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My condensed story

Preamble
This all happened a long time ago for me and I have forgotten a lot of the details.

Stockholm Org
I started on the Comm Course (TR0-4,TR6-9) in Stockholm Org the 4th of Jan 1974. I was 17.
I didn't like school much and much preferred Scn. Quit school. No problem with my father as he was the one who got me in.
He bought me the Class IV training package but a few weeks into Student Hat I was recruited for staff.
Started out as a TTCer but wound up being DTS (Director of Technical Services) pretty soon.
Our Org wasn't SO but it was run like one. A few people were sent down to FOLO EU to the RPF.
We all lived in the same house and got almost no pay. I think the highest I ever got was around 40 SEK for a week but quite often we would get nothing or next to nothing. The only people who got anything worth having were the Div 2 Registrars and booksellers.
At around the end of 1974 I blew. I can't remember the details.

Malmö Org
I moved down to the south of Sweden and lived with my father who was at that time working in the Malmö Org. I sent a letter to 'LRH' via the SO 1 line asking for amnesty to work on staff again and got it.
I started working at the Malmö Org in division six which at the time contained one body router. I had never done any sales before but week by week I was selling more books. My NNCF was up 14 weeks running the problem was that the main statistic at the time was people started on Services (can't remember the exact stat) so especially the LRH Comm was after me all the time and being generally abusive, the CO too but to a lesser degree. After some months the LRH Comm and I had a shouting match and I went home. I stayed home for one day and when I got back I was sent to the RPF in FOLO EU.

FOLO EU RPF
I wasn't very long on the RPF. After about a month I decided I wanted to leave the RPF.

So I did a Gandhi and justed stopped cooperating and was thrown out via a Comm Ev. I was very lucky to be on the RPF at that time, just a few years before it had been much worse by what I've heard from others. We did work for 72 hours without sleep once though.

Scientologist in Bad Standing
From the middle of 1975 till the end of 1979 I was off lines paying of my Free Loader debt. I tried to come back as public but failed to get through the ethics conditions.


Stockholm Org
Around '79/'80 there was an amnesty. I did it and started as public. I bought a training package for the new False Purpose Rundown.
Did the Pro TRs course and had some fantastic insight in the middle of it. Completed the Sec Check Course and then started on staff again! (Talk about stupid). I started working in the LRH Comm Office. This time on staff went a lot better than before and near the end of 1980 the LRH Comm at the time was sent for training to FOLO EU. I became the LRH Comm. Reading between the lines I surmise some kind of power struggle was going on at the time in upper management, e.g. we were sent Policy Letters on how the SO 1 line was run explaining that LRH never answered the but that staff did plus an
Executive Directive was sent inside the answers from 'LRH'. We stopped the EDs going out to the public and I sent a telex straight to LRH telling him about this (was I naive or what?). This was of course stopped at FOLO EU and I was told that this would be handled by upper management. (As an side: in the policy letters describing the LRH Comm duties and powers it is expressely stated that no one is allowed to stop communication from an LRH Comm to LRH).

Product Zero
The old LRH Comm came back and I was sent down to FOLO EU to do my product zero. This was at the worst of times as FOLO was moving to new quarters so after I had finished product I just continued (like most staff at FOLO) with the renovations of the new quarters.

The failed mission
OK, so our new quarters were done and I was sent on a mission to one of the Class IV Orgs in Copenhagen. This Org was nicknamed 'Missionairies Graveyard'. I failed at the mission which incidentally didn't follow the rules for a mission and after a days absence I returned to FOLO.

FOLO
When I came back I was supposed to do amends by helping to collect the stats. I was feeling really low at this failure and it hit me really hard. I was not very cooperative and refused to do amends because I was so tired I couldn't think straight.
I was routed out.

Stockholm Org
But did I give up? No, when I came back to Stockholm I was recruited to work in FBO Office despite the fact that I had routed out of the SO. I worked a lot with Div 6 and promo, held lectures etc but ... as all of you who have worked somewhere on the registrar line knows. There is a LOT of pressure to get the money in and I mean a lot.

Its a chain of pressure that starts with the registrar and goes through his senior, the division head, the CO and then on to FOLO. Plus the Flag Reps and the FBO Office are also heavily involved. No wonder there were so many stange deals made to get the GI and book sales up.

I can't remember how I wound up not on staff but I continued to help as a volunteer off and on until ...

FLAG
In 1985 we had a few very active upper OT level FSMs selling Flag Services to our public in the Stockholm area. They were sending loads of people of to Flag, people were taking loans right, left and centre. They were guarantors for each other. Anyway, I was helping these guys out and I was sent to FLAG 1986 for some kind of registrar training.

I don't remember the details but it wasn't as staff. I was supposed to be at FLAG for one month. I didn't do so well on this and soon found myself helping out in the DIR COMM Office.


Squirrels
Prior to me coming to Flag there had been a lot going on that we at Class IV Orgs had no clue about, e.g. The declare of David Mayo. That never washed with me. Either David wasn't an SP or LRH was a fake. Would LRH have worked years and years with David without seeing this? If that were so then that would invalidate the Tech. I knew that some kind power struggle had been going on not just what. Luckily for me while working in the Comm Dept I received all the Squirrel material that the dutifull public were sending in. I sent them all on to Ethics after having read them. This opened my eyes quite a bit. Now, remember, I was only supposed to be there one month but as is usual this dragged out and I left after six months.

Back in Stockholm
Fast forward to 1988. Many of the people who had taken loans earlier were unable to pay them back. The newspapers had weekly articles about this and I read them all. It would go like this - the newspapers had no idea how bad it was. While reading these articles I would go 'no, thats not right its much worse' all the time.

Out of it
I decided I had had enough. Proven by evidence or rather lack of evidence the 'OTs' of Scientology were no more able than any one else. The hard ethics obviously didn't work (I saw the RPFers at FLAG and that was hard to look at, they were like ghost people, broken). The Orgs were dwindling and the planet was not being cleared. I quit. Later, reading the ludicreous story of Xenu really nailled it for me.

The first years after leaving were pretty bad. I had spent 14 years thinking Scientology every day.
 

NeXTep

Patron with Honors
<snipped>

Back in Stockholm
Fast forward to 1988. Many of the people who had taken loans earlier were unable to pay them back. The newspapers had weekly articles about this and I read them all. It would go like this - the newspapers had no idea how bad it was. While reading these articles I would go 'no, thats not right its much worse' all the time.

Talking about the amount of potential flap. :omg:

AFAIK many people had to be repaid/refunded to save the day.
 
This was a very condensed version.

A lot of the mental anguish I felt at the time when being treated in ETHICS just doesn't seem real now. Intellectualy I know I felt like the DB I'd read about in the 'tech'.

On the loan situation, one guy I knew had loans of around 4 million SEK which was pretty tough to pay back especially as it wasn't just one loan but very many. Another guy had borrowed 15 million. I heard he killed himself.

The bad part is that it was a whole lot of too sometimes which got you to stay way after you should have left the organization. I find it very difficult to justify why I stayed so long in Scientology especially as I was doing a doubt formula on sly my whole time in Scientology.
 

Xclam

Patron
Thanks for your story. In December 87, I called home from Australia to say that I'd become involved in Scn and my father freaked out totally - this was when those newspaper articles were starting to get published in the newspapers and it was on tv too. No wonder he freaked out. I can't imagine what he was going through at that time and I wish I'd listened to him.
 
The uncondensed story

I am currently working on the uncondensed story but this is going to take little time to accomplish as it was quite a while ago. I haven't looked at this for quite a long time.
 
Feel free to post it in parts.

I wish I could but as I write about 1975 I remember stuff from 1974 which means I have to go back and edit it again. Some sections are still a bit vague in my mind but will come to me I am sure. Maybe I can start posting sections when I a bit in front and am happy enough with an earlier one. Yeah, that will work.
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
I wish I could but as I write about 1975 I remember stuff from 1974 which means I have to go back and edit it again. Some sections are still a bit vague in my mind but will come to me I am sure. Maybe I can start posting sections when I a bit in front and am happy enough with an earlier one. Yeah, that will work.

Write it as it comes to you. Don't worry too much about getting it all "in the right order." The right order is as it comes to you, not chronological. You can edit it all when you've finished if you're going to write a book or something. If you try and do it all in the correct time sequence you will mess up the natural flow of how it comes to you. What is important is what you want to write first, not what happened first. The two may coincide, or they may not.

It's a bit like writing O/Ws, in that as you put down all the details stuff comes to view that you hadn't seen before. It is only by writing the details down, and getting them "out of your system," that the rest comes to view.

Paul
 
OK, Expanded version

This is my second attempt at my story with hopefully more meat to it.

At the end of 1973 I was 17 and studying. It wasn't going very well. I had issues with how the teaching was done (too many subjects mainly, I think it was 11 at the same time which is just way too much) but mostly I had teenage problems. It was not a happy time.

In December my father started coming home very late and refused to tell me what he was doing. After a couple of weeks my father told me he was doing the communications course at the Church of Scientology in Stockholm.

Anyway, my father said that he would be willing to pay for the Comm Course under the condition that I completed it. So on the 4th of January 1974 I started the course. At that time the Comm Course wasn't watered down but contained all the TRs 0-4, 6-9 and the TR 0 was with 2 hours without blinking. It was quite demanding. TR 0 is splitt into three parts. In all of these three parts the object is to just be there and do nothing.

The first part you sit opposite another person for two hours without moving and with your eyes closed. The pain, the pain. It hurt like hell to sit there all day but after a couple of days the pain disappeared.

The second part is the same except you have your eyes open without blinking. I remember how tears would run down my checks because my eyes would get dry. After a while that disappeared but I still had phantom tears running down my checks for a few hours. I found that very amusing.

Getting through these two drills felt like a real achievement!

The third part is just like the second except your twin can say and do anything to try to make you not being there doing nothing - its called bullbaiting. The other would to begin with do easy things like snapping their fingers and if you flinched they would say "FLUNK, you flinched". Then when you could handle that they would increase the difficulty level.

I liked TR 0 and TR 6-9 (Upper Indoctrination) a lot.

I remember the first time I was late for course. A huge deal was made of it. I was late because we had to do something at the real School. I was sent to Ethics and wasted that whole evening. I thought this was really silly.

At the time the Comm Course was run in the Academy in Division 4. It was run by Thomas Tillberg - he was the Tech Sec actually. He was a nice guy. His wife, Dotty Tillberg was the Qual Sec. Both of them SHSBC and OT I I think.

I was of course being regged for my next course or rather my father was being regged for the money and I was regged for the interest if you know what I mean.

I remember asking Thomas Tillberg what you studied on Student Hat. I never got a straight answer. If he had told me it was 'just' study tech I probably wouldn't have been interested. I've never had problems learning anything if I was interested and dictionary use was already a part of our household before we joined Scn. Anyway we got regged for PRD plus the Academy. By that time I had quit school and was studying full time at the org.

I got my word clearing and then started on the Student Hat. For anyone who hasn't done the PRD (Primary Rundown): You look up all words and I mean all words before you listen to a Tape lecture on read a bulletin. I think it was more than 30000 words on the first nine study tapes alone. This went rather well except one time when I didn't agree with LRH on his comments about Einstein. I wasted have a day with this and as there wasn't anybody in the Org that knew the Theory of Relativity we didn't get very far. I learnt to keep such disagreements to myself in future.

I loved the Study Tapes, for those of you who haven't heard LRH lectures, they are lots of fun to listen too.

Studying one subject at a time was much more agreeable than 11 most of which I was uninterested in.

Sometime in the middle of Student Hat/PRD I was recruited for Staff with the added bonus a promise from my father that I would get a Hasselblad Camera when my five years were up. I was recruited for the TTC (Technical Training Corps) to become an Auditor (the Scn exquivalent of a therapist). I finished my PRD and because I was now Staff I was put on the Dianetics Course instead the Academy Levels I had paid for this due to the fact that one of the first things on the Bridge at the time was the Drug Rundown.

My twin on the course took me into my first and only (I think) Dianetics session and it was horrible. I totally bogged down, could find absoluty nothing. I Red Tagged and she blew the day after. From around this period I would have splitting headaches that I would have to clench my teeth to get through. Really bad.

So did I stayed on the TTC until I was a fully fledged flubless Auditor? I am sure that somewhere in the history of Scn there is someone who got put on the TTC when joining staff and remained there but I have never heard of it. I was very soon working in the Department of Technical Services. I seem to recall the prior DTS was going to another post. Anyway I soon became the DTS and became fully hatted.

One of my duties as DTS was to get in blown students and pcs - I wasn't very good at this. Overwhelmed I think would have been the right description. I didn't feel like I was 'cause' over my statistics. I did my best.

After my full hat I started on the (or possibly continued) Dianetics Internship. I did a really bad error while auditing a paying public, I trusted the PC and not the meter on how much sleep she'd had and there we were stuck somewhere in a dark place and I didn't know what to do. Result, I had to retread the Dianetics Course.

At the time although Stockholm Org wasn't Sea Org, we did have our own house and all staff lived there. We would get food there too in the evenings- the only problem was that I never had time to go back to the house during dinner. One could choose if one wanted the cost of food to be deducted before the salary or just get the whole salary. I opted for the later which meant I would get 0 to 40 SEK a week which was absolutey nothing even in 1975. Nobody was moonlighting and this was not allowed. We worked from 9:00 to 22:00 officially but we were seldom home before midnight plus weekends although we did have the evening of on Saturday if I remember correctly.

Our CO was Dan Löv who I think at the time was OT III plus SHSBC. I was scared of him, it was like he could see my withholds or something.

Anyway, back to the retread. The study part went fine but I bogged down totally on TR 0 and just fell asleep/doped off as soon as I sat down. After some time I got a time machine order to graduate the Dianetics Course in three days or I would get sent to the RPF. You can bet your sweet arse I started studying - I had heard of the RPF and I did not want to go there. I have always been able to read very fast and it does make it easier if you have already read the material. At the time I think I had done only a third of the check sheet and did the rest including clay demoes, meter drills and the whole Dianetics book etc before the time machine ran out. What about the TRs I was bogged on? Well, I pretended they were OK and finished the course. It would take another five/six years before I actually learnt the TRs.

My boss, Thomas Tillberg was very surprised I was able to complete the course and at that time I found out it had been the CO who had given the time machine order. I thought it was a bit steep to go from no comment about my progress to threats of RPF. I guess the dope of on TR 0 was considered CASE ON POST. My best guess today is that I had done the Dianetics Course and read about the bank so I created one so I could find it if you know what I mean. I had introverted even more than before Scn trying to find the 'bug' in me rather than learning to resolve whatever the issue. You give power to what you give your attention too.

A thought: when I did the Comm Course I didn't really know about the 'Reactive Mind' as I hadn't read the book yet and had no problems with TR 0, when I did the Dianetics Course I had read about it and had problems.

The HAS and his girlfriend blew and I think it was at that time that Jörgen Jensen became that HAS. I can't remember if he was on the TTC or not. I think he was. He was a smart guy and we had lots of fun after hours. We would drink tea after we were finished with work. Once we drank something like twenty cups of in one sitting, its the first and last time I've felt ill from drinking too much tea.

I can't at the moment remember exactly why I blew but I left staff. This wasn't a giant relief to me at all as in my opinion it was all my fault.

After a while I fled down to the south of Sweden where my father was living at the time. He was also working as staff in the Malmö Org. In Qual.

Eventually I wound up on Staff at Malmö Org. I'd gotten an Amnesty approved via the SO 1 line. I wrote 'LRH' and asked for an Amnesty to go back on staff. I've never heard if anybode ever got an amnesty via the SO 1. At the time I still thought I was writing to LRH this would later be proven false.

I wound up in Distrib. The Dist Sec had blown and there was just the one body router and then me. So I had to learnt how to evaluate OCAs, body route and to Reg people, preferably for the Comm Course as that went on the main statistic. I steadily improved on the body routing, OCAs and regging. The only problem was that I was seling any courses but only books. I did have 14 weeks or something like that with upstat NNCF but I hadn't sold one single course. This meant I had the watching eye of both the CO Billy Lindstein? and the LRH Comm, Anthony Auerbach (who was on some kind of recruitment mission I think). Anthony was a proper arsehole and kept hounding me all the time plus whenever I said anything he would always missinterpret it to my disadvantage. I had no real respect for Anthony, in my opinion he was one of these guys who can complain about others not doing their job but can't do their own. The CO on the other hand obviously was able to do things.

In retrospect it is a bit funny that I was never drilled by a known closer to actually close people for course. At least I don't think so and if it was it was just a lick and a promise.

It was just a matter of time until Anthony and I would clash seriously and at last it happened. I think it was about some silly order given very late at night that had to be done before I went home. I don't remember the details but I know I just went home. I was this '' close to punching Anthony and I've never started a fight ever.

So, I went home and stayed home the next. I got a message from the CO (I think) that I could choose to either come in the next day and be sent to the RPF at FOLO EU or I could be a freeloader. I came in the next day.

I came in the next day and was sent to FOLO EU and got routed onto the RPF. FOLO EU has changed name a couple of times and I am unsure if it was called FOLO EU at the time or perhaps EULO, nevermind.

So I was in the RPFs RPF which isn't as low down as it sounds at least not on the RPF I was on. I have read other peoples accounts and they were grim. For those unfamiliar with the RPF (you should be very happy about that, very) being on the RPFs RPF is like being in a low ethics condition twice, first to Scientology and then to the rest of the RPF as a group. A bit like vermins vermin if you like.

One of the rules in the RPF is that you do not start a conversation with anyone outside of the RPF so yes we were the 'persona non grata' of Scientology.

I started working up through the conditions and worked with MEST work allthough it wasn't really that tough. It was easy days to begin with.

At the time the seniors solved their juniors by shouting at them. The CO at the time (don't know the name, female though) would shout at 'non-complying' juniors so the sound echoed through the whole building. She wasn't shouting at me so I didn't really care that much.

The RPF was situated up in an attic which meant we had to creep up the stairs late at night and climb up in the attic. What I soon found out was that we were creaping past were the CO slept and we hadn't crept very silently. So the next day we were told that we had to move our berthing. This had to be done outside production hours of course. So we worked into late evening and then started to move our stuff down to a shed that stood beside the main building. We got maybe one hour to try to sleep before it was time to get up and work. So we worked the rest of the day but were then told that we had to berth on the same ship as the rest of the crew. So I guess the shed was a jolly then. This had to be done at night of course. Then back to work in the morning. To top everything some kind of higher exec was coming to FOLO (I am not sure but it could have been Jane Kember) so the whole place had to be cleaned. So we were working late dusting etc and you would get an inspection and between going to get the inspector and coming back someone threw a can in the waste basket so you got a FLUNK and had to redo it. By this time I was in total glee about it all, I would just giggle when I got FLUNKed. I hadn't had any sleep for almost three days and we had done mostly heavy MEST work the whole time.

My father was sent for cramming to FOLO and of course I wasn't allowed to talk to him. I got rather upset about that and would just lie in my bed and cry. One of my fellows said that if I didn't get up out of bed he would hit me. I got up. So I guess the 'tech' worked.

The Boss in the RPF (was the title Bosun?) was a young woman (Brigid Cleary) who just like the CO liked to shout at juniors if they 'failed'. She got ripped of the RPF faster than you can say OUT TECH. Maybe the CO had heard and thought 'Ah, a kindred thetan'. I believed in the object of the RPF and saw this as a huge betrayal. I mean we got sent there because we were dirty filthy thetans that couldn't make things go right, right? And here she was being pulled off without having done much.

This was the final straw for me. I decided I wanted out and simply did a Gandhi and stopped cooperating. They Comm Eved me where I had to attest do doing things I hadn't. I just signed and got the hell out of there.

This was now the beginning of almost four years being off lines. I would pay off my freeloader bill bit by bit. When I had paid it I tried to get up through conditions but got stuck liability. Someone signed in the NOT OK column and also wrote a little essay why. I got so pissed of I just walked out.
 
Hijacking my own thread!

Hi DOF,

On the order of writing etc a couple of thoughts :

I was reading someones story where they were talking of missing flows on some rundown. I sat there thinking and then it struck me, the flows ARE a bit arbitrary. Most times its been the flow 1-3 plus sometimes flow zero (self to self). But there are loads of different flows one could create, e.g. me forcing someone to do Apples against another, me persuading someone, me tricking ... another forcing ... me forcing someone to do apples to self etc. Isn't it a bit dictatorial to say that this is the way that you organize your charge? I mean you are the 'guy' who has mocked it up in the first place. Why would everybody do it the same way.

The time track. Also arbitrary, You've got it and this is the way you sort your incidents! In my experience memories/incidents/thoughts/decisions etc are more associativelly coupled than ordered in Prussian Temporal Order.

Adrian

Adrian
 

Peter Soderqvist

Patron with Honors
Hi Adrian!

Soderqvist1: I have read your posts, and must say that I have only experienced a modicum of your anguishing experience of Scientology, yet I believe it is truth because I have seen some part of it myself. Btw, do you remember Catarina Pamnell? She was Jose Mendes Lopes girlfriend back in the eighties, she was captured in RPF in Denmark, and her story in Swedish, and English is here!
http://user.tninet.se/~haj197g/scientolog.html

Another Day in Scientology-land by Catarina (Sandström) Pamnell
http://user.tninet.se/~haj197g/scientology.html

Photos of Catarina Pamnell Picketing in Clearwater 1998
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/clearwater1998/catarina.html

Soderqvist1: I feel sad when I read stories like this, even furious, but before we jump the bandwagon and complaining how rotten Scientology is we should bear in mind that, wherever this craziness comes from, and whomever has authorized these applications, at least Scientology fundamentals are quite different and should be given some thoughtful consideration! Here the member Knn has asked the Ex-Scientologists; “Question to (ex-)Scios and (ex-)Staff: What should you have done differently?”, and I have posted my answer here!

My answer to Knn’s Question
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showpost.php?p=229206&postcount=29

My comprehensive explanation!
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showpost.php?p=229477&postcount=37
 
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Hi Peter,

No, I don't know Catarina Pamnell or Jose Mendes Lopes or at least I don't remember them.

Well, I am unsure about the validity of Scientology as a whole. The next part of my story will be about the reason why I am still unsure. I had a truly awesome cognition that I to this day cannot explain properly - more on that later in my next installment. If I hadn't had that cognition I would never have rejoined staff and things would have been very different.


Adrian
 
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