Various pics of Scientology in the 80s and 90s, unpublished, until now...
- Thread starter BlackRob
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exsomessenger
Patron Meritorious
one thing that was constantly hammered into our heads is that LRH was somehow more than human. as a messenger you were not only expected to have no case. you were supposed to act like the bio of LRH in all his books. you know the fake one that is totally made up. Finding out that LRH was a normal human was sort of a relief after I got out. looking back it was the people around him elevating him and him acting like he deserved it that got them to where they ended up. Pretty profound right? 
Wants2Talk
Silver Meritorious Patron
Commodore messengers.
This is how they looked on the Apollo.
This shot taken closely after landing in Daytona and moving to Clearwater on sub roof of Fort Harrison Hotel.
Right Side Terri (daughter of Yvonne Gilham Jentzsch).
Married and became Terri Gamboa.
She was Executive Director of Author Services.
Miscavige embedded a spy for 25 years to watch her and report back.
More on Terri here
http://www.tampabay.com/news/scient...art-2-of-3-in-a-special-report-on-the/1048123
Left side is Doreen Gilham who married Janis and Terri's brother Peter Junior.
Doreen had a freak accident at 23 years old where some horse riding catastrophe occurred and she
was killed dead.
I love the shoes. I too am an old perv I guess.
Veda
Sponsor
Here's that reference.
The primary form of abuse by Hubbard on the children (beginning at age 12 or slightly younger) was psychological. Denied normal childhood, and adolescence, they became extensions of a cult leader - and that was considered an honor and a privilege, with parents eagerly giving their children to the Commodore (a.k.a. "Source") so that they may serve him.
These old posts cover a little of it.
In saddle brown from former Commodore's Messenger, 'Cowboy':
This is where the cowboy rides away. Love that George Strait song.
Guys and gals, it has been a pleasure chatting with you. To have shared some experiences was cathartic.
I have never been prouder than when the old man placed his hand on my shoulder and validated me for a complicated project which I took care of for him. I've also never been more devastated than when I was berated for some real or imagined transgression, my hand shaking as I struck a lighter and reached across to light the old man's cigarette. The other messengers would visibly pull back from me, knowing that being associated with me would perhaps make them also the subject or his ire.
I've never been more emotional than when I would witness people's lives ripped asunder. I've been ordered to mete out punishments which I knew the receiving party didn't deserve. I've seen well intentioned staff members, pale with lack of sleep, waiting for words of approval, only to be chastised, or, in some cases, even worse.
So many images flash through my mind as I consider again what i went through in Scn. The sight of the ship at dock as I flew overhead in a commercial plane, arriving for the first time. The reality of my bunk, the smell of stale sweat in the humid air, people off duty scouring the under-decks looking for cockroach nests, in order to earn the few extra dollars the extermination of the cockroach nests would bring in bounty.
The first time I saw Hubbard, the emperor, surrounded by his entourage.... and I realized that.... he looked like a person. His face was pitted and craggy, his hair not the golden mane I'd expected but thinning and shot with gray and vestiges of the famous red from his photos, his corpulence, was not what I'd expected.
And the first time I saw him scream at a messenger, this physically intimidating (to a child) adult shouting so loud at a cringing messenger that spittle was flying, the messenger whiter than her clothing, shaking under the intensity of his wrath.
Was this the God-like entity who had opened the door to my spiritual salvation?
Then, a moment watching Hubbard walking the decks beside HRH, seeing him as, of all things, a son, wanting approval from his father. What must Harry Ross have thought of his boy with his own ship, dressed as a Commodore and surrounded by scantily clad young girls?
Long lines of crew in the airport as we left Curacao, Quentin smiling and being Quentin as we waited, only to arrive a few hours later in a land of milk and honey; endless hot water and the beautiful beaches of Daytona... the relief and the smiles obvious on everyone's faces at the change in lifestyle.
Mindless orders to RPF those I thought Hubbard considered his friends, meter readings convincing him that his estimate of them was incorrect, and that they harbored some ill will, to see the RS/RPF craze strike like a plague, decimating the ranks of those around him, the circle growing closer and closer....only to eventually find out that these people's servitude, months or years in the RPF, were pointless, the people had been judged and convicted without a jury to a life in many ways worse than a prison... for only imagined infractions.
My deepest secret, that I once didn't report an RS, because I knew what it would have meant to the person....
The coldness I saw in Hubbard toward others, including his family, the distance he kept... the absence of the qualities I would have envisioned most in a spiritual leader.... qualities one might have imagined in Christ, or Ghandi, but Hubbard was bereft of such qualities. I was ordered to barge into someone's room at three in the morning and threaten to assign the man to the RPF if he didn't get his ass up and work more on a project, despite the fact that he'd been up for 24 hours, to find him in his wife's arms, stunned as I delivered the message... then his asking me how he could possibly satisfy Hubbard.... He wanted desperately to please the old man, but couldn't imagine how. I think he would have taken his own life if Hubbard wanted him to. The agony of trying his best but his best (which was good) not coming close to satisfying Hubbard. The vile and derisive names Hubbard called him by, the snide remarks to the messengers about this man...
Steve Irwin's acknowledgement that he must be damned to the darkest of all Hells because he'd been slapped by Hubbard... Irwin had always been a corker, light hearted, jokingly calling Quentin, before his death, by his nick name, "Son of Source".
Sleepless days spent vetting secrets from documents in fear that the FBI would raid any moment, afraid I'd fall asleep and miss blacking out, or cutting out some secret which the FBI would find and destroy Scn with, and it would be my fault because after two days with no sleep I fell asleep....
Phil Valinsky dying in session at SU and the contortions to hide the truth... and then seeing a copy of his official granting of 21 years of leave, with orders to report back to duty in his new body... I remember thinking how come he got 21 years to live childhood in his new body before reporting back to duty, yet I started working at about 12. He get's a childhood and I don't? BTW, did Phil ever report back in his new body?
Bribes, threats, manipulations, reaching out across the country to bend people to Hubbard's will.
A man steadily losing more and more of his mind... Finally enfeebled, his hands shaking, gaunt, lucid only part of the time, confined to bed for most of the day for weeks on end... Human. Undivine. Unmiraculous.
The bonding of my friends, my fellow messengers, our gazes at one another voicing what we could not speak of.... I don't mean to speak demeaningly of any military sacrifices made by our armed forces, but we messengers, in many ways, became a Band of Brothers. To be in your teens and living on a few hours sleep a night for weeks or months, the pressures placed upon us, the yelling... but, at the same time, craving approval... the feeling of being on top of the world when some deed one had performed was acknowledged with a "Well Done".
Even as I left, my heart ached for Hubbard, for the conversations neither I nor anyone could ever have with him, remembering the lives he'd ruined... that I had sometimes ruined in his name, but still feeling a bond with him, though my candid assessment of the truth of Scn was forcing me to depart. Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe.
In the decades since I left, when I've occasionally met up with a former comrade and heard of the tragedies befalling those who stayed behind, my heart ached for them. Of the legal manipulation to avoid the truth. Can the world not understand the pressures that a dedicated staff member would answer to that would make them give false testimony in a heart beat, gladly, to impeach detractors of the church, or to protect leaders of the church from prosecution?
Shelly Miscavige, a girl I called my friend, what sort of life are you suffering through now?
I'm deluged still with thoughts and sorrows and regrets, acceptance of the harm I directly caused others through following orders. Hitler's orders to his staff were not enough to free them from consequences for their War Crimes. I can make excuses, but, in many ways I caused harm. I remember convincing someone to join the SO, to bring her family and young children in, to see her a year later in the RPF, her kids being worked like adults, being haunted by the unspoken accusation in her glance, "Why did you take me and my family away from the world we knew, for this?" her gaze said to me. Whatever happened to her, I wonder. Did she and her children leave, or did I rob them of their childhood like mine was robbed from me?
Yes, the cowboy rides away. I'll be back, perhaps. Thanks for your words of encouragement. The gratitude that many of you have expressed has been touching. I hope that for some, my musings have helped put things in perspective, and maybe, somewhere, some time, I will find that my words helped someone to make their life their own again. To perhaps look a little deeper at Scn, to question, to use their mind, to perhaps value their children and family a little bit more, and reflect on my experiences and realize that the time has come to use the stark light of reason to make decisions.
If anything, I hoped I've shown that Hubbard, and the experiences of those around him, can not be summarily explained. Now, as I reflect, I pity him, what he must have internalized at the end, as his body wilted away....
Aside from the more outrageous instances of child abuse, and the institutionalized abuse of the (begun in 1976 by Hubbard) Children's RPF, and the psychological abuse of such things as the Children's Security Check (1961) which was used to age 12, after which children were to be subjected to adult Security Checks (1961), there's Hubbard's use of children as his servants.
___________
From what I understand, Annie Broeker's mother was and is a Scientologist, and Annie was born into Scientology, becoming a Commodore's Messenger. She served Hubbard on the ship, which would have meant that she would have been 13 or 14 at the time (as best as I can approximate it), then she "served LRH on a daily basis for the last ten years of his life." So, roughly, she would have been thirty at the time of Hubbard's death. That means she spent most of her life - up to the age of thirty - as a personal servant to L. Ron Hubbard. I've seen some of the (confidential) Commodore's Messenger material - written by Hubbard - and it is creepy stuff. Annie, rather than having a normal adolescence, instead was a full time servant of the founder of the cult of Scientology.
Hubbard had a preference for Annie Broeker, and she became his number one female servant.
And a little more from Cowboy
Regarding the ages of the Commodore's Messengers:
Most went straight to the CMO, slightly over half I'd say, starting at 12 or so for many. A few held other posts and would enter a little bit later, after some non-CMO experience. Very, very, very few got in in their twenties. Mostly not where the old man was.
_______And some more, beginning with 'A new Messenger'_______
A new messenger waited outside the door to the room that held his Majesty King Red. He was visibly shaking, nervous as all get out about meeting, and working with the old man. He was stuttering, going on about how awesome it must be being in the shadow of Source on a daily basis. He flinched when the old man's booming scream pierced through the doorway and another messenger, white-faced, came rushing out of the office with an armful of materials, the old man's voice screaming after her.
The new guy blanched. "Come on, he can't be alone," I whispered to him. The guy nodded, but I had to prod him to get him to follow me into the room.
I introduced him. The old man gave a grunt and pointed down at the pile of submissions which lay on the ground, where the messenger who'd been with him a moment ago until being dispatched on some urgent errand, had left them.
I picked up the first, summarized what the submission was about. "Nooooh," the old man said, and reached for a cigarette.
New Guy fumbled with the lighter and dropped it.
New Guy knew something about the submission. He tried to explain the issue. "NOOOOOH," the old man said again. "You let them submit this crap?" he asked New Guy.
New Guy just sat there, with his deer in the headlights look, and, unfortunately for him, nodded his head.
"What the hell were you thinking?" the old man asked.
New Guy couldn't figure out what to say.
"Well, speak up man!"
New guy remained immobile as the old man turned beet red and started yelling. "Get the hell out of here. Get off watch. You're no god-damned help," he told New Guy.
I don't remember if he ever was allowed on watch again. Poor New Guy was slapped in the face with reality, rather than fantasy. He was crushed. He was demoted out of the messenger org, and never got the chance to make it to the top again. Hubbard criticized the hell out of him, saying his confront was out.
It wasn't always easy to be yelled at by a God...
_______But there were happy moments too for the Commodore_________
Mike Douglas, Kima's husband, he's dead now, he'd work special projects for the old man or Kima. You should have seen the old man's eyes light up when Mike showed up with a handful of diamonds which Hubbard had directed him to purchase. Boy, Hubbard was almost as excited as when he saw the bag so filled with Krugerands he could hardly lift it. Nothing like good old material goods to make a man salivate... get those old spiritual juices flowing...
Some more. Included in full, as this was the environment in which these children lived while on the ship.
The first interview on the below video is of Hana Eltringham:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhULw6qarW4
In a post on ESMB, Alan Walter, Mission holder and student on the original Class VIII course, remembered an incident on the ship involving Julia Salmon. It's at the bottom.
John McMaster, from a 1985 interview:
"He [Hubbard] got the technology to the point where he had a sort of assembly line as he called it. And he told me how he was putting all these 'square ball bearings' on the beginning of the assembly line, and then turning them into 'round ball bearings' at the other end. That was his idea of 'standard tech'."
The following is provided for any lurkers, who might be wondering where the cruelty in Scientology originated:
First, an excerpt from Russell Miller's interview of David Mayo, Class XII, from August 1986.
This excerpt concerns events from the late 1960s:
"He [Hubbard] could be capable of incredible cruelty. On the ship there was an old man on the Royal Scotman who he made push a peanut round the decks with his nose. He had to get down on his hands and knees, he had to go round the deck, quite a long distance in a race with one or two others also in trouble. The first one back got let off and the last one got a double penalty.
"It was really tough on this old guy, Charlie Reisdorf. The surface of the deck was very rough wood, prone to splinter, so after pushing peanuts with their noses, they all had raw, bleeding noses, leaving a trail of blood behind them. I not only saw it but the entire crew of the ship was mustered - a mandatory attendance - we were required to watch this punishment, to make an example of it for the rest of us. Reisdorf was in his late 50s probably. His two daughters were messengers, they were 11 or 12 at time and his wife was there also.
"It was hard to say which was worse to watch: this old guy with a bleeding nose or his wife and kids sobbing and crying at being forced to watch this. Hubbard was standing there calling the shots, yelling, 'Faster, Faster!'. It was indignity, degradation and breaking a person's will, and making people watch. It was disgusting...
"They used to have people locked in the chain locker, including small children. It was very dangerous because if the anchor started to slip and started running out, it would probably turn a body into a pulp in no time at all...
"He [LRH] had a birthday party on March 13, 1968; there was a woman who he ordered locked in the chain locker. During the party he had brought her out. She was filthy, covered with dirt and rust, and had not been allowed to wash or change clothes - she had been in there for a week... he brought her out to the party. He said he was giving her a reprieve and permitting her to come to the party, as if that was a nice gesture. She wasn't allowed to change. She was brought to the party and had to stay, and later was returned [to the chain locker]... it was flaunting her degradation...
"Why did people stand by?...
"From time to time, Hubbard would cancel such activities like the chain locker, and blame it on someone else... He would start such pronouncements with, 'It has just come to my attention...'
"The length of time for children would vary, but no one was less than a day...
"Reisdorf [peanut pushing] affair - if someone tried to do something, it would have made it worse. Hubbard said that maritime law prevailed... He said that under maritime law, he had total power over everyone on the vessel..."
And one brief excerpt concerning events from the late 1970s:
"He told me he was obsessed with an insatiable lust for power and money. He said it very emphatically. He thought it wasn't possible to get enough. He didn't say it as if it was a fault, just his frustration that he couldn't get enough."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_w-YWwC1lI
And this from Alan Walter, from a 2007 post:
"...there was one stuck picture that would not go away. Behind it was at that time an unthinkable thought.
"Ron had Julia Salmon thrown overboard... Julia was... terribly overweight, and could not swim.
"The people who threw her overboard struggled to get her over the side; she was terrified; she kept crying out "I cannot swim!" On her way down she hit the side of the ship - I could hear her screams - it was obvious she was injured and drowning.
"The people on the deck all stood around too afraid to do anything. Fearing to originate any action less the become the target of LRHs displeasure.
"I ran and jumped over the side and rescued her. I then pulled her over to the ladder that led up to the ground level of the dock........it was about 20 feet straight up. She could not climb the steps. I had my shoulders under her butt pushing her up..... no one still had come to help.......but at the top of that ladder stood LRH filming us.....such evil.......
"Anyway after an immense struggle with Julia's help I was able to push her up to the top of the ladder....finally some help arrived.
"Over the years the unthinkable thought pushed forward more and more....it was 'that I observe that LRH was demonic at that time'. I did not want to know that, did not want to believe that.......that was too incredible to be believed - even for me - I did the usual make nothing of myself....'you're seeing things' 'what do you know' 'you've got overts' - much easier to blame self than confront what is..."
JustSheila
Crusader
^^^ Veda, thank you very much for putting that together.
Thanks for what you do, what you have done, and what you continue to do.
Thanks for what you do, what you have done, and what you continue to do.
degraded being
Sponsor
Kenda McElvin in a Sea Org outfit.
Is that an e-meter in that white leatherette handbag, or are you just happy to see me?
Gib
Crusader
Here's that reference.
those first two paragraphs are probably where DM said to Ted Koepel,
Power is when people will listen to you.
How's that's working out for you DM?
When you have to beat people?
How's that working out for LRH with overboarding?
pkatz
Patron with Honors
I ran into Kenda in San Diego in 1983 at the Scripps Institute pier.
The last time I saw her before that, the day I routed out of the SO in '74, she was married (?) to Ken Framstead. They were recruiters for the SO Excalibur ship.
Back to '83. She was cook aboard the Oregon Beaver, a vessel operated by, IIRC, the OR Fish and Game Commission. Even after almost nine years away from the fucking SO I was too caved in to discuss our shared experiences or address my arc breaks with her. (She was high on the Org Board on Bolivar, my first SO posting, and she yelled a lot.)
I saw her a couple of times after that when I was in LA. She was engaged to a mission holder named Neal Something.
postscript: re Oregon Beaver. A fishing boat of that name was arrested smuggling pot into SF harbor, in 1985. It could have been the same ship, no longer a public vessel. K was not aboard at the time.
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BlackRob
Gold Meritorious Patron
She died 5 years ago by the way... I've forgot to mention that.
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Smurf
Gold Meritorious SP
Kenda McElvin in a Sea Org outfit.
Dang. I'm surprised the cult didn't make 'These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" as their theme song at cult events.
Smurf
Gold Meritorious SP
Kenda married Neil R. Brown. They lived in Portland, OR for several years, then moved to Red Bluff, CA. She died in 2005.
"RED BLUFF -- Services for Kenda Brown, 55, of Red Bluff will be at 3 p.m. today at Hoyt-Cole Chapel of the Flowers in Red Bluff. Mrs. Brown died Friday, Dec. 9, 2005, at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff. Born May 15, 1950, in Fort Dix, N.J., she moved to Tehama County about 1991 from Huntington Beach. She was a homemaker. Survivors include husband Neil, daughter Ashley of Red Bluff, brother David Weisberg of New Hampshire, sisters Ellen Massie of San Francisco, and Jadis Norman of Canada half brother Michael Wheat of New Orleans and mother Carol Weisberg of New Hampshire. Arrangements are being handled by Hoyt-Cole Chapel of the Flowers in Red Bluff."
http://www.truthaboutscientology.com/stats/by-name/n/neil-r.-brown.html
http://www.truthaboutscientology.com/stats/by-name/k/kenda-brown.html
Ironically, Kenda died while her husband was in prison serving time for massive tax fraud. http://www.quatloos.com/08-22-03brown.pdf
http://www.justice.gov/tax/usaopress/2003/txdv0303-20-03neilbrown.pdf
http://www.linkedin.com/in/neilrbrown
bts2free
Patron with Honors
Hey guys, here are some pics from my wedding at the Gold Base to my then wife Melanie Schwandt. This was back in 1992. Maybe some of you will recognize the folks in these photos. A majority of them are from R-Comps and PDO. Russ Williams was our Minister and Barret Oliver was my best man.
These are when I first got to the Gold Base in 1991. I remember Wick Allcock took these photos of me for his Compliance Report of getting me to the Base for his Int Recruitment Mission.
This brings back a lot of memories.
These are when I first got to the Gold Base in 1991. I remember Wick Allcock took these photos of me for his Compliance Report of getting me to the Base for his Int Recruitment Mission.
This brings back a lot of memories.
Purple Rain
Crusader
I'm sorry it didn't work out. You looked like a very nice couple.
bts2free
Patron with Honors
Thanks Purple Rain. I try to maintain a glimmer of hope that some day, Melanie will wake up and GTFO. The last I knew she was still an RTC Rep, and in the UK. After all this time, I have no idea how she's managed to maintain a position like that under Miscavige. But I know that she won't last in that environment forever and especially under that kind of stress. Because she was an external RTC Rep for so long, she didn't witness a lot of the attrocities that happened at the base. Maybe that's why she is still in. When she does leave, I would hope that she'd at least want to get back in touch with me. We definitely have some things left unsaid that need to be discussed. After I escaped the base, Ken Hoden finally found me and called me at my Mom's house. I told him all of the reasons I wasn't coming back - all of the abuse, the insanity, the "out-Tech", the "squirrel" ethics handlings, etc. The only thing he said that even made me consider coming back was, "But what about Melanie?" I couldn't take another few years or more of being separated from her. Miscavige sent her off to be an RTC Rep in 1996, and I only got to see her a couple of times between her being sent off, and when I blew in 2000. I wasn't even allowed to go to her mother's funeral when she died of cancer. When Melanie was bucked from a horse in Florida and it had kicked her in the face, she almost died, and had to have reconstructive surgery, I wasn't allowed to go be with her to help her recover, because I "didn't have a replacement." I was able to endure a lot of horrible things there, but when I realized that I would probably never be with her again, that was the final straw.
Purple Rain
Crusader
That is such a sad story. I hope she gets in contact with you also. You just never know in this world. But if not, I hope some benevolence is watching over her and guiding her out. They can kill your marriage, but they can't kill your memories or your love for her or what you have shared. I believe that a relationship has a life-force of its own. It's more than the sum of the parts. Its an "us". Love can be a powerful force - maybe the most powerful thing there is. And as long as you both feel it in your hearts, it is there even if you are apart. You just don't know how she feels in her deepest most secret places that she hides from the e-meter probing and maybe even from herself. My late friend Ladybird had a wonderful story of separation in the Sea Org, and reconciliation. He came for and basically busted her out. She was always the only woman for him. It's one of the greatest love stories I've ever heard - I wonder if she ever posted it on the message board here? She talked of it often.
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