Scientology’s top-down control of its Narconon rehabs? I was part of it.
Over the years here at the Underground Bunker we’ve provided mountains of evidence that the Narconon rehabs are a branch of Scientology and controlled, ultimately by its leader, David Miscavige, even if Narconon reps say otherwise to credulous reporters. Now, we have a first-person account of that control and his role in it, once again from the excellent Bruce Hines.
We have all heard about Narconon. According to Wikipedia, “The Scientology organization and Narconon state that Narconon is a secular program independent of Hubbard’s writings about Scientology, and that it provides legitimate drug education and rehabilitation.”
Um, I beg to differ.
The Narconon page on the ABLE (Association for Better Living and Education) website states, “The Narconon program is based on the works of author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard. The Narconon program is open to all faiths and beliefs and is a non-religious program.”
Narconon’s ties to Scientology have been contentious for many years, all the way back to the 1970s. Much has been written about it. I figured I’d add my own experience, in case it might help shed a little light.
In 1987 I got sent to the international headquarters of Scientology near Hemet, California, to hold a new post. This post was part of the Commodore’s Messenger Organization International (CMO Int). One of the first things that happened (at least back then) when one got posted there is to learn about the structure of top management of the ‘church.’
Aside from the Religious Technology Center (the boss of everybody) the top entity was called ‘The Watchdog Committee’ (WDC). The top guy was the WDC Chairman, and this person also held the post of Commanding Officer CMO Int. The whole Scientology world was divided into eleven ‘sectors’ and there was a WDC member in charge of each sector. For example, there was a post called WDC ABLE, whose responsibilities included making sure that the ABLE sector was being properly managed. One of the main parts of ABLE is Narconon.
In other words, Narconon was being run from the very top of Scientology management. I’m not sure how it works exactly these days, as I’m told that David Miscavige has dispensed with the various management organizations that were located at the Int base. I am pretty sure, though, that the main office of ABLE is still located in the Hollywood Guarantee Building in Los Angeles, where management units exist for all of Scientology.
Lafayette Hubbard talked a lot about ‘Tech,’ which of course is short for technology. That word covers many areas of human endeavor. But in the world of Scientology, Tech refers to very specific practices. I remember some confusion when I first got out of Scientology when I heard that abbreviation used in reference to computers and their networks, architectures and programming languages. In Scientology, Tech is described in ‘bulletins’ printed in red ink on white paper according to a prescribed format. It was deemed, after a lot of bad publicity and controversy, that these bulletins couldn’t be used to teach the procedures used in the Narconon program to its clients and staff. So, I remember a lot of activity by a certain part of CMO Int to create Narconon-only booklets that looked non-Scientological. There was no red ink and the usual heading and distribution details were gone. They were printed in a different font and included benign graphics. But the words describing the procedures were taken verbatim from the bulletins.
Anyway, in 1992 I think it was, I got sent on a mission. It was to the top Narconon in the world, which at that time was located in a place called Chilocco near Newkirk, Oklahoma. There was a facility there that had been in earlier years a school for Native American children. The land belonged to five tribes. In 1989, it was leased to Narconon, and the main center in the world was established there. If memory serves, this was supposed to be a training installation for Narconon staff from around the world. In addition, paying clients went there to undergo (unworkable) methods for curing drug addiction. Eventually, Narconon had to give up that property and moved the facility to another place in Oklahoma on Eufaula Lake — Narconon Arrowhead, which has been the subject of excellent reporting about abuses and deaths of people there.
The center in Chilocco was having PR difficulties, which was why I got sent on mission. I don’t remember exactly what the kerfuffle was all about. I believe representatives of the Native American tribes and possibly some local officials weren’t happy with what was going on. In fact, at the same time, an OSA Int mission (Office of Special Affairs International) got sent to coincide with my mission. OSA’s role was to gather intelligence, to locate and try to neutralize perceived enemies, and to create good PR for Narconon.
I wasn’t aware of what the OSA guys were doing exactly. But I was sent there as a supposed ‘Tech expert.’ Now the powers that be in Scientology management these days would deny that I had any technical expertise or position of authority. But at the time I had a pretty high-up post with the function of locating and correcting incorrect application of the technology internationally. I had been on many such missions where I tried to do just that — by means of physical inspections, studying the records of auditing sessions, direct observation of course rooms, interviewing staff, and then issuing orders to get the offending personnel corrected.
The significance of this is that I supposedly knew something about was what was written in those bulletins, which contain the information on how Scientology organizations are supposed to ‘deliver’ auditing and training. The procedures used in a Narconon were the exact same ones as those used in any of their ‘churches.’ The idea was that any Scientology organization that was experiencing PR troubles must not be practicing the Tech properly — a dictum originating from Hubbard.
So, off I flew from California to some smallish airport (in Wichita, Kansas?). I was accompanied by a lady named Denise Bolstad, a New Zealander who had family members also in the Sea Org at the Int Base. She was my ‘Mission Second.’ We then got picked up and drove for an hour or two through rural and sometimes desolate lands to Chilocco, a proverbial middle of nowhere. I don’t know why Chilocco was chosen for the flagship Narconon facility. Probably the rent was relatively low. But why so far from any urban center? There must be something about Oklahoma laws, maybe, since Narconon Arrowhead is also located in that state.
It took us three or four days to complete our mission orders. I don’t remember exactly what my findings were. One thing was that many of the staff and public, mostly non-Scientologists, didn’t understand all of the Scientology lingo that was in use there. This seemed important because a key datum in the practice of the Tech was that ‘misunderstood words’ lead to incorrect application and thus bad results.
I remember two young men from Germany who had been sent there by their parents, paying a lot of money, to cure them of their drug problems. I remember people from areas near Chilocco who were there because of their habit of sniffing spray paint from paper bags. I remember a male client who was a very talented Native American artist. He had gotten in trouble for having intimate relations with a female client. I remember the cook, a wild guy who had completed the Narconon program and then joined staff, who liked to put super-hot chiles in the scrambled eggs for breakfast. I remember that the key staff were Scientologists who had been on staff in other organizations previously.
One funny thing was the ride back to the airport after we had completed our mission activities. The driver was an Israeli guy, who had also been through the program and became staff. I was concerned that we were leaving too late and might miss our flight. He told me not to worry. He had driven people to the airport many times. We finally departed and then he took his time gassing up the car and buying snacks. It turns out that he wasn’t concerned about getting to the airport on time because he sped like crazy. Checking the speedometer while we screamed along relatively empty country highways, I noticed that were traveling at well over a hundred miles per hour. That cut the time down quite a bit and we did make our flight.
As I was writing this something occurred to me. The quote from ABLE in the first paragraph above says that Narconon is a non-religious program. I think that is accurate. Given that the procedures are exactly the same as those used in Scientology organizations, then Scientology must be non-religious in nature. Logical, right?
— Bruce Hines
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Right, Bruce, non-religious religious nonsense. It all makes sense if you don't think about it.
Hubbard never really reconciled his pseudo-scientific ideas of pseudo-religion. He called it religious only because he wanted to hide it under the umbrella of the First Amendment. But then he also wanted it to spread like the cancer it is into education and medical fields. Thus, the Association for Better Living and Education, a true joke if ever there was one.
I was involved in a similar issue in the education field. Study Technology, not even invented by Hubbard but stolen from others, was to be installed in schools. We know how well that turned out for Will Smith and many others.
But the technology, so-called. included the use of a pseudo-religious artifact, the e-meter. Now of course an e-meter is just part of a lie detector, well known in non-religious fields. Hubbard got the US government to allow its use in Scientology by applying a sticker that called it religious.
How can they get away with using this religious artifact in non-religious schools? What about the vaunted separation of church and state? What dirty trick can we pull that the lawyers can say allows this?
They pulled a similar trick to Narconon, reprinting all of Hubbard's pseudo-religious claptrap with a non-religious format. Scrubbed! But the meter was still a sticking point.
Finally they came up with an e-meter that they called a "Learning Accelerator". This banana-shaped non-religious religious artifact worked just like an e-meter and had all the same controls with different names. But the circuit is a slightly modernized version of the old Don Breeding American Blue. It has its own patent and is a little better, though very critical eyes will note a very slight hitch in the needle movement on some units. Due to the crossover distortion of the National Semiconductor LM324 PNP-input opamp. (Discerning readers will disregard the descent into pure elitist electronic jargon of the last sentence).
With all traces of the Hubbard name and Scientology purged, Study Tech was poised to crash its name into educational institutions over the whole world. With the opening of the Spanish Lake Applied Scholastics facility some years later, John and Carlynn McCormick were ready to become household names in education.
Fortunately, all that never happened. Only a few hundred Learning Accelerators were manufactured. Study Tech is only used in a very few Scientology schools like Delphi, where it has proven to be an utter failure. The schools, at least, are safe from fake Scientology.
Ha ha! Thanks! I’d forgotten about the Learning Accelerator. I’m sure they relied on your expertise to build that thing. I guess they still use e-meters in Narconons. Of all the many, many op amps available, why use PNP inputs?