I was given a briefing in more detail on the shore story we were to tell outsiders. No one, not even other Scientologists outside of Flag, was to know the location of the ship. If someone wanted to write to us, they had to write to the address of the liaison office, either in LA or New York and the letters were forwarded to us from these offices. This meant everyone, including parents. I'm sure my parents were frantic, not knowing where I was, but I didn't think about that at the time. My parents seemed very far away.
I was taken on a brief tour of the ship. Directly above the dormitories, still below decks was a lounge called the aft lounge (being located in the aft part of the ship). It was fairly large and during mealtimes, makeshift tables were put between rows of chairs and the lounge was used as a dining room for some of the crew. I noticed teen-age girls ironing clothes. These girls would do nothing but iron and wash clothes all day. Later I found out that they were in training to be personal messengers to LRH. Once they made it to the position of LRH messenger, these girls were extremely cocky, drunk on the power that LRH gave them. Some of these girls are now in their late 20s and among the top executives in Scientology today.
Just behind the aft lounge was a room where the chain locker was. The chain locker is the place where the chain to the anchor of the ship is kept when the ship if not at anchor, a very small dark place. Many times I saw people being locked up in the chain locker as punishment. I'll never forget the first time I saw this. Some messengers had locked up a terrified young teenage boy in the chain locker. His punishment was to spend the night there. I didn't know what he was being punished for, but the whole incident made my blood run cold. I'll never forget the terrified look in that boy's eyes. Whenever I think about the current leadership of the church, which consists mainly of people who were raised in such an atmosphere, I can only feel pity for these people, who are really just frightened children. As badly as I felt about what I witnessed, I shut it out of my mind, explaining it away by saying that LRH could not possibly have known about it.
The Flag Auditor's Internship
Shortly after my briefing, I was taken to the internship course room, where I was introduced to a supervisor, a stern, prim and proper woman in her mid-thirties with a serious pale freckled face and light brown hair that was tightly pulled back into a ponytail. She rarely smiled and I don't ever recall hearing her laugh. Life on Flag was a deadly serious affair. There were signs posted in the classroom saying something like (I don't recall the exact wording) «All I expect is perfection» and «The only exception to the rule that there are no absolutes is the Flag auditor», quotes from LRH. Our time was spent either studying materials, doing TRs or auditing preclears. There were about 10–15 interns on the ship who, like myself, had come from outer orgs to Flag for the purpose of being highly trained as Flag auditors and returning to our orgs. Our days were long, starting at 8:30 AM and ending at 10:30 PM. If our stats were up, meaning if we were doing well, we were allowed one day off every two weeks.
Every morning, all of the interns and auditors would assemble for a muster and we would recite, in unison the points of «Keeping Scientology Working» from a policy letter by L. Ron Hubbard. Some of these points were:
«Having the correct technology.» «Applying the correct technology.» «Hammering out of existence incorrect technology.» «Closing the door on any possibility of incorrect technology.» «Closing the door on incorrect applications.»
In the same policy letter, Hubbard had said, «It's a tough universe and only the tigers survive.» Flag, I was to learn very quickly, was a tough universe indeed!
Each day we were assigned PCs, usually staff members, to audit. Since I was OT III some of the people I audited were in high positions. One of the first people I audited was a kind, middle-aged woman who was head of a division and had been on the ship since the late 1960s.
A PC's entire auditing history is recorded, session by session, and put into folders. My first task, when I was assigned a particular PC, was to study that person's auditing folders in order to familiarize myself with the case. This particular woman had been on the ship since the late 1960s when discipline was very harsh. At that time, any auditor who made a mistake was ordered by LRH to be thrown overboard into freezing cold water. This woman had been thrown overboard, an event that was recorded in her folder, since she had to deal with this humiliating trauma in her auditing sessions. Once again, deep down, I was appalled that LRH would order such a thing, but I didn't allow myself to think about it. Having a critical thought about LRH would be considered a crime of the highest magnitude. I was very glad, however, that the practice of overboarding had been discontinued due to the bad PR it created with the locals.
In 1973, we were not thrown overboard, but plenty of other ways were invented to punish and humiliate us if our auditing wasn't up to par. If a PC had a bad exam report, meaning no floating needle at the exam (see my earlier description of the auditing process), the auditor was always to blame. The auditor is sent back to review earlier materials to see what was misunderstood. It was unthinkable to say that the auditing process didn't work. LRH's tech «always works». If results are not achieved, it is the auditor's and sometimes the case supervisor's fault, never the tech's because the tech was created by LRH and LRH never makes mistakes. In the case of a bad exam report, the folder is red-tagged and the PC must be taken back in session within 24 hours and the mistake corrected.
If an auditor goofs up too much or if LRH or whoever is in charge is in a bad mood, ethics is applied; to put it more simply, the auditor is punished. One of the ways in which an auditor or any other staff member in Scientology can be punished is to be assigned a lower ethics condition. Every staff member is assigned an ethics condition, each week, according to how well he does his job. His performance is measured by statistics («stats»). For example, the statistic of a recruiter might be the number of people per week recruited into the org. The statistic for an auditor is the number of well done auditing hours. A person's statistic is expected to go up each week. If a person's stats are high, he is assigned an upper condition, such as normal operation, affluence or power and granted privileges, such as having a day off every two weeks. If a person's stats are down, he is assigned a lower condition, such as emergency, danger, non-existence or below. Each condition has a formula, which must be applied. Whenever a person starts a new job, he is considered to be in a condition of non-existence and must follow the formula, which is: 1) Find a communication line; 2) Make yourself known; 3) Find out what is needed and wanted; and 4) Do or produce it. Once this formula is completed, the person is upgraded to the next level until, hopefully, he attains normal operation or above.
If a person does something that is considered to be harmful to the group, he is assigned an ethics condition below non-existence. In descending order, these are: liability, doubt, enemy, treason and confusion. Along with doing the formulas for these conditions, the person is required to do extra work in his spare time (which means meal or sleep time) to make amends. On Flag it was very easy to be assigned a lower condition, especially for auditors and people on LRH's personal staff.
The Commodore Arrives
When I first arrived aboard Flag in May, 1973, Hubbard was not aboard. Nobody but a few people knew where he was. Years later, I found out that he had been living in Queens, New York with two other people. When Hubbard returned in September, discipline increased. I was very excited about Hubbard's return and seeing him in person for the first time. He kept his distance from most of the people aboard the ship, even top leaders who had come to Flag for training from outer orgs. He rarely spoke to anyone, except for his messengers and his top aides who worked directly under him. Sometimes, however, he would say hello to me when we passed. I would say «Hello, Sir» and he would nod in acknowledgement of my greeting.