Saturday is Terra Cognita day. Yay! RB on Friday and TC on Saturday are a virtual weekend for me.
The CSW or How to Never Get a Day Off
In his HCOPL of 4 September 1959, Completed Staff Work (C.S.W.)—How to Get Approval of Actions and Projects, The Most Important Piece of Your Hat, LRH introduced a piece of policy from his days in the military to “reduce dev-t and increase speed of action.”
Developed traffic: work that juniors put on seniors’ lines that add time and effort to the exec’s busy schedules. Little is more important to Scientology personnel than speed-of-particle-flow—getting tasks done as quickly as possible. Not only is Earth rotating on borrowed time, all staff member’s stats are due on Thursday at two.
LRH wrote, “Completed Staff Work is an assembled dispatch or packet which
- States the situation,
- Gives all the data necessary to its solution,
- Advises a solution, and
- Contains a line for approval or disapproval by myself with my signature.”
Typically, 1 through 3 are abbreviated to “Sit:”, “Data:”, and “Solution:”. Writers of CSWs usually add “This is OK,” along with their signature.
Over the years, a verb form evolved. As in, “I’m gonna CSW for time off.”
Seems Like a Good Idea
CSWs seem useful, but like so much else in Scientology, the policy has been perverted and wielded as yet another mechanism of control. Quite often, CSWs actually increase dev-t and decrease speed-of-particle-flow.
Originally, CSWs were intended to provide decision makers with concise explanations of a situation coupled with data and a solution that executives could quickly approve or disapprove and get back to their own, more important work.
Today, CSWs frequently function as an excuse to delay or suspend making a decision. Instead of an exec (an executive; a senior Scientology staff member) simply okaying a project or request, he or she adds to the time frame by demanding a lengthy CSW.
Some execs are notoriously demanding, not approving CSWs until every, last “i” has been dotted and every arbitrary demand has been painstakingly met. Unless the CSW was written in exacting format, it’s disapproved.
“Smart” execs file CSWs they can’t confront in their pending baskets—conveniently “forgetting” about them altogether.
Students needing to change their schedules are required to submit a CSW.
Org purchases must include a CSW. One time my spouse was required to write a CSW in order to get two pens for her post.
All plans, programs, pretty much any change in a Scientology organization must be met with a CSW. Little, if anything, gets done in the church without an approved CSW. I’m sure SO members have to CSW to wake up in the morning and go to the bathroom.
Argh!
All Scientologists hate writing CSWs—staff and public, alike. They hate having to spell out the “situation.” They hate having to include all the “data,” all the minutiae, and all too often, all the little intimate details that degrade a being.
CSWs can be incredibly demeaning. Recently here, we read about a woman who had to CSW to have a baby while in the Sea Org. Last week, I spoke to a former SO member who told me he had to CSW to get married. CSWing often felt like begging, kowtowing, and groveling.
CSWing for a vacation is especially frustrating. Since Scientology staff work ungodly hours and hardly ever get time off—because they’re saving the planet—it’s near impossible for them to justify Joe Public lying on a beach in Cancun for a week. Coming up with a “solution” on how to “make up the course time” can be a nightmare. Little in Scientology is more aggravating than trying to get time off—for anything.
Recently here, another former SO member wrote about how a senior officer canceled his libs (liberty; time off in the SO) after his CSW for the time off had already been approved. I can only imagine the flaming hoops SO members have to jump through with regards to CSWs. I’m sure there’s not one who doesn’t have a pocket full of horror stories.
Last Words
I am so glad I don’t have to write CSWs anymore. Glad that I don’t have to CSW to justify my existence to anyone. Glad that I don’t have to ask permission for time off—whether for a day, a week, or more. Glad that I don’t have to “make up the time.” Glad that I don’t have to CSW to go to the dentist. Glad that I don’t have to CSW to spend Christmas with my family. Glad that I don’t have to CSW to watch one of the annual parades running up Main Street just outside the course room.
Glad I didn’t CSW when I left for good. I showed them!
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
While the writer’s wife may have indeed been required by someone at some point to write a CSW to get two pens for her post, that is not the standard line to acquire office supplies for a post. There is an entirely separate, simpler process called submitting a requisition form. This gets routed by HCO division to Treasury division and then the pens or whatever else you need gets routed by HCO from Treasury back to you. (IIRC) The different being that you don’t have to explain anything. You just submitted a piece of paper called requisition form, what you need, and perhaps why you need it.
While I’m okay with fair criticisms of Scientology policy, it irks me when false data is spread around like this. This is why we get Marty Rathbuns popping up to be perfectly honest.
Imagine the absolute horrors of keeping a box of pens in the office, so you can grab one or two when needed…
Anyone is free to use their own pens. There are plenty of pens floating around orgs also. It’s not like you actually have to submit a request every time you need a pen, but if you were to submit such a request, it wouldn’t be a CSW. But thank you for helping me to point out the absurdity of the implication that a CSW is needed every time someone needs a pen.
The organization considers it owns you, quite literally. If you want to bugger off with your meat body, you’d better have a damn good reason. Hubbard even wrote a Base Flag Order about staying safe from crime in CW. Something to the effect of if you get attacked and get hurt and you’re off post because of it, you’ll be comm-eved for damaging Sea Org resources.
Sit: Scientology is bullshit.
Data: I’m sick of events, IAS regges, other regges, CSWs, demands for all my money, demands for all my credit cards, threats of being declared, threats of disconnection, call-in phone calls at all hours, regges showing up at my door, etc. ad infinitum.
Solution: Fuck you, I’m outta here.
This is not OK.
Hey Terra, on another note about an entirely different subject and just as a suggestion; I had been thinking in suggesting to you a future article about “Disconnection”. That’s one VERY heated subject, and one that IMHO, needs to be “Dead Agented” as there is this ridiculous notion in the Indie field (specially from the KSW supporters) that Disconnection as an abusive practice has its origins in DM’s “alteration” of LRH’s policies. Key KSW Indies players like Jim Logan for example, are disseminating that idea. As I have studied most of Scn’s development chronologically, I know exactly how the subject evolved. The Indies are using this allegedly “hidden by the CofS” LRH tape (a speech he gave at a class 8 auditors’ graduation at the Apollo) from the ’68 where LRH allegedly “cancelled” Disconnection as a practice, to claim that it is DM’s the one directly responsible for the abuses, and that LRH had nothing to do with that. That is of course, false and very easy to prove.
If you ever decide to write about that, feel free to contact me. I had compiled the LRH references in chronological order that convincingly prove the false premise that LRH had nothing to do with that. Unfortunately, my ability as a writer has much to be desired 🙂 and I am not as nearly as able as you are to summarize things in eloquent and “right to the point” ways.
I feel that such an article would generate a “highest ever” stat of comments, 🙂
Thetaclear: Sorry I didn’t respond sooner. Long weekend!
Anyway, connecting with you would be great. Ask Mike for my email address.
Great work as always, Terra Cognita!
Like most Scn policies, the C.S.W. one was about control and conditioning, just as expected from any cult. I personally always did whatever I felt like doing in Scn, and if they didn’t agree, well, that was their god-damned problem. That’s why I was always in and out of the E/O Office, haha. My ethics folder is like 24 inche s high, ups!!! I probably have a master degree on “MEST work”, 🙂 I remember having to daily unload a 16 feet long garbage truck all by myself with my hands and a broom back there at PAC.
Scientology is ALL about control and insidious conditioning, I am afraid. Everything on it is aligned with the premise and DELUSION that Scn is “Man’s ‘only’ route to spiritual salvation”, and that its texts are the “written-in-stone, laser-precise and infallible” truths of life. That’s the foundation upon which everything is based. Take that out, and the whole building falls.
Everything is geared towards thought-control methods, many of which are not immediately obvious for the novice (and even for the old-timer):
1. The forced study schedules that if broken always meant a trip to Ethics, or at least an angry and self-righteous warning from the course sup in front of others. This is the ONLY “spiritual freedom” organization that I know of that forces “freedom” on others. Freedom is NEVER to be forced; otherwise, is not freedom at all but slavery. One have the right to become free or not, to die or not as one see fit.
Many friends were always dreadfully fearful to agree to study schedules because they knew that once they agreed to it, they’ve had it. It was “control from the church” after that.
2. The C.S.W bs, as you beautifully described.
I had to put a very big and long fight with the ED Int, the International Justice Chief, and the one representing the International Finance (don’t remember now the exact name of that post), through several c.s.w(s) to convince them to allow a dear friend to go to ITD Mexico to get auditing at the local rate because she didn’t have the $50,000 plus that took to go ‘Clear’, a dream that had been thwarted by our local org so many times due to their plain unprofessional and lousy service. But at ITD, she could do it with 1/3 of that. But the ED of our local org objected to this, and tried Suppressively to prevent her from doing her services over there. I was even c.s.wed to the IJC, haha, to be declared an SP because they found out that it was me behind all that (I was helping her to write the C.S.Ws because she didn’t know English, and secondly, because I knew all the policies of Scn).
At the end I succeeded and I got the C.S.W approved and my SP declare ignored, but all the effort was for nothing as the guys at ITD were as lousy and unprofessional as the ones from our org. Then she got ripped off $16,000 by an alleged KSW Indie auditor who took her money and never delivered the service. I am currently working on getting him into jail. He doesn’t know that his days as a “free” man are counted, 🙂 That was back then when I was STUPID enough to believe that there was anything “good” in Scn and in the Indie field.
3. Seck Checks is another mind control method. It is insidiously designed to heavily introvert a being and make him obedient, and devoid him of free will. Yet, it is maliciously promoted as a “soul-liberating” tool.
4. Scn’s Word Clearing technology is another mind control and conditioning method with the purpose to force KSW concepts on others, and to invalidate any and every other spiritual/healing practice there is. It hinders the ability to think for ourselves. It is also intended to position LRH as this infallible semi-god whose “compassion” for we little human – who weren’t so lucky as him to have “raised above our horrendous banks” – surpasses that of Buddha, Gandhi andJesus Christ combined together.
5. “The ridge” is yet another, and THE strongest, method of thought control and mind conditioning in Scn. it is an UNREACHABLE “carrot in a stick” money-making machine that NEVER delivers the promised results, thus HEAVILY sticking our attention on it, sometimes even for decades!!!
And, I am tired of writing for today, haha.
Correction. In #5 above it should have read, “The Bridge”, not “The ridge”, though “The Bridge” IS a ridge, haha. A reaching “reaching ridge”, 🙂 Remember the “Ridge in the Bridge” HCOB?
I just read your posts. Excellent commentary !. thanks
If you love being a paper-pusher, scientology is the religion for you!
Love paperwork?
Love jargon?
Love bureaucratic nightmares?
Love sadistic weirdos controlling your existence?
Love going broke or going into life crushing debt?
If so, then LRH is your man, and scientology is for you!
One of the private companies that the (British) Department of Work & Pensions use to carry out ‘medical assessments’ has just changed its name to ‘Independent Assessment Services.’ IAS made me think of International Scientology. This ‘IAS’ is noted for its incompetence, its meanness, its slowness, and its determination to prevent ill people getting their sickness benefits. Reading the list provided by ‘WhatAreYourCrimes,’ I’m becoming to think that there more than just a coincidence.
Don’t forget your CSW to graduate the RPF, the most important one of your SO career. Nobody wants to stay prisoner for too long.
I remember from many trips to flag one of the most frustrating things for me was the leaving-base CSW. So there you knock yourself out to get enough sleep eat, enough food, be sessionable, fight for the good auditor, fight to not go in session when you were tired, (even though they would insist on it,) and all the other fighting you had to do to fight your way to have a good experience on your auditing program. Finally you would have managed to F/N your way through intrusive sec-checking questions, and get onto the meat of what you were programmed for. By hook or by crook you would get through your auditing program, hopefully without having to re-sign (read “spend”) for another 12 and a half hour intensive. Then it would be time for you to leave the base.
After you killed yourself to get there, stay on schedule, stop people from making you deviate from your plan, and you did, you managed to get through in time, so that you’d be able to get home and not lose your job.
You’ve done everything right you’ve taken responsibility, you’ve spent extra money, you’ve smiled and been kind and polite to all staff, even when you were being jerked around. And then there was the “leaving-base CSW and routing form” Cue horror sound effects.
For whatever reason days went by and you weren’t getting approval to leave, maybe they asked you to do a D of P interview, (Director of Processing – that guy who asked the questions that the higher ups you don’t get to talk to, yet who decide your fate want asked.)
Maybe they didn’t like your test score. (And for those of you never-ins, after you finished your auditing program they would make you do a battery of tests; IQ tests, personality tests, etc, and they were hoping that the scores were higher after you did your program than they were before you did your program.) Well evidently I got stupider after my perfectly satisfactory program and they would not approve my CSW.
They wanted me to buy more auditing, get a new program, get the auditing so that when they re-tested me afterwards I wouldn’t be down-stat in the test Department.
Well I had already bought another intensive of auditing on a credit card and I was not going to spend more money on more program, so we’re going back and forth and I just kept saying, “I’ve got to go home, I need to go to back to work.” Nobody cared. I got so upset that I just started crying a lot and I would have to hide and cry because I felt so out of control. All I really wanted to do was go home.
I decided after about four days of this ridiculous situation, that I was just going to leave. But if I was going to take one of the free shuttles to the airport that they provide, they wouldn’t let me on without an approved CSW. And I pretty much realized that there was no way they were going to approve my CSW, because I wasn’t going to buy more auditing.
At this point the euphoric effect you feel at finishing some nice auditing, which is supposed to last 3 days, well it had worn off. Further it probably wore off within hours. I got a little bit of happy and a whole lot of hell.
I could see that it was just going to be more days of arguing. So I packed my bags. All ready to go I figured it out when my flight would be and called a taxi. I couldn’t stay any more.
When the taxi arrived the woman behind the hotel desk came running around to try to restrain me. I of course burst into tears and dragged my suitcases out while she argued with the taxi driver that he wasn’t needed. Luckily he knew who was paying his fare and ignored her. He did look a bit freaked out by my floods of tears. I couldn’t imagine having had a worse outcome at the end of a trip to flag. But for the record it turns out that wasn’t the worst trip ever. Just almost.
Unfortunately I was in such a state by having my self-determinism ripped away that I actually couldn’t stop crying, so I’m going to the ticket counter crying, going in the waiting room crying, just a great example of being “able to experience anything” right? So much for “Two Rules for Happy Living,” another of LRH’s quotable quotes.
When good-hearted people asked me what was wrong I told them that a friend had died and I was going to the funeral. Happily that got people to leave me alone. it was kind of embarrassing and a little bit of a freak out that I couldn’t stop the crying. I thought to myself how this was the absolute opposite of how I pictured I would feel when I finally got my auditing program.
While waiting for my airplane and I had arrived at the airport about 4 hours early, I got a phone call on my cell phone. It was from a FLAG phone number. I was afraid to answer it, but I was a little curious too, so I gasped out a hello. It was one of the staff who’d been giving me the run-around.
He pretended not to hear how I sounded and he very cheerfully with his best Tone-40 cheeriness informed me with his happy voice that my CSW had been approved! And where could he come to give it to me. As if he didn’t know that I had blown the base.
Why I didn’t blow Scientology completely after that I will never know. But it did teach me that getting my leaving base CSW approved wasn’t as important as I thought it was. The next time I went to FLAG, I told them when my leaving airplane was and I filled out all the forms and then left and nobody gave me crap.
CSW’s were a part of what was wrong in the cherch. And that’s my CSW story.
AYE CARUMBA!
Lets bring Sanity to the World by causing more nervous break-downs than last year! Woohoo! Everybody clap! Sheesh! >:(
Wow, Clearly not Clear, that is so hectic! I just could not imagine going through that. I went through something similar at Aola but not that bad and I also cried. Sooo weird………..and crazy……and lunatic!
How anyone can claim joy from this kind of oppressive organization is living in fantasy land.
Those bastards who withhold the rubber stamp on these neurotic CSW approvals are sadistic humans. In fact, I would argue that scientology Flag and the whole Sea Org is just a university for sadists.
I’m so happy you’re out, Clearly Not Clear.
Another Flag horror story. All of that money spent, all that effort ion your part to make it go right for auditing and whole experience gets spoiled by the organization’s own obsessed, oblivious staff. Incredible, really. They’re insane, those people.
Such a familiar story. Had a friend on the ship just there to do one little course and she couldn’t get her CSW to leave okayed and she said she was leaving any way. When the MAA said, “Well, I have your passport.” She said, “I don’t care.” When she stepped onto the ferry off the ship the MAA tossed her her passport.
That’s the church of scientology: they push you and the laws right to the edge and in my case and so many others, they push you over it.
Somebody should look into that . Can the Freewinds and other higher ergs legally confiscate someone’s passport?
Not that it would matter to the cult.
On another note happy Canada day to all and happy 4th July to US friends
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Bravo
Thanks TC for all your great posts! Thanks Mike for incuding them.
I’ll borrow a Scientology term to vent my opinion of CSWs – it is a SUPPRESSIVE ACT that one is forced to write one at all in the manner Scientology forces you! To even think of having to write one after having experienced the abuse and rejection time and time again that system creates is one the most degrading things you’ll ever experience. It develops and encourages a pecking order to develop where the person (aka asshole) in charge of you doesn’t have to confront you in real life but does so via a little piece of paper. Being forced to write some pretty personal stuff down on paper and grovel for permission to do something…. (aw fuck I hate the organised Scientology system!) so some asshole else can be play judge and jury over your personal situation without ever having to speak to you. It’s all too easy for them to say, “write a CSW” if you try to talk to them as human beings knowing full well they’re going to fuck you over with it, often just because they can! It’s an insane display of vindictive discipline imposed by assholes. The Scientology system respects and favors those that can develop into assholes and abuse others without their conscience getting in the way.
You’ve heard me use and explain my military experience time and time again when appraising or comparing it to Scientology’s system of personnel or administrative handling. I do so because it’s a great comparison medium of experience, both systems have a rank structure and are self contained to handle their own people. Scientology fails in all aspects of people management – PERIOD! The military operates at times in insane situations and that can and does reflect in its behavior but in essence they respect that you are part of a team but are also human (like the rest of them) as well. However, one must also understand and appreciate that some people are simply rotten, no matter what system of employment they are in.
And this Scientology CSW system is a perfect example of something squirreled from a military system and twisted around and used as a control measure to squash and stop you from being an individual with a life of your own. I could rave on and on about this abuse of human rights Scientology wallows in for suppressive control of its members – I truly hate it!
The fact Hubbard never saw it’s affect blossom into a suppressive system or bothered to correct it is a major blight against him and I now always maintain he was a God awful officer and was an incredibly mean spirited human being to treat his subordinates in such ways.
The army system is quite simple – for example, as a private, you can request to see your officer to ask permission for something (it can be for anything). Your corporal generally asks you, what’s it about? You can easily and without harassment say – it’s personal. Next thing, you know your sergeant calls you up and asks you, “what’s up? Can I help?” You can say it’s personal (or maybe he can help, depends on the circumstances) but I’d like to see our officer(lieutenant) about it sarg, it’s personal.
“OK, I’ll arrange it” says the sarg. Usually within a day or two you’re in front of your officer, for a one on one personal but always confidential chat. I admire that system, it’s relatively sane and 99% of the time your request in granted to all or least to some degree to make you happy about it, depending of course on service requirements at the time. If you don’t like your lieutenant’s response, you can request to go above him/her if you wish. It’s gets a little hairy after that but the system is there for YOU to use. However, if you fuck with it or tell lies… wow it fucks you right back in ways so fast and your ass is kicked so hard it’ll part your hair.
Thanks Terra, once again you’ve explained the right type of topic concerning why organised Scientology needs to be brought to justice and disbanded. I think Hubbard was very lucky one of his own sailors during WW2 didn’t take natural justice into their own hands and deal with him. You know… maybe that’s why he lied so much about his service? The military system transfers asshole officers around as a method of dealing with them. Maybe Hubbard was bounced around for that very reason and he covered his ass with lies.
End of rant!
Awesome rant Yawnalot, I loved it!
Yawnalot, You are lucky you didn’t serve in the “sandbox” . There they ranked you as “RA” (Regular Army), “Reserve, or “National Guard”. Guard Units slept outside of buildings – usually in tents on the sand. NG also only got supplies & rations AFTER the other units got theirs! I blame this mis-treatment on geo.w. bush – he hated the reserves and National Guard and went AWOL rather than complete his term with them! With an asshole like that in charge…..your only hope is to join the Warrant Corp!
Yuck! When you can’t get commonsense applied by those who control something, anything is likely to happen, just like Scientology developed. Don’t you just hate it when vindictiveness and prejudice rears its ugly head at the top of the totem pole!
I suppose I forgot to clarify something here. I’m always trying to explain how I see how an army looks after its own personal administration and well being of it’s troops, it does have administrative guidelines and internal policy for such things, whether they are followed or not is another thing entirely. Those in charge at the upper levels are indeed capable of changing or influencing everything, often for the worse. I got out the system because my conscience got the better of me. I no longer believed I was really defending anything but was enforcing destructive political/business type agendas. But, if my country was ever threatened, I’d pick up a weapon and say “yes sir” again in an instant.
Hello Everyone….Happy 4th of July weekend!! I would like to recommend to anyone who hasn’t already listened to it…the podcast on Ortega’s site with Jeffrey Augustine and Aaron Smith Levin. It offers some insight, some experience, and some knowledge regarding the TroubleMaker posts on Marty Rathbun’s site. Excellent! It’s on the same page as Steve Cannan’s response to Marty.
And again….I truly admire ALL OF YOU who have had the courage to come forward with your stories about life inside the COS. It takes guts to put yourself out there.
YOU ARE ALL MAKING A DIFFERENCE….AND IT WILL STOP,
Yours…. OverTheBridgeTPA
In case you haven’t seen it, this is where CSW comes from. WWII. As far as I know, LRH writes his CSW policy as if created by himself.
https://coupdetodd.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/the-doctrine-of-completed-staff-work/
Interesting.
I’m skeptical that this is an actual memo from WW2 era military. The phrasing and syntax is off. For example, this sentence;
“The staff member who has a real idea to sell is enabled more readily to find a market.”
This doesn’t sound like a WW2 military person speaking, but some later era person. It’s quite anachronistic.
Also, the writer says something like, “The product of a CSW…” and the use of the word “product” in that sentence sounds suspiciously like a Scientologist’s stilted use of the word “product” in that sense.
Last thing: the photo of the memo shows speckles and such which suggests an attempted (but amateur) effort to “age” the document.
LRH stole countless ideas and branded them as his own. This has been documented. However, this “military memo” is unconvincing as being the origin of Hubbard’s CSW policy.
Interesting feedback. Go to http://www.macarthurmemorial.org/181/Brigadier-General-George-A-Rehm-Papers
This official site contains the document.
The MacArthur Memorial site has tons of info from that era.
Typically for Hubbard’s cumbersome and dysfunctional policies, CSW is borrowed from the wartime military, based on outdated industrial management precepts – and misapplied in various ways including using it for trivial matters like requesting leave or vacation (which is handled more straightforwardly even in the military).
Wikipedia also has an article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Completed_staff_work
I had one student one time (I was a course supervisor) write a CSW to take a weekend off course, and in the “Solution” part, his solution was, “I will work extra hard while on course the following weekend.”
Can you imagine?
Unfortunately, Dave, I can.
Funny. Just curious though, did you approve it? ?
This reminds me of a tech startup I was working for. We had a saying: “If you can’t come into work on Saturday, don’t even bother coming back on Sunday!”
Somewhere in my papers is an approved CSW for me and my fiancé to get married.
Whenever I run across this, I re-read it and wince.
I remember being in that mindset where writing such a thing seemed normal. I remember at the time I wrote it, thinking that I had to word it very carefully lest it come across as sounding frivolous, like some other fish to fry.
I keep it to remind myself that I once had the capacity to allow my sovereign free agency to be subverted, handing over control of even the most personal events of my life to others who did not have the slightest care of what was in my best interest.
Glad you’re out, JD! You got your old life back! True freedom is walking away from the cult…and never going back.
Three times, I was posted as the Body Reg Services Officer at AOLA under 3 different seniors. Mike Silverman never once disapproved a CSW for a day off, Enid Byrne occasionally disapproved and Nicole Sims nearly always did. Years later, I took up that beef with Nicole and she flat out denied it ever happened (that I was disapproved). These staff are under such pressure to produce income they are truly not themselves. I had kids and worked around the disagreements and took the days off. Once the org was in a State of Emergency where all privileges are canceled. So I arranged a camping trip and invited the executives children and my husband and I took 2 car loads of kids including mine of course. We left Sat morning and returned Sunday late afternoon. You would have thought those kids never saw a mountain or river stream or a tent. I know for sure they didn’t know about ants. They thanked me for years. 🙂
That is so cool that you exposed the kids to nature, Cece. RE Nichole, I was public and she was my reg. She found I had money on account because I always made advance payments toward future services. She wanted to earn some commissions (cash) and so asked me to use that money to buy something or other. I said no three times. I told her it was unmocking my OT Levels and that I will not unmock my intention to go OT and that that was why I had the money there and NO. She went ahead and did it anyway unbeknownst to me. I only found out years later. I wrote a KR on her and tried to get that money put back, and no one would help me with it. Several staff agreed it was criminal of Nichole to do that, but that there was nothing they could do about it now. By that time Nichole had blown the SO and so she wasn’t even there to confront about it. But she got her commission off my money against my wishes and against my specific instructions.
Would you expect anything less from these assholes? What she did to you is par for the course. Mo money, mo money, mo money. Cult members chant that at night.
Cindy, a complaint to the FBO would have been investigated. No debit off account should ever be done without signature by the account holder …. Course then that could be forged. The money lines were dirty and one of the few ways a SO member could get more then 50$ a week unfortunately. Nicole was the sort one would not suspect. She was a really nice gal at one time turned into a criminal. Her sister too who was a friend of mine. Sad to see with my own eyes what SO does to harden one to stats only 🙁
Yep, NIchole had that innocent sexy little girl valence going and so people always believed her. But she turned hardened and criminal. I never signed anything so it must have been forged. And I went to the FBO who said that since she wasn’t on staff anymore there was nothing they could do. I think they just didn’t want to have to refund me the money.
Scientology claims it’s products are “totally freed beings” yet you have to CSW so you can get permission to take your body to another location in space other than the course room (for example). This is in direct violation of basic axioms and logics at the core of the belief system. Having an approved CSW based on statistics is an arbitrary assignment, another contradiction regarding self determinism. It’s like Hubbard decided the philosophical insights only applied to paying customers in the form of hopeful slogans, and that the staff members had to settle for a different version of Scientology for the rare privilege of sacrificing their own goals in order for the organization to amass billions of dollars. The longer I’m away from Scientology the sicker that bullshit begins to smell.
Spot on assessment Doug.
Bunch of sick fucks…
Here is a CSW from 1989:
https://whyweprotest.net/threads/osa-us-csw.132018/#post-2588378
Whoa! That’s one hellava CSW.
Another tremendous article, TC. When I got married the cab driver waited on the dock for 2 hours until I managed to get OK to leave the ship to get the marriage license. I once was about to write a CSW for permission to die, but I said : The hell with it, they can’t stop me from dying ;That was pretty much inevitable by then.
And I’m glad you’re still here.
One of my most memorable moments of beginning to wake up to the reality of how hard-core the control mechanisms of $cn actually are came when I was still a wide-eyed newbie cultist, who was enrolled on the Student Hat course and diligently trying to clay demo and word clear my way to understanding Elron’s gibberish.
I needed to be out of town for a few days to attend to some pressing family matter and naively assumed that by simply explaining my situation to the course supe it would all be good. But when I began to do so, I was interrupted and informed that I’d need to present my “request” for time off in writing and have it approved. I was then shown the PL on what a CSW is and how to write one, which seemed odd to me at the time, given the fact that I wasn’t a staff member to begin with.
Of course, the proper response then would have been to point out the obvious fact that the $cn mission was not my employer, so the CSW didn’t apply to me. But instead, in my youthful eagerness to please and to not create road blocks to my own journey up the bridge, I meekly complied and, after pledging to make up the time, had my request granted.
Little moments like that of giving over the autonomous control of your life to the cult are exactly how you get sucked deeper and deeper into the $cn group think, mind control trance. My need to take time off from my $cn course study was a personal familial one which the cult had no business inquiring about, let alone being the deciding authority on – as if they knew more about my own life and what was good for me than I did!
When my request was granted, I quickly submerged and rationalized any cognitive dissonance that I felt at the time and soon such invasions of privacy and stripping away of my sense of personal autonomy no longer seemed remarkable or odd to me at all. That’s because everyone becomes a full-fledged, Kool-aid guzzling $cilon true believer by degrees…little by little you lose who you are by giving over to the cult the control of your time, your actions, and finally, your own private thoughts, until finally you become a perfect little Ronbot, just like everyone else around you!
No one is going to give up who they are and control over what they think and do all at once, so the BIG con of $cn has to be worked on you over time and by incremental degrees in order to be successful. But once you fully buy into Elron’s completely made-up space opera cosmology and begin to delusionally imagine that total spiritual freedom can be purchased for a price, then you’ve swallowed the bait and the hook’s been set in order to keep you on the line and reel you in whenever the cult pleases.
Coming out of that trance and recovering your own personal sense of control and autonomy involves recalling moments like these, when you realize in retrospect exactly how you came to lose yourself by small degrees and to give over more and more control over your life to the cult.
HF: Elegantly stated, as usual.
+1! Outstanding post! Thank you for this, Harpoona! Every time I read something like this, I give thanks that I got out in ’82.
Thanks, OSD and TC, I must have put the cult in my rearview mirror in ’80 or ’81, so I got out before things got really bad, which I’m ever thankful for.
Ditto!
Here’s some vital stats for ya, cherch of scamology, from Amazon Video:
Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath Season 1
4.7 out of 5 stars (220 customer reviews)
5 star
86%
4 star
6%
3 star
3%
2 star
2%
1 star
3%
along with mine:
5.0 out of 5 stars
scientology is a criminal – mafia like cult, June 30, 2017
Verified Purchase
This review is from: Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath Season 1 (Amazon Video)
watch this to find out how criminal this cult is! this is not a joke and I am not a troll as evidenced by my 5 stars!!
Spread the love for Mike and Leah, NOT our leaders, but activists, well meaning individuals who give a damn about getting people living within the bubble of a cult to wake up!
Much luv to you both. Your stats are up. take a break!
I never would have made it. Not in a quadrillion years. Or a minute.
Had a temp job once, where they tracked everybody’s bathroom minutes on their time-card.
The boss would look over my shoulder, like hurry-up. I said that only slows me down, which was a stone fact. I was dis-invited back. lol
CSW – what a trap … to exploit a natural desire to help the world.
This Co$ outfit cannot bear one light-ray of objective scrutiny.
Hence all the money spent on the slimiest lawyers.
Where I’m from, people shed blood and died to get Unions into the plants.
Detroit’s (unofficial) Motto: “Slavery Days Are OVER!”
Happy 4th of July Holiday, please be safety-minded around fireworks! 🙂
This situation is not only within $cn, although I have not experienced the excruciating, stupid work detailed for SO members as a ‘never-in’. I have worked for very large, international companies down to mom and pop shops. The reason that the small progressive companies survive and flourish is the speed and flexibility for which new ideas and work may be implemented without the long chain of command in large corporations. In small companies I could pop into the owners office, explain an idea, and walk out with approval to proceed with a budget. At large corporations, after a scheduled talk with my direct supervisor, I could get on a corporate officer’s schedule in about two weeks, during which i would have to have a four hour presentation with every contingency covered and then another four hours of Q&A. A decision would be another week or so depending on how much money the project would require (then the process would start again if someone was queasy with the money/cost/benefit).
As TC pointed out, the chain of command is so large, with supervisors afraid of violating a Hubbard policy, that $cn will eventually fail just from the decadent process which must be followed to obtain pens and pencils let alone the workload and lack of time off.
The ‘hits just keep on coming’ for the SO members (long work hours, no time off) and the public (more and more donations and no real results going up the bridge).
While I can see some benefit (as noted by others) in the beginning courses, such as the comm courses, once past this level, you are in for a bad time, as I see it.
I don’t understand how you have left for good and are still not declared. I guess we can assume you are still incognito so you won’t have to disconnect from anyone but we have heard so many stories that leaving sometimes leads to disconnection. And the other thing I wonder is if celebrities like Tom Cruise have to write CSWs. Probably not. He is kind of “special” in his own way.
My Inner Space, declares are not issued on all who leave. Not by a LONG way. Over the past 40 years the CoS in the US alone has lost tens of thousands of members. Only a TINY fraction got “declared”.
If they TRULY began to OFFICIALLY declare those people who have left/exited/vanished from CO$ their membership numbers would drop dramatically. The COB could then have to admit that there just aren’t as many members as has been stated for decades.
Why building and open all these facilities when their membership is dropping…they have got to look good on paper, or with the number of buildings “re-done” to prove their membership is on the rise…when we know it’s on the decline…..
My my my, how the once mighty are beginning to fall.
When I walked away from the Tustin Mission (Orange Count, CA), in ’82, I was never declared.
Spot on! Merely walking out the door does not qualify you for a declare as you can still be ‘recovered’ and lured back in. You would have to shout all the details of your exit from the rooftops so that everyone could hear it before you got declared. Besides, Terra has not disclosed who he\she is so how does his\her org know who to declare?
FLASH NOTICE:
This is your powerful knowledgeable COB DM……Be on the lookout for a character who is using the “code name Old Surfer Dude”….HE is to be “recovered immediately” and by force if necessary”…..
hahahahaha!
Here I am! Come and get me! Now, if you don’t surf, you don’t have a snowballs chance in Hell! Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Tom Cruise writes ‘Knowledge Reports’ on those who irk him. Family members are not exempt.
Still, Mr. ‘I do my own stunts’ will be filming Top Gun 2 next year and it will hit the movie theaters in the summer of 2019. Maybe Bill Shatner can loan him his industrial strength belly holder. Or is that called a ‘man girdle’?
Top Gun 2? Are you kidding? Do you know how long ago the first film was? What’s Mr. Super Scientologist going to play in this one? Some sort of jet flying admiral?
Commodore?
Maybe.
Oh good, another Tom Cruise film to boycott. I wouldn’t touch his projects with a ten foot pole if I was in the entertainment industry.
The filth of scientology is difficult to wash off, and more and more people are realizing that supporting a scientologist like Cruise only helps that seriously sick and criminal enterprise.
I wish you all the best on your boycott. By the way, can you organize something against Geoffrey Lewis as well? Another CCInt trained actor whose main credits are playing bad guys in a lot of cheesy 70s cop shows.
Unfortunately Geoffrey Lewis passed away in 2015. Another talented actor sucked into the deceit of scientology, and his poor daughter and talented actress and musician Juliet is also a member.
As much as I like some of these people, I can never support their projects while they are members of such a loathsome and despicable organization. If they ever wake up and abandon scientology, I would be their biggest advocate and champion. But for as long as they are still “in”, they are presenting themselves as advocates of a violator of human rights. How could anyone justify supporting them?
Mike, I understand that you have RB on Friday, and TC on Saturday,but did you CSW for the weekend off ?
Mike doesn’t need no CSW! That’s just for losers!
If he didn’t, he’s gotta go to Ethics.
You don’t have the rank to ask such questions!
This is what religion looks like when your teacher fashions his group after the military.
Everything is controlled and manipulated within an inch of it’s life.
After all, we have a planet to save from evil monsters.
Hyper control to win a war. A war against Ron’s shadow self.
As I recall, I had far fewer barriers to time off when I was in the US Army! Yes, there were controls. But you could usually get what you wanted and/or needed without a lot of fuss. Wasn’t in wartime, however, so I can’t speak to that. For scio, everything IS om wartime. The problem is that they’re at war with the entire non scio world and oftej within their own ranks.
Typical cult suppression tactic to keep staff working working working so they don’t have time to really think about the $cientology absurd mind control cult they have trapped themselves in… SOLUTION… JUST WALK OUT THE FRICKING DOOR AND NEVER LOOK BACK ! Thats what I did 🙂 THANKS FOR THIS SITE MIKE !
That’s the way to do it! Just walk out and never return. It really is that simple. All it takes is a little courage.
Except scientology has its sick and evil policy of family disconnection. I wish it was so simple. God, what a loathsome organization.
Man oh man. I wish I could thump something to make your words more real!
Sorry foo the bluntness, that is so fucked up!
The reality of it all in “How To Never Get A Day Off” is this……..keep everyone in “the organization” busy and occupied with “their doings” 24/7 that they will NEVER find time to look for information on OTHER ways of life. Keep them tied up until they are drop dead tired and all they’ll want to do with the few precious moments of no work is to sleep. They won’t be out there trying to look for information in banned books or with computer searches to view other’s points of view.
Just like other strict religions put TRUE FEAR in them of the loss of their eternal soul…that says it all.
I remember getting a CSW approved (after a lot of disapprovals) to take a day off.
Now that I’m out and have lived life in the normal world I would compare the stress and work it took to get a day off to being approved for a loan, sending your Application in to be accepted into a college or complying to a law suit injunction / stipulation.
In the Sea Org you were Port or Starboard- so there was a set day you would potentially be allowed to take off. If everything panned out, and you could get someone to hold your post and be fully responsible for the stats etc…. you could do it.
When you would get a day off it would likely begin by sleeping. Just not moving in any direction. And even still, you had to be “reachable” and/or tethered because if your solution didn’t unfold EXACTLY as you had predicted and insisted it would then you got called back to work.
If there is one thing I reflect on and enjoy about being OUT of the Sea Org and Scientology it is that I can choose to do things and within moments be able to actually move in a direction without seeking approvals! The freedom of being free.
As a member of the CoS you are owned; especially in the Sea Org.
Hubbard’s own definition of slavery is: “Being positioned in another’s time and space.” Duh!
If you have no private corner, not one last spot where your privacy is not invaded or where you are convinced that you don’t own your own privacy, then you have no own space left – hence you are owned.
All the CSW-BS Hubbard installed are also because of lack of proper planning and managing despite his claim of ‘superior admin technology’.
“Today, CSWs frequently function as an excuse to delay or suspend making a decision.”
Today? I remember that was the Sit: (haha, pun intended) back in the 70’s.
I eventually found that it was better to “find” a policy that told one to do the action in question and then use the “Handle and report” policy to befuddle the moronic senior who inevitably would be screaming like a stuck pig because lack of CSW.. I would do this on a week I knew I would be “upstat” so I could Sea lawyer my way out of any “justice action”.
I was unable to get any libs or any LOA in my last 10+ years in the Sea Org. Despite having up stats some weeks. No CSW got approved, you were even reprimanded for asking, so you stop asking. And then RTC cancelled all libs. And for some of us, even Saturday morning hygiene time. While we continued to work 15 hours per day, every day. What a joke.
I’ll bet you guys were ripe on Saturday.
RB, bad as it is in for the public it is worse in the Sea Org. But it is taken to Kafkaesque extremes at the Int Base. A CSW there is usually stapled to the top of a banker’s box (or maybe 12 banker’s boxes) full of binders, books, media and other “supporting information”. Fortunately there are a few hand trucks around to transport these behemoths.
They call that a “submission”.
A submission is required for any new promotional item, book design, video script for an event video clip, music score for the video, final music for the video, all the production lines used to produce the music, the final music, the special effects, the raw shooting, the video edit, the whole video, every lecture recording that is remixed, on and on and on. Boxes upon boxes!
Of course anything that “goes up to the Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center” has to go through everyone below him. Possibly up to 12 names. Every one of these junior persons, romantically called “terminals” in the Sea Org, feels they have to pore over every word in the submission and reject it as often as possible.Otherwise when Dave rejects it as he almost always does, the blame will fall on these junior terminals as well as on the poor idiot who originated it.
The trick is to put a few obvious typographical errors right in the first paragraph or so. Then when it is viciously rejected with red ink all over it, the pain is over fast. With luck, the rest of the submission will not even be read, and when it is “fixed” it will go up to the next terminal. Rinse and repeat. A few times through Dave himself and you are done. Until a few hours later when the demands ramp up for the next submission.
If Dave is not on the Base, the banker’s boxes have to go to wherever he is located. 15 passenger vans do daily “runs” to the LA area with piles of these boxes. Or they get shipped by air cargo in special locked trunks.
You know you may be in a cult when your leader is constantly demanding submissions …
Mind-numbing make-work … reminds me very much of Terry Gilliam’s surreal film ‘Brazil’!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xNnRBksvOU
Wow, Bruce.
I remember Andy Rooney once saying, during the Cold War years, that he was never afraid of Russia because he had been to Russia. Meaning he had experienced their shabby consumer goods, failing infrastructure, inefficient service, shortages, outdated technology, etc. I feel the same about Scientology — it’s wonderful that courageous critics have brought many of Scientology’s abusive practices to light, but it’s their own policies that continue to destroy them from within.
??
Bruce, What’s your take on the report that DM has not been to the base in 4 years and that he now resides in his apartment behind ASI?
I was last there in 2005. Hard to guess what is going on, but Dave has gone through periods of living mostly at Flag or in LA. He has really nice apartments there, a really nice cabin on the Freewinds, at Saint Hill too. I doubt that he’s slumming it.
Bruce: I can imagine a guy like you, in your position, must have had to deal with scores, if not hundreds of CSWs in your time in the SO. Thanks for the window into your world at Int.
Bruce. It must be a bit surreal looking back at those times.
It appears that “CSW” (Completed Staff Work) is NEVER completed! Did anybody ever word clear “Byzantine”??
One instance when I bucked the CSW was when I informed the RPF In Charge of a pending family reunion I Intended to attend, seven months in advance. I was on the RPFs RPF at the time. Come the reunion I went. In certain circumstances you just have to do what you must and damn Hubbard’s rules and all blocks. Last minute blocks must be ignored. Screw Hubbard’s rules and do what you need to do.
I was mainly just public but I always did the same, didn’t matter if the csw was approved or not I’d go and do what I had to do and worry about any consequences later.
Easier to…”ask for forgiveness than request permission.” ?
Chuck,
I saw the bureaucratic hole for CSWs even as public. My approach, as public on AOLA lines in the 1970’s was to have a time limiter inserted in the solution. “My vacation at my WOG job has been approved and if I do not hear from you 2 weeks before the vacation time I will act as though approved.’ Qual got pissed when I would turn in my OT materials and cease auditing for a week or two. But they never saw the CSW before I showed it to them, after it being on org lines for weeks. They tried to stop my leaving and refused to acknowledge my time limiter. I waved to the MAA with a smile on my way out.
I can’t imagine! Great article and thanks for sharing. Exactly what does CSW stand for again?
Oh, I think i found it. “Completed staff work”
It maybe not! Lol
That’s right, Marie. That is the correct definition of the acronym CSW.
Thank you!
No, that’s it. Completed Staff Work. Which they won’t approve any way.
Oh good! What does asking for a vacation have to do with completed staff work? Has to be completed before one goes?
I’m very knew to this ~ but I am obsessed with learning?
Good for you, Marie! However, I think it’s, “I’m very NEW to this.”
Great article, TC!