Ant's Scientology Story Part VIII
Scientology Publications Dept/Org (1)
by Antony Phillips, Denmark
Since writing the following I have further looked at my OT III
experience. I see no reason to alter what I have written below –
it is accurate as far as it goes. However since writing it further
data has appeared concerning the inhibited communication aspect of
OTII, so I have added remarks on that at the end, which refer to the
section below headed Auditing
On December 31st,1967, I was a member of the Saint Hill Organisation which was a Seven Division Org at Saint Hill, East Grinstead, England. At that time there had been formed a second organisation at Saint Hill called World Wide. Things seemed stable. I was Mimeo-in-Charge in the Saint Hill organisation, with Saed Mirza helping me. and we handled duplicating and printing for the whole of Saint Hill (except new issues from Ron); we had some equipment, and filing cabinets full of individual mimeo issues, (there were no printed books of policy and bulletins then), and stencils.
On the 1st of January, 1968, the shock came to the whole organisation. Ron wanted a Publications Organisation created. He did it by giving the job to David Ziff, who, I suppose, had the title Director of Publications WW. Ron gave David Ziff carte blanche to take anybody from anywhere in the Saint Hill organisations and put them on the org board of his Department of Publications World Wide. David issued an Executive Directive under Ron's name. There must have been 30 or so names, mostly I suppose from Saint Hill. I was named to become Mimeo World Wide. Saed Mirza was not named. What about the equipment and files, we both worked with? Where were we to work? Not a word on that, and there was similar confusion from all the others who had suddenly been uprooted. It seemed that the decision was left to me. I decided that Mimeo World Wide was more important than Mimeo Saint Hill which Saed Mirza now was running single handed, with no MEST!, and the mimeo files, possibly containing the only complete set of Bulletins and Policy Letters stencils on the planet, must obviously go to World Wide (me). So I took them and the space they occupied, leaving Saed Mirza and the Dissemination Secretary, Herbie Parkhouse, with ....nothing!
The big game seemed to be expansion. Scientology was expected to expand, and for that lots of books would be needed. I was given staff. I remember Rosemary Delderfield came to Mimeo as Mimeo Typist. This was before the days of computers, and she was a pearl. We had an old time Scientologist who had retired and wanted to donate his last days to Scientology. There was a young boy, Graham Lawrence, son of the woman who had been Personnel Procurement office under me, when we had both been comm eved for failing to get enough staff for Saint Hill, who left school before time to work for this marvelous thing Scientology. We were found space, amongst other things, in some garages some of which were used for the "Sea Project", forerunner to the Sea Org, which for some reason I never got to hear about at the time.
Org Exec Course materials
Ron was away pioneering the Sea Org. Remember, at this time there was a vast "treasury" of Policy Letters and Bulletins, about 1,000, and none of it was in printed book form. And Ron suddenly wanted, it seemed, all the Policy Letters in order to run for the Sea Org what he called an Org. Exec. Course (OEC). He needed, I think, 25 copies of each, made up into packs. And we, Mimeo in Publications Department WW, were the only people who had the stencils to them and additionally Pubs Department WW had been granted a monopoly on all printing in Scientology. Scientology orgs throughout the world had to get their printing from Publications Department World Wide. We, (my little mimeo department), had to produce them. And it was an LRH Order. Those words "LRH order" came to mean that everything else had to be dropped, and that any promises made were of course broken.
So we had to work our guts out producing these packs. We were excused everything else, including staff training, and were treated like special people, working to our own time schedule (beyond normal working hours of course!). At that time Saint Hill and World Wide started getting Missions from the Sea Org. (I later learned they were unpleasant, if not abusive), but we were spared that, and I heard nothing of it until afterwards, though we got the new issues that came out, and I remember one "green-on-white" (Policy Letter) coming out about Awards and Penalties, mentioning that one penalty was that you must not leave the premises, or have a bath or change of clothes. I was aghast. I did not really believe it, but yet it came out "green-on-white" looked exactly like standard Policy Letters, so I speculated (long) on whether Ron was having a joke, yet I could not believe he would abuse his carefully set up Bulletin and Policy Letter line that way. It was a puzzle for me for some time.
Promotion
For me the Organisation was in chaos. There seemed to be loads of staff rushing around. The Department of Publication was divided up a little like a Tech Division in an org. (At some time it evolved from a department into a Seven-Division org). That meant there was a Production services Department, a Department of Production (Oh dear, I've forgotten), and a Department of Production Manufacture.
It was rather nicely made up in that the Department of Production (... I've forgotten last name), concerned itself with designing new things (creation), and the Department of Production Manufacture concerned itself with "mass production" (duplication). Mimeo, of course, was in the Department of Production Manufacture. Promotion (getting a higher position n the org board) was the order of the day, together with expansion, and you were not worth looking at if you did not get into power, and power change and get promoted. So I got Promoted to Director of Production Manufacture. That meant I had under me all the "mass production" part of the org consisting of:
Printer Liaison, who handled outside firms printing books (and insignia, including badges and clear bracelets).
E-meter production (Barry Penberthy handled the making of e-meters by two outside firms, and testing and dispatching them, and also repair).
Tape department (they just made copies of Ron's tapes - though there was also an activity under Production (... I forget), which prepared tapes for reproduction; I heard that they edited Ron's tapes, and I was aghast that someone should edit Ron's holy words, until I asked and was told that all the editing consisted of was taking out any cough or splutter Ron made which was not connected to a word.
Mimeo, my former section, led now (I now cannot think why) by the "schoolboy", Graham Lawrence, who I got to hear treated the elderly man in an arrogant manner.
I had read some Policy Letters on being an executive and tried to follow them. Additionally a new Policy Letter had come out about Executive Inspection where the head got hold of one of the people under him or her, and went round with that person to all the areas that person controlled with all the seniors.
Thus, for example, when Pubs became an organization, the Executive Director (or Commanding Officer), went round with the Org Exec Sec and the Production Secretary, and the Director Production Manufacture (me) to all the workers in the Department of Production Manufacture, and asked them each about their jobs. It became an enormous waste of time, with the necessity of doing it when all the people on the chain of command were free to participate. I was not built for (or trained or experienced in) that sort of work. I was good at producing something, like mimeod or printed materials. But the reality was that one should rise in rank. Now I was capable of supervising Production Manufacture (sort of!) so I managed to cope somehow with that post. But the pressure was on me to become Production Secretary which was also responsible for the rest of the production Division, and I did not have a clue on art work, or making books and magazines, and the job was sheer murder for me - just continued stress and unhappiness.
Auditing
There was interest in staff members "going up the bridge" and somehow I had come to complete my OT II. I had a 2½ year contract which paid well at that time, with a six-day week. With a contract you could get OT levels (or Clearing Course) at half price and one level on credit. I owed for most of my OT II.
The position at that time was that Saint Hill organisation offered all services, that is auditing and training up to OT II. OT III was considered too dangerous to be offered on land. Looking back, you can think "how insane can you get", but you have to bear in mind that OTIII was very new, and Ron apparently had had a very rough time researching it; and it was supposed that you could go into something called a freewheel on it, where you just went round and round in the OT III incident and could not get any sleep and eventually died. What a myth! All very dramatic. So the first people ran OT III on Ron's "ship" somewhere in foreign waters; there was great secrecy about the location. However, in 1968 when the ship was touring around the Mediterranean, for some reason the AO (Advanced Organisation) which had been on the ship, was offloaded to the Spanish port of Alicanti. Not only that, but apparently they needed students, so a plane was chartered to take students to Alicanti on the day before Easter in 1968. And they needed to fill the plane with people ready for an OT level!
The long and short of it was that the Executive Director of Scientology Publications Org, as it had now become, Judy Ziff, put her attention on me, my next step being OT III. She wanted me on that plane. Why? Well of course because I was up stat (nice to have that told me, after all my trials and tribulations in a very confused org), and my next step was OT III. Anyone who knows Scientology will know what I mean when I say "pressure was brought to bear" on me. Suddenly I was an important person, granted a lot of beingness, rather than a small cog in the Pubs Org machine. Looking back, you could possibly say I was not clear, for I certainly did not see what was going on, or examine the situation calmly. I still owed for most of my OT II. "Oh, that is no problem, you are so up stat that we will award you the balance of your OT II". The long and short of it was that I was on that plane for Alicanti after having signed a new 2½ years staff contract. My father drove down to East Grinstead to bring me some money arriving just before a bus drove a number of people to Gatwick Airport. He had had a stroke, and you could see that he was partially lame on one side; touching parental support. (My gain from it was not case gain, as expected, but expereince)
Thinking about it, the following was so unbelievable that many with later experience of Scientology (and particularly of Case Supervisors) will not believe it. But here it is.
We flew over Thursday evening before Easter (Easter Public Holiday is and was Friday to Monday in England). The AO was land-based, and in a hotel, and I got a single room. When we got there, there was some excitement. First, we were told that some non-Sea Org people had run the AO, and they had made a real mess of it, so now the Sea Org was running it. Sea Org members could get all their auditing for free, and the big topic of conversation when we got there was that one Sea Org member had done his Clearing Course and all OT levels to VI that day, and was somewhat disappointed that the lines had closed before he could get round to attest to OT VII, the highest available at that time; the levels were different from now.
Sounds funny? Yes. The clue is that the whole thing was run "fast flow". There were no tests, and in fact no course. When you were satisfied that you had understood the materials, having studied them alone in your room, or achieved a level, you just attested. No questions asked. Just congratulations all round.
Furthermore there was no help. If you had a question on the materials, there was no one to ask. (No one to say "What does it say in your materials?" :-) ) The rather important idea of a Qual and a Department of Exams was not to be seen anywhere.
We had had a fair amount of publicity on OT III, calling it "the wall of fire", and got the idea that it was a bit much to confront. Now I had to confront it alone! I guess that nowadays everyone, whether they have taken OT III or not, knows roughly what it is about (excepting those still in the "Church" who have not got that far). I didn't have a clue. On the Friday morning, after breakfast, I went and got the materials issued, and went to my room to study it. That was an enormous shock. I had previously, from LRH lectures, got the idea that there were possibly thetans without bodies hanging around in the room, but that did not bother me much, as I was not aware of them. If they were there, they minded their own business, and I minded mine - no interchange or communication But now I learned that (evaluation, I suppose) there were thetans stuck to my body, and I had to audit them - alone! Talk about a steep gradient! We were told the contents of an incident they were stuck in, and I had to run that incident on them. No explanation! I did know about engram running. However I do not think I had done it at that time, as it had gone out of fashion.
I was quite shaken. A number of times that weekend, I was more or less at the end of my tether, and went out walking about the streets of Alicanti to try and regain some composure. And I did have a problem. I was due back on post on Tuesday at 9.30 A.M. And I "knew" I could not leave before I was OT III. I had not thought of that when I agreed to come.
Mostly because of time pressure, I finally decided to attest to knowing and understanding the materials. It was just an attestation, and no one had the slightest interest in whether I actually had any problem about it.
So now I had to audit them. An even bigger problem. Spent some more hours walking around the streets of Alicanti. In the end I sort of fumbled my way through trying to push some imagined thetan through the incident that had been explained in the material (the fact that it was evaluating for the preclear did not enter my head, and I just, to the best of my limited ability, did what the materials said). I think I just did it once. At any rate I now had the problem of: was I OT III? More walking the streets of Alicanti, till finally, because I had to be back at work on Tuesday, I attested. I had not been told, or asked about the flight back to England. Somehow I thought it was a two-way charter flight; (how unclear can you be?).
I booked a flight, and traveled back to Gatwick, airport near East Grinstead, with an impressive certificate saying I was OT III, in time to be on post Tuesday morning after Easter.
I was a real good Scientology robot. With a somewhat limited understanding of Scientology! For shortly after this, I went around the Org at Saint Hill saying to various staff members "I am an OT III. What is needed and wanted?" A procedure which I had recovered from the non-existence formula from the ethics conditions. A few years later it was realised that I was not OT III, and in 1979, 11 years later, when NED for OTs came out, I finally got a new OT III certificate.
Visiting a real printing works
This was an interesting occurrence. Probably when I was on the post of Director of Production Manufacture, and thus responsible for book production, I and other Pubs Org Executives visited the firm that printed our books, the Garden City Press, in Letchworth, north of London. About four Pubs Org executives went, and were treated like royalty, and given lots of data and shown some very large printing presses. I had a great interest in printing, and was fascinated. We were told that books were proofread about seven times, and still mistakes were not discovered. The general (Scientology) cry to Pubs Org was that Scientology was going to expand enormously, and we (Pubs Org) must make sure that there were enough books. We must not be guilty of slowing down Scientology expansion (which was the only way the world would survive), as books were the backbone of expansion. So while we were at the printing company which also bound books, we were told that we could print a very large number of books, but they would initially bind only a limited number and store the printed sheets (large with maybe forty-eight pages on each sheet) until we needed them to be bound. At the time, I was getting normal (good) wages as agreed in my (second) two and a half year contract. A year or so later wages stopped (see later, when we were in Denmark), finances were terrible, and I now believe that this was partly due to ordering far more books than we could sell.
Selling books
While we were still at Saint Hill, and I think I was in mimeo, there was a special operation, possibly instigated by Doreen Casey. Staff members had to drop their work, travel up to London and go to assigned areas of London to sell Scientology books to booksellers in their area. I was assigned to a part of London totally unfamiliar to me, in or near Watford. I failed to sell any books. (I think Jeff Hawkins, who joined Pubs Org when we were in Copenhagen, explained why we failed in his Internet page and book, which I strongly recommend). The penalty for failure was to be put in a low condition, involving penalties and unpleasantness, which I and other staff were very much afraid of. Despondent (unsuccessful, really because my communication level was very low with non-Scientologists and as a salesman), I somehow chose to visit my former employer in Clapham, a south London suburb, Alfred McConochie. I do not know how he experienced it from his side (much is forgotten), but he apparently wanted to buy some books for his friends (or something), and relieved me of the books I had with me - and of the penalties! I wonder now whether anybody sold their books to a bookseller, but at that time I was thoroughly introverted, self-invalidated, and had no idea of asking how others got on.
John Sanborn – Phoenix Lectures
I think while we were at Saint Hill, we got the news that John Sanborn and Don Breeding were joining us. I suspect that this was on orders from Ron, or at least Ron wanted them to join us. I had seen both their names in the Ability Magazine (the American membership magazine) which I received in the 50's. There was some excitement from those who knew them. I understood that Don Breeding had been involved in e-meters in the 50's, but I cannot remember him in Pubs Org. John Sanborn (who is also mentioned in Jeff Hawkins book Counterfeit Dreams :Search on Internet for counterfeitdreams) worked on editing the book The Phoenix Lectures (taken from The Seventh American Advanced Clinical Course – Phoenix). And indeed the book was first published by "The Publications Organization World Wide” in Edinburgh in 1968.
The lectures were given in 1954. I heard them in the early days, and have been told that they were part of the professional auditor course. It is interesting that it was fourteen years before they came as a book, but they certainly contain pretty basic stuff. I am left speculating as to whether making them into a book was something Ron had at the back of his mind, and implemented as soon as a independent Publications Org had been formed – they were published within the first year of Pubs Org's existence.
To Scotland!
The grounds and buildings of Saint Hill Manor were not enough for all the Scientology activities. We were all expanding. There were three organisation: Saint Hill, World Wide, and Scientology Publications Organisation. Which of them must move out? The choice fell on Pubs. Where should we go? We should probably go to a place where there was a Scientology Service Org. Edinburgh had a Class IV Org, called HAPI (Hubbard Academy of Personal Independence) and an Advanced Organisation (AO). So we must move to Scotland. HAPI was placed on a rather prestigious square (which I can't remember ever seeing) and connected to it and behind it was a factory building, with an address at North East Thistle Street Lane. That is where we went. For a further (perhaps better) description of Pubs in Scotland, and a good look at the history of Scientology publishing from 1969 and some years further, I strongly recommend Jeff Hawkins book Counterfeit Dreams - see his blog, on which the book is based, (search Internet for Counterfeit Dreams ).
One weekend the whole of Pubs Org staff except me, went up there to clean the place up. I had to stay behind because some important confidential material had to be mimeographed (or printed). I had to stay behind and do that (I was OTIII - so could be trusted with confidential material). A weekend or so later, the org staff went up again, I with it. I can remember having to set our Production services person, a sweet young girl from Sweden, Ragnhild, in a low condition, so she had to stay on the premises all the time and work out her condition. She looked so sad when we left. (I think she was alone, and she had to clean all the windows everywhere or some similar drudgery operation).
We then moved up to Edinburgh - a whole organisation. It took a week or so, and during that week no work was done, no inquiries handled, which produced an enormous backlog.
The building was a four-story factory building, pretty austere, with concrete floors, and a gap of about 6 inches between the floors and the side walls. Our Commanding Officer at that time was Doreen Casey, and our finance department was still down at Saint Hill, and for some reason was controlled by Herbie Parkhouse. And there was money trouble (lack of money). Doreen phoned Herbie about it a number of times, and shouted at him so loudly that, with help of this little gap between floor and wall, we could hear her, all over the building. From that data, you can perhaps see that the fashion of using force to get something done was extant at that time - 1968.
Demoted again
When we moved up to Edinburgh, I guess I was Director of Production Manufacture again. (I cannot remember how I came to be demoted from Production Secretary - only that the post was totally beyond me). We had at Saint Hill an able middle-aged man who was Printer Liaison under me. I can't remember much about him, except that he presumably managed the (to me) very difficult task of talking to a load of outside printers about printing jobs, getting quotations from three printers for each job, and getting one approved by Financial Planning, and then making sure the goods were delivered correctly. Unfortunately he chose not to travel with us to Scotland. I have no idea why, but he seemed to be an ordinary middle-aged man, with probably a family, not at all a typical staff member, and it seems to me possible that he was not a Scientologist. That meant that I, his senior, had to take over his job. All I can remember was a smallish room where the four walls were plastered with different printing jobs that had to be done. Apparently among them were two which were special orders of Ron Hubbard. All I can remember now was that I was removed from the post, (actually the post of Dir Prod. Man, the senior post I was holding), because of the dreadful sin of not taking care of two LRH orders. No mention made of all the other orders I did not have a clue about. I was put back as mimeo-in-charge.
I guess that the Printer Liaison after that became the young (about 18 year old) Graham Lawrence, whom I had had in Mimeo when Pubs was at Saint Hill. He blew (left the org without agreement). Sometime later I met him, I can't remember how, and heard his story. On a Saturday he was ordered to get back from a printer the original art work for some job (I think it must have been an LRH order!). He had two hours to do it; otherwise he would be placed in a condition of liability. Somehow he got access to the printer's business, only to learn that the art work was locked up in a safe, and the only man who had access to the safe had gone to a wedding (or something) a lot further south in Scotland. Under those circumstances it would have been impossible to get the art work in the time he was allotted, and what he told me was that hours later, he 'came to', finding himself walking the streets in some part of Edinburgh.
Mimeo running on 'wog' labour
What I remember was that there was loads of work. When Pubs Org was set up, it was made a monopoly and (unless they did it illegally) all organisations worldwide had to get their Publications work done by us. One instance of this was that Saint Hill, (to preserve the image of Scientology as a religion), held 'Church Services' every Sunday. They distributed a flyer, and every week this flyer, which had the date and details of the Church service on it, had to be printed by Pubs Org. The order for me to print it had to go 'through the lines', that is get approved by appropriate bodies, with the result that when it arrived for me to print, it was out of date. I felt it was silly to print it, with a date on it that had gone by, but was nevertheless told to print it.
The mimeo section had a lot of work to do, and two or three local young ladies were hired for the job; I know not details of what they got paid. Because of the backlogs throughout the org, an order was issued to the effect that, anybody throughout the org who had a post or juniors who had a backlog, was to be declared in non-existence until the area had no backlogs. Non-existence meant that you were not allowed to leave the premises. In this case, the condition lasted four weeks when I did not leave the org, and wore house shoes. Somehow it was lifted, and did my feet object to wearing outdoor shoes! As for my female staff who were not Scientologists, the idea of not leaving the premises until the backlogs were handled, was quite ridiculous, and they left, never to be seen again, by me anyway.
Accommodation
Accommodation was found for me and two or three others at the house of an elderly Scot. Because of the backlog situation, the Commanding Officer, Doreen Casey, handled the backlogs by demanding that we all work until she said we could stop. So after about 7.00 PM, I was always waiting for the call to go through the Org "The CO says go home". Mimeo work (and probably other areas) had jobs which could not really be left in the middle of a cycle of action. We never knew when we could go home. Consequently I was very reluctant to start something new. (As I write this, it occurs to me that Pubs Org then was far from the stable environment one would expect from Scientology, and I wonder why I did not protest, but then I had a contract, and was pretty beaten down by the treatment of the times). Sometimes we would go on till after 11.00 P.M. We were supposed to be back on post at 9.00 A.M. next day, and on the occasions when we had to work after (about) 11.00 P.M. we would usually also get the message: "You need not start tomorrow before 10.00 A.M."
Staying at the same house as me was a very pleasant fellow from USA (name forgotten), an auditor, (we did not have many of those). He had a post something like staff staff auditor, and as part of that (and probably as an unusual solution to the org's money problems), everybody was to be run by him on a money process (which probably has helped me ever since, though I don't think I have had a money problem the whole of my life). I remember my gratefulness to him, and his commenting that I had been an easy case to handle. He came to a "sticky end". Somehow or other he got declared a Suppressive Person (where he was fair game, and you could do anything destructive against him), and some staff member took into his head to spread our staff staff auditor's personal belongings from the room he rented around in a field near where we lived. Our landlord, a friendly bearded elderly Scot, was very puzzled, at seeing our very unhappy staff staff auditor frantically going around the field searching for his belongs. Our friendly Scottish landlord was unsure what he had on his hands with this group to whom he had rented three of his rooms.
My auditing
You must understand that for the eleven years from when I started OT III in Alicanti, to when I went on to NOTs (NED for Ots), new things were being added or changed to OT III. I ran some OT III when I was at Pubs Org Edinburgh (being C/Sd from the nearby AO), and I (forty years later) do not remember why I was doing it. Anyway, I audited it on Pubs Org premises which were generally an open space with no separate rooms. So I was allowed to use "The Office of LRH" to audit this confidential material in. It was a rule, and also a holy act, for every org to have an Office of LRH "in case he came by". I was not a good solo auditor. One day, quite unexpectedly, I was summoned, and taken in a car with the CO, and a lady staff member (Judith is the name I remember), to the AO. No explanation. When we got there, we all three went into the ethics officer, and the CO threw down a piece of paper on the ethics officer's desk, stating it was found in the room I audited in after I had audited. She then left.
The piece of paper was a sheet of the handwritten (by Ron, photocopied) material for OT III. I was in the soup. I was quickly assigned the condition of doubt, which involved three days and nights working without sleep. I expect I had got a bit of a mimeo reputation for I spent the next three days and nights sorting the mass of loose papers that accumulate in a mimeo department with overworked or ineffective staff. I remember it - a number of times finding I was asleep with a bit of paper in my hands.
While I was at Edinburgh I did two other bits of auditing. Apparently a new OT I had come out. On the clearing course I had gone through the Clearing Course material four or five times before I decided I must be clear, at which point I got a thorough clear test, and they said I was clear (I remember Linda Nausbaum checked me, mocking up objects and keeping them form going away and making them more solid, etc.). So that time at Saint Hill I went on to OT I, and was I disappointed when I found out that OT I was my running the Clearing Course materials one more time! Now, while I was in Edinburgh, they came through with a new OTI, and I was to do that. And as I had done it once, it was for free. This time it was a solo walkabout process, and I don't remember details.
I was still considered to be OT III, and somehow I got onto OT IV. I know I did not pay for it. I was still owing the OT III, so I imagine I was awarded it. (As I write this and can't remember much. I feel like I out ought to have a hundred hours of prepcheck on Scientology Publications Org. :-( ) While the org was overworked and chaotic, I was put on leave with pay again and did OT IV at the nearby AO (Advanced Org). But we ran into a bug, something to do with being exterior. There was a rule then that you must not audit someone who was exterior. And years ago (1955), I had got auditing from Ray Kemp, and he had run some of the processes from that time for exteriorising people, and the one, where I just shut my eyes, and said aloud to my body "Hello X" produced the phenomenon that I heard my body's voice from in front of me. The phenomenon has occurred many times since, often as an End Phenomenon of a process. And it happened while I was part way through OT IV. I told the auditor. And I suppose he reported to the c/s. After that, I was refused further auditing. And there I was, on leave with full pay until I became OT IV! Mad. It was about Christmas, and I took the bus (long journey) from Edinburgh to London and spent Christmas 1968 with my parents.
The CO says "speed up".
A funny incident: The Commanding Officer, Doreen Casey, had a 5 or 6 year old son, Christopher Casey. He was with us in Edinburgh. And I imagine they did not quite know what to do with him. He was a sweet, innocent, and lively child. In those days the Sea Org was looming in the background, and it was fashionable, especially in Pubs Org, to do what the Sea Org did. As, I suppose, an emblem of authority, a Sea Org Quartermaster (apparently equivalent to an Ethics office), carried a short wooden baton. Christopher went around the four-story Pubs org building, running from person to person, shaking or pointing a Quartermaster's baton at each person and saying cheerfully "The CO says speed up!" and then, without waiting for a reply, speeded on to the next person on his route. He turned up about every twenty minutes.
"Overboarding" - two baskets
There were two other "Sea Org" practices we tried to take over. Probably all who read this know of the Sea Org practice of throwing people overboard. We of course had to follow suit, but being away from the sea, how could we? Well, we had a flat roof to the factory. When somebody had to be "overboarded" we all went up to the roof with buckets of water, and threw them at the victim who was fully clothed.
In Scientology we had what was called the three-basket system. Everybody had on his or her desk three baskets, marked from top to bottom "In", "Pending" and "Out". Ron tended to try all new ideas out at the place where he was. He was now (precise whereabouts unknown) in the Sea Org. There was also rampant at that time the sort of motto "Do what Ron would do". The rumour came through that in the sea org they only had two baskets, In and Out. Although it still said in Policy that one should have three, Pubs Org staff had all their "pending" baskets removed.
Fleeing from Great Britain
When I came back from my "Christmas leave", unable to continue my OT IV because I was exterior, and on leave until I was OT IV, I decided that I was not really exterior, which the Case Supervisor accepted, so I went back to getting auditing, but only for a short time. A minister in the British Government issued a decree (a few years later found to be illegal) forbidding people to come to Britain to study Scientology. It seemed this put L Ron Hubbard into a state of panic. He had, in the fifties, experienced the Washington DC Scientology Organisation (known as "the Founding Church", or FC) being raided, and meters and books confiscated. Apparently he was scared of that happening again, but to Pubs Org, and we had many books, ready for the great expansion that was expected, so an LRH order came through: Pubs Org was to be out of Britain within 24 hours with all its books. My leave was cancelled although I had not achieved OT IV! We did not know where we were going, but I, knowing it would probably be on the continent where English was not the major language, and I managed to get out and buy two books How to Learn a Language, and How to Learn Danish (Denmark and Sweden seemed the most likely places, as Denmark had two Scientology Orgs and Sweden five; I don't think any other continental country had a Scientology Org at that time).
I suppose a minor miracle happened, but a miracle with hard work. The contents of a four-story factory building had to be out of the country within 24 hours. No idea as to where. The executive council worked on it. Containers were ordered, and preparations made for them to be dispatched to the continent from the South East English port of Felixstowe. Naturally all other work was stopped. A number (at least seven, possibly ten or more) of containers where ordered, and we worked full time filling these containers. Full-time meant that when there was a container out in the narrow Thistle Street Lane, we were busy filling it. The statistic I remember was that at one point I worked for about six hours, then got four hours sleep because there were no containers waiting, and then worked next to nonstop the next twenty four hours - and this was no light work, like my three days and nights sorting mimeo issues!
When the factory building was emptied - everything sent away in containers, including "my" Gestetner printing machines, most of us were flown to Denmark. We landed at London Airport (Heathrow) on the way, and I was able to ring my parents with the news that I was moving to Denmark. We had an Australian on staff, John Smith I think, who, so far as I remember was traveling around the world in a minibus, when he discovered Scientology in the form of Pubs Org in Edinburgh, and joined staff. He drove to Denmark in his van which was very useful to us in Denmark.
This was the end of my life in Great Britain, though not the end of my Pubs Org career, and my Scientology Story still goes on. So perhaps moving to a new country is an appropriate place to end. Writing this installment has been difficult. I have had trouble remembering it, and there are still names I can't remember. For example, production Division had a Department of production services as the first department, and Department of Production Manufacture as the third Department, but what was the name of the middle department, where all the creative work was done?
It is also clear, very clear, that conditions were chaotic and stressful, and I am led to wonder whether this description is, first, intelligible, and second conveys a proper idea of the formation of what are now two fairly large Scientology organisations. I would recommend for further reading on Pubs Org after I left it in 1970/1 the Home Page (and the amplification in a book) of Jeff Hawkins, who was in Pubs Org during my last days there. An IVy reader, Beth Guest, wrote this :
"Jeff Hawkins was in the church for 35 years but came out five years ago. At that time he was 58 and luckily had a bit of money. By reading up and sending out carefully written CVs he did manage to get a job and now runs his own marketing business."
It seems that in the church he was involved in marketing for most of his SO life. I understand that in the USA in the 1980s there was a boom in book sales and DMSMH went on the best seller list. This was largely due to Jeff's ideas. He surveyed the potential purchasers carefully and set up adverts accordingly. He was commended by LRH.
More to come
Well, my Scientology Story is not finished. I am still alive and kicking, and although I have severed all connections to the "official" Scientology bodies, I still have "faith" in some Scientology principles, and have made my own (I believe self-determined) choice where I see conflict. So there is more to come, and if IVy magazine does not continue in 2011, you will nevertheless be able to see it (God willing - I ain't a going to write more for a few months) on my Internet Site at www.antology.info .
------------------------- WRITTEN 2020 – my goodness! I need to catch up on this. All the events leading up to me being thrown out of the church of Scientology and my Scientology (FriScientology) activity since then need to be written up!Postscript 2013
Since writing the above, there have been further developments in my cancer in the penis area (had to have the end of my penis removed – and some of the case history of this is described at http://www.antology.info/mp3_video.php), which caused me to look further at that area. While there are lots of factors that came up, one thing which appeared to glue them all together was the question of inhibited communication on all sorts of things concerned with sex and the excretory area of the body.
I then found out that there was a lot of charge connected with inhibited communication connected to OT III (and therefore also NOTs). I had an auditor helping me on that, and we first tried to run as an incident, or series of incidents, and this really resulted in my Itsaing a lot to the auditor – not really incident running. We therefore tried to prepcheck OTIII (remember, I was eleven years from starting OT III to going onto NOTs), and this also produced lots of Itsa. My attitude to OT III and NOTs over the last 20 years has been that they were a waste of time, and what I ran (hours and hours, on OT III, NOTs, and solo NOTs) was charge I mocked up and then as-issed.
Probably the most charged area was around the trip to Alicanti at the beginning of the long OT III cycle. There I felt inhibited about talking to anyone at Alicanti about my problems and I had the pressure of having to be back on post at Saint Hill on the Tuesday.
My attitude is still that that sort of thing (body thetans: Thetans attached in some way to my body, not in control, and abberating me) is unreal to me.. It could be that they become real, but the evaluative aspect (telling me I have body thetans) is a negative aspect. I intend to audit on what is real to me (things that produce change) and leave OT III and NOTs until I become aware of something in my own universe of that nature.
Antony Phillips April 14th2013
