The Rehabilitation Project Force, or RPF for short. It is a little-known branch of Scientology’s elite corps of followers. However, it is where the elite go when they have fallen from the Church’s good graces. It is also one of the more controversial policies the Church has, and is (like nearly all of their policies) cloaked in the right to practice religion.
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them…”
—Karl Popper
More below the fold.
Scientology’s elite organization, known as the Sea Org, has very strict guidelines that its members must follow. When someone has stepped out of line, whether it be for talking to friends or family who have since left the Church, or speaking critically of the current Church leader David Miscavige, it is known as being ‘out ethics.’ That person is then sent to the RPF.
Rare photo of workers on RPF at Los Angeles org, right off of Sunset Blvd. Circa 1998. Source.
The RPF is, for all intents and purposes, a type of gulag. The workers are made to run everywhere–walking is not permitted. They are to wear heavy black uniforms (like in the photo above). They are fed very little and are paid six cents more than sweat shop workers in China (approx. 36 cents an hour.)
There are harrowing accounts of what life must be like for these wayward souls, as recounted by an ex-Sea Org member:
“The third dramatic glimpse into RPF life came from Ann Bailey, who was involved in moving Scientology into its newly acquired former hospital (called the Cedars Sinai complex) [Diarist’s note: this facility is on Sunset Blvd]in the summer of 1978. After the move, which taxed her physical endurance, she found herself assigned to guard the secret, upper level doctrinal (Operating Thetan or OT) documents [Diarist’s note: OT 3, of which members like Tom Cruise and John Travolta have surpassed, is what South Park devoted a memorable episode to explaining] that were in a room without a door. They were in the former hospital’s old morgue, and she sat there for hours amidst the lingering “smell of death and chemicals and dissection” (Bailey, n.d.: 60). Then:
[s]uddenly during the third hours I was aware of shadows in the corridor beyond me. [T]hey were people. Slowly I realized that an entire group of people lived and worked down there. I was so tired [that] it took me time to realize who they were. Then it hit me. [The were t]he Cedars RPF. They lived and worked down in this stinkhole.This was their Org. Then I really found out what had happened to them. Filthy, tired, skeletons appeared before me and started begging to see the OT folders. I thought I looked bad, but I looked beautiful compared to them. They crowded around me pushing and shoving, then the mood turned ugly. They started hitting each other to get into the room behind me. I realized what had happened. They had been totally broken. They were animals, not humans. I saw four of my friends, one a Class Nine OT, fighting to get by me. They were punching each other in the face, pulling hair, kicking. And way down in this cellar no one could hear them, no one cared.
Someone suddenly hit me hard. I realized [that] they were turning their anger on me[. T]hey would beat me up to get the folders. I guess in periods of deep stress we all go a little insane — [s]urvival of the fittest. From somewhere in my tired brain, strength came. I stood up with all my TR’s [i.e., Scientology communication drills] as in as they had ever been, [and] all my training on control of groups came back. ‘Friends,’ I said, ‘Believe me, I am your friend. By some strange fate I am not with you on the RPF. But believe me if you don’t get out of here right now, I know [that] you will be punished. Go now before it’s too late.’ And they ran away into the dark. When I sat down I was trembling all over. Because the real intent of my message had been for them to get out of the hospital. Leave Cedars. But I don’t think any of them got the message (Bailey, n.d.: 61-62).
As the above photo illustrates, this policy is still being implemented today–in my documentary (currently in post-production) I have numerous testimonials about what is still taking place.
But how does one get to this point? How is one broken down to such a degree? The answer lies in the policies that Church management imposes on staff members, even if they’re never sent to RPF:
Scientology courses are designed to make students dependent on their instructors so it is “easier to brainwash them,” a disaffected Church of Scientology communications supervisor testified Tuesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
—The Oregonian
Indeed, we can see Hubbard’s thoughts on the subject in a book he wrote himself:
Brainwashing is a very simple mechanism. One gets a person to agree that something might be a certain way and then drives him by introverting him and through self-criticism to the possibility that is that way. Only then does a man believe that the erroneous fact was a truth. By gradient scale of hammering, pounding and torture, brainwashers are able to make people believe that these people [i.e., the victims] saw and did things which they never did do (Hubbard, 1957: 84; also quoted in Hubbard, 1976b: 55).
The indoctrination techniques, however, are for another post. In closing, I’m asking people to join protests worldwide in support of the new peoples’ movement known as Anonymous, who has decided to take on this corrupt crime syndicate. And if you can’t join Anonymous in solidarity, begin your own research and then put pressure on your elected representatives and ask them why this international enterprise isn’t being investigated in your own country. Thank you for reading and stay tuned to more posts on the Church of Scientology.
“If you really want to enslave people, tell them that you are going to give them total freedom.”
–L. Ron Hubbard
Cross-posted at Daily Kos
