Parents learn the hard way how bad Scientology is for their kids
Parents learn the hard way how bad Scientology is for their kids
Bruce Hines is back with another devastating look inside Scientology…
For many years, up until the late 1990s, Castile Canyon School was located in a valley nestled among the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains. The canyon itself meanders for roughly four miles in a southwesterly direction from that valley down to the San Jacinto River. To my way of thinking, ‘river’ is a bit of a misnomer, as most of the time it is just a dry creek bed. In some years during the winter months when there is relatively more rain, water flows in it. Every so often the rain can be heavy and then it really is a river that sometimes floods. The amount of precipitation varies a lot from year to year.
The ‘river’ travels northwest through the town of San Jacinto, along the southern border of Gilman Hot Springs, and eventually into Mystic Lake, which grows and sometimes shrinks to nothing depending on rainfall. Gilman Hot Springs is the location of Golden Era Productions, a part of the sprawling international network of Scientology, and was for years where all of the top management units of that cult resided. The valley where the school sat was a flat area amongst hills where four creeks converge. It occupied something like 500 acres. Again, those creeks were usually dry and could be more accurately described as drainage channels during rainy periods.
The cult referred to this property as Happy Valley and it was generally called HV. In the early 2000s, Scientology sold the property to the Soboba Native Americans, who renamed it as The Oaks.
All right, enough of that. I can get pretty geeky about geography sometimes. I actually wanted to write about the Castile Canyon School. I wouldn’t say that it was actually a school as most people would think of one.
In 1988 I think it was, it was decreed by the powers that were that Sea Org members could no longer have children. The reasoning was that they should be able to focus on the vital task of saving the world without the distraction of offspring. This was stated in an issue that was ostensibly written by Guillaume Lesevre, who had the post of Executive Director International at the time. But I’d be willing to bet that he was acting on orders from David Miscavige. Lesevre had two kids and Miscavige had none. Prior to that edict, Sea Org couples were allowed to have children, and the various Sea Org bases around the world had child care facilities, albeit poor ones.
Afterwards, if a woman in the Sea Org got pregnant, she was strongly encouraged to get an abortion. If she refused, the couple got sent out to a lower organization to become staff there. They would find themselves in a so-called “small and failing org,” trying to survive on pay derived from the miniscule income of such a place. Still, though no new babies would be supported by the Sea Org, there were many members who already had children of various ages, which included staff at the International Headquarters at Gilman Hot Springs in California. So, it had to be decided what to do with these kids. It would have been sensible and humane to have living quarters in which parents could live with their children. But no, that would have cut into the 100+ hour workweeks required of the workers at the base. And what’s more, it would have cost more money.
The solution was the Castile Canyon School. It took 15 or 20 minutes to get there from the Int base by car. The kids were confined to that property 24/7. Kind of like a boarding school, but not really. Parents who had transportation (they might have had their own car or could get a ride with someone else) were allowed to see their children for a few hours on Sunday morning. This was during the time referred to as CSP (for Clean the Ship Program, a holdover from the time when the Sea Org was located on a boat), when the parents were supposed to be cleaning their living areas, doing laundry, and buying (out of their meager pay) essentials, such as toothpaste, shampoo, etc. However, there was often some kind of ‘emergency’ on the base that cut into this routine.
The creation of this place for the children of Int base staff also solved another problem. Previously, they lived in facilities for kids in LA. There had been an existing practice that their parents would, most weeks, travel to LA on Saturdays to spend time with their kids, returning by lunchtime Sunday. The parents would have to get excused from ‘Saturday renos’ (short for renovations), which was a weekly time when almost all of the Sea Org members on the Int base did manual labor in an effort to spruce up the property. Moving those children out to HV put an end to that ‘off-purpose’ custom of having some semblance of a family.
Being able to spend some time with one’s kids became possible during a milder and relatively bit more civilized era in the Sea Org. Miscavige became the top guy at the Int base in 1987, and after that the atmosphere became more and more draconian. The ban on new kids and greatly cutting down on parent visitation were examples of that transformation.
The idea was promoted that this ‘school’ was the ideal place for a child to grow up. They would be educated using Scientology’s ‘study technology,’ which was viewed as a far superior way to learn. As if. They would not be exposed to the outside world with all its ‘false data’ and ‘psych influences’ and other evils of ‘wog’ society. They would not accumulate ‘misunderstood words’ that would cripple their ability to be competent and smart. They would learn the basics of Scientology ‘management tech’ and the organizational structure of the Sea Organization. They would learn Sea Org etiquette (like, for example, one should always address a person with a senior position with ‘sir’ even if that person is female), and marching and saluting and other paramilitary stuff. They would become effective and obedient. They would learn discipline. They would learn to adhere to a strict schedule. They would be the future executives of the Sea Org. Nothing could be further from the truth.
These children spent much of their time doing manual labor. They were organized into groups with a hierarchy of authority. These groups were given ‘projects’ to complete. Their work included such things as hauling rocks from the nearby creek beds which would be used to build low stone walls; picking and processing olives from some trees that were on the property; cleaning to ‘white glove’ standards various areas; gathering and packaging vegetables that grew in the fields, for use in the kitchen (or galley, as it was called) on the Int base; laundry; washing dishes; and many other things the Sea Org supervisors dreamt up.
There were times during the week when the kids were supposed to study or be in school. They were given a series of courses to complete, which varied according to the child’s age and previous studies. In Scientology there is no teacher. They are supposed to read things at their own speed, and do a lot of demonstrations and drills, all according to their ‘checksheet.’ And of course they spent a lot of time looking up words in a dictionary using a prescribed lengthy procedure. There was one older person that was supposed to stand around in the course room and supervise them. In addition to courses on things related to Scientology, there were others that were supposed to teach the three R’s.
I happen to know, because my son was one of those kids, that for most of them the progress was very slow and they would get out of going to ‘study time’ if they could. The kids there had to be warned about various dangers in the immediate physical environment. Tarantulas and black widows were common. So were rattle snakes and scorpions. One could hear coyotes howling most every night, and they would approach the living areas often in search of food. It was also a mountain lion area. The surrounding vegetation included a lot of cactus and poison oak. They weren’t supposed to venture out alone or go out after dark.
The ‘school’ had that property more or less to themselves after the late 1980s when it was formed. But in 1995 it had to co-exist with the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), the euphemism for the detention and correction camp for supposedly wayward Sea Org members. There had been earlier iterations of the RPF out at Happy Valley (for Int base staff who had gotten in trouble), but when the property was converted to the Castile Canyon School, the workers who were deemed to have messed up had to be ‘handled’ elsewhere.
However, in 1995 it was deemed that there was again a need to have an RPF out at HV for inadequate Int base staff. So a compound in a far corner of the property was constructed some distance from the ‘school.’ I had the misfortune of being assigned to that RPF. Our routine included eight hours of manual labor every day, performed in carrying out various projects around the property. These projects included things like digging ditches and running water pipes for irrigation lines, building greenhouses, erecting a barn-like structure to house farming equipment, planting an apple orchard, and many more such tasks.
We had to run everywhere, as per the policies governing the RPF. Of necessity, on occasion we went near the children who were involved in their own activities. My son, who was ten years old at the time, had to see his father trotting by, in a formation like a military platoon moving in double time. We were not allowed to interact with the children and they had been instructed to stay away from us. I had to basically ignore my own child, though a few times I was able to surreptitiously give him a quick smile.
Everyone was supposed to act as though it was a perfectly normal state of affairs. While on the RPF, I wasn’t allowed to see my wife and son at all. Then, in 1998 I apparently completed the program and went back to the Int base. My son was happy that he could see me again, even if it was only on Sunday mornings. To my lasting regret, I had a run-in with David Miscavige at the Int base and got sent back to the RPF again. My son happened to see me doing ‘grueling’ work (Miscavige’s term) in RPF clothes. That’s how he found out. He was understandably upset. By this time he was 13 years old. Later he told me how he and another kid sneaked out, crept up one of those dry creek beds to the RPF site, and tried to peer through bushes behind a shack, where a security guard was posted, to hopefully see what I was doing. He ended up getting in trouble for that.
The next year a decision was reached by the authorities on high to terminate the ‘school.’ By then the youngest child was about twelve. All of the kids were told to sign Sea Org contracts (you know, the ones for a billion years, literally). I think they all did. I don’t know if there was any other option for them. Possibly they could have been sent to live with some relatives or friends, away from their parents. I believe they all had to get security checks (interrogation while connected to an E-meter). Then they got sent to be staff in a Scientology organization either in Los Angeles or Clearwater. My son got posted, as a fourteen-year-old, in an org called ASHO Foundation in LA. The RPF took over the buildings and areas that had been the ‘school.’
A few turbulent years ensued for both of us. His mother left the Sea Org (via their standard routing-out procedure). That meant that he was by himself, living in a dorm, and trying to make it in the very challenging life of a Sea Org member. I got sent to New York in 2001. He decided he wanted to leave and and made this known to the appropriate people. As usual, they did everything they could to convince him to stay.
Finally, he was offered to be sent to New York to be with me, and he agreed. I remember taking the subway and a bus to pick him up at La Guardia. I was allowed to do so because he would be a new staff member in the org where I was posted. It was sometime in 2002. I hadn’t seen him for over three years and had not spoken to him for over six years. I was happy about it and so was he.
He turned eighteen later that year. He started working in the unit where I did and was hoping that this would continue. But in the typical instability of Sea Org existence, he kept getting sent out on projects to lower orgs in the eastern U.S. So, he actually wasn’t able to work with me as he had been promised. His last project was working on the central files in Buffalo, as part of making it the first ‘Ideal Org.’
In February 2003, he sneaked away by bus and left the Sea Organization. Two months later I did the same from NYC. The fact that my son was gone made it easier for me to take off. I had felt some responsibility for him when he was in the Sea Org, even though I had zero say in what was done with him.
Fortunately, and it really was a lucky thing, we ended up together in Denver. That in itself is a complicated story. The so-called education that he got at the Castile Canyon School truly sucked. He was semi-literate. He struggled with the simplest arithmetic. He knew nothing of history or civics or literature or science. I tried my best to help him learn enough to get a GED, which he eventually did. Then we got him enrolled in a community college, where he was tested and put in classes that brought him up to the level of a high school graduate. He was then able to transfer to a university where, after much persistence, he earned a bachelor’s degree.
After all was said and done, that was a happy outcome. But I don’t think he has ever fully recovered from his awful upbringing in that cult. He had known nothing else until he finally left.
Happy Valley has a certain high-desert beauty about it. It is quiet. It is surrounded by mountains. The air is clear and the sky is very blue. Sage brush with its varying coloration covers much of the hillsides. Prickly pear cactus dot the area, with gorgeous red and yellow flowers that blossom in the spring, and bearing tasty fruit (once the spines are carefully removed). Oak trees of a certain type line the creek beds, where fresh water flows during rainy spells. Some earlier tenants had planted many century plants — these are a kind of giant agave, typically 6 to10 feet across and just about as tall. After something like 20 or 30 years they spectacularly put out a giant flower stalk that reaches up to 30 feet in height (which several of them did while I was there).
Sadly, all that beauty was an unlikely setting for all the horrors that went on there while Happy Valley was in the possession of the cult of Scientology. Castile Canyon School was a nice-sounding front for far more nefarious goings-on.
— Bruce Hines
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Filling in some of the earlier history, before Bruce was there - when I arrived as an RPF member in 1983 we lived at the same location, then called Happy Valley. Happy, as in the Funny Farm, from the famous song "They're coming to take me away, ha ha!" A reference to the practice of sequestering people there who needed to be isolated from the general population of Sea Org. Imagine being too nuts for the Int Base!
At that time there were the ruins of the earlier uses of the valley, some old movie sets and a ramshackle old house. There was a library, still stocked with shelves and books. In back was a swimming pool, that was never filled with water. They put bunks in the library and that was my first home at the Int Base. Heaven for me, with my head next to my beloved books. It was the Biography section. I rocked out with the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini using my flashlight.
The RPF at that time was a little odd, even for the Sea Org. It is literally impossible to escape the RPF legally unless you are allowed study time. Even by Sea Org standards it is considered cruel to disallow study time, during which one confesses all one's crimes and becomes sincerely repentant. But the Int Base RPF was purely a work force to get the base ready for Hubbard's return, working almost 24/7. There were course rooms and student graphs, but nobody ever used them. We spent weeks at a time never even seeing our bunks, catching catnaps in the Monotherm insulation in the attic or in a random closet.
There is a Hubbard dictum, called an "Advice", about the Int Base. One of the statements in it is something like "There is no RPF there". Hence the move to Happy Valley. Busses brought us in through the Soboba Indian Reservation, who viewed us with understandable suspicion. Especially after one of their children was killed by a bus.
But even the need to build houses, music and film studios, audio and film production lines was not enough to justify a purely slave work force forever. Finally they allowed some of us to accept the 1983 amnesty and become staff of a sort. Called the Gold Construction Team or GCT, we were sort of staff members so no need to give us five hours of study time. Same schedule, same living quarters, but sometimes a day off! It was Gary Wiese, as Chief Officer Gold, who asked us in a big meeting in the Garage about what we would call ourselves. We came up with the name.
After that, time went on and more staff were assigned to the RPF. So it was a mixed bag at Happy Valley, some GCT and some RPF. Then somebody got bent out of shape about the two groups living together and moved some of us to the Base. The Library became the courseroom for the RPF. It was too hot to close the doors and windows, no AC, so often tarantulas would wander in to join us.
Bruce didn't mention the rattlesnakes. A $5 bonus to kill one, though really they were here before we were.
After Hubbard died the thrill kind of went out of the idea of getting the Base ready for his return, but lots of staff still worked on the strange projects of the Gold Base. Making movies that no-one will see, people writing songs that voices never shared - no one dared - disturb the sounds - of Silence (Sorry Paul Simon),
Mostly vanity projects for Dave, and as an excuse for not doing his main job. He was the one who was supposed to achieve the "All Clear", the legal handling for Hubbard's issues so he could come out of hiding. As long as that was hopelessly bugged, he could still hide behind the notion that the "base is not ready". Like the famous Winchester Mystery House, construction could go on endlessly to prevent anyone from turning an accusing gaze on Dave himself.
Just an example - Hubbard said he would need to produce ten music albums. One for each of the volumes of his science fiction epic, "Mission Earth". So, of course, we needed a real Music Studio. Four floating slabs on vibration isolators, a mix board by the famous George Massenburg, echo chambers, all kinds of expensive vintage equipment, enough to make any modern-day musician laugh their heads off as they cut tracks in their converted bedrooms.
Hundreds of people worked thousands of hours to make this happen. One of the Mission Earth albums was produced. It is a total joke, despite the excellent performances of Edgar Winter and so on. As we say in the electronics design field, it was a Dumb Idea in the First Place.
In the 90s the story of Happy Valley continues on as Bruce laid out. Never a truly happy place, but at least today no slaves or children.
All this went on while us clueless “public” Blithely took our courses, got our auditing and attended events where we were fed propaganda and bought it all. And the Sea Org is still preying upon young adults who were raised in Scientology.
Bruce, I’m glad your son got out. There are many ways to heal from the traumatic experiences. I’m still doing that regarding my own progress. At this time minus my son and daughter who disconnected from me six years ago. And the beat goes on.