Gut wrenching
Aside from executives ordering staff to have abortions - right up to when I left, and kids telling me how a nanny had pulled them down stairs by their hair, where parents were pro-active, kids were protected.
Your stories are heart breaking, I hope yu all find healing, particularly Gussepi and Bea.
I am reposting this - I have psoted in several places - but it is very pertinent, and I think it sheds light on the very real issue, that of subsuming, the capitulation of one's own sense of self to that of the apparent greater power or force, once one does this he looses all, but if he/she recovers this sense of self esteem, an esteem based only on respect or love for self, not an esteem based on 'what one has accomplished' or even 'pride in accomplishement' just love and respect of self, then he is very difficult to overcome. This is one of my own stories from England.
I had a troubled childhood thanks to the death of both parents when I was nine. One effect of this is that I remain highly sensitised or attuned to the needs of children, and I have always had a lot of time for kids. In Scientology’s fanatical inner core, called ‘The Sea Org’ kids are actually treated with quite some cruelty, and I could never come to terms with this. I bought time on my job, and I began working with the school, taking kids out on day trips and so on.
Some of these children had been separated from their parents for as much as two years, parents doing 'more important duties' and training in Flag Land Base, one couple saw their child for maybe two days every month.
There was this beautiful June Sunday morning, I was on my official ‘cleaning or hygiene time as it was known – essentially four hours out of an 105 hour working week, when you get to do your laundry - I noticed that all the children looked unusually down and upset, and were dejectedly mopping floors and dusting around inside the Manor, outside the grass was green, the sun shone and world looked beautiful. I asked the kids what was going on, I found that they all were doing a punishment detail, were under 'Ethics' 'lower conditions' this a system that punishes both physically and mentally, includes the withdrawal of any small privileges that they may have, kids as young as eight, and no older that twelve, who should be running around outside having fun were being subjected to a system of mental oppression and physical confinement that I would not wish on Serbian general convicted of war crimes, well maybe, but not anyone else. I did this stuff as an adult and it nearly drove me nuts, it breaks you while installing further pavlovian conditioning.
I got really angry, I mean furious. These were really lovely children, but actually traumatised, often due to long months, and one case two years, of enforced separation from their parents. Not natural at all is it?
Anyway, I marched up to the school where Angela – the school in charge and 'legal gaurdian' to many of thenow 'de-parented' kids -, looking rather apathetic herself, was browbeating a child into some kind of acquiescence to Hubbard’s dictates, I told her in no uncertain terms that I was taking all these kids with me to my riding centre, I actually paid for a guided hack for all ten of them, and thus began a very fulfilling twenty four months as big brother and protector of these kids. Not all the kids could sustain the discipline required to advance in riding, some did not have enough interest, but I worked intensively with four of them, and wept one day after months of work, when they preformed a perfect canter in the arena, really working with and listening to their ponies - just how I taught ‘em - with two of the parents looking on.
I actually gained the necessary qualifications to be an officially recognised teacher with all the necessary clearances required for working with children. I have this certificate with me to this day. I am proud of it.
We were surrounded with wild life, I would often find wounded or ill wild animals on the road or in the forest, badgers, rabbits, even a baby deer, having established a very proactive relationship with a local wildlife rescue centre, I used this as a tool to broaden the children’s worldview, I would have small groups help to deliver ‘first aid’ to the animals I rescued before delivering them to the wildlife centre, in the case of the baby deer, this took a little longer, as a special box had to be found to transport the animal, trying to keep excited children quiet around such a creature was big job, but they did very well. We got dogs, and I would load kids and dogs into one of my buses and take them to Bangor Stand, and let them run wild, I don’t know if I was a good teacher, but the kids had fun, and the parents were actually very appreciative.
The Hubbard Personnel Dept. was not appreciative however. The Senior Personnel officer was aiming to get these kids on almost full time training and indoctrination to turn them in fanatical sycophants of Hubbard and his Scientology cult, a state that would allow them to work at the highest, most secret top level of the organisation, known as Religious Technology Centre. They were supposed to finish the legal minimum of schooling each day and then all go to Saint Hill – cult HQ in UK - and partake in very intensive indoctrination, or if not partaking that day, then on cleaning and other work details. Being the transport main operator, I would often pick up stressed out, almost psychotic, pale faced exhausted children from the base, as we called it, they having done up to five hours in these indoctrination sessions and such like. I had two physical fights with personnel people over this, but eventually worked out a compromise where I would get a batch of kids one day, and they the same batch the next.
One of the saddest experiences I had was when I had ‘my’ kids join a barbeque at the riding centre, where parents and schools who had children doing lessons all joined up at an open day, my batch of kids refused to join the other children, they hung around me, the little ones actually clung to me. They were frightened of these ‘wog’ kids, (wog is a word that Hubbard used extensively to describe anybody not in Scientology, it was made into common parlance, meaning we were superior to these backwards savages outside of our cult, the children were particularly susceptible to this form of
asocialisation) they were actually scared and intimidated, having never actually spent any time outside the confines of the weird world of Scientology. I don’t like to think what the ‘wog’ parents thought.
I look back now on this time with mixed feelings of the sense of joy I got out of providing something special for a really lovely bunch of kids, and sadness that no one else took this up after I was promoted out to an external posting. I hope that my action will have broadened their minds, made them see that there is something out side of Scientology, that maybe there is another way to do things aside from Hubbard’s mad ramblings and Miscavich’s insane rages and dictates, maybe..