioned people from those days and in SA.
I would definitely love to see you and Molly if I get to SA again. Hey, planes originate in Joberg flying to San Diego as well!
Keep Well.
Thanks Dave, you are one of the special people in my life and I am so happy you are enjoying these even if they are not necessarily all in favor of LRH. My quest is to tell the truth and not try to sway things one way or the other. You and Molly are truly some of the REAL old-timers left. You are like my favorite uncle…..almost like a Dad. Love you & Molly, Lowie
Thanks so much for this latest edition of the account of your life and times with LRH, Lois. Fascinating stuff.
Referring in general to the many stories about LRH now available, these are “insider” stories. Everyone else in scn thought Elron was a wise and caring person as he was presented to the public. I never regarded him as anything but an extremely intelligent person. There was no critical information available to the public unless you happened to come across a rare critical article in a newspaper or magazine. The internet and a hundred television channels has changed all that.
Ah, 1978…..Hollywood gave us Animal Farm, Grease, Superman…..at least 2 of those movies starring people ‘onlines’ at one time or another. Again Lois, your debrief is very valuable.
Did anyone ever consider that LRH had some serious physical and neurological issues going on with his body? Major long term out ruds on the body? Those perfume smells were most likely ‘phantom’ or hallucinatory in nature (I’ve experienced similar myself.) I know the nasty history of the AMA, the galen\harvey controversy that stalled medical science for centuries, (Is New Slant on Life even in print anymore?) the suppression of “cures” by Morris Fishbein of AMA infamy; but still, checking blood pressure routinely is just common sense, as are yearly photos of you retinas for diabetic symptoms. Kima D must have been some kind of Angel…….you guys were caring for one of the most cantankerous and stubborn old men EVAH…..lol. The tape legacy from the 50’s through the 60’s reveals a lot……the most flagrant change in that record came in the Class VIII tapes on the Apollo……and t was all down hill from there.
Again, thank you.
Excellent comment, Tom, especially the second paragraph.
One thing you wrote was this: “I know the nasty history of the AMA, the galen-harvey controversy that stalled medical science for centuries (is New Slant on Life even in print anymore?), the suppression of ‘Cures’ by Morris Fishbein of AMA infamy…”
Yes, *A New Slant on Life* is still in print – in fact, it was one of the “basic books” that came out in 2007. The content varies from what was included in the older edition, but it still has the essay that tells what happend with Harvey and the doctors who “would rather err with Galen than be right with Harvey.” That really makes the point, doesn’t it?
For anyone who doesn’t know the Galen-Harvey story and is curious, here’s a link to a short article about it: http://www.szdaily.com/content/2015-09/21/content_12269093.htm
It appears that LRH was already seriously mentally ill. Worse, he was “in charge” and was thus “handling” himself. This report really shows how far downhill he had gone. The repetitive rages were playing havoc with his physical and mental conditions. Being “King of the Hill” did not serve him well.
Correct thegman77. The time of severe mental decay can be pegged when he stated churning out the “Ad Course” fiction (mid 60’s and later). It was all downhill from then. Straight into crim and L La Land.
All of your writings Claire are so important for history, and so are all the comments of those that were nearby on the scene near LRH.
It’s all really important historical raw material.
Thankyou Claire and Gary so much for the details.
I was a Flag Course Sup 1977-1981, and was living day by day in the Admin Outer Org training setup at Flag at Clearwater, and daily pondering life, among all the staff who were there still, some of the Apollo vets, but by 1978 there were more and more Apollo vintage Sea Orgers just leaving left right and center.
The one good thing about the horrible OLD tech films, the ones long since pulled from circulation, are the faces of the hundreds of staffers who did come join for those final years at La Quinta and then Int Base Hemet.
There were quite a load of personnel who came through.
I do hope that Mike Rinder’s blog contains MORE detailed stories of those that lived in these top rungs of the movement, up to the end of LRH’s life.
I lived those years about 10 levels down the totem pole, but due to being a Course Supervisor, I had to judge everything according to what LRH wrote and which I had to do “High Crime Checkouts” (one’s “High Crimes Checkouts” came first in what one had to do in one’s study time if one were in a staff position on “tech lines”).
I was so interested in who the persons were, that LRH was refering to.
So Claire, that you were being case supervised and became the first Dianetics Clear, of that 1978 major change that LRH made in the Grade Chart to allow anyone who’d had sufficient evidence of past life engram running and then have the suitable obvious “bad indicators” of having “gone by” Clear (it’s really mind messing trickery involved in the logic of how LRH labeled “Clear” and then LRH labeled the manifestations of what supposedly was going on when someone rejects the whole processing and believes it’s all bogus, like Claire did) that whole layering of logic that LRH put into the “Tech” and into the tech rules and regulations and into the Bridge steps, all based on people’s reactions to his auditing processes, is all completely relevant to judging for real, how superficial Hubbard’s research was.
People’s memories of Hubbard’s statements, and in particular and specifically his own “case” statements, like LRH’s statements to Sarge near the end of LRH’s life, are so important.
LRH with no one really to have conversation or honest understanding communication with him, and himself living a life he’d ordered into place to service him, and for everyone in the LRH’s Pers Office, and specifically the CMO, to be his “facility differential” which he’d earned due to his value and work he was constantly putting into keeping the whole movement going, I for sure can grasp the predicaments and I can sympathize with all those at the top most positions in LRH’s entourage.
The whole big story of what was going on with all those top level people who were defecting during that whole List 1 R/S saga period, is important.
So many people just jumping out of the Sea Org and out of those top ranked positions then.
Those years from 1976 to 1986 deserve a big book, once all the others who were there in those top positions lay out their memories and lay out all the things going on.
At Flag, in Clearwater, in 1979-1980 we had the beginning of the “Oscar” program being run on our Admin Course Room, we trained up the replacement execs to go replace the “criminal” execs who were sabotaging the Class 4 orgs of that time, LOL.
LRH’s traffic of 1978-1980 I so wished, I wished for history purposes, to have a big convention someday, and lay out on tables ALL of LRH’s despatch and other writings (HCOBs, HCOPLs, LRHEDs, etc, all the ones by him) for those years, let’s say 1975 till he died, and have people who were on the receiving end of those orders that resulted in those LRH writings. The first hand personel who were the subject of so many of those LRH writings.
If someone wishes to job their memory of the events of 1975-1986 you just have to look at all of LRH’s writings of those years.
Us staff way down the totem pole who were listening to every one of his writings, and trying to see what was up with what “we” were supposed to be, in LRH’s eyes, and per his writings, I really like hearing the details of actual life around Hubbard himself.
LRH was major hot air, and he had a whole lot of people jumping to whatever he wrote or spoke, for those final 10 years of his life, to say the least.
This is Lois, Chuck.
Claire (Popham, Rossouw, Loehwing) is still firmly a scientologist – donating away to the IAS to try to stay in good graces with Mr. Miscavige
Sorry, Lois, thanks Mike. It’s been a problem I’ve had, keeping names straight, sorry.
Chuck, I personally think that if you are.going to invalidate Lowis’ case state (and mine) you should at least be able to remember her name.
Damn, now I spelled her name wrong.
yah Chuck, I’m reminded of this whole account of LRH getting mad, maybe during the time period Hubbard wrote his Executive Differential PL or something like that, or maybe another PL where he says an executive can get mad at people under him. It’s probably in here if somebody wishes to research.
http://www.truelrh.com/7403_OEC-MS/OEC-MS_toc.pdf
Everyone on the Apollo sooner or later experienced Hubbard rages and screaming tirades. They were explosive and you felt the ship rock ! :) I would smile to myself when some snitch within the Sea Org would knowledge report me for the *crime* that I had *yelled* at someone at the Flag Land Base. ( I was more timid on the ship)
I would think of Hubbard’s temper tantrums and think “If this person *ONLY KNEW* the conduct of their founder who’s screaming was frequent, out the roof and out of control.
Thanks for sharing that Karen. So, I have a question: in retrospect, now, with what you know, What could you assign to his abusive tirades that caused fear of RPF?
What was it in the man, that you experienced first hand that could help us to understand?
Back then we all were, well I was anyway, in denial and never really allowed ourselves the luxury of seeing Ron outside of the Buddha great OT wiseman, infallible image.
So now that you’ve been out for some time, how would you describe Ron like a wog or a fly on the wall watching his rage and outbursts?
Is it possible he was mood swinging because of being Manic, Bi-Polar or doing coke or bennies and auditing?
Did he mood swing? One day cheery and the next Dr. Doom?
Please share some more if it pleases you. If not that’s fine. You have a wealth of experiences Karen. A wealth.
From everything I have read on this site from Lois and from speaking with many of the old messengers from the Apollo, LRH not only didn’t do drugs but didn’t even drink. I didn’t know the old man very well but I would guess that he had a Manic personality.
The sad thing is that everyone around him just solidified his state.
But I can tell you he didn’t do drugs or alcohol.
If you had a manic personality and everyone believed and followed your bullshit, bowing down to you, wouldn’t you think this mental state would be reinforced and continue?
I do.
According to his son, Nibs, he popped pills of all shapes and colours regularly. He was apparently as high as a kite whilst delivering lectures. It would certainly account for some of the bs delivered during these lectures that all of us pretended were relevant.
I have heard other people confirm this. Just because Lois didn’t see him doing this, doesn’t mean he wasn’t.
I have no idea as I only spoke with messengers (wife, sisters and some of my best friends to this day) and none of them saw him drink or do drugs and they were around him continually. Maybe he did.
I’m not trying to defend him at all.
Maybe he did do drugs when Nibs was around. Then again Nibs is not exactly a reliable resource when it comes to LRH. He was with him one decade and testified him the next. The ladies I have spoken with have no grudge or reason to lie, either for him or against him but just tell the truth and they never saw any drugs or alcohol. I tend to believe them.
See pulled quote from Piece of Blue Sky and Madman or Messiah re drugs and Ron.
It’s a few entries down. My entry.
Brian, I don’t doubt the letter Atack quotes or McMasters. It would make a lot of sense considering his “discoveries”.
I have no intention whatsoever of defending LRH’s behavior. I just truly defend the messengers that worked with him daily in the ’70s. Their truthfulness of that time period but more so I defend their integrity. They would NOT be around someone who was popping pills or displaying any form of sexual behavior towards them.
Brian – I just found out L.Ron Hubbard now holds the Guinness Book World Record for “Most Internet Psychiatric Diagnoses”. You were a major contributor!
. . . . . . . .
joke – just keeping it light 🙂
Otto Roose said is medicine chest was full of Drugs. And he did say uppers helped run track. I do not know. But speed freaks and coke heads mood swing. Not saying I know. Just asking questions.
In the Otto Roos story, I believe he only said that LRH had “unhandled drugs.” Big difference.
I knew Otto Roose fairly well from the ship. He was not close with LRH and his post wasn’t one that would bring him that close to him. My personal opinion of Otto is he was a bit of a dick and extremely enthralled with himself. In fact, he could have been one of the 5 or 6 officers that smacked me on the ship when I was 17 or 18 years old.
But, I do know he was with LRH early on the Apollo/Royal Scotsman and may have seen things that I hadn’t heard of. I just didn’t think much of Otto myself. But, I am a critical bastard!
I would suggest Janis and Hana Eltringham comment. Both were there before the messengers that I have spoken to were (DeDe, Claire, David, Annie, Shelly, Clarisse, Doreen etc) None of them mentioned drugs.
Brian —
I’ve read all these comments and many others regarding Hubbard and whether or not he took drugs.
I find it very hard to believe that he was never ever alone, even if only for a few minutes at a time (for example, when he went to the bathroom, etc). It’s more than possible that he could have found a way to hide any drug-taking from most people.
I respect the accounts of those who were around him all the time and I believe it when they say they didn’t see it happen for themselves. But again, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen without their knowledge.
Hi Katherine, thanks for the reply. For me I actually do not know. I am simply reacting to the public record.
Some may think I am simply trying to make it true because I am out to get Ron.
I just want to know what is true. If it is true that he did not then fine. But there is a least some good circumstantial evidence and some first hand accounts that refute the messengers claim.
But you make a good point.
Somewhere I read (there is so much written I forgot where) that Ron could drink a bottle of rum and not show any signs of being drunk.
So maybe that is the case with drugs. I do not know.
To those who know for sure that he did not take drugs, I am not trying to start an argument or make less of your experience.
But there’s still an ambiguity about it. And questions and research is a good thing.
I agree. I’m certainly not insisting that he took drugs for the sake of proving he was a liar. Hell, there’s so much proof he WAS a liar — there’s no need for me or anyone to try to manufacture more evidence of it.
I really don’t understand why you guys insist that it has to be one or the other. Black or white. LRH did drugs, or didn’t. Why can’t you conceive of the fact that he may have had a period of time that he was experimenting or using substances, then a period of time that he was anti-drug? Once I ate turkey, bacon and chicken, now I am a vegetarian. Some people will insist: she’s a meat-eater, I saw her have a BLT at Dennys in 2012! Another will say, T.J. is a strict vegetarian, I’ve eaten at her place a dozen times and she never served meat. They can argue, yes she was a meat-eater, or no she wasn’t. Why debate it? Both are true. Once I did, now I don’t. Maybe LRH was the same? It’s not cut-and-dried, one is right, the other wrong. He was a man, he went through life changes, as we all do. He tried different substances, (perhaps) he decided to stop and was then strictly a non-substance user (maybe)… and then maybe at a later date his stance softened or changed yet again… you don’t have to argue if he did or didn’t. (what’s true for you is true?) lol. :-p He was human, he lived life, as we all do.
clearlypissed off: “If you had a manic personality and everyone believed and followed your bullshit, bowing down to you, wouldn’t you think this mental state would be reinforced and continue?”
Well said. Another way to describe it is that what happened to LRH was the result of fame. Ironically, LRH himself described what fame would do to a person:
“On the Chart of Attitudes which accompanies the *Handbook for Preclears*, it will be found at 22.0 ‘I am myself.’ The only true identity is ‘myself.’ It is not a name, it is not a designation. Orders, titles, ranks, praise and enduring fame alike do not bring about the condition ‘I am’ or an actual IDENTITY. They bring about instead an IDENTIFICATION, with all the liabilities of identification. The finality of identification is 0.0 or lower on the tone-scale.”
This discription of actual identity vs. identification is what many wise men have taught and teach, and unfortunately LRH seems to have proved the truth in it.
What happened to Ron was not fame. There are many famous nice decent people.
What happened to Ron was his causation and his alone.
If victimhood is a state you think Ron was in Marildi, blaming it on fame, I’d say that is not correct.
L Ron Hubbard was the effect of his own actions. Selfish actions that put his own power over the well being of others.
And the word that discribes that is immorality.
Ron was immoral and transgressed against common standards of decency. There are consequences for breaking those laws.
It’s called karma.
Nobody did it to him. He did it to himself. That’s how the universe works.
And the daily solo auditing brought him deeper into the dark side.
“If victimhood is a state you think Ron was in Marildi, blaming it on fame, I’d say that is not correct.”
No, I wasn’t saying that, Brian. A similar idea would could explain Ron’s downfall as well – “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” – and the person in this situation isn’t considered a victim either.
Try not to panic at the slightest suggestion that there might be just a wee little bit of compassion and understanding of what Ron was up against – as in “There but for the grace of God, go I.”
Another one: “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” Don’t you have anything like that in your belief system?
I do not hate Ron. I feel obliged to uncover Ron. I used to be good at disseminating. I got folks into the Sea Org.
I was part of the deception. Now I am part of the investigation into the life of a duplicitous fabulist.
It’s never easy when cherished belief systems are held up to scrutiny.
Your defining that scrutiny as somehow negative and hateful, to me, is evidence that there is still a sacred place in your mind that you enshrine Ron.
That which you see as my constant negativity is actually my iconoclastic fascination. And a continued unraveling of my own thoughts and feelings.
Having been out for so long and living the spiritual life, as best I can, as prescribed by actual liberated souls, I see Ron from a different view.
It was only studying actual spiritual masters that I came to my understanding of Ron.
There has been many more people who appreciate what I write than not.
You have judged me for judging Ron for years now Marildi.
I’m fine with it.
Brian: “You have judged me for judging Ron for years now Marildi.”
Considering what you wrote in your comment below about me being an apologist, I guess we are both, each in our turn, examples of “Judge not lest ye be judged.” 😉
To Marildi, to say that fame and power corrupted him is saying he was a victim of these.
To say that the man who preached causation and OT powers was the effect of fame and power is exactly saying he was victim of them.
How he dealt with power and fame was his choice.
His cause.
You have labeled him a victim. There’s no other way to see it.
I guess that is called being an apologist.
Brian: “You have labeled him a victim. There’s no other way to see it. I guess that is called being an apologist.”
And my guess is that the above is an example of your tendency to misinterpret anything to do with Ron. Hmmm…
so why did he put every person who became a scientologist on his org board?
Isn’t a scientologist an identity?
“Isn’t a scientologist an identity?”
Right, UTR. But the point wasn’t to not have any of the various identities we take on in life. The point was that any identity that amounts to an identification with (i.e. identifying oneself with) something in the physical universe isn’t one’s true identity as a spiritual being.
clearlypissedoff, according to his personal nurse, LRH took drugs. Frequently. She was there. So probably a medical professional who who served him is the best source of info.
Who is this personal nurse you mention? This does not match my experience or the discussions I have had with Jim Dincalci who was the ship medical officer and then went to New York with Hubbard in 1973.
It was a nurse who took care of him around the time of Madrid. She mentions pain killer drugs he took over time. It has been years since I read the write up.
Here’s Kima Douglas’ full interview with Russel Miller for Bare Faced Messiah.
She’s been mentioned here a lot, and so I thought it would be relevant.
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/interviews/kima.htm
Alanzo
I was with LRH from May 1968 until Dec 1979 nearly every day for 6 hrs a day except if I was on a mission or leave. That is more than eleven years. In those eleven years, I did not see LRH take any drugs. After the motorbike accident he refused pain killers so he could go in session every day and either solo audit or have one of the Class XIIs take him in session. He also did not drink alcohol. In those eleven years I might have seen him have two drinks, one was social sipping and the other was a swig of brandy after coming in off the bridge during a storm – he was soaking wet and needed to warm up fast.
“>In “A Piece Of Blue Sky” (APOBS) (copyright (c) 1990 by Jon
Atack, p. 171), we find:
Hubbard had spent the last weeks of 1966 “researching” OT3 in
North Africa. In a letter of the time, he admitted that he was
taking drugs (“pinks and grays”) to assist his research.(16)
Early in 1967, Hubbard flew to Las Palmas, and Virginia
Downsborough, who cared for him after his arrival, was astonished
that he was existing almost totally on a diet of drugs. For three
weeks Hubbard was bedridden, while Downsborough weaned him off this diet. According to her, he was obsessed with removing his
“body-thetans.”(17)
And from Madman or Messiah
“John McMasters told me that on the flagship apollo in the late sixties he
witnessed Hubbard’s drug supply. “It was the largest drug chest I had ever seen He had everything!”
It was McMasters not Otto who I was remembering regarding the medicine cabinet.
I am thinking that Ron probably did drugs behind our backs.
Think of it, it would be the height of hypocrisy for it to be found out that the man who warred against drugs actually took them.
These revelations above are first hand accounts.
And…….. what a surprise that Ron would preach one thing and live another.
Ron did not have a problem deceiving. In fact, deception seems to be his MO when looking over his claims of healing and his claims of personal achievements.
It is not far fetched to consider that the man of many faces only allowed certain faces to be seen by his young messengers.
Buddha popping pinks and reds is not good for biz.
And think of this:
If it is true, that Ron went through the Wall of Fire pooping pinks and reds (uppers) and he actually said that uppers helps run incidents, then why would he not continue with that working process.
The biggest marketing OT level was OT3. It set Ron above and beyond all previous attempts to liberate human beings.
And if Ron came up with OT3 while on drugs, why would he not continue a successful procedure. Especially when he actually said that uppers helps run case and Nibs said that dad gave him uppers and ran processes on him.
As with everything Ron and Scientology, the truth is stranger than fiction.
Maybe his rants and anger came from the fact that everyone was missing his withholds.
That his life of lies and duplicity caused him to go crazy.
LRH did not have access to any drugs. EVERYTHING that landed on his desk, in his cabin or even in his hands went through someone else and drugs did not pass through to him. Reread my statement above – I was there. If he had painkillers from a medical officer on board the ship, it was for a VERY short time, if at all. I was not with LRH in ’67 but my mother was as his steward if she had seen him popping drugs she would not have stayed. She told me he took a lot of vitamins, which is true and something I saw myself. LRH during the days I knew him was very anti drugs – both street and medical. He didn’t even take aspirin and actually surprised me once when he suggested someone else take aspirin as normally he would have told Qual to get the person in session and handle whatever their ailment was with auditing.
While Madman or Messiah is a good book, the author never meet LRH and not everything in that book is correct.
I was very good friends with John Mac, but during the days on the Royal Scotman/Apollo, John was not in a position to even see what vitamins LRH was taking. I was.
LRH might be a lot of things to a lot of people, but one of them was not a druggie during the 11 years I worked with him directly – which only three other living people can claim having worked as close to him as I.
Thanks for taking the time Janni. Your insights and information are invaluable, and as you say, almost unique.
I have to give you credit, Mike. Not every critic is able to see and say that these new insights are invaluable even though they are unique and different from what is commonly passed around.
Thank you
Thanks Janis for backing me up. The point is here is that he did not take drugs. Maybe a couple of occasions he absolutely NEEDED to take some painkillers and would refuse. At some point he was sick enough when he needed drugs to save his life especially in 78 as I describe above. There is also an interview done with Kima Douglas and she states categorically she never saw him take pills, but there were a few times she needed to give him something to handle pain. Some of these people think there was a way he could take things without us or anyone else seeing that and that was impossible…he did not go to any stores without someone with him (i.e. a messenger) and believe me there were so few times that he did that. He was secluded. Please get the point.
Thanks for your view Janis.
I think all of these questions are valid.
What though about that letter in which Ron said he was popping lots of pills?
Is that a lie in your view?
I think that comes from a letter to Mary Sue that Armstrong found.
I wonder where that letter is?
What about all the allergy medicine? Sine-aid, sine-off, allerest? Wouldn’t these be considered drugs? While I never personally saw him take these, I sure saw BOXES AND BOXES of them in the messenger-on-duty office.
To have that quantity of so many different brands meant SOMEBODY had to be taking handfuls of the stuff.
Both can be true. Perhaps he went through a period early on when he was taking drugs. (One commenter stated 1966-67 per Blue Sky book, he was.) After that time period, he stopped altogether, and wouldn’t even take drugs for his real, physical pain, due to injuries sustained (1968-76 also per several accounts, books and personal recollections). It is conceivable that he went through a drug/alcohol phase of life, and then changed. How many of us drank a lot or experimented with drugs early in life: late teens, early 20’s , college dorm age, etc.? But now live super-healthy, no drugs, non-drinker/non-smoker, etc.? I know many, many people who did just this, went through phases of life, why not LRH as well? People change throughout life, have experiences, experiment with ways of living, grow, learn, change again… I believe the books that quote from his journals, and I also believe the ex-aides who were there and saw him everyday. I think he was a multi-faceted man, just as we all are. Both accounts are probably true.
Per his own C\S series No Case Gain = Present Time Problem. (NCG also being a characteristic of ‘SP’.)
From his physical condition to his ‘2-D to the skills of auditors being trained….the latter day lrh strikes me as one big ‘king of pain’
“From his physical condition to his 2-D to the skills of auditors being trained….the latter day lrh strikes me as one big ‘king of pain’.”
Good point, Tom.
Another relevant quote about NCG: “no case-change despite good tries with the routine processes” (HCO PL 5 Apr 65 II). Too bad LRH did not get much auditng on “routine processes.”
“The Emperor Has No Clothes” was one of my favorite stories when I was a kid. Did no one ever say “this man is frigging NUTS”? Did no one stop and say this man has series mental health issues? I believe the reason he was so insane about “mental health” was that he was told/treated/attempted to be treated back when and did not like being told he had “no clothes”. He was a money maker for a lot of people including MSH & others. So you keep the emperor in the parade with no clothes and ride it to the end.
It is so sad that DM is still leading the parade all these years after LRH dumped the body… and again no one will tell Emperor DM that he has no clothes. If everyone would point, laugh and turn their backs.. the parade would stop dead and everyone could move on with their lives. But the parade is in motion and the coins are being thrown…. why would anyone want the parade to stop.
I read this and other stories and just wish we could back in time, give these people their childhood back and let them have a life from beginning to end. Let LRH get the help he needed, let his family grow and love him as a man not a demigod. How many more must suffer because the “emperor has no clothes”?
“He woke up screaming and being angry.”
I wonder where that ranks on the tone scale.
From the time we are in Kindergarten, we are taught to have an innate sense of FAIRNESS and we are quickly educated in school that one does not engage in UNFAIR conduct.
Arguably, the whole of the legal system is set up for Fairness. i.e Justice vs injustice is the basic premise (even though it can go off the rails)
I look at Scientology Inc as an entity that does not give a hoot on FAIRNESS.
It can rip off your children for THEIR benefit, even have your children spy on you to report to them in Knowledge Reports and this is where the Cult has NO *conscience*. There is no fairness. You slave for years for peanuts and donate megabucks, the EP is you are declared Suppressive Person. Then they add their slime and smear on hate websites after benefiting from YEARS of dedication !
Declared SP BUT they *KEEP* the bucks $$$$$. This is not only *UNFAIR* it is criminal conduct. They will *keep* advance payments because they are a *charity*
It is this kind of conduct that gives them the reputation of a Crime syndicate.
Thank you Lois. Several years ago I started telling my story on Clambake. It was attacked with a vengeance by a huge thread of piranhas at ESMB and declared a liar, delusional, insane and then they started posting things about who they believed I was and where I might live now and even claimed I was still married to the man I divorced in 1983. It was all bizarre, especially given the fact that I didn’t tell my story on ESMB.
After 27 pages of vitriol, someone linked me to the thread, I let the posters know I read it and I eventually ended up deleting the whole post on clambake and leaving all boards and stopping all comments for several years due to the insanity of that thread. The actual thread attacking me is still there on ESMB, though last time I checked a couple of years ago it had gone silent.
One of the things I talked about on clambake was being blindfolded before being taken to see LRH. That was poo poohed at ESMB as not happening. They also said I could not possibly have met LRH because I was not in sufficient awe at the meeting (wtf?). Thank you for confirming that things like that happened during that time period and it was not all this bed of roses. My auditing experiences during that time period were not just wobbly but horrifying, as I stated in my now deleted postings.
Well Val, I was blindfolded when I first went to La Quinta…
Thank you Mike. A lot of us were. We just didn’t speak of it.
It’s possible we were all blindfolded when we met Ron.
Thank you Lois, Valerie & Mike. I was blindfolded in the front hall of the Bail Bonds Building before I was steered to an office door with a number on it,as I was told and that is where I first met the AG/I.When I tried to originate all this ,well you guessed it,I was the liar.This started in 1977.And Lois your story is riveting & powerful.❤️
You are welcome. The more of us who confirm each others accounts, the better. Yes blind folding people to go to where LRH was, was a common action taken. Security was high.
Lois, I am curious if you observed any changes in LRH after he got audited by David Majo on the procedures that became NOTs.
Thank you again for these first-hand stories.
LRH did make somewhat of a recovery after his auditing but really it was because of Dr. Denk. Healthwise LRH never made a full recovery and the last time I saw him in early 1980 he was not healthy, he was weakened. Unfortunately he had 2 heart attacks and the embolism in a short amount of time.
Okay, thanks very much.
Thanks Lowie – I had categorized scn into pre and post Miscavige eras. 1980 would be a good demarcation point. I left around 1982. I also catgorize scn into two separate areas, up to and including clear, and the OT levels which are based in occultism combined with the imagination of a science fiction writer.
For me it was pre and post Sea Org then pre and post Flag Land Base then pre and post FBI raid then pre and post mission holders conference. IMHO there are a lot of demarcation lines where things changed dramatically in scientology if you start looking.
Hi Valerie – Yourself and others here are posting wonderful and informative reflections of your personal experiences from people who were there early on.
I agree there are several pivotal points in the historically brief history of scn. I think most people would agree that DM scn is quite different in its delivery as to when Elron was around.
CPO, I didn’t see your post about coming to the OC until today! Our next gig is 6 January, at Don the Beachcomber. You have my contact info, so get a hold of me! We always go on at 9p and play for three hours. There are 3 venues within Don’s. We play in the Dagger Bar. Hope to see you soon!
Hi OSD. I’ll email you separately. I have a business trip planned for the 6th but will let you know when we can work something out. I’d love for Lois and I to go up there and hang out and BS and watch you play.
OK
9 PM start time? That’s bedtime in this old person’s world.
Thank you again, Lois, for sharing your experiences which explain a lot, confirming the stories of a family member’s friend, though they did also speak of LRH’s occasional kind side, along with the tempestuousness and perplexing sudden decisions. Not an excuse, but it does seem that being in physical pain much of the time would account for some of it, plus feeling he had so much on his shoulders during that period.
I remember Flag at the time and I was absolutely gobsmacked to see hitherto decent, dedicated staff, it seemed like half the base, suddenly appearing in the blue t-shirts of the RPF, living in the parking garage, getting little sleep, couples with children separated. I somehow accepted the explanation (slowly-boiled frog as Mike put it), because staff themselves seemed to accept it as normal, but I’m glad Ron at least caught the error later on. Crazy times indeed!
Thank you Lois for continuing to tell your story. It’s heartbreaking but you have a wealth of information about the personality of L Ron Hubbard that should be known. The truth is getting more broadly disseminated these days and your story should be known far and wide. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing your personal observations, Lois.
Very helpful in relation to “sorting it all out.”
Tank you Lois Reisdorf for telling what you have experienced and witnessed!
“… when we put him to bed at night.” – A grown-up man who didn’t go to bed by himself!?!
“LRH would get so mad at me…”, “His anger and fits did not just stay on the movie set …”, “He yelled and screamed constantly.”, “He woke up screaming and being angry.”
It looks like he was quite an angry and tyrannical man who was wreaking his ill humor on his underlings and children – a typical chronic 1.5 (anger) per his own tone scale.
Surely he had enough justifications to put the blame of his bad conduct on others and put it into policy form. To top it all, he was creating the List1 (critical thoughts or bad intentions against him and what he was doing) to go after persons who were committing ‘thought crimes’ (Rock Slammers) and because of that had to undergo reeducation measures and thought reform in the RPF.
Mankind’s greatest friend who has risen above the ‘bank’ (reactive mind)?? Yeah, right!
Exactly……… things are not going right? The flow is not flowing? My students are not being pro camera and acting techs because they are not?……………..
Time for punishment. TIme for thought reform. Time to cause pain and inhumanity on little thetans to make them big.
Ron was evidently not self aware. Ron was actually ignorant of his own self and could not see his causal relation to the inharmony and fear that was around him that he was creating.
Ron always blamed an outside source for his troubles. Here are some classics:
1) SPs who hate Scientology
2) AMA
3) CIA
4) FBI
5) the press
6) BTs
7) implanters
8) Marcabs
9) demon beings from Farsec
10) perfume
11) bad smells
12) out ethics Sea Org members who needed punishment
13) British Parliament
14) invader forces
15) overts
True self knowledge and true self awareness is acutely aware of one’s causal relation with our condition. Ron had no connection between his experience of people and the world around him. He did not see his own contribution to his experience. They were “all out to get me.” It was “others evil intentions.” Never him. That is why Ron started kicking Otto Roose when he told Ron he had rock slams. That is a no responsibility case.
So here he is, Ron, reeking havoc with people at Cine by threatening RPF, inflicting rage and hostility on people and blaming them for it.
Think it over.
Is that a revelation of wisdom, freedom, responsibility, having ethics in?
Everyone here has been in relations where a person always blames others for their experience. That was Ron.
Ron was a no responsibility case. He was not there. He was more a dysfunctional machine reacting to stimuli. The subtleties of soul awareness was not something Ron knew.
The man who sold you spiritual freedom had no idea about God, Spirit, the soul. True men/women of wisdom leave a wake of happy people in their memories of them. That is because the world they live in is the actual world, the real world. The world were “wog morality” is essential to human interaction.
Harassing young children, who look up to you, with force, anger and fear of punishment is the environment that DM was educated by.
David saw the wisest man in the universe inflict punishment and fear in children. He was imprinted by fear, rage and acting out as a style of communication and control.
And all he had to do was word clear Bolivar and viola!……………. a tyrant just like Ron.
And for the Elron apologists who will mention that he also had a kind, cheerful, caring side as well, it’s good to recall that folks often only show their truest self when the chips are down and times are tough.
Ron had a whole lot of tough times during his life when things weren’t going right. And when you listen to the first-hand accounts of those who were around him during those times of stress, fear and chaos, what was his typical and consistent behavior and mood like then? By all accounts he was overbearing, demanding, ungrateful, angry, blaming, punitive and constantly projecting responsibility for any and every setback and failure on everyone but himself.
It’s a pity that DM never had the chance to see Elron interact with his minions in anything other than beast mode, because he seems to have adopted that very same management style and embellished upon it with his own fetish for sadistic violence and psychological torture. And, just like Elron, lil davey is a no responsibility case too.
Beast Mode! Lol!
#6-11 and #14 above come from the occult according to George M. White/Path of Buddha who did the original OT8 and has been doing extensive research over the last few months, tracing the basics of scn back to Crowley, Madame Blavatsky and others. It’s a pretty convincing argument imo. If anyone is interested they can check out George’s comments on Mark Rathbun’s last blog topic and earlier comments he’s posted. For example, perfumes were used in the ancient Kabal to ward off or attract evil spirits, the invader forces was an idea from Blavatsky and Charles Ledbeater, the name Marcabs came from Annie Bessant, etc. etc.
It is policy in the Sea Org that a person can be sent to the RPF for “case on post”. That means you have to be a non emotional, productive little worker bee even if you just lost a loved one, had an abortion, or hadn’t slept for days. You never imagine that the leader, the “Big OT”, is a dramatizing basket case. Since leaving the Sea Org I have heard stories of EXTREME case on post that went on for years if not his whole life. One person said that he shed some tears due to having to work on Xmas and being away from his family. Hell, I have seen people spend years, even a decade in the RPF during Xmas and not get a chance to see their own spouse and children that lived on the same property. Some how they dealt with the pain. Maybe LRH should have assigned himself to the RPFs RPF. I could have been made to white glove the crawl space under the PAC galley where the water found its way down through the cracks in the floor. The place was full of watery sludge filled with maggots, roaches and rodents. There was no light and one could only crawl due to the height of the space. The space is famously known in the Sea Org as “Rats Alley”. Many, many Sea Org members have spent time in there to help them raise their confront and attain the incredible case gain available in there. Hell, one girl that could hardly walk due to spine damage actually healed in there per the historical data of the PAC RPF. Someone just needed to scream in LRH’s face “Man up Bitch!!!!!” “The way out is the way through!!!!”.
I do not know how Ron apologists can actually think!
To put this man on any sort of pedestal is…………….. (fill in blank)
It’s just unbelievable. Even though I’ve read tales such as this before, I never cease to be shocked and heartbroken. I hope your story gets more broadly out there as well.
“….. Maybe LRH should have assigned himself to the RPFs RPF. ….”
To Hubbard’s small amount of credit, he did state some despair to Sarge, near the end of Hubbard’s life.
He did say he was going to go do, in effect, the OT running program, by circling a distant star, as related by Sarge in the final pages of “Going Clear….”
And the running program was supposed to “rehab an OT” in theory, a simple form of “cause” rehabilitation.
But, factually, LRH was just miles mentally from coming to terms with what he’d done. The most human of his moments of realizing it wasn’t turning out well, were LRH’s final admissions of despair to Sarge.
The Scientology movement today is what LRH wrought.
Amazing to me are the Gang of Five’s comments about Miscavige’s most upclose personal time with LRH was when LRH was most out of control and “case on post” to say the least.
Monkey see monkey do, case on post behaviors.
Shelly was to DM as MSH was to LRH, it seems.
This is such good raw history, thankyou so much Claire.
I’m Lois’ husband and I wanted to share a bit of information about this time period.
I was very fortunate that I did not have to work in Cine. I was LRH’s External Comm Aide (LECA) and had to keep the telexes and mail going non-stop so LEC staff were exempt from those goofy films for the most part. I did play a part in one of the films – I think I was an FBI or CIA agent and walked in with a bloody human head being held by the hair (prop of course) and said some stupid line about “we got the head” of some foreign government or something.
The point I wanted to make though is that I never got to see LRH at his best (yelling and having fits) while on set. When I drove past the Cine area though I often could hear him yelling on a bullhorn but I thought that was normal directing. Also, I didn’t know anything about LRH being sick or in a coma or having a pulmonary embolism. Lois only told me about such things in recent years (30 years or so later). The messengers and Kima kept this quiet. Perhaps it was mentioned a bit earlier than 30 years but if so, I didn’t understand the severity of it or by that time I was viewing my 11 years in the SO as a past-life (which I did view it that way) and couldn’t care less if he was in a coma or in a bed of roses.
So, all of the messengers and those in LRH’s close circle kept 99% of his shortfalls to their inner group. Your average Int/Gold/La Quinta SO staff knew nothing of his terrible health issues or anger issues unless I guess they experienced it first hand.
That’s another one of the more sinister things about the church of scientology – the not telling or discussing the out-points or the nonsensical of what one observes. Couple that with “no case on post” (which means only in sessions) and “don’t CS your own case” and only discuss your disagreements, concerns or objections with the appropriate staff member, you have a recipe for all sorts of brutalities to occur. No one TALKS! They only write reports if someone does.
Thankyou so much Gary, your and Lois’ writings are just so important historically.
I hope more persons you both knew back then will write.
Gary, what was Russ Eggan’s job? And the Asian fellow, Gary Miyahara, what’d Miyahara do?
People who were there in 1977-1981 and who got out by 1982, I hope some of them write.
There are hundreds of staff who were there over the years 1977-1981, and at least several hundred people received direct LRH traffic and LRH orders, through that period.
Later, in the 1980s, Gail Poval did the SIR project, typing with the help of several typists, all of LRH’s traffic into the computer in house system, so by the mid to late 1980s, all of LRH’s final years of traffic was on the in house computer system.
I worked in the computer branches of INCOMM and later ASI, 1989-1995 and saw almost all of it.
LRH’s traffic held great meaning to me, I’d been on the “routing forms” project at Int under Paul Grady Action Chief CMO Int, and Janis was WDC several sectors over that time, in 1983-1986. I was just a weekend observer but having been a Course Sup at Flag, I took every single sentence LRH wrote seriously, everything he wrote meant something to some staff member and to the whole membership.
I was Sea Org 1975-2003, lived those tumultuous final 10 years of LRH’s life just a few rungs down, but daily whatever issues came down from LRH were the immediate priority and each writing had significance to the whole operation in some way.
People who today can re-read what LRH wrote in LRH’s final years, and point to parts of LRH’s writings that they witnessed or which they know the backstory to what LRH wrote, for sure their comments today would be historically very important to put down before they die!
Hi Chuck,
I cant remember what Eggan or Miyahara did in the SO. Sorry.
I may be mistaken, but I recall Gary Miyahara was in Action CMO Int and I think he was also the HCO Chief…
Russ Egan was in Grounds or in Estates for pretty much the whole time he was there. He hooked up with some gal (Kathleen?) who worked in Gold HCO and they left in perhaps 1982 during one of a couple of these offers “if you don’t want to be here, you’ve got 24 hours to leave. No freeloader debt.”
So true, Gary. My wife at the time was the Script Girl. I remember her coming home after working with LRH and crying herself to sleep. She couldn’t and wouldn’t tell me why. A friend confided in me and let me know that LRH was screaming in her face, nose to nose. That LRH was even coming to GOLD to shoot the films was on a need to know basis. LRH would come to the base at night while most staff were sleeping.
It is rather amazing Mat that our spouses were forced to keep their grief and perhaps terror to themselves. I know Lois went thru hell often while on watch but no details would filter to me. She was tough as H putting up with his nonsense. I can be grateful for that though as it made it easier for her to put up with me for the past 38 years.
Gary, if we dared to say anything or disagreed, we would have been labeled disaffected (which I was several times), landed in ethics with sec checking for one little comment – it was safer to not think or talk about it, once your watch was over. You’d be amazed at how many bad thoughts I had to push to out of sight and memory to survive.
It’s been said that the day you stop lying about Scientology is the day you stop being a Scientologist.
Alanzo
“Seek the live with the truth” – L Ron Hubbard. Even if means getting declared an SP. Scientology makes for a dangerous environment for the unswayable truth seeker.
This one made me cry. So beautiful in its simplicity. Bit by bit my heart is allowing my mouth to speak the truth about my days in as so many before me have done. In the meantime, I will not allow my mouth to tell the lies I was trained to say while in.
Bravo!
All I can add is that it seems to me that a lot of the lying is to one self 🙁
“…a lot of the lying is to oneself.”
Nice one, Jens. I think that Alanzo should add that to what he wrote and make it:
“It’s been said that the day you stop lying about Scientology is the day you stop being a Scientologist – and the day you stop lying to yourself is the day you will be truly free of Scientology.”
Hi Lois, thank you for relating your experience with Ron.
Could you please describe for us holding Ron’s ashtray, dressing him, pulling up his pants, holding his megaphone and putting him to bed.
I’ve read this in other books that Ron used messengers like this.
Why did he make you do these things that normal people do for themselves?
There is an imperious madness to these stories and maybe you can shed light on them.
I would guess the reason that he made the messengers do such things is that he was a chronic, self-absorbed narcissist. But that’s just one reporter’s opinion….
View minions as slaves seems to be a Scientology thing. Learned from the top.
Hi Brian, I am not sure when the dressing of him became a messenger’s job but it started before I came on the scene. Maybe Janis Gillham Grady can answer that, she was there way before me. He did have a butler on the ship, but then he did not have one when we moved ashore and so we did it, but also on the ship. Sometimes his shoulder problem would flare up and he would not put his arm through the sleeve of his shirt, so on that side it would just hang. Nothing could touch his skin on that side! But our job was just to make his life easy I suppose, light the cigs, hold the ashtray and the bullhorn etc. Being so young I did not question these things at all but obviously now that I look back, it was weird. While he was sick, he needed a lot of help but mainly Kima handled the very personal stuff in that case. If we went out on photo shoots (casual nothing to do with Cine) we had to carry all the bags and lights etc…plus the cigs, ashtrays etc…..was pretty crazy.
Thank you Lowie 🙂
I find it appallingly patronising to have someone following you around, holding your ashtray for you! Good god!
From May 1968 when I started as one of the very first messengers, the only time we entered his cabin was to grab a book or something he wanted. His steward cleaned his room, picked out his clothing, etc. A few times when LRH got sick and was laid up in bed, he might have hit the buzzer in his cabin for the messenger to take a message. This was SOP until the end of 1973 when LRH had his motorbike accident and busted a few ribs and badly bruised his shoulder that he could not shower himself, so his male steward or the only male messenger helped him. Since he could also not hold his pants to step into them with his messed up shoulder, the messengers started helping him by holding out his pants so he could step into them and also helping put his shirt on and buttoning it since it hurt him so much. We also had to put his socks and shoes on for him as he was not able to do that either. Despite exercisers from the doctor to help get this shoulder healed, the only exercise he got was walking around the deck. After that accident, the messengers continued to help him dress as he got more and more out of shape that he couldn’t even bend over enough to put his boots on.
As for carrying the ashtray for him, we never used to do this until he received a silver ashtray as a gift for Xmas or birthday and it had a cover over it which he thought was handy to have went out on deck. Instead of throwing his cigarette over the side, he started telling the messenger to bring his silver ashtray, so it too became SOP.
Thanks so much Janis for clarifying this for everyone. I think some people had the misconception that he was a pedophile since he had messengers dress him or they wanted to have someone cement that concept. I knew that wasn’t the case. My wife, Lois, some of my best friends – you, Terri, Doreen, Claire, Shelly, my 2 sisters were messengers and I get quite upset when anyone would even think that they would condone or experience such behavior. They were all such great, young ladies, all of them. I’m not defending any of LRH’s actions, but I know all of the Apollo messengers so well and they are some of the best. I knew them then, and many of them still to this day. Some of the best people I know – still.
100% agree with you Gary. Though back in my youthful, hormone filled days I wished they were NOT quite so straight and narrow!!
I adore those women today as some of the people I most cherish being friends with.
That hits a nerve there Mike and also cracked me up! In my single days, I had that same hormone filled thought about all of them! I’m sure some sec-check would validate that!
It still surprises me to this day how such a wonderful group of people such as LRH’s messengers, the deckies, and all of the crew such as yourself and 90% of the people on the Apollo were such wonderful, caring people. All of them that I now know, are still people I sincerely love being around and will always be my friends. In (if they were even to talk to me) or out.
Thank you Mike and Gary. Your kind words are appreciated as is your long term friendship which has never waivered for any of us.
Thank you Janis, it’s important to get his life clear in my view. I never thought he was sexually abusive, I always thought it was simply imperious and weird to catch ashes for someone.
So it was the accident that started it and then just continued as a matter of habit.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Geezers! It must have been horrible being screamed at by the “most ethical person” on the planet! The displayed hot and cold insanity, physically oriented in sickness or not by LRH, is inexcusable! He has had his life riddled with justifications by so many for so long and it has all been gilded and then swept under the carpet by management. The lies fly thick and fast within Scientology, the truth is mighty ugly and terribly out PR… No wonder List One, the RPF and the declare fest that came later on and it continues to flourish to this day. How do you cover that shit up? There’s only one way – you smash people, lie to them and demand compliance or else no eternity for you! Any non compliance or disaffection is dealt with brutally & swiftly. I know there’s books on all this now but hearing it from a young Messenger at the time just makes it different somehow. This account presented this way is pure historical gold. It communicate Lois.
Once again, thank you for sharing. Digesting this account and piecing the scene together from a Messenger’s experience and aligning it with other data makes me cringe even more at how NOTs came about. There’s just too much LRH bubble about it all, and resulted in his case being enforced on others. Objective he was not, results on others and their orientation were manipulated to please the ‘great man’ and protect him at all costs from any possibility of error – it’s nuts to try to think with this. In other words, what a crock of shit he fell into and took us all with him aided by a subservient & minion based system. All I can conclude is that the scene was indeed ripe for the picking by Miscavige. The organisation is indeed as it was always intended to be by Miscavige. He saw it grow and expand into a huge money making machine based on the insanity as explained by a young Messenger.
Scientology really does have some huge paranoia & anger management issues!
If the truth be known, many of the people who went “Clear” felt “like a fraud” but kept it to themselves.
The peer pressure and role playing in Scientology outweighed everything else…to the point where certificates and clapping acknowledgments at graduation became the “wins”…not actual attainment of the putative gains or abilities of the grade chart.
The “feeling like a fraud” was for real…because the larger claims of Scientology were fraudulent.
Totally agree Not Quite. After looking back at Diabetics I felt when it came to engrams, I made it all up. I guess if that is the clear cognition, I was clear probably in my first Dianetic session in 1968 or so. Even at graduation announcing my achievement of some other level, I felt fake in my happiness or gain or win. I was embarrassed by the applause.
After blowing the SO in ’82, I didn’t read one page of an LRH issue or hold those stupid soup cans for 35 years or so and the only reason I did then was to attempt to keep on the good side of the cult so I wouldn’t lose my youngest son to disconnection.
What a scam.
NQTWO, I was one of those, who having done all the levels to clear, and having Dave Pettit, my auditor, leaning on me to attest to clear, leave. Absolutely NOTHING had changed in my world. I was the same as I’d ever been. I had just dropped $4,000 for nothing, and was not in a good mood.
I talked with John Woodruff, the ED at the time. I told him nothing had changed. He really didn’t want to listen to me. AT ALL! So, got up and left…for good. I can’t remember why, as this was ’81 at the time, but, I never asked for my money back. One of THE most stupidest things I’ve ever done. To this day, I can’t tell you why. It goes against every Scottish bone in my body! But, I guess I’m one of the lucky ones, money wise. People have dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars in this cult.
It’s good to be a cheap Scotsman…
I got my money back. It was $680.00. At the time in 82 that meant a lot to me. Still does.
I went through the gauntlet of routing forms created to harass and cause me to walk away. I was so frustrated. Then a genius flash of an idea……………..
call up those handling me and threaten to go to the press!!!!
Magically, I got my check.
I did get back money i had on account from Flag, After I lawyered up…This would have been ’82, or so.
Old Surfer Dude
How do you do
We both collected
in 82 :-))
Aye laddie. I dinna know which was urp for long tim either, so glad I’ve seen the error of me ways. Back in the box with me foolishness. I’ll keep it for rainy day tho, you never know what a Bonnie lass will be wantin. I’m shameless with me tricks you know.
The obvious just dawned on me reading your post. How the contradictions within Scientology are such a piece of work. This CMO stuff and the way Hubbard lived his life having slaves catering to his every whim while “researching”, auditing everyday etc is so off policy compared to the stuff he spoon fed the rest of us. His organisation not only created minions but demanded they be made, all the while giving the carrot of self-determinism to reach for. The more organised Scientology became the more introverted it’s members. It’s not so much show me a Clear, it’s show me someone who lives like Hubbard said to operate or someone who calls a Scientology lifestyle freedom! What an example of the tech he became. Still reckon he should have taken his own advice in ’65 and franchised the whole kit and caboodle and sailed off into the sunset.
Upon “going dianetic clear” around 1980, I obtained a firm unwavering reality that nothing in my past need affect me in the present.
Were the staff at this time starting to question how an OT being like LRH could have had such extreme behaviour? It certainly doesn’t gel with anything you would expect from someone who is supposed to be able to make things happen through intention alone.
I remember Lois in the tone scale film, that was such a weird one, getting all of them to say ‘aeiou’ over and over again. As part of the pts/sp course you are made to sit through this film endlessly, of course the sups love it as they can count a ton of student points for 2 people just sitting there, indeed one time we had to watch it twice in a row.
I remember those films. They were terrible. They were hack terrible.
But a good Scientologist, like other aspects of it, could not know what you knew about what was before you. I had to stuff my real views in my box of other denials.
Here is a theory:
each time we denied what we knew about what we actually perceived had the effect of shutting down our actual power of independent observation.
When we label our power of actual direct perception of someting as dangerous or false, that is the road to self created mind numbing cult mentality. And the death of intellectual sovereignty. And the very definition of a good Scientologist.
The other “artistic product” from Ron was the album Power of Source. I had a new person buy it before I heard it because it was promoted as “the best recording and music in history”, “will bring in untold numbers into Scientology”, “Ron developed new recording techniques” and “the music was like never before”.
When I actually heard it I entered the cognitive disassociation phase with a smattering of embarrassment that was accompanied by instant denial. A behavior modification cult members consider normal. Mustn’t critize man’s best friend or you’ll lose your friends and family!
When I heard Ron sing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” my thetan started shrinking, and I had to enclose that experience in a mental toxic waste enclosure never to see the light of day again.
My friend Tony, a music guy, went to work on this project. We were all happy that he was going to work with the most enlightened sage in the history of forever.
When he came back I asked him about his experience. He said,” it is confidential.”
But his facial expression registered angst and bewilderment. His eyes expressed confusion and pain. Ah! So glad my denial enclosure could handle the volume of cognitive dissonance! Because I needed it once my own powers of observation was labeled as dangerous to church membership.
The wisest man in the history of forever, the one who makes messengers pull up his pants and catch his unfiltered cool’s ashes by following him around with an ashtray is obviously not what the well marketed messiah is in reality.
Teachers teach and students learn. The behavior of Scientologists is no mystery.
Bad art, music and literature go together with authoritarian regimes like cigarette smoking and emphysema and cancer. They just never produce anything of lasting worth. Perhaps that’s because an omnipresent atmosphere of fear, threat, violence, ridicule and mind control just aren’t conducive to creativity.
Elron was constantly pissed and disappointed during his short film making career, largely because his immense hubris caused him to think that he could just watch a few movies, read a few technical manuals and become a master auteur in a few months time. Instead of hiring professionals and learning from them as an apprentice, Elron hired other clueless amateurs, then tried to fear-condition them into making up for his own lack of skills and artistic abilities. He didn’t just produce works that were not great; he made the worst kind schlock imaginable and then had the foolish temerity to release some of it to public view! If he’d live to ghost direct Revolta in the Stars it’s quite possible that it might even have been worse than it turned out to be;)
The Cine Org project was doomed from the get go to be the embarrassing failure that it became, in part, because no one around him had the moral courage or presence of mind to speak truth to power about self-evidently horrible his work really was. Lil davey the semi-literate continues on with that idiotic legacy by employing the “so bad that he’s good” chief speech writer, Dan Sherman. So far, lil davey’s only hobbies seem to be psychologically torturing his cowering minions, driving fast motorcycles and guzzling expensive booze. Perhaps it’s a mercy that he doesn’t share the founder’s interests in the arts. Really, the only actual art that he’s been able to master is the dark art of the long con, which he’s used to milk hundreds of millions out of the gullible and craven sheeple that still hang on to their cult affiliation.
It seems we are heading for a tipping point hey Harpoona?
It’s interesting………….. I ask myself why after all these years I still come to this blog. Then my little voice of reason speaks………………… oh shit!!…………………………maybe it’s really space aliens mocking up bank and I think it’s me reasoning??????? Damn Xenu!!!
But really, I think it’s because I was so young, during my formative years, and there are still vestigial thought forms from those days needing a voice.
Harpoona, why do you find interest in reliving these experiences? And please, anyone else that wants to chime in please do. I’d love to know your views.
I believe that we’ve already reached that tipping point and now the corporate cherch is is locked into a death spiral from which there’s no escape but there’s no telling exactly how long before it plows into the earth.
Actually, I don’t relive my past in $cn very much. I was in during that mid 70’s period, when lots of folks in $cn who weren’t in the Sea Orgy had a really good time! I got out while I was still young after not that many years and went on to finish my education and have a full career. I took a very long hiatus from $cn watching and activism, but came back to it fairly recently after reading about some particularly vile behavior by lil davey the vicious and went down the rabbit hole from there.
I knew more than a couple of people who lost decades of their life to the cult and always felt that, there but for the grace of Xenu go I. Having worked with kids and young adults over a long career in education and counseling, I absolutely hate to see kids have their lives messed up by drugs, alcohol, lack of education and cults like $cn.
So, I stay in touch with exes and hope to work towards a day that $cn is no more. I have immense respect for folks like Mike, Leah, Amy, Lois and so many others who were either born into the cult or got in while still kids, but eventually escaped from it and went on to build fulfilling lives and help others to escape as well.
I’m still intent on clearing the planet, but this time it’s clearing it of the corporate cherch of $cn that I’m interested in 😉
I remember after 3 or 4 years past my blowing the FH, my wife’s family in South Africa kind of forced us into going to the Joberg Org to watch a number of these stupid training films. I think I managed to put up with watching 2 of the many they were showing that night and I grabbed Lois and walked out on the whole event.
They were so unprofessional it was painful to watch them but also so embarrassing that I was part of that group that made such sophomoric films. It was like watching something that a High School would throw together with a Sony Video Camera, Make-up from Rite Aide, costumes from Goodwill and sound from a cassette recorder.
LRH sucked as a Director – but apparently he could yell pretty good.
In 1981, the Cine Org engaged in the “Ten Films Game”, whereby ten of the then as-yet unreleased Tech Films were pushed through post-production, where they had been languishing for 2-3 years.
It was an all-hands high-morale time for Cine, and we actually got the ten films completed and shipped to all the English-speaking orgs. (That the orgs had no idea what to do with them when they received them is another story)
I had been assigned to help in the editing dept and I remember seeing some of the rough footage and was gobsmacked with cognitive dissonance about how bad they were. Directed by LRH!!
Around that time, LRH was also threatening to take his name off of the films because of “how badly Cine was messing them up,” or some such misplaced blame.
I held my tongue for a week or two until I couldn’t stand it any more and said to Claire Roussouw, something like, “We’ve got to ask The Boss to reshoot some of these scenes because the quality degrades are going to make people laugh at us! The people that see these films are used to seeing films like Star Wars!!”
The whole room went utterly deathly quiet and Claire just looked at me and did that fluttering eyelid thing she’d do and said quietly, “We are not going to ask for anything to be reshot.”
I could see in her eyes and in the eyes of everyone in the room that they agreed with me, but they, and I, also all understood the rule that “Source can never be wrong.”
David Hogan, who was also working there at the time, came up to me and whispered “Well done, that took guts.”
It passed over and I didn’t get into trouble like I’d half expected.
LRH’s corny-ass scripts, the amateurish sets, costumes, and makeup, the high school play acting, even the racist portrayal of “pickaninnies” in EM-5 added up to a catastrophic fail on LRHs part, a fail that flew into the face of his self-made, self agrandizing mythology, and I think it weighed on him and he constantly looked for excuses on how it was all Cine’s fault and not his. “Sabotage” became a popular word around that time. This laid the groundwork for subsequent abuse of the personnel that org suffered for years and years to come (see Mark Headly’s account in Blown For Good.
BTW, Lowie, wasn’t that you and Janis Gilliam in Blackface makeup playing African “Pickaninnies”? Lol!
(Yes, that term was in the actual LRH written script)
Classic Elron! Screw everything up big time, then look for folks to blame and conspiracies to explain it all.
What’s hilarious about all that is, if you’re the one who wrote the script, cast the actors, directed the filming and had the last word on every other aspect of the production, then how would it even be possible for someone other than him to have screwed things up!?
John Doe, very good addition to the first-hand contributions.
I saw the films in the ’80s when I was new in scientology, and I remember saying to people in the org how awful they were – and no one seemed to have a problem with me saying it. But alas, that era is long gone.
Now that I think of it, the Orientation film that came out much later was pretty cringe-worthy in its own way.
Yes it was me in the pickininnie film, I was too embarrassed to mention that. It was awful!
John Doe, whoever you are, you certainly had me laughing when you described Claire’s “fluttering of her eyelid thing”. I had totally forgotten that about Claire until you posted it and it brought back that memory so solidly. She used it often and usually I thought it was very cute!
Well, I always liked Claire and still do. Her eyelid thing could mean many different things, depending on the context. We all have our little quirks!
I managed to avoid being a pickaninny and instead was the black faced laundry lady.
Again, thanks for these personal accounts, Lois.
I am reminded of an old adage…”There’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way” (substitute Army with Scientology). Based on your stories and my own personal staff experience, efficiency and pragmatism were never really given much consideration. One always worked off the basis that the Scn methodology was superior; any failings were due to my incompetence. In that light LRH and Scn are the ultimate know-best.
Something else I find very strange is having someone dress me. Creepy, even if there were was nothing nefarious about it. Maybe if I were in my 80s, crippled with arthritis and lived in a nursing home…okay, you can dress me. But for a man in his 60s…
And having someone hold a megaphone for you, and coordinate the button pressing, what was that all about? Was he writing two novels in each hand, while exploring the Van Allen Belts? Sounds like more trouble that it was worth.
When I want a cigarette, I pick up one, put it in my mouth and light it. Nothing could be more simple and straightforward. So, why complicate things by introducing another party, and thereby introducing the possibility that things WON’T be simple and straightforward?
But, I’m just a regular person, trying to do the best I can and get along with the human race. I really have no time to be egotistical or narcissistic, simply because it does not make my life (or the ones around me) any easier.
I find it repulsive too. Surrounding yourself with young innocent kids and training them to do the mundane things we all have to do personally with our bodies is way off the chart of weirdness. I suppose we should be grateful sex wasn’t imposed like some other cults wallow in for their gurus. Caligula comes to mind as a direction not far away from egotistical insanity going on full tilt.
Perhaps in the mind of Hubbard this treatment & structural behavior he surrounded himself with was some sort of exchange he wanted for being the only source of the tech to free mankind as he saw it. Or maybe in his mind it was the only way he could do it.
I think there’s more to why Hubbard went into hiding than just being served with suppressive legal notices by the SPs of the world hunting him. I think that’s what the management would like you to believe is the only reason but in reality his personal organisational create was so weird and egotistical it had to be hidden. Hubbard sure went down the spiral with it all, shouting and screaming at people, especially kids like he did.
If it produced the results he claimed – fine, such behavior could then be regarded as eccentric but IT DOESN’T! The results are the scam you see today. Let’s face it, no sane person validates the Cof$.
I wouldn’t make a comparison of L. Fraud to Caligula. I would make one to Tiberius. When the heat went up in Rome, Tiberius pissed off like a coward and went to a villa in Capri. While there, he had youngsters (mostly little boys) trained specially to swim between his legs and nibble his thighs. Capri was where Caligula learned how to be an emperor under Tiberius’ tutelage.
Went into exile and hiding, trained young people to take care of “personal needs”, and trained Caligula/Davey in the wielding of power…sure sounds like a valid comparison to me.
Makes me wonder which stuttering gimp of a Claudius will succeed Davey.
imo I think Davey will be succeeded by a vacuum. He’ll crash the whole lot when he is finally cornered and it’ll all wallow around is sea of lawyer guided mombo jumbo while the money as-is’s itself through mysterious channels. Meanwhile, a real estate grab by local Govt. agencies on the reamining org buildings not already sold off secretly. All manner of weird ordinances will be have been found to be violated and the assets will be siezed etc. until their lawyers sort it all out.
It will be interesting indeed to see where the Cof$ will be in 10 years, maybe just a memory or perhaps a lingering odor remains
Maybe it’s just my own lack of imagination here, but I really don’t see any way that $cn can pull itself out of the dwindling spiral that it currently finds itself in. Who knows how long it will take before it smashes itself into the earth, but it seems to have reached the tipping point and now be on an unalterable course that must end in its complete implosion or, less likely, its fundamental reform.
In any event, I’m here to accelerate its demise, because the fewer people who become entrapped by it the better!
After that day comes, I wonder if we’ll learn at some point, maybe much later, that DM was being protected by certain powers that be. That might one reason he lasted so long.
It’s really hard to do more than speculate at this point, but my bet is that there are undoubtedly many levels of intrigue and nefarious dealings that haven’t been revealed yet.
The two key historical periods that I’d really like to see delved into more deeply by some professional investigative journalists and authors are the events leading up to Elron’s demise and the scheming that ended up with lil davey the backstabber in power.
AAnd I’d also be very interested to hear the full back story of all that went on with the IRS that led to what, in retrospect, has to be viewed as one of the most bizarre and improbable victories in $cn’s history that gave the cult a second life. Tossing its mangy carcass into the dust bin of history at that time would have been just so easy, given how much of tax fraud Elron had been and how much everyone who worked with him at the top had colluded in those crimes, yet instead, they totally dominated that vast and powerful government agency and got the sweetheart deal of all times, plus no serious oversight of their operations during the succeeding years after the settlement.
Were political campaign donations made, arms twisted and the whole OSA staff set to work running dirty tricks and black ops on individual IRS staff while thousands of bogus lawsuits were filed to harass it and keep it off balance and on the defense? I’d wouldn’t be ar all surprised to learn that they did all that and more!
Truth is a slippery eel of thing. But there always remains one aspect at the bottom of everything, it is so elusive it could be considered an impossibility. Someone out there knows…
Scientology attracted the attention of just about all the clandestine entities on this planet. A good saying in the military is “bullshit baffles minds.” It is just so easy to lie and mislead. Motive… how valuable would mind control be? Mix two parts bullshit, one part threat, 2 parts fear and 4 parts blind compliance and what do you have…
Scientology is a play thing to someone.
Harpoona Fritatta: “…yet instead, they totally dominated that vast and powerful government agency and got the sweetheart deal of all times, plus no serious oversight of their operations during the succeeding years after the settlement.
“. . . I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that they did all that and more!”
Goes to show how utterly capable they were of potentially – if they had been oriented differently – achieving great things, doesn’t it?
“that DM was being protected by certain powers that be. ”
And whom might that be?
“He would come into the office and put bottles of vitamins in LRH’s hands and then he would push down on his arms, and if there was no strength, he would then tell LRH that he was lacking those vitamins or minerals or whatever.”
This was (still is?) a popular New Age “testing” system called Applied Kinesiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_kinesiology#Criticism
Sure they were vitamins?
BRIAN :
Re your questions to me above, please be in touch Karendelac@gmail.com