Inside The Church Of Scientology’s RPF - Rehabilitation Project Force
This is a brief video which shows what the inside of the RPF looks like. The RPF, or Rehabilitation Project Force is where Sea Org members go who’ve been disaffected with the movement.
A re-education camp where they do about five or six hours of manual labor and then spend the rest of their day being re-orientated with the ideology of Scientology, or what they call “auditing.”
Essentially a forced labor camp used to re-indoctrinate Scientologist back into the fold. This has been called a modern day “gulag.”
Here’s more on what goes on inside the RPF from an article in Rolling Stone. After the jump is a section of the article which discusses 13-year-old Jeffrey’s life in the Sea Org and his experiences with the RPF. I encourage you to read this, and if you have time, the entire Rolling Stone article.
Jeffrey Aylor was thirteen when he joined the sea Organization. Raised in a Scientology family in Los Angeles, he was at church one day when a Sea Org recruiter approached him. “What are you doing with your life?” he asked the teen.
Jeffrey had no idea what to say. “I’m thirteen, I’m not doing anything with my life,” Jeffrey said. The recruiter asked him if he wanted to “help” people. Jeffrey said, “Sure. What kid doesn’t want to help people?”
Thus began Jeffrey’s immersion into the tightly wound world of the Sea Org, where he would spend the next seven years of his life. In that time, he would see fewer than ten movies, would rarely listen to music and never had sex. Though theoretically reading newspapers and magazines was allowed — USA Today is sold openly on Gold Base — in practice it was discouraged, along with surfing the Internet and watching TV. Indeed, all contact with the world at large was “entheta.” “I never considered myself a Scientologist until I joined the Sea Org,” Jeffrey says.
Jeffrey’s indoctrination began with a boot camp known as the “Estates Project Force,” or EPF. There, he learned to march, salute and perform manual labor. Physical work is a key training technique for new recruits. Jeffrey’s sister, for instance, went through the EPF when she was twelve and was forced to crawl through ducts that were roach- and rat-infested. Like the TRs, this kind of work, Jeffrey explains, is meant to raise a person’s “confront,” enabling them to be more in control of their environment.
After the EPF, Jeffrey was given a blue shirt, blue tie and dark-blue trousers, and sent to work as a receptionist at the American Saint Hill Organization for spiritual training, on Scientology’s expansive Hollywood campus. He was paid fifty dollars per week and worked an average of fifteen hours per day, including an hour or two of auditing and other training. Home was a large barracks-style room in a building where Jeffrey lived with about twenty other boys and men. In seven years, Jeffrey says, he saw his family just a handful of times. His only free time was the few hours he received on Sunday mornings to do his laundry. Hubbard believed strongly in productivity, which he saw as highly ethical behavior. “We reward production and up-statistics and penalize nonproduction and down-statistics,” he wrote in Introduction to Scientology Ethics.
Eventually, Jeffrey found himself on “PTS watch,” monitoring Sea Org members who wanted to leave the order. According to church officials, Sea Org members can leave anytime they want. But in practice, the attitude is “the only reason you’d want to leave is because you’ve done something wrong,” says Jeffrey. This would call for a round of “sec checks,” which would continue throughout the “route out” process, which can take up to a year. During that time, former Sea Org members have asserted, they are subjected to so much pressure they often decide not to leave after all.
To make sure no one would leave before their route-out was complete, Jeffrey would shadow them: “I’ve been assigned to go and sleep outside somebody’s door — all night, for as many nights as it takes — on the floor, against the door, so I could feel if they opened it. If they went to the bathroom, someone would stand right outside. Someone is always there.”
Some wayward members have “disappeared” for long periods of time, sent to special Scientology facilities known as the “Rehabilitation Project Force.” Created by Hubbard in 1974, the RPF is described by the church as a voluntary rehabilitation program offering a “second chance” to Sea Org members who have become unproductive or have strayed from the church’s codes. It involves intensive physical labor (at church facilities) and auditing and study sessions to address the individual’s personal problems. The process is given a positive spin in church writings. “Personnel ‘burnout’ is not new to organizations,” a post on Scientology’s official Web site reads, in relation to the RPF, “but the concept of complete rehabilitation is.”
Former Sea Org members who’ve been through the program charge that it is a form of re-indoctrination, in which hard physical labor and intense ideological study are used to break a subject’s will. Chuck Beatty, a former Sea Org member, spent seven years in the RPF facilities in Southern California, from 1996 to 2003, after expressing a desire to speak out against the church. For this, he was accused of “disloyalty,” a condition calling for rehabilitation. “My idea was to go to the RPF for six or eight months and then route out,” says Beatty. “I thought that was the honorable thing to do.” In the RPF he was given a “twin,” or auditing partner, who was responsible for making sure he didn’t escape. “It’s a prison system,” he says, explaining that all RPFers are watched twenty-four hours per day and prevented from having contact with the outside world. “It’s a mind-bending situation where you feel like you’re betraying the group if you try to leave.”
Quiet and disciplined by nature, Jeffrey never minded the regimentation and order of the Sea Org. “I was wrapped up in work,” he says. “And that’s what I liked doing. And I thought I was helping people.” But when he became ill, his perspective radically changed. For the first six years of his Sea Org service, Jeffrey had kept his asthma and other health issues in check. In the spring of 2004, he began to develop severe chest pains. By the summer, he was unable to work. By fall, he could barely get out of bed.
Scientologists believe that most illnesses are products of a person’s own psychic traumas — they are brought upon themselves. Sea Org members are promised medical care for any illness, but Jeffrey says that he received little medical attention or money with which to seek outside medical care. Instead, he was sent to Ethics counseling. When that didn’t cure him, it was suggested he return to the EPF to repeat his training.
Even while bedridden, “if I wasn’t there pushing somebody to take me to a doctor . . . it didn’t happen,” he says. Lying in bed one night, Jeffrey listened to a taped lecture given by L. Ron Hubbard, in which he made his famous statement “If it isn’t true for you, it isn’t true.” For Jeffrey, this began a questioning process that would eventually lead to his leaving Scientology altogether. “Nobody can force Scientology upon you, but that is exactly what was happening to me,” he says.
And so, one day last February, he asked for some time off to see a doctor. Then he called his mother and asked her to come get him. When she arrived the next morning, Jeffrey left his keys and his Sea Organization ID card behind on his bed. Then, taking only his clothes, he left.
Now twenty-three, Jeffrey lives in a small mountain town more than four hours from Los Angeles. Since his “escape,” as he calls it, from the Sea Org, he has not returned to the church. He has never spoken out about his experiences, which he still insists “weren’t all that bad.” But because he left the Sea Org without permission, he has been declared suppressive. Soon, he believes, his family still in the church will have nothing more to do with him.
The order of disconnection, called a “declare,” is issued on a piece of gold-colored parchment known as a “goldenrod.” This document proclaims the suppressive person’s name, as well as his or her “crime.” According to one friend of Jeffrey’s mother who has read his declare, Jeffrey’s crimes are vague, but every Scientologist who sees it will understand its point.
“This declare is a warning to Jeffrey’s friends in the Sea Org,” this woman, who is still a member of the church, explains. “It’s saying to them, ‘See this kid, he left without permission. This is what happened to him. Don’t you make the same mistake.’”
* * * *
During the time I was researching this piece, I received a number of e-mails from several of the Scientologists I had interviewed. Most were still technically members of the church in good standing; privately they had grown disillusioned and have spoken about their feelings for the first time in this article. All of the young people mentioned in this story, save Natalie, are considered by the church hierarchy to be Potential Trouble Sources. But many have begun to worry they will be declared Suppressive Persons.
Their e-mails expressed their second thoughts and their fears.
“PLEASE, let me know what you will be writing in the story,” wrote one young woman. “I just want to make sure that people won’t be able to read it and figure out who I am. I know my mom will be reading.”
“The church is a big, scary deal,” wrote another. “My [initial] attitude was if this information could save just one person the money, heartache and mind-bending control, then all would be worth it. [But] I’m frightened of what could happen.”
“I’m about two seconds away from losing my whole family, and if that story comes out with my stuff in it, I will,” wrote a third. “I’m terrified. Please, please, please . . . if it’s not too late . . . help me keep my family.”
One particularly frantic e-mail arrived shortly before this story was published. It came from a young Scientologist with whom I had corresponded several times in the course of three or four months. When we first met, she spoke passionately and angrily about the impact of the church on herself and those close to her.
“Please forgive me,” she wrote. “The huge majority of things I told you were lies. Perhaps I don’t like Scientology. True. But what I do know is that I was born with the family I was born with, and I love them. Don’t ask me to tear down the foundation of their lives.” Like almost every young person mentioned in this piece, this woman was given a pseudonym to protect her identity, and her family’s. But it wasn’t enough, she decided. “This is my life . . . Accept what I tell you now for fact: I will not corroborate or back up a single thing I said.
“I’m so sorry,” she concluded. “I hope you understand that everyone I love is terribly important to me, and I am willing to look beyond their beliefs in order to keep them around. I will explain in further detail, perhaps, some other day.”
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Yanked already! Fast.
Comment by pwinn — February 28, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
Not quite, I don’t think it has finished loading in YouTube yet. I was premature!
Comment by D — February 28, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
They make a cream for that, you know.
Comment by k — February 28, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
Hehe, it’s up now.
Comment by D — February 28, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
Wow! Those anonymous people really are everywhere! I’ve been kind of lurking around & watching this unfold, and cannot believe all this new information. Of course, people have known for years that it was expensive and cultish, but yikes. I can’t believe this stuff is permitted in modern societies.
I missed the first protest, and was kind of scared to go to the second one, but the stuff about kids being held without passports, and now this… I think I’m going to have to join in just so I’ll be counted in the numbers of people who have had it with Scientologists.
They’re so creepy & mysterious: “Come on in and have a free personality test so you can experience the wonders of Scientology.”
“Um, what wonders?”
“Well, you have to receive services and experience it for yourself. It’s done wonders for my life.” (creepy, fake, forced smile with blank, dead eyes)
Yeah, I don’t think so. I think I know enough, now.
Thanks, D, for leading on this story. It’s just amazing.
Comment by J (I like the initial thing!) — February 28, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
GlossLip, we’ve got your back. Keep up the good fight.
Comment by marcab — February 28, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
All your base are belong to us…I can has top bunk?
Anyone know what’s happening with Shawn Lonsdale’s videotapes and photos? I’d imagine there are some pretty incriminating things in his collection that could reinforce some of these allegations. Do any Clearwater Anons know? Or know someone connected that you could ask? Keep tabs on that collection, it could be VERY telling. Don’t let it fall into the wrong hands…
Comment by Anon, Anon, My Boyfriend's Back! — February 28, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
“In interviews and public records, former staffers have said they were alienated from society, stripped of familiar beliefs, punished for aberrant behavior, rewarded for conformity, and worked beyond exhaustion to meet ever escalating productivity quotas” (June 26, 1990, p. A16). If a member’s productivity began to decline or especially if they are suspected of doing anything that would undermine Scientology, they could be subjected to time in RPF.
“RPF’ers as they are called, are separated from their family and friends for days, weeks, months or even longer. They cannot speak unless spoken to, they run wherever they go and they wear armbands to denote their lowly condition.” They are expected to do very menial jobs and hard labor or whatever the management “deem necessary for redemption” (Ibid).
Respected sociologist, Stephen Kent, professor at the University of Alberta, recently presented a paper on the RPF at the academic Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
In it he details and documents the creation, purpose and abuses of Scientology’s RPF. Using internal Scientology documents such as “Sea Organization Flag Order 343B. 30 May, 1977,” and others, Kent writes, “In considerable detail the RPF document laid out the framework of forcible confinement, physical and social maltreatment, intensive reindoctrination, and forced confessions that were (and are) central to the program’s operation” (Brainwashing in Scientology’s Rehabilitation Project Force, November 7, 1997)
Comment by anonv2.0 — February 28, 2008 @ 1:11 pm
**********BOYCOTT ALL SCIENTOLOGISTS**********
TOM CRUISE
KATIE HOLMES
JENNA & BODHI ELFMAN
JASON LEE
BECK
GIOVANNI RIBISI & FAMILY
JULIETTE LEWIS
ETHAN SUPLEE
KIRSTY ALLEY
JOHN TRAVOLTA
JENNIFER ASPEN
MARISOL NICHOLS
CATHERINE BELL
NANCY CARTWRIGHT
DANNY & CHRIS MASTERSON
LAURA PREPON
ERIKA CHRISTENSEN
SKY DAYTON/EARTHLINK.COM
ISAAC HAYES
LEAH REMINI
FOX NEWS CHANNEL
Comment by ANONY MOUSe — February 28, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
No matter what they are claiming to call themselves (church, religion, organization), are these actions punishable by law? Can COS find a loophole to escape being held accountable for imprisoning members? Will they claim that the members in RPF willfully agreed to the conditions in which they live? Are prisions across this country also tax exempt? It seems that more and more items are being circulated to bring to light the terrifying sub-culture that is the COS. I also can’t believe that these things are literally happening in our own back yards. Thank you D for bringing this to light, and thank you Anon for standing up to these bullys!
Comment by sillygrrl — February 28, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
Yes, much better. The video is working now.
Comment by Phillip Winn — February 28, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
MAN, THAT “RELIGION” SUCKS.
So that’s where they send you when you don’t make them enough money? Or what? I don’t get it, but I bet it sucks to be living there while Tom Cruise and David Miscavige are eating lobster at the Celebrity Center and laughing their asses off.
CAN YOU SAY…….CULT OF GREED
Comment by Larry — February 28, 2008 @ 4:37 pm
According to some accounts on OCMB, this is old and not the work of anonymous…possibly not even really the RPF…needs more looking into.
Comment by Anon, Anon, My Boyfriend's Back! — February 28, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
*sings* “Have I told you lately, that I love you”
Comment by MaxwellSmart — February 28, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
It is not the work of anonymous, it is a piece put together by someone who was in a position to record this video. He/She is a person who has spent some time at this facility and knew that the world should know what it is like and that it definitely exists.
If you review the thread on OCMB, you will see a few people say things like “wow, I never thought I’d see that place again!” which indicates to me, that it is a factual/actual place that people are sent to.
Comment by dr3k — February 28, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
Thanks dr3k, it helps having eye-witness accounts backing up this story.
Comment by D — February 28, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
um - beware that OSA is going to be like a cornered cobra soon.
Nasty commenting will be the least of people’s worries.
If you plan to protest, organise and anonymise.
Be prepared for March. And stay safe.
Comment by beebee — February 28, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
Just so you know, I heard from my IRS rep about tax status and they’re standing firm behind the church’s status.
UNTIL WE CAN PROVE THEY ARE NOT A NON-PROFIT NOR A CHARITY, WE CANNOT GET THEIR STATUS CHANGED!!! Stories like this can only help prove our point.
HOWEVER! You can still write your representative and let them know your opinion on the matter. If enough wheels squeak, something has to get greased. Go to congress.org to contact your reps. This is something anyone can do. If you’re reading this, then you have a computer and internet access. You probably have an email address, maybe several. Take twenty minutes and make a difference. YOU WILL BE HEARD!
WE HAVE GOT to get take their exempt status from them. WRITE YOUR STATE REPS and let them know what is really going on.
Comment by PlainJaneLane — February 28, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
http://www.exscientologykids.com/index.html wow!
Comment by MaxwellSmart — February 28, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
I think heard something completely different #18.
As I understand it, the burden of proof is on Scientology and the IRS to prove why one religious group gets special privileges over every other time-tested, firmly established, generally accepted and respected institution of spiritual guidance.
The IRS has two choices: either grant ALL religions the same privilege (imagine that for a second) or overturn the earlier hearing and ruling and deny CoS Status. Ding, ding….
When push comes to shove, this country does the right thing, it has good people who care and want to right the wrongs. But bureaucracy is a tangible obstacle to getting things done.
I feel very confident that a case like this would be easily overturned.
“The Government shall promote no religion over another.”
Proving it will be easy too.
All other religions allow you to worship, belong and participate without giving one single cent. Ever. And Ever. But Scientology has “fixed” donations?
So, I don’t know, in my opinion Scientology has a business structure and as such should become one, own up, fess up, reform and move on into an enlightened and positive world where their tech can be appreciated with scrutiny and their efforts improved through criticism and openness.
Truth. Try it, it’s the way of the future.
Comment by D — February 29, 2008 @ 12:11 am
Larry, leave Tom alone, he isn’t in the organisation, he is a famous adpet use by the church.
You should make some research or read that biography.
Comment by fff — February 29, 2008 @ 2:08 am
Boycott FOX NEWS CHANNEL?
Umm, I may choose not to watch FOX because it is soft journalism at it’s worst, but it is hardly a WISE, ABLE or otherwise CoS run business.
Scientology Lies
xenu.net
03.15.08
Expect US
Comment by CyberChrist — February 29, 2008 @ 9:13 am
http://www.exscientologykids.com/
Comment by marcab — February 29, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
Yo, #22/Larry…
Yeah, boycott Faux News because they employ that insufferable harpy Greta van Sustren who’s a high level CLAM and bullies FAUX into dropping stories that are anti-Scientology.. Didn’t it srike you as, ohhh, you know.. ODD that Faux carried the LEAST amount of footage regarding the 2/10 protests by Anonymous? Wonder why?
Comment by WTM — February 29, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
[...] Source: D [...]
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