Surviving Scientology’s Sea Org for children was a nightmare of parental abandonment

Another former Scientologist has reached out to us with a harrowing account of what they went through. We’ve confirmed that Mark was known to others who were in the Cadet Org at the time, and we’re honored that he’s allowed us to help him tell his tale.

My mother joined the Sea Org when she was a teenager, along with her sister and brother, her mother, and her stepfather. She was stationed on the Athena, as the ship’s cook, and she met my father, who joined the Sea Org with his mother, working directly with Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. My father was a ship’s engineer on the flagship, the Apollo. My mother was American and my father from New Zealand.

I was born in Copenhagen, their only child. I was dropped into the nursery with the other Sea Org “brats,” as I often heard us referred to. I was with my mother in the evenings and slept with her in her room. My bed was the bottom drawer of a chest of drawers. We had nothing and that was the way of it. It was communal living, with each family having one room. None of the doors were locked and some of the spaces didn’t even have doors.

When I was 2, my mother and father divorced. Mom was left to rear me with the help of the nannies.

Throughout my childhood in Denmark I didn’t see my mother for 90 percent of the day. I got to see her around dinner time, sometimes, and a couple hours at night before I went to bed. I was happy with what I had. As I got older, I started to protest this more and more.

I can remember digging under the fence at family berthing and going looking for my mom. That was the driving force in my life for as long as I can remember. When she was around, the world was good. When she wasn’t, I was a terror. I remember getting into fights, pulling hair, and generally being very unpleasant to the other kids. Life was weird. The closest analogy that I tell people is that it was like the book “Lord of the Flies.”

My mom tried applying Scientology Ethics conditions to me and I remember running around with a gray rag tied to my left arm as I was assigned the condition of Liability, meaning that I was no longer “part of the group.”

One day, things changed for the better. The powers that be had decided to bring in a French family to help look after the kids. They had three children — a boy and two girls. The boy was a bit older than me and the girls much older. The boy became my surrogate brother. We did everything together. I learned French, played with him and his sisters and finally had something like a “normal” childhood.

I calmed down, thanks in no small part to the efforts of this French family. I was taught origami and cursive lettering by the father. The other thing they did was have the children sit across from each other and do TR’s or “Training Routines.” These drills involve people sitting across from each other and “being there comfortably.” It’s not as easy as you might think to sit there and not do anything or think anything and simply be. The one thing it did do for me was calm me down a bit and that was a very good thing.

I played happily with the French children until one day I came home from school to find them giving the boy’s stuff away. I was told that he had fallen out of the fifth-floor window and was dead. I never saw the family again. To this day, it still pains me to think of my “brother” falling to his death. But at the time, I didn’t feel that way.

In the giveaway of his items I claimed his jacket. A thin outer shell, which folded into the hood and zipped up to form a fanny pack which would clip around the waist. These are my memories from that day. I don’t even recall feeling particularly sad. Death, in the Church, is looked on as more of a transition rather than the end of the line. It is believed that people live multiple lives, and as such, will eventually come back. It was only much later that I experienced the agony of losing my best friend, and the person who was, at that time, my anchor to sanity.

My mom had several boyfriends when I was living in Denmark, my favorite of whom was Bill. I recall, vividly, the knife he always wore. It was very sharp and I admired it. He was the maintenance guy for the Church’s properties. I would follow him around and pester him until one day he decided to put me to work. I was with him as he was getting ready to fix a broken window, (probably one I broke), and he decided that I was going to learn how to fix a window.

He showed me how to use glazing putty to hold the glass in place until the putty hardened and made them unnecessary. He then took his chisel and created perfect angles in the corners of the window and an even bevel along the length of each side. I was duly impressed and, to this day, I recall clearly how to fix a window. His patience and tutelage started me onto the road that eventually became what I do today: a remodeling contractor, specializing in all aspects of remodeling.

Ultimately, my mom re-married someone I had only met a few times. Peter had a temper and we didn’t get along that well. It might have had something to do with the fact that I ignored his instructions, almost as a matter of pride, and would do things which, in retrospect, may not have been the smartest things; such as playing around in a dumpster filled with trash or stealing money so that I could go and buy candy, or taking walks through Copenhagen, by myself, trying to find my mother. He taught me a whistle he would use when he wanted me to come to him, and when he whistled, I was supposed to come running like a good little brat. They divorced.

Then, one night my mother came to our room crying, and everything changed. For a while she was in Copenhagen and then she vanished. I didn’t see her again for eight years. I wasn’t even told what had happened. I do remember getting one letter during that time. But I didn’t think about her at all during our 8 years apart, not consciously, anyway.

It turns out that she was sent to the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida to get rehabilitated and was given a bunch of auditing, (the Scientology version of counseling), and had been placed in a position of being a course administrator for the OT 6 materials, when people were working to get onto OT 7, which at the time was the highest spiritual level you could get to. This process takes a long time to complete. My grandmother was on that level until she died.

My mother had been placed into the disciplinary portion of the Sea Org; called the RPF or Rehabilitation Project Force. The idea was that she would do hard labor during the day and in the evenings she would study the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard and, with a “twin,” someone that she was partnered with, work through the program. The idea was that these “twins” would work themselves through a series of spiritual processes until they were permitted to rejoin the rest of the group. There is a set of processes called the FPRD or False Purpose Rundown, where you clear up all the “false” purposes on all dynamics. It used to be called the “Evil Purpose Rundown” but that name was changed.

I was sent to England to live with my father who had been moved off the ship he was on, to a place called Saint Hill Manor. This was a rather large estate which was purchased in 1959 by Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard, and which was subsequently bequeathed to the Sea Org. My father was working in the Guardians Office, a precursor to the Sea Org’s current legal department; the Office of Special Affairs, (OSA). He was living in a small town called East Grinstead with a new wife. For a while I stayed in this house and went to a local school where I was immediately 3 years behind the rest of the class because of school starting three years later in Copenhagen. I was still very aggressive and got into many fights with other kids. My father said I had issues with honesty and lying and that I was generally a troubled child.

My father tried to use Ethics technology on me and apply conditions, but trying to get a young child, especially one that has a rudimentary grasp of the English language at best, to apply something as subjective as the conditions to oneself is an argument in futility. I was banned from my own bedroom for a while and slept on the living room couch. I would go to “bed” and the adults would sit on the couch, watching TV while I went to sleep, lying on the couch behind them.

When I was 9, my father had had enough and sent me to a place called St. Mary’s in Rottingdean. There I was indoctrinated into the Sea Org’s EPF or Estates Project Force. I was the only child in a group of adult men and women. I worked an adult schedule during the day of hard labor, breaking trails, cleaning up the property, getting rid of barbed wire fencing, using a sickle to hand cut a field of very tall grass with others using scythes and sickles. I was taught how to sharpen the sickle to get the best results. I cleaned the chicken coops and was generally treated as if I were an adult. I was berthed in the dorm with all the other adult men and slept on the second bunk up. There was, in my opinion, no consideration given to my age and I was expected to do my part.

My father and Jean moved into a single-family residence for a while and I got to live a semi-normal life for around a year. He had by that time been routed out of the Sea Org due to medical reasons. We moved into another communal dwelling, Stonelands, located in the middle of the countryside near a town called West Hoathley.

Stonelands is a sandstone block building, built in 1664 which sits on a number of acres. There were around 50 or so children living there in dormitories. There were two dorms for the boys, older and younger kids and two dorms for the girls, again older and younger.

The windows in Stonelands were single pane, leaded glass, with missing panes. The place had radiators, but I don’t recall feeling at all warm in the winter months and was more than glad of the down comforter I was given. The bathroom outside the dorms at the end of the hall was unheated and uninsulated, which in the winter was freezing cold. We scrubbed and waxed the floors, cleaned the mess hall, did maintenance around the grounds. All this was to “keep our exchange in” with the Church. Honestly, I didn’t mind the work as it kept “idle hands” busy which was a very good thing with that many children. Every morning we were “mustered” up, did a roll call and were formed into teams. The In Charge or I/C of each team was one of the older kids and there were usually around 7 to 8 kids in each group. We were assigned chores to do and did them as a team. There were demerits issued when a mistake was made and those were tracked by the I/C and reported to the nanny. There were positive marks given when a job was done well, or a child was particularly well behaved. These were also tracked by the I/C’s. There were several ladies that took care of the children with a ratio of around 1 to 15.

We were expected to keep a standard schedule, and when we weren’t working, we were “on course” in what I can only assume was a garage which had been converted to a course room. It was there that I was finally introduced to a dictionary and taught how to look up words using Scientology Study Technology.

One day, I was called into the office and given a bunch of tests. These were the OCA or Oxford Capacity Analysis test, an aptitude test and an IQ test. I was around 10 or 11 years old at that time. After the tests, I was asked to sign a Sea Org billion-year contract. Once you sign this, you are committing yourself to the Sea Org for this and the next, however many, lives you have on this planet. If you die, you will be granted an 18-year leave of absence, and then expected to return to post and resume your duties in the Sea Org. (It is interesting to note that you also sign a 5 year “contract” which is then renewed regularly as a legally binding contract of employment.) I was then routed “officially” into the EPF. I never finished the EPF in the UK and ultimately was routed back to the Cadet Org.

While working in the Sea Org, I was placed in the Commodores Messenger Organization, (CMO) UK, and given the post of C/O CMO UK’s communicator. I was once again given an adult schedule and expected to do whatever was needed for the Commanding Officer. I polished her shoes, cleaned out the terrarium with the two terrapins and was expected to keep problems off her lines and do my job.

I will freely state that, (in my personal opinion), I am not a good student by Scientology standards. I have a hard time spotting words that I don’t understand and routinely have issues falling asleep while on course. I’m not sure why I have such a tough time, but I’m sure I’m not the only one. In later years, I have come to believe that perhaps the tough physical nature of my work may have contributed to this problem as I was usually so exhausted at the end of the day that I don’t think I should have been on course at all. While on the EPF, I was once again run through a series of courses and, once again, didn’t finish them. I was 12 years old and the youngest member of an all adult team. I worked at Saint Hill, mostly doing grounds work. I enjoyed the work as it was physically demanding and I learned stuff. I was allowed to drive ride-along lawn mowers with trailers and I was given bow saws to cut trees which had fallen down.

Scientology in England, at that time, and to this day, was very controversial. I’m not sure exactly how, but it became known that I was a Scientologist and my life outside the church was misery incarnate. I was going to a public school named Imberhorne, which was broken into three sections, lower, middle and upper school. Life for me at that point was what I can only describe as sheer hell. The kids all knew that I was an S.O. kid and went out of their way to ambush me, hit me, psychologically torture me and in general, exclude me from everything nice. I was befriended by a kid who then proceeded to beat me up as often as he could get away with. Eventually I learned how to block a punch and stopped getting hit in the face. I was bullied constantly. In the bus to school, I was beat upon by children larger than myself and didn’t know how to protect myself. In school, I was set upon by children who made it their life’s mission to hound me, trip me up, knock me down and in general make me wish I were anywhere else but there. The teachers didn’t do anything to stop this and I’m sure had their own prejudices. This went on throughout my school years in England. One of the teachers, my math teacher, actually slapped me in the face because I was so distracted and not paying attention.

The one saving grace of my school years was Mr. H., my music teacher. He instilled in me a love of music and performing that carried me through the rest of my school years. From my earliest years in school I loved to sing.

Living conditions at Stonelands were sub-standard and not anything one might consider normal. We had a period where there was no hot water and I was taking showers in water which was literally ice cold, or not taking showers at all. Food was scarce and we would break into the pantry and take food. School lunches were the best food I had, when I had school lunches. Otherwise, I was making sandwiches from bread which I sliced because they made their own bread. The sandwiches typically consisted of butter, jam and peanut butter. Sometimes we would get lucky and have a protein like meat. The meals served at Stonelands consisted mostly of rice and beans. The cook at the time, Mick Parkee, was a genius at making beans and rice taste good. The kids ate what the adults ate. When there was a nice meal, it was a celebration because we would get stuff as exotic as cottage pie, potatoes, and occasionally pasta. The cleanliness of the house and grounds was primarily due to the kids working in teams and taking care of the place. We didn’t have a vacuum so I would literally take a dustpan and brush and sweep the hallways that had carpet in order to get them passable. We scrubbed the toilets and washed the windows with newspaper and cold water.

One summer, we discovered that there was a pool in the rear of the property and we spent a whole day emptying the pool of the green water, filled with insects and newts and then filled the pool with clean water. We were then charged two pence to use the pool we had just cleaned. I worked with Mick in the galley chopping onions and slicing bread for hours, to earn that two pennies so that I could use the pool. Chopping onions one day, I sliced my finger to the bone and should have received stitches, but Mick simply put a band aid on it and had me do a “Contact assist” on the cut to help it heal better. I wound up at the nurses’ station in school getting it taken care of properly.

There was one time I got sick. It was a stomach virus of some sort or food poisoning, not sure which. I was so sick and had such bad diarrhea that I was literally curled into a ball in the bathroom throwing up and shitting myself. I had no help, no one that was taking care of me and I stank of shit. I made it up to the lady’s shower as it was the only shower that had hot water and tried to clean myself off. I showered in my PJs because they were covered in shit. There wasn’t a laundry for me to get my clothes cleaned. I wound up back in bed and threw my shit-covered PJs into the armoire that was my only place to keep my belongings. All my clean clothes were there as well as my toys and other belongings. Eventually, one of the other parents or mine, not sure which, noticed the stench coming out of my area and told me to clean it out and get the dirty clothes to them so they could be washed. At that point, I hadn’t seen my parents in days and the only people I saw was the other kids.

The nannies lived in complete dread of a health inspector looking at the place. If there was even a rumor of a visit, we, the children, would spend days white-gloving the house. This literally meant that the nannies would go around with a white glove on and check all the vertical and horizontal surfaces in the house. If the glove came away dirty, the inspection would be failed or “flunked,” and we would clean the area again until it would pass a white-glove inspection.

During this time at Stonelands, I received only one communication from my mother, which included a cookie and a letter with hand drawn characters showing a stick figure raking leaves. She explained that she had been sent to Flag to make up for being wrongly put on the RPF and was working in estates and had received auditing to help her be better. I found out years later that she had been in England handling her ex-husband Peter, who had been acting in a “suppressive manner.” Apparently, I hadn’t been worth the visit, as I was a massive two or three hours away in West Sussex, while Peter lived in the south western portion of England, below Wales, called Plymouth.

I worked at Saint Hill in the canteen for a while, cooking fries, running the till and helping the people that ran the place. I was cleaning up one evening and was trying to get something off the fridge when a piece of steel plate which had been sitting on its corner fell onto its side and as I came down from the fridge it cut me from below my knee to my quads, roughly 4 inches. I wrapped my leg with some gauze and went back to work. I never brought it up with anyone, though it was pretty obvious that I was injured. To this day I still have a scar running across that leg. The concept is simple. In the Sea Org, if you get hurt, you are considered a Potential Trouble Source, which basically means that you are under some sort of suppressive influence. Policies on this subject basically state that if you are PTS, you are so, because you have committed overt acts. In a nutshell, if you get hurt, it’s all your fault. If something bad happens to you, it’s your fault. If you get sick, you’re PTS and it’s your fault. You get ostracized and separated from the group if you get sick. They put you in isolation and forget you exist, other than to bring you food, and only let you back into the group once you’re better. All this and more is why I never told anyone that I had hurt myself.

About this time, I had started to get depressed and was fighting to figure out who I was. When there were “events” — public gatherings of other Scientologists — I would drink and try to get drunk, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with reality. This was where my social anxiety and not fitting in started to come into play.

Someone noticed my anti-social tendencies and reported it to my seniors at the Cadet Org and I was pulled in for my first “Sec Check” or security check.

It was about this time that my father came to me and told me that I could go to America and be with my mother or I could stay in England and be with him.

I was clinically depressed, I was being bullied heavily at school, and I was hating my life, so I chose to leave the country and move to the States.

To this day, I think it was the best thing I could have done to try and stop myself from continuing down the path I was taking which would have ultimately led to suicide. I didn’t like myself and felt that no one liked me. There was no other way to go.

I was on my way to Tampa. I was 13.

— Mark Stevens

 
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Source Code

“OK, and this is the 1st of April 1954, little more on simple procedures, basics. The problem which the auditor faces is a very simple problem. That’s what makes it so difficult. He has a human being who is out of present time. Ordinarily this is the target of the auditor, although you can use auditing on cats, dogs and horses, and so forth. As a matter of fact, I was auditing a horse the other day. Got him into present time, too. It’s very easy to audit a horse. All you make him do is reach for you and you retreat until he feels good and dangerous. And his spirits will come up and he’ll be in present time enough to be rid.” — L. Ron Hubbard, April 1, 1954

 
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Avast, Ye Mateys

“OVERTS: In the interests of more truth on board, anyone feeling nattery should write up their overts and witholds and post them on the crew’s notice board with a copy to me. Hiding the real reasons behind natter roughs it up for the rest of us. We are after all a true group. Truth is the basis of group ARC.” — The Commodore, April 1, 1970

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“Membership figures in the Freezone — just like in the Church — have been dropping for decades so that the next generation is expected to be nothing but extravagant buildings owned and controlled by US government agencies like CST and RTC in order to increase illegal earnings of controlled intelligence non-governmental organizations (NGOs)….In the west, however, a toothless Scientology — which no longer audits effectively, thus leaving the reactive mind untouched, and no longer produces real Clears and OTs, but instead studies theory (‘The BASICS’) for the most part or, as in the Freezone, replaces the auditor’s training with ‘discussions about Scientology’s aspects in news groups’ — serves a similar purpose as the Freemasons’ lodges centuries ago: a reservoir for critical spirits, free thinkers and intelligent freedom fighters controlled by secret service circles.”

 
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Past is Prologue

1999: CNET News reported the settlement agreement between Scientology and Factnet in their copyright infringement lawsuit. “The Church of Scientology International has won a long-standing legal battle to repossess about 2,000 unpublished and copyrighted documents and keep them from being accessed by computer users in the future. Under a settlement reached in a U.S. district court earlier this month, a Colorado-based nonprofit group called FACTNet is permanently enjoined to pay the church $1 million if FACTNet is found guilty of future violations of church copyrights. ‘They have to give back all of our illegally copied materials written by L. Ron Hubbard,’ Warren McShane, president of Religious Technology Center, said today. Religious Technology Center is the legal name of the Scientologist church. The settlement would seem to stave off for now one avenue for publishing trademarked church materials on the Net, but the church continues to be scrutinized by online critics. Cases such as this have been widely observed because they pit copyrights and online free speech against one another.”

 
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Random Howdy

“Better to be pissed off than pissed on.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Danny Masterson charged for raping three women: Next pretrial conference May 31. Trial scheduled for August 29.
— ‘Lafayette Ronald Hubbard’ (a/k/a Justin Craig), aggravated assault, plus drug charges: Last hearing was on January 18, referred to grand jury. Additional charges also referred to grand jury after January 5 assault while in jail.
— Jay and Jeff Spina, Medicare fraud: Jay sentenced to 9 years in prison. Jeff’s sentencing to be scheduled.
— Rizza Islam and other family members, Medi-Cal fraud: Pretrial conference May 20 in Los Angeles

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Eleventh Circuit affirmed ruling granting Scientology’s motion for arbitration. Garcias considering next move.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Valerie’s motion for reconsideration denied on March 15.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Scientology has said it will file an anti-SLAPP motion.
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Third amended complaint filed, trial set for June 28.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: Trial concluded, Cannane victorious, awarded court costs. Appeal hearing held Aug 23-27. Awaiting a ruling.
— Chiropractors Steve Peyroux and Brent Detelich, stem cell fraud: Lawsuit filed by the FTC and state of Georgia in August, now in discovery phase.

 
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THE PROSECUTION OF DANNY MASTERSON

We first broke the news of the LAPD’s investigation of Scientology celebrity Danny Masterson on rape allegations in 2017, and we’ve been covering the story every step of the way since then. At this page we’ve collected our most important links, including our four days in Los Angeles covering the preliminary hearing and its ruling, which has Danny facing trial and the potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison.

SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

After the success of their double-Emmy-winning, three-season A&E series ‘Scientology and the Aftermath,’ Leah Remini and Mike Rinder continue the conversation on their podcast, ‘Scientology: Fair Game.’ We’ve created a landing page where you can hear all of the episodes so far.

LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH

An episode-by-episode guide to Leah Remini’s three-season, double-Emmy winning series that changed everything for Scientology watching. Originally aired from 2016 to 2019 on the A&E network, and now on Netflix.

SCIENTOLOGY’S CELEBRITIES, from A to Z

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

 
Other links: SCIENTOLOGY BLACK OPS: Tom Cruise and dirty tricks. Scientology’s Ideal Orgs, from one end of the planet to the other. Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society. Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in a weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Izzy Chait, renowned art dealer and major Scientology figure, dead at 74
[TWO years ago] Scientologists are convinced that they can rescue the planet from deadly pandemic
[THREE years ago] Sword-wielding, Bentley-driving man killed by police at Scientology org identified
[FOUR years ago] Scientologists are trying to convince each other that the new TV network is a roaring success
[FIVE years ago] Scientology’s spies: L. Ron Hubbard’s twisted legacy that proved his sickness
[SIX years ago] Augustine: One weird trick every Scientologist needs to learn for real ‘total freedom’
[SEVEN years ago] CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST SCIENTOLOGY DRUG REHABS IN CALIFORNIA
[EIGHT years ago] Hey, you guys, the new Scientology E-meter is a hit!
[NINE years ago] LEAK: Narconon’s Legal Affairs Director Admits No Scientific Basis for Advertised Success Rates
[TEN years ago] Sunday Funnies: LRH Gets an Answer from Tricky Dick!

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on April 1, 2022 at 07:00

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Other links: BLOGGING DIANETICS: Reading Scientology’s founding text cover to cover | 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 | Shelly Miscavige, 15 years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | 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

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Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news | Battling Babe-Hounds: Ross Jeffries v. R. Don Steele

 

Tony Ortega at The Daily Beast