I live in Crawley, a town in the south east of england, VERY close to the world wide HQ of scientology in East Grinstead.
Myself, my girlfriend and some mates went driving in the front door last nite.

My friends are curious about the Co$. I know how dangerous they can be, and wanted to try and get useful information.

We rolled in the front drive and parked in the small car park of the left, starring down the hill toward the main manor, there is a large set of steps leading down from the main manor. There were around 25-30 members all dressed in black standing equally spaced on the steps, in diagonal lines with no more than three members per level.

They remained totally motionless, not conversing with each other or moving at all. On the bottom step their was another person, a man, much older, pacing back and forth, dressed entirely in white, he may have had white hair.

We convinced my mate john, whom was driving, to roll down the drive and over to the steps, pretending to ask for directions.

There was some confusion in the drive, halve of us wanted to leave and rest wanted to go in. We sat near the front gates for 15-20 seconds arguing about what was to happen. The head lights must have been visible at the manor, because when we convinced John to drive on, the dude wearing white had disappeared and the members in black were standing to attention even more than before.

We rolled down the drive and went round the little round about near the steps so that I could talk throug the passneger side window.

This was at about 1am 28th April 2001, by the way, just occured I haven't mentioned that yet.

Anyway, I learned through the window and asked one of the closest members the way to East Grinstead, their was a pause, a long one, the entire group just stood motionless, starring at us, for about ten seconds. Before one lady, about 25-30 with dark hair stepped forward and tld us the way. Very polite, sounded wide awake, a local person probably, sounded like a german or swiss accent, I don't know for sure. The others just stood, looking at her rather than us.

We drove off, and the person who'd spoke to us stepped back up to her postion.

My friends told me that they've been here before and seen transit vans coming to collect people.
We waited at a dark junction to a private lane, in view of the entrance for a while and saw another white transit leave shortly after.

Mt friends have follwed it before, the van is loaded with people and isn't too new, it burnt off as fast as you can imagine. It must have been a diesel engine, it went like a fuck bullet!

Last time three of my friends were in another (older) car and couldn't keep up with the van as it screamed round tight country lanes, hairpin bends, shicanes and narrow bridges. My friend was doing 80mph at least and couldn't keep up.

But this time, they didn't know we were following, we held back and because john's car is quite nippy (even with five of us in it) we could catch up easily. We followed them for ages, miles, then we followed them into Crowborough, along Walshes road, turning right into a long lane with Walshes Manor at the end.

Fucking dozens of white transits were parked up outside a large white house.
The van we had been following had arrived only 3o seconds or so before us and already some members had got off, got their stuff and we half-way inside. Single file, not talking, wide awake!

John couldn't see what was happening he was too busy driving, Warren, in the backseat, one of our less darring friends panics and screams at John to turn around, the rest of us were too mesmerized to complain, John thinks there an emergency and wheel-spins the car on the gravel track, reverse so fast he almost smashes into a gate and burn off out of the lane.

This was at about 2:09am this morning.

We will be going back, but does anyone know anything about what we've seen?

Any suggestions?

If they were dressed in black, they may be members of the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF). RPF'ers are not allowed to speak to anyone.

RPF is the punishment section of the Church of Scientology. RPFers do manual work and are subject to military style discipline. Getting them to work through the night would be typical - the whole purpose is, as in the army, to instil unquestioning obedience to orders.

There is a famous story of RPFers running around the training complex in Florida and ignoring carpet fitters warning them of slippery floors.

Punishment....?!? Are they the ones being punished or the ones doing the punishing?

It was fucking cold last night!
They were standing there for a very long time!
Is exposure on the list of punishments or could they have been waiting for a pick-up plane and simple?

PS.
Why one of them spoken to us if the rest were not prepared to?
Presumably they are all subject to the same rules? I feel a little sorry for her if she got into the shit for that, do you think she may have done?

How much of the information on this site does anyone beleive? The "What is scientology" document on the front page does go off on a wild one when it talks about the severity of the delusions and the degree to which members become incompatible with society.

I'm not saying that that doesn't happen, but if it happens as part of an agenda, and as often as we are led to believe, why isn't it all over the Papers and the TV, especially where I live! How come most of the people I know, have never heard of scientology, and until yesterday I knew nothing about the details of the religion?

Is a lot of it rumour, or is it suppressed?

I can quite easily beleive in a fictious religion designed to promote well being (a modern day christianity - which is exactly the same only with 1000 yrs of myth to back it up). And I can easily believe in a money making religion, but to say that such a simple concept has, so quickly, morphed into an uncontrollable, military style monster as described on this site, is pushing the limits of credibility to say the least.

In england scientology has little public awareness, few people even know that it exists. Some think it resides entirely within Hollywood and virtually no-one knows of, or believes in, its sinister side.

I want to believe what your telling me, but......it really is the first I've heard of it!

Leyton, thanks for courageous detective work and posting here. Could you please figure out the address to that "house" and ask the press (even a tabloid!) or the police or the Council Housing officer to investigate? It sounds like all kinds of laws are being violated there.

You could pose as a neighbor (well, we're ALL neighbors, right?) phoning in from a public booth to complain about the middle of the night traffic, lights, noise, and having too many cars parked there. That kind of activity could make ordinary neighbors fear drug-dealing or prostitution, so your worried, anonymous phone call would seem sensible.

The shady characters and their victims may have moved since your post on this message board (which is monitored by OSA), so that the house you drove by could now be abandoned. If so, the police may want to search the house to look for abandoned people or evidence of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. If they find suspicious evidence, they should look up who owns or rents the house.

If the RPF has no suitably gaol-like building to move them to, maybe the Org will let them go back to work. You may have saved some people's lives by shining a light on this sinister house.

Comments from Dave Bird, an Englishman. (Note: s are deletion of insertion of original post)

Transferred from a.r.s..:

Apr 28, 2001, 7:10pm (CDT+6) From: dave@xemu.demon.co.uk (DaveBird)

Thanks for your contribution. A few comments below.....
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To give the geography, the Gatwick (London South) airport is at Crawley which is 50 miles north of Brighton on the s. coast and 50 miles south of central London. East Grinstead is about 7 to 10 miles west of it.
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These might be Sea-Org people at roll-call, at the beginning or end of a work shift.
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To give the geography, the Gatwick (London South) airport is at Crawley which is 50 miles north of Brighton on the s. coast and 50 miles south of central London. East Grinstead is about 7 to 10 miles west of it.
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These might be Sea-Org people at roll-call, at the beginning or end of a work shift.
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If you were where I think you were, you were at the gatehouse at the East gate (the West gate is usually locked). We have picketed there. With good eyesight one can just about see what is happening at the hall, 40 to 50 yards in. Was the gatehouse unmanned?
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1am, an hour after midnight? (you did mention headlights on). I am surprised they were working quite that late.
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Dear me, what dangerous driving of a passenger vehicle
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As you have pointed out the main hall of residence for Saint Hill staff is some distance away, under the neighbouring district council of Crowborough, and staff are ferried back and forth in minibusses.


The residence is called something like Walshes Manor Hall, a former borstal, up a long driveway opposite the shops on Walshes Manor Road (I have not actually been to that location).
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It sounds more like ordinary Sea Org than RPF to me. Of course it was dark at the time. Sea Org would be in neat dark-blue uniform blazers. RPF would be in boiler suits or tatty black shirts.

Leyton Jay,

A lot of what goes on at a basic level of the Church of Scientology is not all that spectacular. But there are also some really outrageous things occuring, especially at higher levels of the organization. I think the main reason you don't hear much about that is that it sounds too f* incredible for outside people to really believe... Few people who are not in some way personally affected bother to look into it.

I know from my personal experience that you can do some pretty weird things right under people's noses, and nobody reacts. It's a long time ago now, about 17 years, but I was myself for a couple of months in one of Scientology's punishment sections (where staff members who were not deemed loyal enough to the organization were supposed to be "readjusted" ). We spent a few hours each day writing extremely detailed confessions, and the rest of the time (until late at night) doing manual labour. Our bosses wore navy-style uniforms and discipline was tough. For example, we were not allowed to walk but had to run everywhere, could not speak without first being spoken to, could not use telephones or write or recieve letters or leave the premises without permission.

This all went on in right in the city centre of Copenhagen, Denmark (that's the Church of Scientology continental administration for Europe). I mean close to the Tivoli, main town square, central railway station and main pedestrian street - as central as you can get. We had to run back and forth between different Scientology buildings, as the lodgings/dining place (a dirty basement, actually) were in one place and the buildings we worked at in other places. So groups of 2-30 people in shoddy clothes would be running through the city centre several times a day, along with groups of people in uniform. We even had scientologists patrolling the central station and the harbour where the hovercrafts for Sweden leave, to try to prevent people from escaping.

Only on one occasion did I see anyone from "outside" react during this time, and that was when two people physically dragged me in my arms up the street outside of one of the office buildings (Teglgaardstraede just off the pedestrian street). Then one lady in the street shouted at them to let me go or she would call the cops. They quickly pushed me back inside the building, so I don't know if anything else happened.

(By the way, they still have similar "reform camps" (RPF) in Copenhagen, although they keep it more low key and out of view now. As late as of January this year, the Church of Scientology spokesperson in Copenhagen admitted to newspaper Jyllands-Posten that this RPF exists there)

This is really small stuff though, compared to things that go on, especially the conditions for children and teenagers within the higher and more fanatical levels of the Scientology organization. Here's a pretty good recent US newspaper article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/02/12/MN171898.DTL
That's still a very conservative description of the situation.

And here's a translation of an interesting German newspaper article from 1997 regarding Saint Hill in the UK:
http://cisar.org/trn0454.htm

BTW, the Saint Hill Manor is no longer the world wide HQ of Scientology. Used to be in the 1960s, but nowadays that is in California, US.

I drive by the Scientology HQ everyday on the way to work. I knew Scientology is a freakshow, but man, I will never look at that place the same way. I mean it's this pristine building in the middle of crappy Hollywood. Truly a weird situation.