We have another segment for you from a secretly-recorded audiotape which captures a briefing inside a Scientology church.
This is our fourth portion of the recent briefing given by Andres Rodriguez, a senior executive in the organization. Besides becoming known for being captured on tape, Rodriguez is also notable because he was married at one time to Jessica Feshbach, who became notorious as the pushy “handler” of actress Katie Holmes during her first years married to Tom Cruise. Jessica is now married to former Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis, and they are no longer in Scientology’s elite Sea Org.
Rodriguez is the Senior Case Supervisor West US, which means he oversees the delivery of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s “technology” for half the country. But as we’ve seen, his description of that technology is not familiar to oldtime Scientologists who have left the church.
Former Sea Org member Chris Shelton has been helping us break down the jargon-filled statements made by Rodriguez. And in this segment, Chris really delivers a master analysis of how much Scientology has changed under its current leader, David Miscavige.
First, give the recording a listen and follow along with our captions. Then Chris has a brief glossary before he gives one of his most cogent explanations ever.
Chris is going to help us with some of the terms used in the segment…
Student Hat: One of the first “major” courses in Scientology which teaches methods of study. A “hat” being Scientology lingo for a job or post, the “Student Hat” tells one how to “put on their hat” as a student.
Student Hat Dictionary: A new, large glossary of terms which defines all the specialized or uncommon words that Hubbard uses in the materials of the Student Hat course. This was released as part of the new Golden Age of Tech II.
Study Tech: the entire body of study methods used in Scientology. (See our work with Claire Headley on this subject earlier.)
Field auditors: Scientology public who practice auditing professionally out in the real world, and who usually get paid for it. It is common practice for them to send their clients (pc’s or preclears) to their local Scientology organizations to take classes and eventually get higher level auditing.
M4s: Short for Method 4 Word Clearing, a procedure using an E-meter to locate words a person doesn’t fully understand in their study materials and then the person clears them up using a dictionary. If words are found that the person doesn’t understand, they have to go back and re-study the material fully and then get another M4 on those same materials until they no longer have any words come up.
Arbitrary: In Scientology, this word means some invented rule or policy that is impeding people’s forward progress in Scientology because it alters what Hubbard intended or wrote.
Checksheet: In Scientology, every class is broken down into a series of steps written out in checklist form called a checksheet. When the student has completed in sequence each item on the checklist, he completes the course. Each checksheet has an estimated time of completion listed on it, based on the student doing the course full time (40 hours/week).
PTS to the Middle Class: Something that is considered to be a very bad condition in Scientology, when a person cares more about agreeing with “middle class” values than Scientology. To the degree that a person wants to have nice things, raise their kids, take part in other activities or have any kind of life outside of Scientology, they are considered more and more “PTS to the Middle Class.”
Pro TRs: The Professional Training Routines Course, a major course in Scientology which teaches all about the Scientology theories of communication and then drills a person on them using specialized TRs on communication invented by Hubbard.
Upper Indoc TRs: The Professional Upper Indoctrination TRs Course, a major course in Scientology which teaches all about the Scientology theories of controlling people and then drills a person on them using specialized Training Routines (TRs) on control invented by Hubbard.
Metering Course: A major course in Scientology which trains a person how to use an E-meter.
Chris sent us another great analysis of what we’re hearing in this recorded segment. Here’s what he sent us…
Andres is now doing for Scientology training what he did for the auditing side: Thoroughly invalidating everyone’s past knowledge or training in Scientology and making it clear to them (by yelling) that they are a bunch of know-nothing idiots who never understood Scientology in the first place. This is straight out of Miscavige’s playbook and is fully in alignment with the party line that everyone must re-do everything because Scientology didn’t really exist in any doable or practical form until Miscavige sorted it all out. This of course keeps everyone’s checkbooks and credit cards out on the table because they have to re-pay for all these re-dos, over and over again, all under the illusion that what they got before was not the “real thing” and now that’s all fixed and this time they’re really going to get it right.
This pattern, of course, is not new with Miscavige, but has been the business model of Scientology almost since 1950. Hubbard over-promised and under-delivered year after year throughout the 1950s and 1960s and it was a common complaint among old-time Scientologists that things were constantly being changed and updated. Because Clear and OT were total fantasies, Hubbard had no choice but to do this, at least until he had built up enough of a worldwide following that enough people would believe anything he told them and he’d still be raking in millions even with the defectors.
It never seems to dawn on anyone who is left in Scientology now that Hubbard actually did keep quite close tabs on his works and how they were implemented back when he was alive. They’ve been sold a bill of goods that somehow Hubbard was so out of touch with the practice of his own philosophy that he completely missed the boat as to how badly it was being “altered” by the panoply of suppressives who were clearly working for him all the years of his life. It’s quite amusing if you actually step back and look at the picture Miscavige paints. He makes Hubbard out to be a total imbecile.
Speaking of which, in terms of technical alterations, Andres is making another whopper here and this clearly is coming straight out of Miscavige’s mouth (like everything else Andres is parroting). One of the hallmarks of Hubbard’s Study Tech is to never go past a word you do not fully understand at any time when studying. This is a very simple principle and you don’t have to listen to all of Hubbard’s lectures or read all of the Study Tech materials to understand it. I just told it to you and that is all there is to the concept. So it’s been a common practice (up until now) for students in any level of Scientology courses (from the very beginning all the way up) to have a dictionary on hand and use it when any word is encountered that isn’t fully understood. Further, Hubbard was crystal clear that when a word is looked up, a student clears up all the usual, common definitions of the word so that they end up with a full conceptual understanding of the term. If they do it well, they probably will not have to look that word up ever again no matter how it’s used in the future. Apparently that is now an “arbitrary” in Scientology and you are doing it wrong if you follow Hubbard’s directions. They’ve switched it up so now there is this Student Hat glossary which you are supposed to use instead and it has the one precise definition you need and that’s all you clear up.
For anyone who has never been a Scientologist, this is a fine point but in the Scientology technology, it’s a big one. It is another form of “quickie” tech just like how Miscavige sped up the lower Bridge auditing by dropping out a bunch of things that used to be done very thoroughly with people’s auditing.
A couple other points of interest here:
Andres says something here that is sort of folklore in Scientology, especially preached to the staff: That back in the 70s and 80s, scheduling was so much better. We talked about intensive scheduling in the last part, so I won’t belabor it here. However, Andres is lying through his teeth in telling everyone that “the usual schedule was the full schedule of the org.” That was never true in any Scientology organization. As I understand it, even old Saint Hill back in the 1960s had a Day and Foundation setup so that students who traveled there from around the world still had time off and did other things than just Scientology.
I also think it’s hilarious that Andres goes to this org and complains to them about Orange County org (which is one of the newer Ideal Orgs, by the way) as being “PTS to the Middle Class” and a bunch of dilettantes. If I were to say that, I’d be “suppressive” and “spreading black PR” but when Andres says it, he gets a big laugh. Being PTS to the Middle Class is a big no-no in Scientology. I could write an entire article on just this term and all of its connotations in the Scientology world, but suffice it to say that it means if you are doing anything other than Scientology with your life, you are to that degree, totally off the rails. Hubbard wrote a whole issue on this subject and compared the “middle class” of America to a bourgeois class of elite snobs who live in fear and who hide behind their houses and cars and the police and don’t want anything to change. One gets the idea that these people want to live in some kind of eternal Leave It to Beaver episode. Of course, the irony is that if Scientology actually took over the world, that is exactly the kind of world they would create. Pretty scary stuff if you think about it. Fortunately, Scientology has as much chance of taking over the world as L. Ron Hubbard has of reincarnating as the next Dalai Lama.
— Chris Shelton
And as a bonus, how about this photo sent in by one of our tipsters. Look what they’re giving out at Saint Hill these days…
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Claire on the air — and Lori too!
Claire Headley appears at 7:10 am Eastern this morning on WFLA-AM 970 in Tampa, talking about Scientology and brainwashing.
At 2:30 pm Eastern, Lori Hodgson will be on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, the new Insight Channel (channel 121) discussing how Scientology rips apart families.
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Bonus photos from our tipsters
The Unbreakable Miss Lovely visits York Minster!
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BOOK NOTES
THE PAPERBACK VERSION OF ‘THE UNBREAKABLE MISS LOVELY’ IS NOW ON SALE
We heard from enough people who want physical copies of the book in time for our appearances in California next week that our publisher, Silvertail Books, has released the paperback early. (The Kindle version still ships on our official publication date, Thursday, May 14.)
The Kindle edition is now available for pre-order at Amazon, and will be delivered on May 14.
Our appearances…
May 16: Santa Barbara Humanist Society (with Paulette Cooper) $2 for members, $5 for non-members. Here’s the schedule we’ve been given for this event…
2:30 people start arriving to socialize on the patio.
3:00 Meeting begins. President says a few words, makes announcements and then the speakers are introduced.
4:15 Move to patio while the room is set up for dinner. Wine bar. Time for book sales.
5:00 Buffet dinner.
Hey, these folks go all out. We hope some of our readers can make it. We’ll have copies of the book to sell for a discounted price, and we’ll be signing them at the event.
May 17: Center for Inquiry-West, Los Angeles, 4773 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, 11 am (with Paulette Cooper)
May 17: CFI Orange County (Costa Mesa), 4:30 pm (with Paulette Cooper)
May 20, San Diego: Kennedy Community Center, El Cajon, 7 pm, sponsored by the San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry (with Paulette Cooper)
May 22: San Francisco (with Jamie DeWolf and Paulette Cooper)
June 11: New York City (with Paulette Cooper) We’re keeping the venue on the down-low at this point. If you’re interested in coming to this unique event — Paulette in New York talking about Scientology where her story began — drop us a line so we get an idea how many are coming.
June 20: Chicago, The Annoyance Theater, 5pm (with Christian Stolte) This event is free, but reserve your tickets now!
June 22 and 23: Toronto (with Paulette Cooper)
June 27/28: Florida (with Paulette Cooper)
July 12: Washington DC, Center for Inquiry
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 12, 2015 at 07:00
E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.
Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…
BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of LA attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts
PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer
The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill
The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ
Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield
