My Nine Lives in Scientology by M. Pignotti 7/10 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/pignotti/ My LRH Commendation When I graduated from the RPF in May of 1974, I was sent back to complete the internship and Quentin returned to his position as a Flag auditor. I quickly completed the internship requirements and became a full-fledged Flag Class VI auditor, which was a dream come true for me. The summer of 1974 was to be the high point of my time in Scientology. I was assigned a very difficult case to audit. The person was a Scientology executive from South Africa who had previously been Director of Processing (the person in charge of the auditors) on Flag during the same time I was an intern and getting into so much trouble. We didn't get along at all and here I was, assigned to audit him. While in South Africa, he had gotten into ethics trouble and had just graduated from the RPF. Maybe assigning me to audit him was a way to further punish him, or maybe it was just a coincidence -- I don't know what the powers that be were thinking when they assigned his case to me, but we turned the tables on them and surprised everyone, including LRH. I knew that the first thing I had to do was to get him to trust me, so we could develop a rapport which was essential if the auditing was to be at all successful. Somehow, we managed to work things out between us and his auditing went very well. By the time we had finished, he was glowing. The difference in his before and after personality tests was dramatic and caught the attention of Hubbard. He sent down a memo, commending me on my auditing, delivered to me by one of his messengers, Anne (currently Anne Broeker). He said that I was to be held up as an example of what Flag auditing is all about. This commendation had tremendous significance to me, as well as to others. People who never gave me the time of day were all of a sudden very nice to me. After all, Hubbard had said that "Auditors are the most valuable beings on the planet" and Flag auditors are considered to be the cream of the crop. To be held up as an example of an ideal Flag auditor was to be at the top of the most elite group of people on the planet. In my eyes at the time, we were the people who would save the planet. I felt tremendous power. Quentin and I continued to be good friends, spending a great deal of time together. We still spent a lot of time in his cabin, laughing together and playing with his tape recorder. We were always making up funny little skits and commercials and taping them. Once, we just taped ourselves laughing for several minutes and when we listened to the tape, we laughed even harder. On our days off, we would often go ashore together. Quentin loved to watch airplanes landing and taking off at local airports. His real dream was to become a pilot, but his father had other plans for him. Quentin and I came very close to getting involved sexually, but we didn't because he told me that several years earlier, he had become sexually involved with a young woman and she had been sent off the ship when his father found out. He didn't want to get me into that kind of trouble, so we remained good friends. He once told me that he had decided not to get married until he was 25 years old, an age he never reached. Regarding the rumor that he was a homosexual, he told me that he used to tell that to some of the women on the ship who were after him because of who he was, just to get rid of them. If he did engage in homosexual relationships later, it was probably because he was never allowed to have a heterosexual relationship with anyone. The Mission to New York In August, 1974, I was sent to New York City on a six-week mission ordered by Hubbard. This was considered to be a great honor. My mission was to audit Molly Bornstein, the Commanding Officer of the Flag Liaison Office in New York and her husband, Al, also an executive there. Unlike some Sea Org missions, our mission was a friendly one. Molly and Al weren't in any kind of trouble and were very happy that an auditor was being sent from Flag especially to audit them. Two other people accompanied me on the mission: Joan Robertson, a top Scientology executive who was in charge of the mission and David Englehardt, a staff member on Flag. I'm not sure what their purpose was, but it had something to do with helping the organization run more smoothly. We flew across the Atlantic from Lisbon to New York City. I had been away from the United States for over a year and was very happy to be returning for a visit. We stayed at the Hotel Alden on 81st Street and Central Park West, headquarters of the org. My accomodations felt very luxurious to me. I had my own large private room and bath and we were given an allowance to eat all of our meals out in restaurants. The first night we ate at a diner in the neighborhood. I ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a hot fudge sundae. I had missed American food and felt like I had died and gone to heaven! I had lost a lot of weight, due to the hard physical labor when I was on the RPF and all the times I couldn't eat anything because I was seasick. I was very thin and could eat anything I wanted without fear of gaining too much weight. I remember sitting up on the roof, enjoying the view and eating a whole pint of Hagen Daz ice cream. I hadn't realized until then how homesick I had been for the United States. I savored the simplest pleasures that most people take for granted, like being able to take a bath and use as much water as I wanted. On the ship, we had to take 30-second showers, due to the shortage of water. Since we were from Flag, we were treated like royalty by the people in the org. After all, we were Hubbard's personal representatives, as Flag missionaires. Molly and Al turned out to be genuinely nice people. They showed us around New York City and we all had a great time together. Molly and Al's auditing went well and the mission was considered a success. When I was in New York, my parents came to visit me. I had called them when I arrived in New York. It was the first time in over a year that I was able to tell them where I was, since the location of Flag had to be kept a secret. When I told them where I was, they immediately flew to New York to visit me. My mother remarked that I looked very thin, but she seemed to be very happy to see me. I had also stopped wearing my glasses because I had convinced myself my eyesight had improved. I knew that my parents were concerned, but they didn't criticize my involvement in any way, since they had learned that such tactics didn't work with me. No intervention, short of deprogramming would have worked on me at that time because of the high I was on. I had been through a lot of pain, but at that point, I felt it had all been worth it. At the time, I thought that my bad days were all behind me and from here on I would soar to greater and greater heights. As far as I was concerned, I was doing work that was vital to the salvation of the planet. It was almost as if the pain and suffering I had been through enhanced the high I was on that summer. I felt I had earned it! The Rock Concert In early September, 1974, I returned to the ship. When I arrived, I found out that Quentin was away on his annual three week vacation. I started on my next level of training, the Class VII course and internship, which qualifies the auditor to audit a set of processes called Power and Power Plus, designed to give the PC the ability to handle power. At that time, Power was an important grade of Scientology, but today these processes are rarely, if ever used. Shortly after my arrival, an event occurred on the ship, which changed things for us dramatically. We were on the island of Madiera, which is owned by Portugal. There had been political trouble in that area and a political coup had recently taken place in Lisbon. It seemed that a group of communists in Madiera thought that the people aboard the ship were CIA and one afternoon, they threw rocks at the ship, injuring several people. I missed this fiasco because I happened to be ashore at the time, along with several other people from the ship, including Mary Sue. My friend Karen and I had just been to a movie and were on our way back to the ship when we were met by some people who told us what had happened. We were taken to a local disco to hide out until it was safe to return to the ship. Later that night, we were taken to the ship, which had gone out to anchor. This event, thereafter, became known as the "rock concert". Hubbard decided that we would sail across the Atlantic ocean to the United States, a voyage we began the next day. The trip across the ocean was smooth and for once, I didn't get seasick. The ocean was as smooth as glass. I loved to stand above decks and just look at the vast expanse of ocean on all sides of me. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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