personal knowledge of the raw recruit thing
I left Connecticut for a job offer in Southern California (San Onofre nuclear power plant) in October of 81, shortly after I was asked to leave the CT missions (mission holder Brown McKee) at the urging of the ED of the Groton/New London mission. By that time, I was pretty much going thru the motions with Scientology. I kept in touch with a few of the folk back in CT, and was informed of the famous/infamous Dec. 81 Mission holder's meeting at Flag, which was taken to be a rebellion, the same meeting where Brown assigned the WDC people the condition of confusion. This lead to his declaration in January of 82, which led me to question Cof$, I was both away and pretty much out by that time. That is my background, leading into this story ... I left the job at San Onofre in Feb of 82 because I simply disliked it to the point where I couldn't do it. I had another job, a sales job, in Oceanside, which I became burnt out at to the point where I wasn't making too many sales. Things were meagre, but I hung on until early July of 83 when I figured that I would take my chances hopping a bus for Los Angeles and work in a phone room.
For awhile, that worked out, but, that too became a burnout and I wound up on the street sleeping on park benches. Eventually, after I spent the last dollar I had on two draft beers, I was recruited to show up at the Alexandria Hotel the next day, where I was outfitted with a clerical outfit, a sign, a bucket, and a mission ID card. Gospel Missions of America, which had only been charted that August (and this was late Oct. of 83) was operating out of 4 hotel rooms at the Alexandria Hotel in downtown Los Angeles CA. I did close to 50 bucks in 4 hours of work my first day, my end was 20 bucks, enough to get all the draft beer I wanted to drink plus a 4 dollar steak dinner on Main St. a few blocks from the hotel. I was happy ... the first time in a week I ate well, drank enough, had some cash in my pocket, a room to sleep in (with others, yes, but it was better than a park bench or a downtown rescue mission), a hot shower, a shave, and some clean clothes. It was wonderful. Bear with me here, am getting to the point ...
Those days at the Alexandria Hotel were a lot of fun in a way, not a care in the world. There was always beer and weed was passed around freely. In addition, those of us who were part of GMA were friends with the other hotel weekly residents, who were all down-and-outers including plenty of women who would from time to time hook up with us "missionaries". I would say that virtually everyone there was having a blast inspite of nobody owning anything and everybody being broke. The church's founder, Erich, owned a 300 dollar piece of shit car, was married with two children, and had a room to himself and his family, and had his head screwed on a little straighter than the rest of us, but, it was a do it yourself rescue mission church where the middlemen were cut out and donations went directly to the homeless. Christmas season was coming up and thing were getting better and better daily. As I said, it was, for me, a blast. ANYWAYS ... and that concludes all of the background material ... we were friends with lots of other down-and-outers who were living hand to mouth out of that hotel, bringing me around to the point here ...
One of the NON GMA chronically broke people at the Alexandria was this slick, latter twenties, light skinned, thin, good looking 5ft 11in black dude, lets call him Fred, I can't recall his name ... Fred was a hanger-onner around us GMA types, we would share weed with him and vs versa. Fred was a bit of the salesman, who would sometimes be into cash but usually he was broke, and his downfall was that he liked to pack his nose on a regular basis. From time to time Fred would be away from the hotel, not making his rent. He would from time to time bunk out in a GMA room before hustling enough for rent, but never considered going out with the bucket. If things got really bad, Fred would sleep at this all night theatre that showed stupid old reruns that nobody watched, but, for 50 cents admission it was a place to flop. They would kick everyone out around 5AM.
Anyways ... from about mid December nobody saw Fred around anymore, he wasn't at the hotel. Nobody saw Fred around the movie house that I nicknamed Boracho Breath Theatre (Boracho is drunk in Spanish). Nobody saw Fred anywhere, until about late January, when there was Fred, around 7 in the morning, with a small clothes bag in his hand, not to far from Boracho Breath Theatre. I asked him if he was back out on the street, he said yes. Really, he looked great for being out on the street ... washed, fresh shave, fresh haircut, clean clothes ... the only give-away was the cloth sack that he was carrying that I knew he kept his essential gear in when he was kicked out of the hotel. He then proceeded to relate the story to me ...
He had been in the EPF over at Big Blue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was recruited right off the street as a homeless person!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! While I knew that things were upgaphugged in the Cof$, I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW BAD THEY REALLY WERE, that they would recruit a homeless person right off the street for the Sea Org, what was supposedly the most elite group in Scientology, the most dedicated, etc. He then related to me how miserable he was treated, how much work, how it was better to sleep in Boracho Breath Theatre, etc. Apparently, getting out was pretty damn easy, not having graduated the EPF and apparently not being a very good prospect, probably because he was too independent and simply wasn't cut out to work those rediculous hours.
Anyways, again ... this was late January of 1984, and back around that time the SO was apparently recruiting the homeless, which I found to be amazing at the time. But I thought it was some sort of anomoly until much later when more material was presented to me.
Pete