From a friend:

Wow! Great to hear what was (and is) going on behind the scenes!
Russ Williams was on the RPF for quite some time and finally ended up being sent down the chute to the PAC RPF. He was struggling with several twins and was twinned up with (forgot name right now) but ended up on the RPF's RPF for "squirreling" or some out tech etc. He never made it back on the program and without any explanation or any issue, suddenly he was SP declared and off loaded. This was around spring 2004. There was a ridiculous scene when he left. He was watched on the routing out steps very closely and he got all the way to the point of getting into a taxi from the Horseshoe. (The entrance to the old Cedars of Lebanon (Big Blue) that used to be the ambulance entrance, shaped like a horse shoe). When he was getting his few personal belongings loaded into the trunk of the taxi, some security guy saw that he had a "Sea Org trunk" and he was stopped and accused of stealing the trunk from the Sea Org and he had to unpack all his stuff into boxes that RPFers had to get for him, while the taxi had to wait!

Russ was humiliated by the security guards and by the RPF I/C, Chris Meyers, who then rubbed it in for all the RPFers at a meeting! It was so ridiculous to listen too. Some old piece of shit made in Taiwan, 10 year old beat up trunk! They were being smashed and thrown away in the big dumpster frequently when crew didn't want them.

They have some paranoia about that you can not take anything with you that has the Sea Org symbol on it, "as it might come in the wrong hands". I was laughing one time when I saw a bum in Hollywood wearing a leather jacket with the Sea Org symbol on it. He had obviously found in the trash.

All they would have had to do was to take a knife and cut off the damn Sea Org star from on top of the trunk - but instead they had to make the cab wait and make Russ pay probably another $10, while he was being accused of being a thief, traitor etc. I'm sure he was shook up when he left, but later enormously relieved.

Russ is a GREAT guy, I liked him very much, and I'm sure he had just had it with all the BS that was going on in RTC. No wonder why any and all Int Base RPFers have trouble getting through the "Truth Rundown", because the only way to pass it is to lie and cover up your true feelings and all the criminal activities from DM's office on down!

If Russ reads this, I wish him well and that he should consider telling his story for everyone. The REAL TRUTH from Int, needs to come out in the open. The faster the better - because the "church" is going down, it's just a matter of how quick. Tom Cruise is doing a great job speeding it up!

Moonbeam,

unless things have changed dramatically since I left - yor twin in the rpf doesn't go everywhere with you. The recent thing about "leaves" from the RPF is a whole unknown for me - back when I was in the RPF if you were in longer than a year you got a fitness board and were allowed to stay inly if you had made progress. there were no "leaves" per se. It is only in the recent times that people have been on the RPF for years and years.

"Recent times" being in the last 15 to 20 years. Since 1986 when DM staged his coup and took over, things have changed alot, and not for the better. I can't imagine why anyone would join the Sea Org these days.

I think alot of people are left to languish on the RPF for years until they die because they have been around so long, and know too much to be let go.

They might find out the truth about the cult and become critics if they were let free. I and many others are furious about the scam we wasted our lives on. Scientology knows this, that is why they have come up with all the "nondisclosure forms" for both staff and public, and all the high security sec checks before you can even do the HQS course.

Another new thing is the "probational SP declare" where as long as you toe the line and don't cause any trouble, you can still communicate with scientologists in good standing. IMO, this is just another way to control and manipulate people who are of no use to them anymore, yet prevent them from speaking out against scientology.

KSW "We would rather have you dead than incapable"... takes on a new meaning now that so many of the original and old time scientologists are becoming geriatrics. I know lots of people my age and older who will die in the Sea Org or the RPF without ever knowing the truth, or getting the care they deserve, or getting back in touch with their loved ones.

I think some of the "priveledges" being granted such as leaves are an attempt to avoid the bad PR that was generated by disconnection, and a cover up for the true conditions people are living under in the SO.

Also, I think that security and paranoia are much stricter in present times, due in great part to the information available on the Internet. Even regular staff are not supposed to go off the base without a twin, and security is everywhere. Back in the 80's, I used to be able to go shopping, to the Library, (which was between the Fort Harrison and the Sandcastle, and was a nice air conditioned place to hang out for a few minutes on your dinner break) without any security in site. That is not true today.

I think that the more we speak out and the more information that is made available by the media, the fewer people will get sucked into the cult of scientology.

Also the more paranoid scientology will become, and the more restraints they will put on their members, hopefully to the result of tightening the noose too tight, and causing people to leave in droves!

Ladybird said "I think alot of people are left to languish on the RPF for years until they die because they have been around so long, and know too much to be let go."

Just what is the information people know. The sad thing is that there is nothing concrete to take the so-called church to court. The authorities really have nothing to base a case on other than the abuse of the good people who believed they were doing something to save the world. Meanwhile they have been taken advantage of.

There must be a way to get them on slave labor. If they actually do take taxes out of the small amount of pay that people get - then I don't see how this hasn't raised a red flag with the IRS.
What do you guys think?

Moonbeam

Ladybird,

The story you tell (about how worse it has become) will be more nails in the coffin of Scientology.

The more restrictive they become the worse it gets for them.

And the more they send Tom out to promote Scientology, the more the people start to read about this cult.

They are just destroying themselves the more that they try to do (according to Hubbard and DM) to preserve their dwindling numbers.

They just don't "get it" do they?
Just what WOULD it take for them to "get it"?

Jono Epstein and Wendall Reynolds (both former Int Finance Directors) were on the RPF for nearly 5 years. ED Int's own wife was sent to the RPF around 1993 and she was still there when I left in 1998. She was sent to the RPF for "enturbulating" Guillaume Lesevre. I think she wanted to take a leave to go see their children in France, but of couse, he was never allowed to leave. She became a "pest" to him--RPF'd. Chris and Stephanie Silcock were "celebrity project auditors" at CC INT for years around 1985--auditing celebs for free to recover them back to scn. I don't remember how they ended up at Gold to audit staff, but they were RPF'd for out-tech committed on many celebrities at CC INT. Stephanie stayed on after Chris blew. Stephanie was on the RPF's RPF, meaning, she wasn't allowed to speak to anyone the whole time. It's extremely demented what they do to sea org members. Human rights violations left, right and center. At the INT RPF, spouses were allowed to come see their husband or wife on the RPF on Saturday nights, it was so humiliating, they were so desperate to sleep together, they would settle for a room in one of the buildings with a mattress on the floor...it was a demoralizing life at Int.

Where's Francisco Frau now? Anyone know? - Ann Marie


I was buddies with Francesco, my final weeks on the RPF's RPF in the PAC RPF, and after I got out, I met Frank (his Int RPF nickname he carried with him to the PAC RPF, I'd been on the Int RPF with him since Jul 96 till Nov 2000, when I came to the PAC RPF), on the street in LA in 2003, just before his fitness board. He was returning to Italy, Bescia, his mom was old, his father had passed away while Frank was on the Int RPF, and Frank couldn't go to his dad's funeral, so I am almost positive in the end, after he routed out, in 2003, sometime I guess by summer 2003, he returned to Italy, see his mom, in Brescia.
Great guy Frank Frau, I worked many years on the RPF with him, spent thousands of hours with him, working the Happy Valley ranch farm work. Frank had income from home luckily, bought his own tools on the RPF, back during the 96-97 period when on the Int RPF we got "goodies" purchased for us almost weekly, by John Busby, the ESTO on the Int RPF who went driving off base with John Wiley who was the Int RPF I/C, and John W would take John Busby purchasing for us Int RPFers, and that way is how Frank got the tools he used on the Int RPF for those months of 96-97.

I knew Francesco's wife, Lisa. She was Music Director Gold, then Audio Production Sec Gold, then CO Gold. She and Francesco had split up well before I left in 1998, but I think it was the RPF that triggered it. I've seen that happen to many marriages--just down the tubes, unable to survive through sea org life of 16 hours per day of slave labor 6 1/2 days per week with no time for a relationship...it also happened to me and caused my divorce, and many others. I'll never forget when Greg Wilhere dumped Sandy Wilshere, a long term marriage. She had been flubbing as an auditor and she was thought of as "not the caliber of individual as Greg." RTC staff held the view that they were a superior group. Rings a bell for a historical group that thought of themselves as a superior race? All the Int base was subservient to RTC staff. Scn is a "philosophy" of contradictions, with the leadership's inability to "apply tech" in life. It's clear this will be a major reason for their undoing. It's happening already, the Int base has been unraveling since the late '90s, and COB continues to wrong target for the reasons why.

UR Free - so Vanella went to the RPF? I cannot say I am that surprised - only that it took so long before she was sent. I thoght Guillaume and Vanella only had one child? Chiara, IIRC. Did she move to France?
Vanella is/was a funny duck I was always convinced that she was never really "in" but just went along with Guillaume.
IIRC Vanella is also from Brescia isn't she?

After the RPF Vanella went to CLO WUS. She was in Bureau 3, rationing out supplies. She was using Secchi (sp?) as her last name. Yeah, she's a bit of an odd one. She would get into these heavily accented mumblings to herself sometimes. I can see how she must've drove him batshit crazy. Enough to get her on the RPF? Wow. My opinion of Guillaume was never as high when I found out they were married.

I saw Vanella over the years, had a soft spot
for her.

In Int Training Org when it was back at the
Flag Land Base, and being shut down in late
1982, since LRH sent an advice to ED Int that
ED Int needed to have a training setup nearby
Exec Strata to make execs for the churches,
ITO at the FLB, which was a bombshelled
disaster after the 1981-82 OEC/FEBC evolution,
ITO was tanked (disbanded). Me and my best
friend Chuck McDougal, were the sole remaining
OEC FEBC personnel, and we had few straggling
last OEC FEBC students. Me and Chuck shipped
what was left of the OEC FEBC course to LA,
and Vanella was D/ED Int Internal, and was
in telex comm with me on the disbanding of
the OEC FEBC course.

She was a thoughtful exec, maybe a bit of a
sidekick/spouse to ED Int, but I got on fine
with her, as I did with most everyone in my
27 years in the Sea Org.

Then, when I was finally finally busted for
my last time, my fatal final 7 years in the
Sea Org, I went to the Int RPF, in Jul 96, and
Vanella was on the Int RPF.

She altogether must have been on the RPF for
about 7-8 years.

She had a rough go on the Int RPF, prima
dona in her unique Italian/Euro way. Her
dad was or still is a bigtime lawyer and
her dad and Frank Frau's dad used to be
buddies, Frank's dad, now dead, was a judge
in Breschia. Frank's family is from
Sardinia and they moved to Breschia on the
mainland, and met the Secchi family there,
Frank and Vanella have known each other
since before they were in Scientology.

Vanella I think went through her divorce
to ED Int while she was on the Int RPF,
and at the very very very end, when I
left the Int RPF, she was having a rough
time, wanting to leave, hating the control
and losing control emotionally, yelling
at people at times who told her to do
things she did not want to do.

The accumulated bureaucratic "agreed upon"
self-enforced mental coercion and pressure
people in the Sea Org agree to and self-
inflict on themselves and others, is
really what I hated most about my whole
27 years in Scientology. The agreements
leading up to moments when you just cannot
agree any longer, and feeling trapped, I
so wish people coming out to describe
their experiences exhaustively, and
accurately, that is what needs to be told.

Vanella had her serious share of moments
when she did NOT agree with the rules, and
she fought back in a variety of ways.

I highly respected her for this, inside,
in my mind.

When people in the Sea Org act "badly" or
"protest" or fight against the rules, I
secretly always loved to see the blowups
of people finally getting pissed off at all
the goddman dumb little rules which a
fellow Sea Org member would unwittingly
try to enforce on the protesting Sea Org
member, and there would be these comical
blowups, and not so comical blowups.

The goddamn smothering accumulation of
petty rules, that just smother human
desire to be free of all those damn rules
and agreements sometimes.

The RPF is a layered in deep recessed cavern
and just simiply walking out is such not
an option mentally to all the agreements one
has been led to agree to over the years of
being a "dedicated" Sea Org member.

Anyways, Vanella, I totally sympathized with
her, while other Int RPFers just sort of
tolerated her eccentric outbursts.

Frank many times was her ally. Maj Wheelis
my later twin when I later went to the PAC
RPF, Maj on the Int RPF spent some time
helping calm and stay with Vanella during
those moments on the Int RPF when she simply
refused to follow any of the damn rules
herself.

As a sidenote, anyone wishing to phone me,
and further discuss ANY aspect of ANYTHING
I can tell you about my Sea Org experience,
give yourself 30 minutes to an hour and call
me on the weekends, any weekend, and I will
tell anyone anything. Talking about this
most frustrating of experience, which I
watched others like Vanella go through,
and which I myself predicted myself later
going through, and I did later have to go
through the whole protest phase, it is
so frustrating.

When you want to just get the hell out,
and just break down the rules, in the
midst of those you are there on the RPF
with, your longtime friends, who are just
standing by, doing their "duty" following
the rules you yourself even agreed to, but
in the spur of the moment desires to just
shuck all the rules off, the mental battle
to just get the hell out, it was frustrating
to say the least.

I was in the sort of "restricted to the
ranch" category of the Int RPF, not being
allowed to go into the "castle" which is
the great huge building where the Int RPFers
were doing their daily work duties.

People in "bad" shape, or for some reason
were not supposed to be seen at the Base,
stayed at the ranch all the time. I was
NEVER going to graduate and rise to Int
Base status, once my RPF was done, so that
is why I thought for base security reasons
I was never let go work at the sets and
props area. Also, I was so obsessed with
my future dreams of just unloading, and
writing about all my experiences like I
am now, eventually, that I felt it best I
not be allowed to go to the Int Base daily
with the other RPFers at the Happy Valley
ranch Int RPF, due to knowing I would
inevitably just record mentally all I saw
and write about it all someday, in complete
violation of the self-instilled rules
self-enforced due to L. Ron Hubbard's
extensively accumulated "security" mindset
that pervades ALL of the mindset at the
Int Base. It all traces back to Hubbard's
rules and policies, and people's bad
reactions to those constritive rules.

When some intelligent people write someday,
I would place Vanella in the category of
someone who I hope does write, to capture
the unique subtlties and frustrations of
how helpless one feels at trying to protest
the rules.

She is an extremely intelligent woman, and
not doubt mumbles due to the ignorance of
those around her unable to grasp her thoughts
and rationale. That is completely my view.

While I never graduated to mumbling stage,
I have mentally played through endless
scenarios that all ended me up "losing" to
the boundries of L. Ron Hubbard's totalitarian
rules and group agreed upon interpretations
that others in decades past have recorded about
their RPF experiences which are amongst the
worst of the worst stories that come OUT of
the Scientology "prison/gulag" Rehabilitation
Project Forces that still exist, and still
put people through these frustrating
scenarios.

Vanella should be judged on her mind, and my
opinion is that those who failed to see her
intellect, are at their own personal loss.

What each of us accumulates which we consider
our lives, I am very interested in hearing
each person's views of their lives. I have
found people's life stories are not easily
dismissable.

I encourage all persons to write and express
their ideas and opinions.

I hope Vanella tells her tale. It would be
an excellent one. Then her good qualities
will be apparant.

She was so close to defecting so many times
that I think now, inevitably, she is going to
defect someday. I predict she will return to her upper middle class family, in Italy. Her daughters are in Italy I believe.

I hope she and Frank get the opportunity to
meet again, late in life, and do their story
with an intelligent Italian author. "Our
Lives in Scientology" or something. They
are old-timers relatively speaking in the
Italy field, and can tell the Italian
story well.

Hmm now here's a passel of update - so Guillaume and Vanella are divorced? Well that sucks for a start.

That's the second mention od daughters plural - when was the second one born?

AS for judging Vanella - well I have my opinions of her and none of them are very strong one way or another but I worked with her day in and day out for four years and the intellect that you are talking about I did not see much of.

Just to be clear here - I am not saying she was a dummy either.

She and Guillkaume seemed to have a pretty solid marriage, they were innoculated against the hardships of trying to get by on SO pay thanks to her wealthy father.

I am surprised that she is still there if she and Guillaume are divorced - I would have expected her to return to Italy.

Vanella was on the PAC RPF in 1983. I was told that her husband had assigned her to the RPF.

She was on a while, and during all the time she was on, he never came to see her. I know she had a lot of upset about that. She used to write to him (I think daily). I don't know whether or not he responded to her letters.

I'm not surprised they got divorced. It's surprising to me their marriage lasted as long as it did.

By the way, she was in trouble a lot on the RPF at that time, too. The RPF execs disliked her.

Does anyone know who went to the PAC RPF from Int recently? Does anyone know how these people are doing: Debbie and Greg Hughes? Peter Schless? Joe and Anna Caneen? Bill Bruger? Sarah Cunningham?

DM's training level is ClassIV....no internship. He was on the Briefing Course at St Hill at one time but did not finish it. I think he was forced to leave because of his fathers rape case.

His Admin training level is zilch.

Norman Starkey was the same....I don't think Starkey ever got past the Comm Course.

I had huge yelling match with LRH once over Starkey....over his lack of training....Starkey had done a couple of SO PR missions in my centers, which were disasters. Hubbard called me a liar....so I order one of his messengers to go investigate....we were in LRH's office...The messenger investigated, came back, Starkey had nearly finished a Comm Course.

LRH apologized. : - )

Alan