I met Sam when I was in college. He was already in Scn and I had just joined staff. We met one day in March, fell in love and were married in August of that year.

We were so different. Different economic backgrounds--his was blue collar working class; mine was upper middle class, whitecollar. Different education level--his was high school drop out and mine was Ivy League. The only thing we had in common was Scientology--and that lasted only six months.

We blew staff and the org We did it quietly and in the dead of night. You see the org, at that time, was being run as though it were a Sea Org org--no dayor foundation--just one org. I was only Fdn staff, but he was both and had taken a LOA from Day org to work, so we could pay rent and buy food. Well, the CO resented the fact that we could do this. SAM's CSW for time off for laundry was denied on the basis of HCOPL "Moonlighting."

I'll confess, we planned the defection. We refused the order to report to post that night and went to a movie instead. Sam went to the org in the middle of the night to retreive his Emeter and some books he wanted. And, we didn't go back.

Our friends came to our door, pounding on it, trying to talk with us through the door. The phone rang constantly. We set up special rings for our families because we weren't answering the phone any more. Finally, they left us alone.

The real shock came when I ran into someone I had thought was a friend from the org on the street. He looked right through me as though I did not exist. We moved away from taht area within months of that. We thought we were safe and that no one would find us.

Then came an LRH Amnesty....

(to be continued)
}

Yes, the Amnesty only opened the door for more lies and BS from the church. I've gone through a couple of them. The most insidious was the one issued in the early 90's after the big "we won the war" bit against the IRS. The Amnesty was very clearly written and alloweable in policy, but there continued to be totally arbitrary restrictions applied by the SEA ORG GOONS running the cycles. The worst was when even after they Amnesties, they would continue to dig up the same old dirt to use against members. Including expensive sec-checks at the parishoners own expense. That has to be the biggest crime in the church nowadays. If they initiate there own suspicion, they should at least have the decency to provide such checks for free. But even that is an invasion of privacy and personal integrity.

OK. I'm hooked Kate. Where is part two?

I was never officially declared. The Justice Chief told me I was not allowed into any Org or mission or phone, until I completed A thru E steps.

I don't think I'm going to do it.

Part 2

Pit Bill, you're right...just more lies and the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

See below:

The amnesty offered to blown staff members was one of the last LRHEDs issued. A full pardon .

Here we were safe, miles away from the nearest org. Nothing to worry about, right?

Well, you open the door to anyone on Halloween. I can still remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when I opened the door to a "trick or treater" and found the HAS standing there. I should have slammed the door in his face, but I didn't.

Sam and I agreed to go back and take the amnesty. We were told we did not have to return to staff.

Well, there, as always is some kind of mix up of how the amnesty was to be administered and we left again--again vowing never to return.

A good friend, we will call her D. for now-- she was in the Guardian's Office -- got us to agree to come back again. She handled the cycle. (She died at the age of 49 from pancriatic cancer.)

Now, we were freeloders. Sam and I continued with our lives--sort of thinking of getting back on the Bridge--sorting living a normal existence without Scn and doing well

We now had 2 children and a business of our own. We weren't rich, but we weren't poor either. Scn was leaving us alone. In fact, it looked like they had forgotten about us.

We were still thinking like Scientologists, though. We designed routing forms and set up an org board for the business. We looked at family relations and other inter-personal relations with the same view point wwe had while on staff. We were still Scientologists. Just not active

Our second child had just been born when the org remembered how to find us. Now, the hard regging started to get our "freeloader" debts paid off.

(to be continued)}

Kate, great story. I hope you did not pay your "freeloader" debt.

I am awaiting your next chapter...

Yet Kate, there is no such thing as a freeloder debt.
As reality is based on agreements, it is easy to see where the whole concept of "freeloader debt" is based on bogus and false premises. How many of THEIR agreements did they break? If on party breaks numerous agreements, then where are you obligated to maintain your own? An agreement is like a contract.
If Scientology breaks their "contract" with you, then you have no obligation to pay. Especially when you already contributed valuable time and effort.

The only reason to pay a "freeloader debt" is if someone was desperate enough to want to get back in the church.

The term "feeloader" is totally insulting and demeaning and invalidating to the hard work, sacrifice and dedication of a staff or sea or member.

As always, PB your questions are good and to the point. I will try to explain her

Part 3:

Our freeloder debts...well, we had been in the TTC (Technical Training Corp) a fancy name for a falsely elitist group of staff who are allowed to be on full time training. Sam was training to be a Grad IV auditor (old-timers will recognize this and be able to date it) and I was training for the same.

Sam had made it through to his Class IV internship and I was on the HSDC internship when NED came out. Of course, there was the usual panic and rush to get EVERYONE through NED. We did the course and our internship together. It was sort of fun. Some of the things I thought were screwy with HSDC were corrected in NED.

Then Sam went back on his Class IV internship and I went on to Class 0.

The Qual Sec got this brilliant idea--Qual needed a word clearer for staff. He twisted my arm...pushed all my buttons and got me to agree to change my course of study. So I did the Hubbard Professional Word Clearer Course and internship and graduated the TTC. Sam was still in the TTC.

I was put on a "production" post and held it rather competently, I think, for about six months--that was when we blew.

Now, at the time the org started to reg us for our freeloader debts...there was a policy...not an HCOPL or HCOB, but some Board of Directors type of policy...allowing free loader debts to be prorated based on the amount of time the person was actually on post producing for the org.

We were on five year contracts (which don't start until your training is finished) and I had six months in...Sam had none.

Frankly, I can't remember what our debts were at the time, but they were overwhelming nonetheless and here is where the trouble started.

Yes, we had made agreements...yes, we were still under the spell.

We created a lot of antagonism with our parents trying to pay off these debts. To this day, no one from my family dares to give me anything of real value for fear that I will sell it for Scn; nor will they send me money for any reason. My brother does not speak to me at all and my sister is suspicious.

Sam's parents had been introduced to Sch long before I had met Sam, but had had very bad experiences...very degrading ones and in the end left unhelped and antagonistic. They would not help.

In the end to handle my FLD I went back on staff...and Sam just ignored it.}
(to be continued)}}

Thanks for giving us a view through your eyes. Why did you keep going bacK? Was it like an addiction?

Apparently your family thought so? And they weren't going to be enablers?

Whatever you and/or your family think it was.....I am looking forward to the last chapter to find out where you and they are now.

Tigger

Staffers and Sea Org are worked to death. So Re-Consider them as a gift Kate, from a church, right?. The wholesale value is pennies on the dollar in any event. It really is just one more scam-"Freeloader Debt".

Tigger, Yes! That's what it was--an addiction! I thought about it last night after I wrote that...Even though Sam and I had blown staff, we kept referring back to LRH material, buying new books on occasion, using what we thought was good advice in our lives. We were still hooked.

I found this definition of brainwashing last night..

From the Merriam Webster Dictionary...
brainwashing
systematic effort to persuade nonbelievers to accept a certain allegiance, command, or doctrine. A colloquial term, it is more generally applied to any
technique designed to manipulate human thought ...


This is Scientology!

Someone once said that Brainwashing was used only when there was pain involved, but there is pain in Scientology.

The pain is emotional and mental and the things that cause upset and ruin your Life are pushed at you constantly, pain in the little to no sleep and not enough money for food or proper living conditions for staff members. There is also a sort of drug like effect or high from a release you get in auditing. Once experienced you want it again and again. I understand it comes about from that low-level ellectrical current passing through your body. And, to top it off, there is the self-hypnosis that repeated auditing questions induces. So, a Scientology auditing session is really a PDH event. Funny when you think that LRH was so paranoid about anyone else performing a PDH incident on a COS member.

Part 4--Five years on Staff.

Sam was furious when I told him I was going bck on staff. Our marriage was not doing well. He had formed a partnership with a non-Scnist and that man wanted me off the finance lines. (You'll see why later) I was bored and had a misguided notion that my honor required me to finish what I had started--so I went back.

With in weeks of my returning to staff on a part-time basis, the blowup in Portland happened. Some how, we made it possible for Sam to take off from work and go to Portland for a week to help demonstrate. Sam felt very strongly about it and really wanted to help Scn Int. We could only afford for him to stay one week, I think he stayed a little longer, but came back when it became an emergency.

Within weeks of his returning I was tapped to be promoted to an exec position for which I had to go to LA for training. I had to leave in two days. When I am honest with myself--I know I agreed because I like the "status" the promotion would give me, so I agreed to "make it go right" and to "be OT about it." I left Sam with lots of instructions and two small children to care for and made it on the last plane out two days later. I was to be gone just two weeks and I am a fast student...I did the study in less than that--then I ran into the practical.

It took me three months to finish and graduate. The org did not support me while I was out there. I had no money to pay for lodging or food. I got very inventive and found a job.

Sam was overwhelmed with handling two toddlers, a business that required him to work 12 hours a day, and on top of that, I informed him that I had signed a SO contract. Talk about being crazy.

No, the SO contract was never activated. Sam was not eligible for the SO because of LSD and it wasn't something I was going to to do without his and everyone else's consent. By the way, this where I heard the line "No thetan was ever someone's mother." A good line--helps some one on the edge to deny all responsibility.

As soon as I returned to the org, my immediate senior was sent on mission by the CLO and I was told I had to hold her post as well as mine. She never returned to the org.

There were two scary points regarding my senior's post..one when she appeared in the org on mission to correct a situation in the area she had quicksilvered. She was so angry that I refused to help her post and kept reporting it as vacant...her mission orders were to place whoever was on the post in Treason--couldn't very well place herself there, could she?

The second was when she became LRH COMM INT and I realized that my future was in her hands. I felt like I had been trapped in a very bad WWII movie with Gestapo agents all around me and having to do the "politically correct" thing.

Sam suffered through all of this as did the kids

The kids were in a Scn school and doing o.k. Sam's business was expanding..his partner had helped him to get a loan. You guessed it! He was regged for that money has soon as the org knew he had it. He had paid off his original freeloder debt and was back in good standing. The org got me to actually close him for his FPRD.

There was some more really funny money arrangements--a another Scnist had been making loans to Scnists at very high interest rates--about 21% I think. The regs knew this and would send people to him. It turned out it was his mother's money and when the loans weren't paid back,...his mother was left with nothing. Sam had borrowed some money from this guy.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, his partner was doing some very unusual things with the business--depositing more money then they had in receipts and then taking out more then he deposited. Since he had been given "full fiduciary responsibility" (Sam was very trusting) we didn't find out about it until Sam went to get the money for his FPRD and found out it wasn't there!


Enter WISE...$1500 for an investigation into why Sam's business was failing!
Well, golly gee,...it looks like some one may be stealing some money.

Sam's partner slunk out of the office and Sam carried on without, but this partnership will come back to haunt Sam some more later.

Sam finished his FPRD, but our marriage is rocky...we appear to be on opposite sides--he's public and I'm staff.

Then my health begins to fail.

(TBC)
}

Thanks for opening your heart and life to us Kate. I was Sea Org and I was in the Cof$ for 15+ years. I hope you heal from the cult and get healthy and whole again. If you believe you can conceive!
Take Care, Sea Ogre

Ode to Fallen Comrades

Fallen comrades rise again,

From the Cult and its sins,

Our lessons paid with blood and tears,

Will be remembered through the years,

Our heart is freed, our mind is strong,

We were just deceived and wronged,

Hubbard missed the biggest deal,

Never finding what was real,

That thetans are just Love revealed.

My best to you all, Sea Ogre

Wonderful!

Kate...wow! What a story. Thank you very much for sharing it with us.

You've come to the right place. The OC folks have helped many people, self included, and we've all shared quite a bit together. I'm happy you are here.

Re the Freeloader Bill, keep in mind a few things:
a) It's totally bogus---illegal---nothing you "owe". Working the hours you did, you've way paid them.
B) FYI: I went over this with an Exec within OSA years ago, as they'd upset SO many young kids. They'd recruited them, really illegally (scarring them), then spit them out with huge freeloaders debts. I explained how stupid that was, that they were creating this rather large group of disaffected young people.

She agreed...Linda Peters is her name. She told me, "Just have them write it up to me and I'll handle it". One parent did, and she got it cancelled. So if I were you, I'd go that route, or forget it all together. Can you imagine them trying to collect that in court? HA!

My best to you

Tory/Magoo~
X-Scientologist after 30 years "in"
Free at Last

Thanks for posting your story Kate. It makes me want to finish my own story.

Do it squirrel you've got the nuts!