Inside Scientology (15 page)

As the British journalist C. H. Rolph pointed out in his 1973 book on the attempted takeover,
Believe What You Like,
the staff of the NAMH became suspicious when they noticed that all of the new membership applications had been mailed from either East Grinstead or a post office on Tottenham Court Road, the location of Scientology's London Org. Notifying the authorities, the group, just two days before the election, uncovered the scheme, which included a plan to elect the Scientologist David Gaiman, a member of the Guardian's Office, to the position of chairman. The Scientologists were subsequently asked to resign.
^*

Hubbard was careful to portray psychiatry not just as "barbaric," but also as barbarism endorsed by the state. It was the state that stuck with Jeff—Hubbard rarely attacked psychiatry without linking it in one way or another to Western governments or institutions. This wasn't outrageous; it was simply revolutionary, Jeff thought. But the voice of Scientology became increasingly strident. Psychiatrists were rapists, killers. They were fascists—indeed, psychiatrists were behind Hitler's death camps. The nefarious SMERSH, and its agents throughout the Wog World (including, Hubbard believed,
Time
magazine, whose purpose, he once wrote, was to "cause riots and disaffection"
), needed to be destroyed. Only they, the Scientologists and L. Ron Hubbard, could do it.

It was within this increasingly combative mentality that Jeff found himself working for Warrant Officer Doreen Casey, who'd come to Pubs, it seemed to him, to reinforce the fact that Hubbard's war was literal. A new code of discipline, known as "lower conditions," was introduced and enforced. Based on Hubbard's Conditions of Existence, it prescribed punishment for any misstep or question that ran counter to the goal of clearing the planet and fighting the enemy, and it could be markedly humiliating.

A staff member who offended by, say, oversleeping was said to be in a condition of Liability, and made to wear blue overalls with a dirty gray rag tied around his arm. Someone who employed an unsuccessful sales strategy might be labeled an Enemy and would also have to wear overalls, with a heavy chain linked around her waist. Some of the worst offenders, a staffer who misspent church funds, for instance, were assigned a condition of Treason. As Jeff recalled, "These people were ushered into the elevator and taken to a small space at the bottom of the elevator shaft where they were imprisoned until they had come to their senses." To get out of any of these conditions required a member to evaluate his or her own thoughts, actions, and goals based on those of the greater group.

"Basically, one rises up from the conditions by aligning oneself with group goals," Jeff said. "The inevitable conclusion is that one's friends are the group, one's own intentions and actions have been selfish and petty, and one has to 'get with the program.'" Then, to show renewed dedication, a member would be required to do a series of amends—scrubbing floors with a toothbrush was a common penance—which culminated with the humiliating act of petitioning each member of the group, individually, to be allowed to rejoin them.

To Jeff, this wasn't Scientology, at least not the Scientology he had signed up for. It was hazing, something with which he, and many others, were unfamiliar. And yet he was invested in Scientology, dedicated to its cause. Hubbard, whose rich but gentle voice had the power to lull him into an almost hypnotic state, was his leader.

So, unable to process the new discipline, Jeff dismissed it as an aberration: a punishment inflicted solely by Doreen Casey. In fact Casey represented a definitive new trend within the church. Though its members and low-ranking staffers like Jeff were ex-hippies and other free spirits, the Sea Organization operated on far more authoritarian principles. A failed war hero, Hubbard now commanded his own navy. And its staff, in turn, would soon command Scientology.

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plane sailed over the Straits of Gibraltar like a shuddering tin can. On board, Jeff Hawkins closed his eyes. He practiced a technique Scientologists often used to make things happen: he created an image in his mind, a "postulate," of the plane landing safely on the ground. A few minutes later, it made a bumpy landing in Tangier. Then the plane took off once again, and an hour later finally set down in Casablanca. Jeff breathed a happy sigh. He had no idea where he was going, but at least he was now on solid ground.

It was 1971 and Jeff, who had risen in the ranks of the Publications Org, had been summoned to attend a special training course for would-be Scientology executives aboard Hubbard's flagship, the
Royal Scotsman
—now renamed the
Apollo.
Exactly where the ship was sailing, Jeff didn't know. In Copenhagen, where Pubs had relocated to handle the dissemination of Scientology materials across Europe, Jeff had been given a plane ticket and told to fly to Madrid. There he was met by a Sea Org official working for a cover organization, the Operation and Transport Company, who put him on a plane bound for Casablanca. "When you land, get on a bus for a town called Safi," the official said.

Jeff waited for a bus on the crowded streets of Casablanca and finally found one headed for Safi, a seaport several hours away. After an uncomfortable journey, he arrived and made his way toward the docks. There he saw it: a gleaming white ship.

"Welcome aboard!" David Ziff, Jeff's old boss at Pubs, shouted from the gangplank. Jeff hadn't seen Ziff in three years. Back then he'd looked like a rumpled college professor. Now he was a spit-polished, stand-at-attention officer of the Sea Org, dressed in crisp military whites. "Welcome to Flag!" he said, referring to the ship, a three-story, 3,278-ton behemoth that, in a former life, had served as an Irish cattle ferry and then as a troop transport during World War II.
Now it housed offices, dining facilities, cabins, and a Telex room. At the top were two large white stacks, each engraved with the letters
L
R
H
in elaborate gold script.

Jeff Hawkins may have hated Sea Org Warrant Officer Doreen Casey, but he had overwhelming respect for the Sea Organization as a whole. They were the "aristocracy of Scientology,"
as Hubbard described them, who'd signed contracts for one billion years of service, pledging their lives—current and future—to the Cause. Their motto, "We Come Back," signified eternal vigilance.

Originally called the Sea Project, the group was staffed with volunteers; most were recruited at Saint Hill. One of them, Neville Chamberlin, was a young British Scientologist who'd grown up around Hubbard—his mother had been one of earliest clients at Scientology's London Org, where Hubbard spent a great deal of time. Chamberlin had begun working at Saint Hill shortly after finishing high school, in the mid-1960s. One day in November 1966, a notice appeared on the Saint Hill bulletin board, asking for volunteers with naval or seagoing experience. Within the hour, the notice was taken down, and those who had seen it, including Chamberlin, were sworn to secrecy. "We began to notice certain staff members disappearing from their posts," recalled Chamberlin. "It was all very hush-hush." Finally, in April 1967, Chamberlin was recruited to join this "confidential project." He was told he'd need a valid passport and should pack a suitcase. Soon after, he and nineteen other Scientologists left Saint Hill for the northern seaport of Hull, where they set sail aboard a 414-foot trawler, the
Avon River,
for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Two other ships, the
Royal Scotsman
and the
Enchanter,
would follow.

Despite the call for volunteers with experience at sea, few in the Sea Project knew much about ships, which may explain why Hubbard hired professional seamen to sail the boat from England to the Canary Islands. The
Avon River
had a particularly arduous journey—its skipper, Captain John Jones, would later recall the trip as the strangest excursion of his life. The sole navigational guide allowed on board was a sailing manual written by Hubbard, called the "Org Book," which banned the use of advanced navigational technology like radar and insisted the ships plot their course using radio frequencies. "My crew were sixteen men and four women Scientologists who wouldn't know a trawler from a tramcar. But they intended to sail this tub four thousand miles in accordance with the 'Org Book,'" Jones later told a reporter from the London
Sunday Mirror.
"We tried these methods. Getting out of Hull we bumped the dock. Then, using the 'Org Book' navigation system based on radio beams from the BBC and other stations, we [sailed only a few miles down the coast] before the navigator admitted he was lost. I stuck to my watch and sextant, so at least I knew where we were."

Chamberlin and the rest of the
Avon River
's crew arrived in Las Palmas several weeks later. To conceal the fact that they were Scientologists, Hubbard had incorporated the Hubbard Explorational Company Ltd. before he left England, and now ordered his Sea Project to explain to anyone who asked that they were members of a team of archaeologists. With this as their cover, Chamberlin and the crew of the
Avon River
set to work giving the ship a major overhaul, converting cargo holds into bunks and offices, blasting away rust, and slapping on several coats of fresh white paint.

Hubbard occasionally stopped by, "dressed in his denim jeans and jacket and peaked cap," as Chamberlin recalled, but he spent most of his time in the hills, where he'd rented a hacienda overlooking the sea, known as the Villa Estrella. It was from the patio of the villa that Hubbard recorded "Ron's Journal '67" in September 1967, announcing his breakthrough discovery of the Wall of Fire, something so physically taxing, he told his followers, he'd broken his back, his knee, and his arm over the course of his research. Chamberlin didn't notice that Hubbard had any broken bones, but he did recall that he had a "pharmaceutical store of drugs" at the Villa Estrella. "Most of the stuff was codeine-type pills," he said. "But this wasn't just for migraine, it was a whole wall of stuff."

Chamberlin was one of a number of followers who believed Hubbard did most of his early OT research under the influence of drugs, as well as, perhaps, Jameson Irish whiskey, which Chamberlin recalled he'd drunk liberally at Saint Hill. In one oft-quoted 1967 letter to his wife, Hubbard admitted it: "I'm drinking lots of rum and popping pinks and greys."

In Las Palmas, Hubbard eventually sobered up. "I don't think that Hubbard did any drugs after 1967," said Chamberlin. Indeed, those who joined Hubbard in the late 1960s say they never saw Hubbard intoxicated at all. "When I was with LRH, only twice in eight years on the ship did I see him take a drink of alcohol, and it was whiskey to warm up after a storm," said one of Hubbard's former aides, Karen Gregory.
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"I never saw LRH take drugs. And I had access to all of his drawers, his closets. I never saw anything."

By the end of 1967, Hubbard had recruited many more people to join the Sea Organization, as it was now called. They were a motley crew: of the fifty or so volunteers who'd sailed to Las Palmas on either the
Enchanter
or the
Avon River,
and the additional twenty Scientologists who left England several months later on the
Royal Scotsman,
almost no one could sail a ship. But that didn't seem to faze Hubbard. He convinced his devotees that they
had
sailed before—if not in this life, then in a previous one.

One young Scientologist, Hana Eltringham, a South African nurse who'd joined the Sea Organization as a "great adventure," later recalled her terror at being put in command of the
Avon River
in 1968. To remedy this fear, Hubbard put the twenty-two-year-old Eltringham on the E-meter and ordered her to recall the last time she'd been captain of a ship. "My first thought was, this is ridiculous,"
she said. "Then I started to get vague impressions of a time in some past life when I was a captain of a ship and there was a storm at sea ... It was very real, not an imaginary thing at all." By the end of her session, she said, she felt calmer. "I went up on deck and felt the fear and terror in my stomach just disappear. I suddenly felt very able, very competent to tackle anything that came along."

While learning the ropes, Hubbard's Sea Organization (like members of the Pubs Org, as Jeff Hawkins recalled) became test subjects for Hubbard's ethics conditions. The whole series of awards and punishments was instituted, including the wearing of heavy chains or rags to signify a degraded state. Crew members who were punished for a particularly low ethics condition found themselves condemned to a few days, or even weeks, in a dark chain locker in the bowels of the ship.

By the latter part of 1968, the Sea Organization had arrived in Corfu, where Hubbard decided to give his ships heroic new names —the pedestrian-sounding
Avon River,
Enchanter,
and
Royal Scotman
were rechristened the
Athena,
the
Diana,
and the
Apollo,
in honor of their Greek hosts. Of the three, the latter ship became Hubbard's flagship, also simply called "Flag." This ship became the setting for a particularly draconian punishment called overboarding, whereby errant Scientologists—be they Sea Org members or visitors who'd come to take a course aboard the
Apollo
and had somehow disappointed the Commodore (as Hubbard now was called)—were thrown into the Mediterranean. Hubbard or one of his immediate subordinates would initiate the ritual with a chant from the captain's deck:
"We commit your sins and errors to the deep and trust you will rise a better thetan."