A calm and rational account that still tells the same story...

There was plenty to encourage me to leave in 1983: the introduction of the "Finance Police", "Finance Dictator" and other fascistic sounding and looking people. The prices skyrocketed from 60 British pounds per hour to over 120, to 160 per hour, plus VAT of course. By contrast the Sea Organisation crew were getting dormitory accommodation, plus average 3-4 pounds per week pocket money, out of which we were supposed to buy our uniforms and books. Staff got no holiday pay, no National Insurance or pension contributions credited, and any training and counselling whilst on staff was billed such as to be payable if they left (not legally enforceable though, it would be peony if it were). Additionally, I was seeing old staff turfed out onto the street, to eke out their remaining days alone and on state welfare.

In a state of great confusion I sneaked away, came back again 2 weeks later and suffered several days on their brainwashing "Rehabilitation Project Force" or RPF, then left again, this time for good. It makes me laugh how, much later on when Scientology published a Suppressive Person declare on me, they peevishly grumbled how I kept on leaving! I came back again to pick up personal effects, and cheerfully chat still with organisation staff.

For those who wonder about the RPF being tantamount to brainwashing, how about sleep deprivation with 6 hours maximum allowed, allowed to speak with only 1 person at all (the MAA), 15 minute meal break maximums eating left-over food, usually just rice or potatoes. Work was petty and grinding; chipping the crust off cooker parts or painting stones. The attitude was that you are WRONG, and you must obey all orders instantly and without question. Counselling was confessionals, rehab work was guilt trips, and success stories were required that state how good this all is!

2. Leaving and disinvolvement

This is where the hard part started, and leaving and getting mentally disentangled proved far more difficult than anticipated in the early days of my contact with this cult. At time of leaving I thought reasonably well of staff, and had squarely placed Scientology's wrongdoings to Hubbard's orders and policies. Thus I fought to break his conditioning. Am saddened that most ex-members blame Scientologists for the cult's wrongdoings, hold Hubbard in reverence, and continue on in the splinter groups.

My deconditioning went in stages:

5 Months introverted, here I was effectively bound by a Hubbard-laid guilt trip that states that people only leave because of their sins and withheld secrets from Scientology.

Then 25 months in social quarantine whilst researching the necessary details on the background of Hubbard and Scientology.

Then 10 minutes deconditioning once I discovered the hypnotic keys that had mind-enslaved me.

Then 12 months getting over the stigma of having been a Scientologist.

Then 13 years on and I am still removing bits and pieces of false ideology.

My 5 months introverted stage was deliberately manufactured by Ron Hubbard the cult founder. He obviously intended to inhibit leaving, and damned all who did so by asserting that people leave only by virtue of their own sins against Scientology. So there I went wondering what I had done wrong, and was very introverted and restless. It would have been virtually impossible for me to hold down any job or shared accommodation in this state, and there was a need to go into a sort of social quarantine. This stage ended when I plucked up courage to meet the dissidents of Scientology, when I discovered to my delight that we are decent people, not bogeymen, and share the same experiences. Once contact with dissidents was made, Scientology lost administrative influence over me.

6th month to 30th month. I did that Sussex window cleaning round, and very pleasant it was too. It also served for social quarantine whilst I sought out counselling, printed the Reconnection magazine for ex-Scientologists, and looked in on the research effort to find out the background of Hubbard and his organisation. I did some useful research for myself, by investigating for aspects of hypnosis that Hubbard had concealed.

30th month, February 1986. I found out about altered states of consciousness, including the significance of "Present Time", and with a grasp of Coue's "laws" and observations, it became possible to scan my decision points within Scientology and knock out the hypnotic controls. Coue's "laws" and Observations helped spot the coercive tactics and what was happening, and simply finding my moments of decision along with the coercion, undid the hypnotic influence. The process took about 10 minutes, and by the end of this short session I was quite dramatically freed.

By July 1986 I was in poor morale because feeling trapped in the window cleaning job, unable to do Open University studies for lack of space to keep their kit. An accident forced my abandonment of the round and moving to Manchester. For a year or so I was terrified about telling people about Scientology, feeling stigmatized for having been involved. In job interviews I overcompensated and unknowingly gave employers the impression I was trying to convert them. Eventually one employer got some feedback to me, and I started to relax since they evidently know nothing about this mind-bending money pump.

1995, twelve years after leaving, and I finally plucked up courage to do a counselling course and discover ordinary psychology. Highly useful for my rehabilitation.

Scientology's "channelling" has done me a lot of harm.

3. Miscellaneous notes

The main thing that bothered me about this cult wasn't having my will bound up, because that appeared to be still under my control. It was my wantingness to look and relate to things outside of Scientology. Scientology had well and truly caught my imagination. Even after leaving, even after breaking the conditioning, I remained unwilling to study psychology courses; was too frightened of severe internal conflicts, although could read books informally. Yet prior to joining this cult I had had what can best be described as a scientific attitude to life: testing everything I heard or was told.

There seemed to be a combination of factors involved in this blinkered vision:

A Hubbard-implanted abhorrence of psychiatry and psychology, and general xenophobia. Scientology is a culture of slag-off of all other ways of thinking.

A feeling of superiority where there was no need to look wider because Hubbard was ahead of conventional thinking.

Spellbound by the fascinating thrills and mysteries built into the Scientology adventure, where ordinary life then looked an anticlimax.

A trained-in habit of not criticizing that persisted long after leaving.

What helped in any thinking to look outside were:

The way Scientology distances people from its critics where its open season on anybody declared to be "SP". I kept on asking myself "Why this strenuous isolation from critics?" "What has Scientology got to hide?"

Double standards of conduct for Hubbard and for the rest of the world. I refused to apply any such double standards and when Hubbard nattered, I applied Scientology to him looking for hidden harmful acts by him.. Thus when he nattered about psychiatrists being only good for bank accounts and fostering dependency, I read that as a clue. Natter against those who practice hypnotism is a clue. Strident criticism of those who practice slavery is a clue. Noisy assertion that his is the truth and the only way out is a clue.

Coming from a Quaker background I had a completely alternative definition of "clear" to adopt at choice.. The Quakers test a leading in conscience to see if it be free of influences like whimsy, busy-ness or guilt trips, testing for genuine calling. They meditate on it in silence, and maybe meet with others in a "meeting for clearness". If after this testing they feel clear to continue the call to duty, they will talk of "being clear" to do it. This is a neat, positive, limited definition that undercuts all the Scientology rigmarole attached to their own highly mobile definitions for "Clear". It also listens to Hubbards rhetoric encouraging fighting slavery etc.. Quaker "clearness" engages with external service activities, Scientology "clearness" seeks to escape internal shadows.

Prior encounters with the Moonies, and specific warn-off about Scientology at a college liberal studies class, had flu-shotted me against mind-enslavement by this cult. I tagged invasions of privacy, love-bombing, thought-stoppers and induction of strong emotion as mind-controlling activities. Such warnings were not sufficient to block my being taken over, but they added context to ideas being presented, slowed take-up of the ideas, and got me to shut my mouth and think for myself without discussion.

I noticed myself thinking that ordinary admin and simple counselling work better than Hubbard admin and OT stuff, and it was largely polished advertising and noisy promises that it all works that were keeping me in. As one example was disconcerted at glowing praise for Hubbard's "tech" of using old newspapers to clean windows..

I had specific, useful purposes for being involved: learn psychological first-st aid and minor self-enhancement activities. I held these firmly in mind.

The Scientology philosophy shows no remorse or compassion, is based upon theta, which in its definition is equivalent to the satanic "Do what thou wilt shalt be the whole of the law". It has links with black magick via Hubbard's friendships with Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons. I had noticed these things whilst in, and had also noticed something missing that's present in Christianity.

As one who had gone in to learn psychological first-aid it took me many years to look outside of Dianetics, then be willing to take a hard look back at Dianetics. Am alarmed to discover that "Dub-in" (unknowingly invented recalls) is encouraged from the start in Dianetics. In those passages where Hubbard qualified the tendency to run "dub-in" as any liability (which he had to do to be credible), he deflected odium to the alternative terms "lie-factory" or "garbage". The whole distinction and emphasis of Dianetics compared to contemporary hypnotherapies involves exaggerating the importance of chains of memories and image pictures, and past lives, which thereby facilitate "recalling" imagination. This quite explicitly prepares the way for later materials, meaning Hubbard's invented engrams and demonology.

In a 1952 lecture [5203C04B, 1952 Phoenix lecture 2101] , re-recorded in 1973 on-board the Apollo, Hubbard makes some startling admissions. He's "trying to tell you a fairy tale" : his typewriter "put years and millions of words worth lots on top of this.." : "all sorts of strange things happen when you get near this incident because its full of lies": he runs dub-in: he "invented Dianetics" with an intention as he went into it that "was something quite beyond": the people doing this (OT3) "are going to be undone": and other profound admissions.

The OT3 trauma is proven fictitious and yet Hubbard's "standard tech" condemns people as liars if they don't run Dianetics on his garbage as if it were truth revealed.

Nowadays if I find a person in distress I might conceivably sit them down and have them abreact in hypnotic regression, plainly describing what I'm doing as hypnosis, and relating it to Freud, Brown and behavioural psychology. However, such counselling would not be done with any eagerness. Am too much aware of the dangers of false memories and dependency to like such counselling. I don't keep Hubbard books on my shelves. Counselling that I normally give is non-hypnotic and relates the person to their environment and their chosen way of life.

Peter Forde