‘Dropping the body’ in Scientology: An example of that instruction from the Sea Org

We’ve been getting a lot of feedback to the questions we raised about the Whitney Mills lawsuit, Scientology’s response, and what Scientologists learn about L. Ron Hubbard’s concept of “dropping the body” — in other words, a thetan leaving a body to end one lifetime and then begin another. We thought you’d want to see this eye-opening example from one of our favorite contributors, Sunny Pereira.

It was 1989. I was well into my adult RPF program, nearing the end steps. I was only 17 but I had managed to keep up with the rest of the RPFers doing manual labor and learning to use the Hubbard E-meter and do auditing sessions and interrogations on another RPF member.

We were very busy “on decks” (what we all called the manual labor), building the furniture for an extremely urgent but secret project. None of us had any idea what the furniture was for. Because the furniture was all cherry wood, we called it the cherry project. Later we found out that it was all shipped out on a boat and secretly brought in to Hamburg for the opening of the Hamburg org. At the time the government in Germany was heavy on the tail of Scientology investigating it, so it was important to Miscavige to show them we could do what we wanted and the government was not going to stop us from expanding everywhere and saving the world.

Backing up, let me introduce you to a spunky and spry little British lady named Evelyn Bowers. Evelyn was in my unit. She was always a hoot to talk to. She was 89. Evelyn and I were working on the reception desk for the cherry project. The instructions we had were to make it look like the top of a piano, with many layers of lacquer but very smooth and shiny. And so the job that Evelyn and I had was applying lacquer and sanding it over and over and over for days on end until we had what felt like 2000 layers of lacquer.

But this gave us lots of time to chat. As long as we were working, nobody cared if we chatted.

Evelyn had heard rumors within the RPF that maybe people thought she was getting up there in years and her mind was going. I remember a story she had told me once of an auditing session that she had gotten, where she was asked “Are you doing something with your mind between sessions?”. The purpose of the question per Hubbard is to detect other practices such as mediating or yoga. (Yes, yoga.) Anyway, Evelyn’s response to the question was “you bet I am!” It cracked me up when she told me, because I understood that she was asserting that her mind was in perfect condition and working just fine, thank you very much. We had a good chuckle over this.

I learned early on as a child in Scientology that the body was not me. The body was a thing. And it got old and useless after a while. And like a car, it needed to be replaced when the body (or car) was no longer useful. This is the attitude in Scientology about death. It is not an end. It is simply replacing something that doesn’t work well anymore.

One day, another RPFer, I don’t recall his name, but he was an young Australian man who was the Master at Arms. His primary job was making sure everyone in the RPF was being ethical, following the rules and so forth.

He came over to my lunch table with his tray of food and plopped it down. With a heavy sigh, he sat down. It seemed like he needed to talk to someone.

“What’s up?” I asked him. “It’s Evelyn.” Oh, I wondered if she had passed away or something. But I had seen her that morning. She had been told to go see this MAA.

And he told me the story. He was told that he needed to have a conversation with Evelyn and convince her to drop her body and get a new one. It just wasn’t good PR to have such an elderly person running around on the RPF. And there was no way they would have just let her off the RPF. It just wasn’t done. She was assigned there for some reason and they could not and would not just let her back into the Sea Org. So the only option was this conversation.

He did try. In the Sea Org, when someone passes away, in their issue (they have an obituary of sorts, written and sent to all the orgs in the area notifying people of the death) it allows a person a 21-year leave of absence. They are expected to return to the Sea Org in 21 years with their new body, and this is noted in this issue.

The MAA had difficulty approaching the subject of dropping the body, so he thought he could go about it in another way. It didn’t work, but in the world of Scientology, as terrible as this will sound, it gave everyone a chuckle, even Evelyn. The MAA had told her that he had noticed that things were getting more difficult for her and maybe she should think about getting a rest soon.

She asked him where she should go. This was not something he had any answer for. He then went on to explain to her, like he had read in those issues, that she should just go and return to the Sea Org in 21 years.

She blurted out “You want me to come back into the Sea Org when I’m 110?”

I almost choked on my food. Oh, yeah, you go, girl!

I miss that lady. She was fun to have around.

— Sunny Pereira

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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

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