A Special Correspondent recently sent this to me. I thought it worth publishing as documentation of a published Sea Org schedule.
As almost any SO member will confirm, a schedule like this is merely an ideal scenario. In practice three items are rarely adhered to: “study,” “exercise time” and “securing time.”
Note also this issue is from 1987. Things degenerated significantly after this time. In many places (most notably the Int base) meal breaks were reduced to 15 minutes much of the time. Exercise time was canceled. And it was VERY rare after the 90’s to even theoretically get 7 hours of sleep. I think in my time at the Int Base my average nightly sleep over 20 years was probably 5 hours a night.
Sea Org members are expected to stay on post until they have met their “production quota” for the day. But if they stay up until 2 or 4 or 6am, it does not mean they are excused from “morning muster” unless of course they are COB. Sleep for Sea Org members is an expendable resource for the “greater good.” No SO member who is with “command intention” gives a second thought to sacrificing his or her sleep time. Likely in service orgs, where public are being trained and audited (at least in theory) during the day and for the most part you cannot try to suck money out of people after 10pm, those SO members may have had a more routine schedule (be interested to hear from those who were at FSO or AO/SHs, as I know about “management orgs”).
Sleep deprivation IS a form of mind control. Chronic sleep deprivation, which is the norm for SO members at least in management orgs, lessens if not destroys willpower. It’s a way of controling people and keeping them in line.
Even at Missions and Orgs the schedule became insane. I protested that the practice of cancelling days off only perpetuated poor results. How could one ever do more production in 6 days than you did the week before in 7 days, so days off became infrequent rewards. How could you assign a condition of Normal or Affluence when you stayed up all night and through the weekend to achieve that? It defied logic. I truely believe that the technology would work, if it was allowed to. It became clear to me that the organisation was being managed by lunatics. I would busy myself for some needed task at the end of each day when staff were suddenly called to a meeting and would quietly leave the building. I would take the phone off the hook on days off or just leave town, so I couldn’t be contacted and called in. I would be punished with lower conditions that I would refuse to do, so my meager pay was then witheld for months at a time. But they needed me on the job, so I was expected to work through all of it. I finally got away. Scientology abuses people under the protection of the First Amendment. It is completely immoral, what they do.
Freedom of religion, abused in such a way as our founding fathers never dreamed possible,
I do imagine.
Scientology is a crime against humanity.
Orwell, considering that the Founding Fathers made it ILLEGAL for the gov to interfere with something like work hours arrangements between employee & employer, they could care less because it is VOLUNTARY. You missed what they stood for. Entirely.
yikes, yeah, I missed who, what and where-to-fore entirely. Whew, dodged a bullet, didn’t I? Musta been the other guys, thanks.
Please please please, you may as well just call me Lost Dog. My dog Arrow missed the point, um, that your’re making, don’t let it bother you… ever. Don’t get me wrong, I love the US Constitution, the brilliance of it, and then I have a special adoration for separation of church and state. Just lovely, and that was just about the entirety of that particular point. Except maybe to begrudgingly point out how the rat-bag-of-slimy worms, excuse me, Church of Scientology takes advantage of freedom of religion to the gad dam HILT, hoping that that would be understood by implication. Good. Well. Can’t say I care on your counter point, whatever that OH, look, a rat’s ass, nice. Love the heads up on legalities, man, you could become famous for that, my good Wynski, dropping names like bombs, aint’ we? Hm, fun is fun. Still a crime against humanity, tho’, at least we agree on the part that mattered, you can go back to, what, sharing trivia, as you understand it, cool. Hey,
Not the end of the world, thanks again.
Just out of curiosity, could you please help us out and tell us what part of the US Constitution that’s in?
We were operating on the basis that bodies are only meat and that need for sleep is an abberation and that seeing ones family was CI and a 2d at all was out-ethics. This devolves down to the idea that the group is all and the individual nothing. I was ready to die in and for the SO. The Captain Freewinds told a junior of mine “Straass would lay down his life for this ship.” This was all fine and good but to be expected to do it for no purpose or reason did not seem right to me.
I was expected to just lay down and die quietly (I had gotten AIDS from a blood transfusion) simply because they wanted to hold my wife against her will. ALL WHILE KNOWING THAT THERE WAS NOW AN EFFECTIVE TREATMENT FOR AIDS. Yet holding onto my wife depended on my dying quickly before they were forced to release her. Technically it was an attempted murder. Yet I was willing to die for LRH for the SO, the Freewinds or the Captain. ALL I WANTED WAS AN ACCEPTABLE REASON TO DIE. And the only reason appeared to be to cover someones ass.
Now, if anyone is wondering what this has to do with schedules, its like this: having terminal AIDS is much like never getting any sleep. I could not sit motionless for more than 10 seconds without passing out. If I had to stand in one spot my legs would sometimes just buckle and I would fall down, even with 8 hours sleep.
Now, before you think that I am looking for sympathy, I should tell you that AIDS both nearly killed me and also saved my life. I could have never left the SO voluntarily. I had to be booted out. The only way I could be booted out is for the execs to be terrified of me. And I did not cause any trouble, except now and then writing KRs when a situation got way, way out of hand.
IF I HAD NOT GOTTEN AIDS, I WOULD HAVE STAYED AND EVENTUALLY DIED WITH THOSE POOR DUMB BASTARDS ON THE SHIP.
You know, dying is religous experience. And though I was not pronounced dead by medical personnel, i was pronounced dead by the church. I heard that I Have been ” Dead filed”. Joke.
It seems to me and correct me if I am wrong, but the driving force behind the madnesses in the SO and the driving force which caused Mohammed Atta to crash a 767 into the World Trade Center were one and the same; i.e. bank agreement.
bill straass-
Wow,… I mean to say bang-it. We knew this cult was cursed with a heartless heart, that it was a joke, but this…
it IS worse than you think.
One thing good (?), is being made tough. I hope that that’s good, anyway;
it sure made a regular hardened soldier out of me and no doubt you, good holy night. Be well. I already know you are a spiritual man,
I thought I was too, don’t get me wrong. I’m spiritual but I’m just a bug with one big heart-full of thanks, gratitude for posting.
For many years I told my fellow crew on the Freewinds that the only way off of the ship was ” IN A BOX.” Well, it worked for me. Then I had to figure out how to get out of the box once off the ship. I barely made it in the end much too close for comfort. It was as if the box was going down the belt to the furnace and I had only minutes to get out. Life is much less hectic these days.
My advice to those back there is as Arnold said “GET OUT!
Thank you for sharing your amazing and courageous story, Bill Strauss. Did your wife leave the SO and come out with you? I hope you are healthy and happy now that you are free of them. I’m so glad you made it out.
Hello Cindy. Yes, my wife made it off the ship after 6 months of hell for both of us. She petetioned ED Int for a 1 yr LOA which was approved (She sent me a copy with Guilliame. Leserves signature on it). She was told that the Captain would never let her go even if she had an approved petetion from COB. I could not figure this out until much later when I realized that the Captain is DMs diving buddy and much more. ED INT later resinded the approved petetion. As an aside DM claims that he does not run the Church but he overruled EDINT who per the Org Bd is the senior management officer of the Church. That alone is proof that he runs the Church. THE CAPTAIN PROBABLY TOLD DM WHAT HE TOLD MY WIFE, WHICH WAS THAT I WOULD SOON BE DEAD AND SO THERE WAS NO POINT TO HER GETTING A LEAVE. She was begging me to do something to get her out of there because she was being treated like a criminal fo wanting to see her dying husband. To me, this was far worse than having AIDS. I went to Los Angeles to see IJC but the cycle went around and around going nowhere, the Captain knowing, correctly that if they kept stalling that I would be dead and the problem solved. The only reason she got off the ship is bacause my father made a comment about calling the FBI which I had talked him out of. THIS GOT AROUND TO OSA INT WHO ORDERED MY WIFE RELEASED. This was a miscalculation on their part, as I would have been dead long before my father called the FBI. KNOWING WHAT I KNOW KNOW I SHOULD HAVE CALLED THE FBI MYSELF.
I will continue with this tomorrow as there is much much more to say about it but I have to work in a few hours and need sleep.
Wow, what a story! I think you should write a book. Write it right now and then make it into a movie! This would be such a good movie on all different levels, and it would get the word out about the horrible treatment by the church. You made them all wrong by Living! And not just living but creating a great life for yourself and your loved ones! The best revenge to an SP is to flourish and prosper and it seems you are doing that. But please do write a book. Or go to the media to be interviewed.
Dear Cindy, Yes, I was thinking of writing a book.I have been interviewed by Channel 4 in Los Angeles with others but they story never came out due to legal pressure from the church. I have been interviewed also by Mark Bunker and Karen de la Carriere in her Surviving Scientology series. You can watch those on Utube. Most people writing books have a co author helping them. If i could find a coauthor I Would like to write a book. I have a lot more data than you or anyone has seen. I was thinking of calling the book DEaD MEN TELL NO TALES. The hardest part of the whole cycle for me was not being allowed to see my wife. I Barely managed to get her off the ship before it was too late. Any suggestions you or anyone else could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Love Bill
Dear Cindy, I am interested in writing a book. I have several times more data regarding the Church than the Hiv cycle. I was interviewed by a tv channel in los angeles but the story never came out due to legal threats to the station. I have 2 videos by Karen de la Carriere on her U tube channel. Often a book has a coauthor. If I could find one, I would write a book.
What did “Chinese School” mean in the 1980s schedule at the beginning? I presume the odd phrase was derived from LRH’s naval experience, or was perhaps one of his borrowed Britishisms like “nattering,” but what did it mean in connection with muster?
Okay, so I used Google and learned that at least in Scientology, “Chinese School” refers to the whole group of Sea Org members repeating in unison a selection of written information (e.g., Org Board divisions and titles, KSW 1, a policy, or anything else) written in big letters on a poster, until they can repeat it verbatim from memory.
I am the ghost of Cathriona White.
inappropriate name and insensitive to the family.
With all due respect, that is a name to be remembered,
as long as the doors are open for business, and
that is why I posted it. The lady’s untimely passing has everything to do with the cult that brazenly coaxed her into their web. She needed and wanted help and instead she got scientology. In her case the difference was literally life or death, another casualty that the Church of Scientology does not accept responsibility for… If you’re sensitive about it I won’t say her name again here, or use it like that, but that girl could have been you or me or any ones’ daughter or son. That is the story.
It would be good to know more about the treatment they put her through; it is softly described as brutal, a practice far more ritualistic than professional, with an Orwellian name of “The Survival Rundown”.
Chris Shelton describes that as something done to first traumatize you, then claim credit for your “recovery” as you are nursed back to the condition you were in, when you first walked in the door. In short, it is a sort of harsh indoctrination process, a very effectively manipulative one, indeed.
My unreserved condolences to her family and friends, solemnly. She was certainly beautiful and young and for all that I can see, a good and loving person, with very high hopes.
Thank you for saying that (Ms. White was a good and loving person, etc.) that is also the impression of her that I got, and felt sorrow at her passing, it was way too soon, and I feel a lot of empathy for her loved ones and friends who are left without her. That’s why I objected to using her name in this manner, it seemed like somehow ridiculing her and unfair to use her name here without her being able to approve or disapprove of it. Just ask yourself if you would want someone to use your name in that way if you were gone, or use the name of one of your departed family members as a board moniker. It seems insensitive to me. Yes, please, do remember this lovely young woman who tragically departed life too soon, do remind people of the factors that may have contributed to her passing, but think about how we choose to keep her memory alive. Thank you for your consideration, with best intentions and loving thoughts, T.J.
In order to never forget why I departed early,
and then to be remembered, especially as a kindly person, to be sure…
that answer would be yes.
Thanks T.J.
From a historical track, there was a earlier beginning to the 82 Mission Holders meeting in San Francisco.
This information was relayed from witness at the 81 Mission Holder meeting at W.W. St Hill.
At the meeting, which got very nasty, mission holders demanded to know where the 10% fees
that the missions were paying W.W. each year?, Where were they being used to support the activities of the
missions. One of the staff at missions W.W. finally confessed that the 10% mission fee collected
from all missions world wide where not been spent on the mission network. The money had in fact
been used else where, and not on the missions support as required.
The mission holders verbally put Missions WW in “Treason” at the meeting and walked out.
This set up the outcome for the 82 meeting in San Francisco.
A. To force a new mission contract on all mission holders that would now bring complete legal
and management control back to the church.
The old mission contract only obligated the mission to adhere to the “tech” and allowed the
running of the mission “business” side up to the mission.
B. After exposing the church own overts toward its mission network, the church had to justify
its own overts against the missions by
portray the missions as out of control and too independent for their own good. Hence the
82 meeting where total war was declared. Everyone was a enemy of the state.
New contracts signed
Mission bank accounts raided
On the spot DECLARES assigned as needed.
In the end, the church got what it wanted…..well behaved dogs on a short leach.
In truth, it put the mission network out of business, and is moving toward putting
its self “church” out of business.
I was at the Flag Service Org from 2003-2007. The only standard schedule was while on EPF. You got your study time, meals and enough sleep. Looked promising. When I go on my post as Solo Not’s D of P at the AO Solo HGC, then I saw the entire engram of the schedule. RTC would come with extra activity for almost each night, like “Calling arrivals”, “Collecting 6 month C/Sing”, “Selling Books”, “Selling Calendars”, “Selling Congresses” – which were Not our Hat. We were given quotas, and if not made, were made to stay all night, because there were no buses. Each Wednesday night there were meeting how to by up on VSD with all stat push involved. The only people who could leave were on MLO schedule. Constant ordered and threats: “Buses are cancelled”, “No more Libs”, “It will be heads on the pike”, “Too grewsome”, “You going to pigs berthing” and more…The major excuse that came from execs was: “Do you think COB sleeps? He is busy clearing the planet…” The lunch got to be 15-20min and dinner 30 min. The big paradox was when you are in trouble or sick or blew from the base and ordered to be sec checked, then you sleep well, eat well and even exercise. The Solo Not’s C/Ss were so overworked, some of them were falling asleep at their desk. They maybe got 5 hours of sleep every night. I witnessed many of them with head down. Each on had about 200 people doing Solo Nots and they have to review the folders every second week in addition to C/Sing the public that came for services. In order to keep stats up the common practice was to skip study. On time I was taken from the course room by CMO to do a drill, which a total violation of “What is a course room”. To summarize: staff even at FSO was getting very little sleep, short meals, no exercise, no time off every other Saturday, even if you are upstate and of course no study. Only very few Class IX auditors who needed to be awake to audit public got their sleep and food. The LRH Flag Order regarding schedule was taken out of every pack. I have seen it circulating and it was a very good and sane schedule. The execs were begging the best auditors to sell more books or congresses, so they can get few hours of sleep, because they had their quotas from RTC.
I thought, I would find more ex-FSO staff commenting on the schedule. Just Sylvia shared her experience.
Horrible experience and total destruction. In 2007 Anonymous in Clearwater told the press the buses are hauling staff members at 3 or 4 am. Then there was an order to get the schedule on time. It lasted for about a week, but they brought ethics on FSO Execs. How interesting! But I am sure the sleep, food, exercise deprivation continues and the strength to fight for their rights been totally squashed and suppressed.
Yossi Charny
This one sentence of yours says it all: “The LRH Flag Order regarding schedule was taken out of every pack.” So the SO Execs CMO, RTC or whatever, in order to get “their” stats up, simply tried to increase the working hours constantly in an unusual solution to do so, and eventually driving decent but overworked and worn out staff to blow or produce poor products. This nonsense has been going on for decades with no improvement in stats. It’s always local or not-so-local misinterpretation or ignoring of policy that causes all this nonsense. And partly explains why the Orgs are such shit places to work in, even more so now with the criminal IAS, Basics and Idle Org regging and harassment.
It’s always local or not-so-local misinterpretation or ignoring of policy – this is a pretty myopic view. This is being done in accordance with “policy” – see today’s Terra Cognita post for just one example of the policy that is followed.
I agree. I have been FSO staff for 11 years. I could not take it… I felt like a zombie. After production boot camp or recruitment calls etc. It was brutal. My body was in pain. Up to today nightmares…. And it was getting crazier every year…
Hello Attila, Thank you for your comment. I can totally relate to nightmares. When were you at FSO, what post?
What I find incredible about this is that long-term staff never sit back and think “well, we’ve been doing all this (Hill 10s, All-Hands, mag stuffs, no sleep, late staff meetings, miss the last train/bus home etc.) for 30 years (and before that as well) but the stats haven’t budged in all this time. In fact they’ve got worse!”
Secondly if one was a bit clever and indeed organized one’s post area so that you were achieving a steady growth you were immediately, or eventually, attacked and the area was unmocked, or you were personally, usually by SO Execs. We used to groan in my Org when we knew the “lanyarded ones” were going to pay us a visit. The stats never improved and in fact all that was left in their wake was utter destruction.
Classic example AFAIK were the Mission Churches of the 70s and early 80s before they also were unmocked, and were, from what I hear of them (and it may or may not be true – please advise as I was never staff there) probably being run at least somewhat properly with staff getting sleep and posts being organized and tech delivery going on etc. They were making millions for the Scientology network every year yet Miscavige feeds LRH a line about them ripping off the Church and there went that ball game. (Hubbard should have checked those “facts” out a bit more, granted.) But even if some of the Missions were pocketing a bit if they made say 10 million bucks for the Church and pocketed a million for themselves you give them a rap on the knuckles and tell them not to do it again – you don’t disband (unmock) them so the 11 million bucks are missing the next year!
But my first paragraph above is my main point.
Ha! I forgot my point about mentioning the Missions – they (before 82 anyway) proved that one didn’t have to be sleep-deprived and constantly hectic to make an Org (Mission) function and be (more than) viable in many if not all of their cases. In other words they weren’t micro-managed by the SO – until the Mission Holder’s Conference in 82 that is! Maybe that is one reason why they had to be disposed of? I also knew many staff during my time had ambitions to go and work in a mission (as they were reportedly pleasant places to work in and practice Scientology) after their normal staff contract was finished – I also seriously thought about it as well. Which may have been another reason then to do them in – probably some Flag Bureau survey was done on existing staff as to what they intended to do after their 2.5 or 5 year staff contract was up. They would be thinking something like this: “Where can I do Scientology – and sleep properly and not be harassed constantly? In a Mission”.
Gotta get some shut-eye now, Foolproof, but what you say about the missions is true. In fact they were power houses for Scientology. The ones I visited in the early 70s, especially Stevens Creek, were full of new public and lots of enthusiasm. There was the COSMOD (Church of Scientology Mission of Davis) network which was bigger than all the orgs of today put together. Lots of other missions and groups, Field Auditors and so on.
I think it is not so much that Hubbard got false reports about the missions. I think he was running scared that the IRS would catch him and drop the boom on him for $millions. So he started grabbing for every $ he could grab, writing film scripts for the Tech Films that netted him $, starting up ASI to grab every $ from his works they could, selling special editions, setting up the Int Finance Dictator to grab even more $, increasing prices, grabbing donations for the “War Chest” (before the IAS), anything and everything that could get him some money to keep the wolf from the door.
The missions were too successful and the mission holders had too much independence for Hubbard in this emergency situation so he sent his attack dog Miscavige to declare, shut down or cow every one of them. Miscavige used to flash around that photo of him issuing a Declare to the Steven’s Creek Mission Holder, like he was so powerful he could declare anybody. And nowadays he can, all he has to do is suggest that somebody get the boot and nobody will stand up to him. He just doesn’t get that he is the big muddy pig in a very little mucky sty. The other pigs are scared of him, true, but there are less of them every day.
Bruce, I still cannot believe that Hubbard would have knowingly unmocked the lucrative Missions Network if they were as it seems, providing millions of dollars to Scientology’s coffers every year. As many others have pointed out Hubbard loved his bucks (who doesn’t?) so for him to undertake something (by sending Miscavige in to hack and gouge) that would result in a large source of income drying up, seems improbable to me. Logically it can only be that a) DM fed Hubbard wrong data initially and also afterwards and b) DM then also overstepped the mark and didn’t report what had actually resulted and happened (from his hacking and gouging) to Hubbard afterwards. It seems DM may have thought “correcting” the Missions Network would make him famous or something and he could vault up the Org Board or Hubbard’s pecking order by doing so. The only real mistake Hubbard made was being dependent on a just a few people to send him data. He did after all, order Miscavige to be sec- checked so I read, but even that was conspired against so he (DM) came out smelling of roses.
Yes, the money WAS the motivation. It was short sighted, but Hubbard was certain the Mission Holders were ripping off money and pc’s orgs were “entitled” to. You cannot blame everyone else and excuse him. If the flaw as you see it was that all information he got was manipulated (and that is to an extent true) then he was not following his own policy about Multiple Viewpoint Systems and the Data Series.
Hubbard was only certain because of the data that was relayed to him surely? Such (the data) however would be somewhat difficult to verify living in hiding on a secluded ranch in a camper van. And and even if he were to source his info from elsewhere then probably Miscavige and/or Broeker would probably have eventually interfered with that as well. I see it as just an unfortunate circumstance. I did actually say it was his big mistake so I am not excusing Hubbard’s failing in this, and perhaps with hindsight he could have done something, but then he somewhat trusted Miscavige we can only assume or he was too busy with other personal things to really look into it all.
Yes, in the end he was unable to deal with a lot of things that one would have imagined the most powerful OT on earth would not have been hampered by. There is a lot that doesn’t add up. But I am sure you already know that and I am not going to keep responding on this subject.
Fool, No True Founder would have gutted the mission N/W over $.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He NEVER followed his own policies, Mike. He always was the contradiction of everything he wrote about!!! In my dictionary that has one name : being crazy!
The entire Scientology farce has a huge fault line where its tectonic plates meet. This information does not just apply to Sea Org members though it is completely true of them, it applies to Class V Org staff and PUBLIC as well. Here is one experience I was at YEARS AGO and I mean YEARS AGO. I was in the Graduation muster at the New York Org about 3 years after David Miscavige “took over”. The Flag Trained Course Supervisor (OT V) announced how the students had stayed in the Academy until 4:00 a.m. to get through their check sheets. INSTEAD of writing this up as a HUGE security breach and out tech the graduation audience cheered and applauded them for their accomplishments. I thought I was hallucinating having witnessed this but apparently not. Today, it is certainly much worse in the orgs. Nobody trusts the Church of Scientology any more, and the church is FURIOUS. “Where in the world would these stupid WOGS get the correct tech from?” is the atmosphere in the church today. Not that it was ever any different at any other time, just less perceived. 🙂
Silly question I guess from a never in but please be kind. If I have a week of getting less than 6 hours average per week I can guarantee 2 things in my life: i) the Mrs is going to have hell of cranky guy over the weekend ii) my actual production at work will rapidly decrease.
How did you SO members especially you guys at the very top deal with this? Was it like training for a marathon were you build up resistance or did you just robot it through doing as much as you could but in reality doing much less than you would with a decent sleep pattern? Really interested in the replies.
dyir, not a silly question. Of course we didn’t have to worry about cranky weekends. No weekends. Maybe a few hours to do your laundry on Sunday morning.
Consistent poor sleep really screws up your ability to think. You just kind of settle into a low grade zombie going-through-the-motions routine with occasional crying jags or fits of mindless rage for no reason.
People around you kind of understand and perhaps will suggest that you take a little nap somewhere, preferably in a location where you will not be found. Long bathroom breaks are popular. Did you know it is possible to sleep while squatting, head on your forearms? Possible if you are tired enough.
Or you may wake up with your head planted on your bench and with the heat gun burning a hole in the wall in front of you like I did once. Or you may wake up deep in some attic crawl space, well rested but puzzled, while your co-workers scramble to find you. A friend of mine woke up with his whole body head down inside a wall. The only way out was to break through the wall, no way to crawl back up.
What really happens is that there is rarely a situation so dire that you literally cannot sleep a wink. If it does happen, the first night is almost sort of productive. The next day is shear hell on earth. That night you settle into the zombie mode and can go on with simple repetitive tasks. You can go on in zombie mode for a few more days before you “hit the wall”. When you hit the wall your body shuts down willy nilly and you either get some sleep or end up in the emergency room.
If anything requiring actual thought is needed you just have to get a nap. There is no way around it. When you wake up from the nap, it is as though you hadn’t slept for three weeks and you feel terrible, but with some fluids and vitamin C you can sort of carry on. For creative types, musicians, book designers, writers this is a form of sheer hell because they lose the thread of their creative work and have to start over from scratch. Several times a day. It would be much more effective and faster to send them all home and start over fresh in the morning, but there is no way to explain that to the higher-ups.
Interestingly Hubbard addressed this issue in writing, in an advice (we called his orders “advices” because he was legally not in charge at the time. But he could still issue orders and woe betide anyone who did not follow them!). The advice is called the Wonkers Bonkers advice and I do not have the actual text. What happened was that someone was being suggested for a promotion and in the promotion request someone said that the candidate “holds up well under sleepless conditions”. Hubbard came back with a blistering condemnation of sleepless conditions, ranted on about how poor quality work would result, how they could not be trained effectively. It ends with something like “That’s so bonkers, it’s wonkers!” A copy was always posted in the staff training area. But of course this advice was not followed and his other advices like “The statement that it takes a long time to build something is a lie!” were followed to the T.
So this advice, along with the tradition of giving a day off every two weeks, holidays off, three days off when a film is completed, a three week leave for every Sea Org member every year, Sea Org bonuses, daily one hour exercise time and the like were honored mainly in the breach.
One time someone came around and asked “How long will it take to get project X done?” The project was a new electronic design with software and hardware. Given a ridiculously short public relations faked answer like “one week” the senior executive was still not satisfied. He asked “Well, what if you stay up until it is done?” to which the answer was “Six months”. I think it actually took a year, and very little sleep was involved.
Thank you for such a brilliant reply. Its so interesting to see even Hubbard knows that sleepless conditions are detrimental to a productive work environment but it is completely disregarded because if the cult mindset forming ‘everything is flap, all hands on deck, day and night’. I do wonder if SO members have shorter life expectancies (minus the 40 a day smokers) cf normal 9-5 with some grudging overtime.
As an aside I do doff my cap to you guys that managed to put those work hours in, I know I couldnt so give you guys lots of props for doing that.
Two queries here: Does DM realize how self destructive this is, I mean to HIMSELF. If he destroys the foundation he stands on isn’t that a “bad thing”? And maybe DM sleeping is a good thing, you know, let sleeping tyrants snooze on and all that…
As mentioned in some comments, just the subject alone of sleep deprivation would be chock full of material for another expose–really gory, painful, hard to confront unbelievable stuff, yet true in every word. If anyone does it, I’m in!
El Con used sleep deprivation as a cult mind numbing/control tactic. It was used from literally Day one in the S.O. when El Con had the volunteers who arrived at the ship in 1967 that he had just purchased and he started using them as slave labor to renovate it.
It is a Cult tactic to use sleep deprivation as a method of mind control.
At Int base there were horror stories repeated over and over of people on construction projects that would fall asleep standing up or find a little corner to rest against to fall asleep, again standing up. “The greatest good” justified it.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/here-are-five-infamous-religious-cults-used-sleep-deprivation-control-their-followers
With SO members working nonstop and so sleep deprived, how did they measure their “success”? I guess I am asking, did they have any objective ways to measure their progress and therefore allow themselves to sleep after achieving certain benchmarks?
We’re there defined tasks each week or was it just chaos all the time? How were their tasks suppose to “save the planet”? Thanks! Ann
I was on staff for 6 months and that was all. Never in the Sea Org but did try
( military history washed me out)
My only horror story of overwork and not enough sleep was in Hollywood.
For one month for the Big Boss as a special project. Afterwards I was thanked then asked what this was for? I was told the Big Boss wanted a Helicopter for his wife which every time she flew over the building
we went outside to wave. True Story.
I managed to get enough sleep most nights while I was at FSO from 1980 to 1989. The trick was to be on the public service lines and not be on a high enough post (less than Dept Head). Div Head or above, forget it. You weren’t getting any sleep. Regges either. The only times I didn’t get enough sleep were when the lady I was with at the time would keep me up all night at the beach or wherever. That’s where the car or motorcycle and a few handy commission sales (being on public lines) would come in handy to be able to rise slightly above the abject poverty level of the average S.O. guy. I now consider myself fortunate but at the time I’ m sure some of my senior’s considered me “unmotivated” or a pain in the you know where.
When I was growing up my parents bought an Irish Wolfhound that had been bused by the previous owners. She had been locked in a basement with firecrackers dropped through the window. For the rest of her life she was frightened by anything that sounded like fireworks.
As it’s been said many times, nothing good can come from being a member of Scientology. Nothing…
While on the RPF at the Int Base, we were extremely sleep deprived.
Each week, I probably only got one or two nights of about 7 hours of sleep. Indeed, my personal record was staying up 92 hours straight. I remember one of the urgent reasons I had to keep working was to complete a “gift from the RPF” to an Int executive who was soon going to marry.
To his credit, that executive personally searched me out and thanked me for it afterward.
People wonder how individuals can withstand this sort of abuse and not just leave.
The short answer is, they don’t. Only a tiny fraction “make it” in the sea org over the long haul of decades.
I think Mat Pesch is right–one sort of enters into a permanent hypnotic daze. As an organism, you know you have to conserve energy when you are in that state, and to resist or protest, or object consumes too much survival energy.
You get into this frame of mind–if you’ve already accepted that there is absolutely no carrot and all stick–that a reduction in the amount of whipping becomes carrot. I’ve seen and experienced the giddy enthusiasm that would go through the ranks of the RPF when a rumor or announcement was made that “we are going to secure (sleep) for 7 hours tonight!!” It was the equivalent of an announcement in the real world that the entire workforce if some company would take off two weeks for Christmas with full pay.
Letting everyone sleep for a night becomes a magnanimous gift.
Usually, there was a reason for that, such as, everyone needs to be rested in order to get a meter check to determine something like “who used the bathroom reserved for the CMO” or some such.
Geez…
Got you beat, JD…I once did 8 days straight with my head on the counter for 15 whole minutes somewhere in there. It wasn’t physical labor though. It was artistic work that wasn’t even part of my own post–someone else’s deadline they had no possible way of achieving on their own. Got ripped off from here and told to work there. All off-policy and when I protested I got screamed at: “It’s for C-O-B!!!” Gawd I hate that little jerkoff.
I don’t remember how but by the time this happened I knew a few things about nutrition and I drank tons of water and had only a little fruit or veggies now and then to keep me going. That helped immensely.
One of the biggest things about the sleep deprivation is that since you have no internet access (as was the case back in my day) you can never find out anything about health, nutrition, etc. No one when I was there knew the health problems caused by sleep deprivation. I had all sorts of weird things going wrong with my body but fortunately after I escaped and slept as long as my body wanted for a while it all started to heal.
And somehow, after all these horror stories over many years, this place still cannot be busted for slave labor and trafficking. Lots of people are talking, not much of anyone with any clout is listening. Go figger.
“One of the biggest things about the sleep deprivation is that since you have no internet access (as was the case back in my day) you can never find out anything about health, nutrition, etc.”
Even if you’d have had that access, they’d have told you there were WOG’s lies that don’t apply to homo novis…
I have often pondered about the schedule, the lack of toilet paper and the poor diet in the Sea Org.
Once a good friend heard about the lack of pay that week and exclaimed “I didn’t sign a vow of poverty when I joined the Sea Org!” But the average elite OT “make it go right” Sea Org member lives at a quality of life far below that of the average homeless person in a shelter.
As Event Crew I visited Flag, the Freewinds, the Saint Hill base, Copenhagen, all were in the same boat. Books by former members elsewhere describe the same situation. Hubbard and Dave live the high life but everybody else lives in a state strangely reminiscent of one of Dante’s circles of Hell. Not all the time in all places of course, usually it only got really bad when Dave or Hubbard were actually nearby.
Why, I wondered, would this be so? Other religions provide excellent accommodations, even for their monastic orders. As a computer repair guy I visited a few of these and was astounded to see nuns in well appointed two or three bedroom apartments, meals provided, computers provided, full Internet access and so on. Not in a dorm arrangement either, one nun per apartment.
After a decade out I think I see.
Scientology doesn’t work.
Of course Christianity doesn’t work either, in the sense of providing super powers to the adherents. But it doesn’t promise super powers. Even the faith healers and snake handlers ascribe their abilities to a higher power, not themselves.
And of course you can get good feelings and new realizations about life from both religions, especially at the lower levels. Years after I left I would sometimes have a sudden realization about life, and think it was strange. After all, I was a declared SP and had not even read a Hubbard book for years. A little later it hit me-having realizations about life, the “epiphany” of the Christians, is a normal part of life. Non-Scientologists have them too. Anyone can experience a catharsis from reading a good novel or trying something new or helping someone. Hubbard played on this but it is not something he invented.
With Scientology the promised super powers are supposed to make everything easy. As sincere believers, the Sea Orgers really think they can do anything at all with no resources whatsoever. They don’t “have to have before you can do”, the non-Scientology feeble excuse Hubbard warned against. Hubbard also said that the idea that it takes a long time to build something is a lie.
So they just do something. Maybe what they do is foolish, extravagant, incoherent or inane. As long as they are doing something they are “making it go right”.
When it doesn’t work, they cannot blame stupid or missing leadership from their superiors or Dave. That is not the Sea Org way. They cannot blame Hubbard or Scientology. They can only blame themselves or someone who has recently sabotaged everything and blown.
A Sea Org member is not allowed to say “I had no nails to nail up the sheetrock, and when I tried to use super glue it fell down”. They can only say “I squirrelled the tech of sheetrock, now I have found my misunderstoods”. And turn around and go on “putting up sheetrock” with no nails even though quitting time was hours ago, and no store is open where they could buy some nails with their meager pay.
They don’t have time because everything is supposed to happen now now now. They often have no or wrong materials because the money that is supposed to pour in from a grateful planet delighted with the new dawn of freedom that is Scientology never materializes. The planet is not delighted, grateful or willing to part with a penny for anything Scientological. They don’t have a plan or a clue because those are supposed to come from superiors who honestly don’t care.
All they have is their sleep time and their labor, which they give until they drop.
Some may point to the cots for sleeping that were set up outside the war rooms in World War 2, others note the sleeping pads that were set up in the tape room as the scientists struggled around the clock to work out how to get the Apollo 13 astronauts back home. Often in war or natural disasters it is necessary to go on working past the normal sleep time.
The normal sleep-deprived day-to-day grind in the Sea Org is an unnatural disaster, entirely created by a greedy few who thrive on the pain and suffering of others.
Hey Bruce! I just had my 10th anniversary of escaping too. Congratulations!
Very well said, BTW. I have just one comment to add to the sleeping pads set up for the scientists working round the clock to get Apollo 13 back home. Those guys got paid! They were driven by the purpose to save the men, make history, and in the end they’d even get a paycheck and get to go home to a real home.
Us, well wow….we’d get $8.24 or probably less at the end of our week for just as many hours. The $50 a week “pay” is BS. We went for months with no pay at all. Then we went “home” to a stupid bunk bed with 12 others in the same little condo/apt or a couple’s room squeezed into a little condo/apt with two other couples. Sweet!
I know you know that but I love bringing up more of the old crap when I think of it to keep pushing it out there that this place and the whole organization is psycho. 🙂
Gen. Norman Swartzkopf slept on a cot in his War Room for Desert Storm..
It was a no frills trailer.
There’s a destructive myth floating around that effective successful people only need a small amount of sleep, and that’s part of why they’re so successful. No doubt it’s been swallowed whole inside Scientology’s organization.
These claims are about as trustworthy as the Breatharians, who claim to survive only on sunshine, who are later spotted at McDonald’s scarfing down a cheeseburger, fries and milkshake:
http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-ceo-sleep-schedules-2013-10?op=1
Funny how the Sea Org rules don’t apply to COB, who climbs out of bed at noon.
All this is justified by the distorted view of denigrating the physical body as a spiritual tumor that Ron has done.
In eastern thought there is a similar view that attachment and identifying ourselves with the physical body is a source of spiritual trouble.
But there is a big difference. In eastern thought, from the view of wisemen and women, the body is also a great vehicle for learning and taking care of it is a spiritual duty.
In Scientology, bodily needs can be equated with weakness.
Some human needs that Scientology can denigrate with its seeing the body as a spiritual tumor:
1) proper rest
2) family bonding
There is a condescension; the MEST body is treated with scorn. And if we have a need, there is something wrong with our ability to be OT.
In spiritual traditions there is the doctrine of the body being in a lower position to conscious awareness. But Scientology distorts this tradition in the Sea Org. It becomes self abuse, not a healthy view that the soul is owner of the body and it should be disciplined and not let to run amuck.
This view of the body in the Sea Org, I believe, is to indoctrinate slaves to the “OT” virtues of slavery.
Make it our fault for needing to feed and give rest to the spiritual tumor called the MEST body.
Another hateful and self abusive doctrine that equates self care with selfishness:
YOU ARE ONLY OPERATING ON THE FIRST DYNAMIC!
This one is very introverting. It equates self care with selfishness. Once the first dynamic has been agreed upon as a selfish weakness, cult minion your new OT ability.
Scientolgy equates:
Criticism with being a criminal (death of thinking critically)
Taking care of ourselves with only operating on the first dynamic (road to self abuse)
Human need for family with the psychotic GE (by by mom and dad, you are just MEST)
Not seeing Ron as the one true savior as being an evil person (destroyer of the 4th dynamic)
These doctrines were born out of the psychology of L Ron Hubbard.
In Scientology, the first dynamic was really denigrated and replaced with a worship of the 4th dynamic.
But in reality, in Scientology, the 4th dynamic is not really the 4th dynamic. In Scientology the 4th dynamic means expanding the money inflow to Scientology.
They do not serve mankind. They serve the reg’s stat graph.
BTW Mike, the choosing of that picture makes me laugh. I know what it represents so maybe I should not be laughing. But it is a great choice to represent your idea.
“In Scientology, the first dynamic was really denigrated and replaced with a worship of the 4th dynamic.”
Very true, and it points out the two-facedness–there is a policy (“Ethics, Justice and the Dynamics”…it’s a long one) that states no one dynamic is more important than the other one. Outpoint much? LOL While I was in the sea org this was the biggest head-scratcher for me. That was the crack through which the sun finally shined through.
There’s always something written somewhere else, usually in the policies, that contradicts behavior encouraged in other policies that is totally illogical and any normal person would completely disagree with. So the policy that does the contradicting can be pulled out in court to show that the other behavior was not supported by the cherch. Smoooooth!
Buncha slimy little cheezballs. 🙂
If anoybody thinks anyone can get happiness with such insanities from a scam maffioso as LRH, he can wait to find much worse . I’m not even certain than the North Corean crazy leaders one and son are worse to become later the “most hateful gurus in the universe”!
North KOREAN. North Corean is a suburb on Target Two.
I hear on Target 2 they have wrestling matches for who has the biggest thetan. Love seeing those thetans being slammed on the mat. Those weak tiny thetans because they are so iddy biddy and small. Those big thetans are so big!
I also hear that people on Target 2 are tired of Ron sleeping on that asteroid belt.
Now that I look at it, that was Ron’s version of playing a harp in heaven.
Ron, not being liberated and only seeing after life experiences as an electro-mind-hypno-venusian-forget-implant from alien electro implant torturers………………… expressed a desire to fly around stars as his version of being free.
When you study the truly wise, their description of liberation is far more appealing than Ron’s flying around astro mass.
Ron did not have an experience, of even limited knowledge, of spiritual worlds. He booby trapped our understanding of non material realities with such foolishness as “Ron’s Trip To Heaven”.
And he, with great ignorance and arrogance, associated the real perceivable light of spirit within, with an implanters electro beam.
This could be one of the most damaging to Ron’s followers; the equating of spiritual light with an implant. I have had an auditor and CS audit this as an implant. So I know of which I speak.
I applaud all that get back on the path of liberation after the dissolution of the lies that Ron imprinted on us.
Meditation works. And it is cheap. And you can “go into session” anytime, anywhere, for any reason.
That is another crime against freedom that Ron imprinted on us; The dreaded fear of self auditing (self looking)
This one miserable manipulation of our ability to conduct our own independent self inquiry has corrupted the intellect. It has made sovereign investigation, based on the pc’s own wisdom and intelligence a thing of danger. Free self examination is relegated to being “out ethics” “out Tech”.
The doctrine of “do not self audit”could be one of the most dangerous doctrines in Scientology.
To agree to this, is to surrender our powers of observation, and self investigation. WE are then surrendered to Ron’s questions, Ron’s cosmology, Ron’s world view, Ron’s Sci Fi imagination.
And doing it alone, free self inquiry, could lead to becoming a piece of rock for all eternity; Ron’s version of eternal damnation.
I wish South Park would do a Scientology Broadway Play. There is so much lunacy for material.
While I can tell endless stories of working days, weeks, months at a time with very little sleep, I’ll tell just one. Back in 1978 I worked in the logistics office for the Advanced Org renovations. Our schedule was 30 hours work, 3 hours sleep. You didn’t go to bed for 3 hours though. There was a pillow, on the floor, in the middle of the office. The office personnel took 1 hour shifts on that pillow. One woman in the office would need to be picked up by 2 people and moved upright around the office until her legs started contributing and she came awake enough to go back to her desk. She face planted one day on her typewriter and when she was gotten up the typewriter keys were showing in her face. I could tell you hundreds of these kind of stories.
I remember being interviewed by a woman in the FBI and she asked me “How was it possible to work such hours?” I told her the truth. “I don’t know.” To this day I really don’t understand how myself and others were able to do it. It seems like the whole environment/routine some how works like a hypnotic command. I say that because I have seen people who were hypnotized able to do physical things that they normally couldn’t do. That’s my best guess.
Frightening what you just posted, Mat. I was on staff in Honolulu when a SO contingent stopped by. They really wanted me to join. Thankfully, I had dropped acid once in college! This was the mid 70s so I’m sure it’s much, much worse today.
Best trip you’ve ever been on, so it turned out. Had a similar voicing to the SO recruiters too – worked a charm, psychedelic too, wheeee… look ma, 3 heads!
Mat, one good trick is those Alacer fizzy vitamin C packets. Emergen-C. Touch a bit of the powder directly to your tongue when you start to nod off. Works but turns your tongue funny colors.
I also used to keep awake by eating those sugary chewable vitamin C tablets. Then I found out what happens when you OD on vitamin C. “Turns your bowels to water”, luckily there was a rest room only a few steps away.
My favorite funny story is the time the RPF at Gold were literally up for five days to finish the “12 Mic” (Hubbard’s 12 microphone recording room for lecture recording, which I don’t think he ever used). About three days in someone decided to serve us ice cream at Midnight Rations because there was some left over from the crew dinner. Half of us literally went face down in their dishes of ice cream and the other half went hysterical laughing at them. Around Sept. ’83.
Mine was coffee and candy bars–Milky Way darks were my favorites. And yes, also Vit C, and pantothenic acid, and lots of water. And y’know what? Our unit got busted for trying to keep our own coffee pot in our office! How did we come off thinking we were so special?? We were told that we had to get coffee during meal times only and bring it back to our stations. Where it would get cold of course.
Our coffee pot (actually it was my own) serviced several other folks who had to work with us also. One day someone ratted on us to Ethics, and the guy came over and busted us and made me throw the coffee pot and ground coffee away. I pretended to put it in a big bag headed for the trash and hid it instead. Fully intending to pull it back out after all the fussy flappiness died down.
I recall the Medical Officer circulating around the event crew giving people Vit B shots to help keep them awake. This was pretty much a standard routine.
GR: I recall the Medical Officer circulating around the event crew giving people Vit B shots to help keep them awake. This was pretty much a standard routine.
Wow, gives me an idea.
Hold a convention of ex Sea Orgers, advertise it to Universities of a sociological surveying opportunity to do research interviewing of a group of institutionally sleep deprived staffers.
And have the Universities foot the bill for the convention of the 5, 10, 20 year “sleep deprived Sea Orger veterans” who show up for the convention!
Im in! I could give a lecture on the results of being sent to a Scn chiroprator for terminal Aids. The only reason i am in non compliance i.e. alive is because my wife finally took me to a doctor against the advice of the ship which was to put me in a hospice to die.
Mat,
Your stories win a prize unsure what but a prize.
Should be in the Sequel to Going Clear.
This is one area I have real empathy for the SO member. In the 10 years up to the mid 90s it was like they were increasingly being punished more and more for no reason. I use to audit SO members when the need arose and they were often in the CL4 course room doing their “thing” as they didn’t have a course room or sup of their own at that time. Over time they were denied auditing time and I no longer saw them except briefly in the corridors every now and again.
I never understood the undue pressure and inhumanity associated with their schedule or treatment. It was bad enough being CL4 Org staff but the friends I made within the SO just drifted away from the reality I understood human beings normally get. It use to tear me apart seeing the denial of family associated matters for them and the social responsibilities of things like Christmas and birthdays eroded because of some ridiculous group effort in which the discipline and denials just got worse and worse.
As I saw the decline from what were a lot happier times in the mid 80s I can only assume it was the work of Miscavige which made it get as worse as it is.
Good luck to all SO and ex-SO alike, you really deserve to get your life back, enjoy the sun on your back and some money in your pocket.
Staff and Scientology – two words that don’t sit in the same sentence very well at all!
And to those who are still in…if you leave, you will get your old life back. In spades! Leave the darkness and come into the light. You’ll never regret it! Just walk out and say, I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!!!
I just realized that I made a couple of really good friends who were SO (also PCs) and they disappeared many times and when they reappeared were always were happy to see me until eventually they didn’t want to know me anymore. They simply couldn’t comprehend or be involved with any other life activity except the one they were neck deep in. Scientology really doesn’t have the right to interfere in that way, let alone rip families apart etc.
Scientology has taken the term serious and made it worse, a lot worse.
Thank you, IY! Your observations align with mine, same time periods and same occurances but mine were at the int base. Thank you for the sentiment and willingness to help the SO guys. I hope you as well are doing great in life on the outside. 🙂
Peace to you and yours Gato. I drank the kool-aide pretty deeply (as many of us did) for a decade or so. I really did believe we were all part of the same team etc. Worked a couple of jobs as well as day staff and got in study and helped out etc at the AO. I was so comatose with long, long hours, at times my schedule was no different or worse than those in the SO. In retrospect before Miscavigism really took a hold, it was close knit group and it didn’t really matter if you were staff or SO. Except for a few snot nosed CLO Messenger type kids acting like they were gold plated Gods the morale was high. Then the 80s were gone and after that everything that meant anything was raped repeatedly for its monetary value.
I barely made out of the SO alive. Its fortunate that SPs cant finish a cycle of action. Dead men tell no tales.ö
Sorry what you went through, Bill. But, now you’ve got you’re old life back! You can do whatever you want to do! You are truly free and that is a blessing, my friend. I celebrate your good fortune with you…
Are you by any chance the famous Billy Strasser of ASHO Day fame?
Nein. I worked in FSO in the AO from 79 to 86 and was the Mechanics chief freewinds until 2002 when I was pronounced dead after I tested positive for Hiv which I got from a blood transfusion in the ships home port. U can see me in 2 videos done by Karen de la carriere.
Many times I had Flag auditors who would check out. I could tell when they weren’t really “there.” While on my “refresher,” I had an auditor actually close his eyes and fall asleep for a second or two WHILE an auditing question came out of his mouth. I, of course, reluctantly HAD to say something which I didn’t want to do because I knew it would cost me more money in auditing time – which it did.
Should have kept your mouth shut and saved the $. I had an SO auditor fall asleep once waiting for session. I didn’t mind the extra wait and the DofP thankfully didn’t do anything about it. Oh what a horror it is the way that organisation treats its own. Sooner it’s history the better.
The main rest you get in the SO is when you rest in peace between lives before you have to report back for duty.
Made me chuckle Bill, very good!
I did the EPF as a first step to joining the SO. In the courseroom at night I’d see this old guy, in his mid to late 70’s sleeping in the courseroom in his little area in the back. He was asleep the whole time. No one disturbed him. I didn’t say anything cuz I figured that that was needed sleep and he was old. But how cruel and hard hearted and no-sympathy, no-empathy the SO is to not take care of its senior citizens. Once you get “too old” they jettison you out and offload you to anywhere but there. Again, it is always, “what have you done for me lately?”
I did a 10 week world clearing gig for the SO in Tokyo some years back (I was in my early 50s), slept and worked in the SO quarters, such as they were. I started at 9 am and worked until 1030 pm (and this was because I INSISTED that I quit at that time to go to bed – we had hour meal breaks though because we had no mess hall and had to go out). I went to bed but the SO personnel stayed up and worked. Sometimes in the middle of the night I’d have to pee and the lights were still on and people working in the office. I worked seven days a week and then when the project was finally finished, I took in a ball game on my last day.
But I did learn a lesson. A few years later I got another gig at Narconon in Kathmandu, Nepal and THIS time I told the director there with LOTS of intention, “I get off at 6 pm and get a day off each week.” I was a volunteer and they were in the beggers can’t be choosy role as I was staff course supe, D of P, CS and examiner.
I do realize though that true SO members do not have the option I did. I am always surprised that as many of them stay as they do.
I think they’re down to 18,000 members worldwide, Joe. And, of course, that number is falling…
OSD,
A few years back an official World Religion count stated 25,000 Scientologists
in the World. Later a 15% annual decline reported.
Current 18,000 is close maybe too generous.
Members… that doesn’t sit right. Detainees… yes that’s better, 18,000 detainees plus Miscavige.
It was “Win or die in the attempt”. It became clear that death would come long before victory (at least for me) and the pain got bad enough that I began to long for death to escape the pain. Of course that is all over now.
Way back when—–I would get away with 4 hours of ZZZZZ per day.
Now sleep as much as my cat. Take my time to chow down with great food selections.
OK, nap time.
Hey!!! Wait for me! I’m just about to…to…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
What sort of insane organisation expects (nearly ) everyone to work till midnight 7 days a week? No wonder they have to press gang people into working there.
This is another example of outright stupidity at best, or willful sabotage of personnel at worst. Long term inadequate sleep plays havoc with the health and functionality of bodies and minds. The supposed justification of chronic sleep reduction is “production.” But chronic insufficient sleep makes people, slow, mentally dull and mistake prone. You can’t just “outcreate” the negative effects or “make it go right” despite them. I saw it for years in an already high-pressure, high stress Sea Org unit. It was not pretty. It was a bunch of dulled out, ill tempered semi-zombies careening from one mess to another, while being yelled at and made wrong by other dulled out, ill tempered zombies.
And the long term effects on health I know from personal experience is insidious and debilitating. But it is the frog boiling slowly in the water phenomenon. Thankfully one day I realize it was slowly killing me and I would be dead years before my time if I kept doing it. Once out the recovery of health was remarkable. I saw plenty of Sea Org members die younger than they should have, and the while no sleep insanity was a big factor in that. Sleep deprivation is not only mind control, it is premature illness and death.
+1! Scientology is very bad for your health.
I think your second one of “sabotage” has more weight, although the first one of stupidity also has something going for it as well.
Ha. I was in the Gold Extension Unit back then (as was William Carey recruiter, Anthony Auerbach recruiter, Lynn Senor – I forget her title, but she was in charge of the whole office, Tom Vorm, Michael Gilcrest sec checker, Lynette Stuckey Promo in charge. There were other too I don’t remember.
Back then I was underage (15 I think). I was not made to stay late, mostly because all I did was answer phones.
Soon after starting in the SO, a strong push to man up Int and Gold was going on, and Darnelle Bloomberg and a few other (Paulette Otten was in there too doing something) Sea Org members from Int came down to get all kinds of people through Int clearances… This was when Mithoffs came through, Peter Schless, and tons more.
Soon after that, I was assigned to the RPF, and for the most part, we got 7 hours of sleep. When I got off the RPF in 91, I was made to stay up for over a week straight without sleep to get the Cine hat packs ready for the Cine crew who were on the Freewinds and about to come home.
After all that, I was always at a service org, and for the most part, kept a pretty regular schedule. It was never enough to actually get sleep though. It was 7 hours from when you walked out of the building until you returned, which, if you lived off property (like CC, which housed everyone at the Wilcox), travel time was never taken into consideration.
This doesn’t mean there were not random times that we were woken in the middle of the night for random crap. That happened to me all the time as a C/S. Something urgent that had to be done right then, and they would get me up and force me to do it.
I never understood them expecting excellence when a person was not allowed to sleep properly.
At FSO the changes started to occur after “COB” made his expansion plans for FSO around ’95 or so.
Before we always secured at 8-9pm, had every Saturday morning off and full day off as applicable, muster started 8-8.30am and we even communicated and were friendly with the public.
As time went on morning musters moved from 8.30am, to 8.00am and finally 7.00am
Lunches – were 30 minutes, good food but, as time went on, RTC Reps started a routine of arriving at the dinning room and getting every body out after just being there 10-15 minutes, because COB said so.
Dinner used to be .45 minutes and early ’80s we could even go to the Hibiscus and dinned with public and have a great time. Once more, time moved on, COB came and left and lunches started to be shorter and shorter.
Study time and excercise was good for “Admin” staff – they always had it and used to arrive on post until after lunch.
For all Technical and Qual personnel we never had the luxury of study far less exercise time.
After 1999-2000 the situation worsen as seconds went by – no sleep for admin personnel until quotas met, exercise and study were only privileges for RTC staff, maybe CMO young kids too, secure time was 2-3 am for most of the staff and now.
And you are right in 1995 with the Red Tag evolution Technical and Qual staff we used to stay very late and wake up early aha, but COB used to go to bed whenever he wanted, after a snack of course, wake up late, mount his expensive bike, have his exercise, good breakfast and sometime later after 1pm used to show up.
You have no idea what a pleasure was when he went back to Int or left Flag.
Don’t click on scientology website – you don’t want to “contribute to the motion” nor provide them with any IPS addresses…just sayin…
Here is the REAL Sea Org Schedule
0600: Production
0700: Production
0800: Make money
0900: Get others to make money
1000: Production
1100: Production
1200: Production
1300: Production
1400: Make Money
1500: Make more money
1600: Get others to make MONEY
1700-1715: Eat rice and beans. Drink water.
1716-2100: Production
2101 – 2300: Make Money
1300-2400: Sleep but be thinking about the next stat you are going to get so as to make MORE MONEY!
made some typo errors ^^^ – but you get the idea….
From the Scientology Web site
http://www.scientology.org/faq/scientology-in-society/how-does-scientology-view-deprogrammers-groups.html
HOW DOES SCIENTOLOGY VIEW DEPROGRAMMERS
AND GROUPS THAT ATTEMPT TO FORCE PEOPLE
TO DENOUNCE THEIR CHOSEN RELIGION?
So-called “deprogrammers,” are better described as depersonalizers who kidnap others for profit. Their methods include brainwashing, imprisonment, food/sleep deprivation and various forms of torture. Such activities are clearly against the principles held by Scientologists and have been proven to be against the law as well.
Wow. Need I state the obvious? Pot meet kettle meet pot.
Kidnapping and then torturing with sleep deprivation, etc… is well known by OSA and DM. As we all know, it is their stock in trade to “handle” Sea Org staff that want to leave after finding out they were con’ed into servitude.
This technique is recognized as torture by governments around the world, including the US… and that is why it is illegal in most countries.
Were it not for the cloak of religion, DM and others would be in jail by now for practicing these torture techniques.. Thank God not every government.gave them the cloak of religion to do as they please to get people’s servitude and money. Shame on you IRS. Other countries think you got your ass whooped by a cult.
Shame on the IRS and the DOJ.
“Were it not for the cloak of religion, DM and others would be in jail by now for practicing these torture techniques.. ”
No. That is incorrect. I could start a club in the Us and do this crap the same as the SO does without any legal repercussions. Why? Because it is voluntary and people can leave. Same as the S.O.
Another contradiction from Hubbard—This means of treating staff comes into being, they push the exact same behavior off as the techniques of deprogrammers, and HE was the one who wrote “The overt doth speak loudly.” Oh come ON! Ha-ha-ha-ha.
Yeah, I get it. Who are they to talk?
I’m no expert on deprogramming, but further sleep deprivation and food restriction seems rather counter-intuitive if you want to deprogram people from a cult. Plenty of rest and adequate healthy food is what helps their brains to start thinking clearly again.
Since that information is from a CO$ website, am I safe in assuming that it’s completely false and that’s not how cult deprogramming is done?