Scientology Mission Impossible: Or, how an ‘SP’ ended up in charge

[Today’s guest post is by Pete Griffiths.]

My reason for leaving Scientology was simple. My pregnant wife and child were starving. So was I.

We were actually paying a babysitter so that we could work at the “org” (Scientology’s word for church) where we received no pay, week in week out. The staff were making it difficult to leave and so “blowing” (Scientology’s word for leaving without authorization) was the only option.

I had just wasted three years of my life. The thing is, I still reckoned that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard had the answers to most if not all of Man’s problems, and although I cursed the org staff for not following policy and getting us into a dreadful situation, I still believed that people needed to know about this wonderful technology that could save us all.

The org declared me a Suppressive Person (or “SP,” in other words, an enemy of the church) for blowing, which was shocking enough but it didn’t quite kill me. And still like an idiot I wanted to promote Scientology and Hubbard.

This led me to contact the Scientology Missions Network and make enquiries about running my own mission, because I knew I could do a better job than those idiots at the org.

Yes, even though I had been declared SP, I still had the idea of running my own Scientology mission.

After all, I had done part of the FEBC (Flag Executive Briefing Course), the top executive training available, and had also completed the OEC (Organization Executive Course), which consists of studying every single page of the so-called green volumes, hundreds and hundreds of them.

A Scientology course is unlike any other. You are pretty much left alone to study at your own pace, especially if you are designated a Fast Flow Student, which I was, mainly on account of having finished various other courses or auditing actions. And one day the supervisor decided to do a spot check on me. This consists of asking me what any random word or phrase might mean, and he looks over the text and asks me what is the definition of “it.” I hesitated, and he said “Flunk!” This meant that I had to go back to the very beginning of the course, and I had been on my fourth volume of the seven.

With a shrug I go back to page one. There is a datum in Scientology which states, “Number of times over materials equals certainty and results.” Deep breath, here we go again. Anyway despite all of this I contacted the person in charge of missions and asked about the possibility of starting one.

He said, “As you are an SP, there is no way you can be a Mission Holder, but if you found someone else to be the MH then you can be the Executive Director and run it.”

And that is exactly what happened. A mate said he would do it after I convinced him that there would be nothing to do and he’d just be Mission Holder in name only and that I would do all the work. Everything was signed up, ready to go but neither of us could afford the mission starter pack.

These things cost about £30,000 I think.

Oh well, I tried.

Then I heard that there were two mission starter packs available that had been bought but not used. One near Manchester and the other in Edinburgh. The Manchester guy I knew had cancer and that was most likely his reason for not opening his mission. The Edinburgh one, I had no idea.

Off to Manchester we go, to some middle-class cloned housing estate and knock on the door of the house, and sure enough in the garage is what looks like a mission starter pack. We load up, say thanks, and head home.

One thing I had noticed was that the basic books that comprised most of the pack were of the older style. They still had colourful covers but there was already a newer edition out. Of the same book, of course. The freight train from Venus was there. And the woman dressed in an ape suit. It’s hard to recall exactly when these were published but in my time there was a whole new lot introduced that superseded the previous bunch from the early 80s? I could be wrong but a later edition was out, late 80s, 90s. So I would be pretty much selling any new public older stock. Not ideal.

When I finally got to Edinburgh and entered the dark dingy damp room in which the mission starter pack was stored, the scene was much worse. These books were of an even earlier edition. The ones with “loyal officers” dressed in white mini-skirts and matching steel helmets. Apparently these book covers were LRH-approved designs. I managed to salvage any books that were not water or damp damaged and headed the long way home.

It was pretty obvious that both these starter packs were starter packs in name only, and in addition to being old stock had actually been ravaged by a couple of hundred petty pilferers. Great start, eh?

To get things rolling I took out a full page ad in a local free paper that consisted solely of an Oxford Capacity Analysis (Scientology’s “personality test” that actually has nothing to do with Oxford University) and a return address. Something inside me knew that to mention Scientology or Dianetics would be counterproductive, so I just called us “Riverdale Mission” (name changed to protect the innocent.)

So far, expenses had been the cost of petrol to collect the starter packs and not much else as I planned to run the operation from home until we had made a bit of money. The newspaper ad of course would be paid for at a future date once the money came rolling in.

The OCAs began to come in and then I began to call people to come in for evaluation. Things took off in a minor kind of way.

The big problem was that true to my word to my mission holder friend, I did everything myself. I was the call-in person, the registrar, the bookseller, the course supervisor and the auditor. But still people came in from the OCAs.

The Commanding Officer of the UK called me to Manchester to a meeting with the Manchester Execs and as we sat around a nice big polished table he told them that they ought to be more like me and finished by saying, “And he’s a bloody SP!”

Another time at Saint Hill Manor, Scientology’s UK headquarters, I was introduced as a successful businessman from the north. When the guy asked what I did, the Sea Org executive answered, “He’s a Mission Holder.” Which of course I wasn’t, but that is the bizarre world of Scientology right there. As long as you are producing the goods, everyone is happy and petty rule violations are overlooked.

And so I had proved myself right. The problem wasn’t Scientology, it was the people doing it and I was just as good if not better than they were.

I was to find out just how wrong I was!

And so I found myself riding high in the Scientology world and all because I was producing, getting products out. I was disseminating, calling in new people, selling them courses or auditing, or books, in short, doing everything. Slowly I began to acquire staff to help but I couldn’t train them quickly enough to become useful and of course this would have meant no time to do all the other things. Eventually I had five staff members. One guy was hired to simply hand out leaflets and he appeared to be doing a great job of it. His statistic kept going up and up.

L. Ron Hubbard teaches that promotion is the key to just about everything, and I was just waiting for the hordes of interested public to come beating on my door. They didn’t. I thought I’d better investigate the matter. After all, I had done the Data Series. This was Hubbard’s version of analysing logic and all that it entailed in order to find out what was illogical and thence find answers that would solve the problem, once and for all.

Meanwhile I get called to Saint Hill to receive an award for the book sales I had been doing. As I walked through the courtyard towards the fake castle entrance I was approached by the Ethics Officer, a big tall guy, softly spoken.

“I thought you were an SP?” he began.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I grinned, feeling invincible. In actuality I was still an SP. The declare was never lifted for some reason. I suppose it saved some time later when I became a real SP.

I received my award and glowed all over the place feeling pretty smug. Back at base (my home) we had three staff living with us and of course we were also raising a family, or trying to. Despite the accolades for sales and delivery, income was never, ever enough.

One of our students overheard my wife and I discussing our inability to pay the rent that month and generously offered a donation which from sheer desperation I accepted, whilst feeling like a utter cad.

The new public was really just a trickle at this time so I confronted the leaflet guy. He was glad of the chance to confess his overts (sins). Each morning he went out with his bag full of leaflets, dumped them into a litter bin and spent the day sunbathing in the local park. I was furious but at the same time found the whole thing amusing.

I can’t even recall how I disciplined him, probably assigned him a lower ethics condition, the answer to everything. Things, however, were still going reasonably well and it came around to the time of year for a big event.

The powers that be decided that the event for the Northwest area of England would be held by our mission rather than Manchester Org, as I was putting the org to shame with my one-man show. It became mandatory for all staff and public of the org to attend.

I organised a local hotel to host the shindig, which included the obligatory video viewing from the recent International Event, and then of course some hardcore regging (Scientologese for getting people to buy lots of stuff). Prior to this we were to have a three-course dinner in celebration.

Planning was easy enough but I grew concerned as to who was going to pay for everything. The ED (Executive Director) assured me that the attendees would each pay their part, and when I suggested we could sell tickets I was reassured that I could collect the money on the night from the guests.

You can probably imagine what happened. We all had a lovely meal and afterwards I realised that I had better get collecting as I would be presented with a bill from the hotel at the end of the night.

Things did not go well.

“Oh can I send you a cheque next week?”

“Oh we thought it was free.”

“I’ll pay you next week, promise.”

And so on and on from table to table as my heart sank further and further and I had to face reality. The average Scientologist couldn’t afford a meal out at any time of the year and here they were ordered to attend a function and the weakest link would just have to break.

That was me.

Later that night I had some moments of clarity. The first I had ever had since first becoming involved with Scientology some seven years prior.

I was introducing people to this fabulous new idea which would enable them to unleash their true potential, remove the barriers to success, handle the problems of life easily, and so on and so forth. And guess what? It didn’t work!

It didn’t work in the UK but maybe it was different elsewhere? Not really, I had seen LA and Flag and the same sense of desperation was all-pervasive amongst the membership. You handle things by lurching from crisis to crisis, quoting LRH or some piece of tech to make yourself sound better than you were. All this ability waiting to be unleashed, turning average humans into powerhouse millionaire types, and it just wasn’t happening, at all, anywhere. If it seems to good to be true…

I collected about 300 of the 2400 invoice on the night and nothing after that. I was an idiot. How can I, with hand on heart, introduce people to Scientology, knowing full well that you don’t get what is promised and you can’t even afford a dinner?

My mission production went to zero overnight.

Once a week, at 2pm on a Thursday, I would get a call from Scientology Missions International (SMI) UK to report my statistics. These consisted of a lengthy list ranging from things like book sales, new people in, auditing hours, gross income, corrected gross income. student points — ah the list went on and it was relatively easy saying zero, zero, nothing, nothing. And at the same time, it was tough to do this. I felt foolishly like it was me that was letting the side down.

The first time this occurred I was told to buck up and improve the following week. But I couldn’t. This went on for some six weeks before the Commanding Officer showed up and with some repressed rage blurted out, “You are out of here, the mission is transferred to (blank) and don’t look so bloody noble about it.”

Inwardly I was so relieved and the next day gathered all stock, what was left of it, and folders and dumped it all with the poor unfortunate who had been convinced to take over. He was actually someone I had got in. I wished him luck and drove off into the night.

Years later I heard that Scientology was saying that I had organised an event and ran off halfway through. What? Yes, that was the line they put out. The event was in the town I lived in so I hardly ran off. The attendees all ran off, in truth. Leaving me with the bill.

That is the thing that got me out of Scientology physically. They had me mentally for a further 14 years.

The rotters.

— Pete Griffiths

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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

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