Martin Hunt asked and called into question if there is an RPF's RPF in Scientology and if children are assigned to the RPF.* Yes on both counts. I was on the RPF for 16 months and while there were no children while I was there (the youngest was, I believe, about 16), I had spoken with others who had served with children and I even met one youngster (about 12) who had been on the children's RPF on the ship.

* Note: I have no doubt there is an RPF's RPF. In my very first post to alt.religion.scientology, I asked for people who had experience in this prison camp within the cult of Scientology to come forth. The evidence for the existence of this prison camp system is overwhelming, and I have seen the RPF with my own eyes (and supervised it for one day). I did not, in fact, call the existence of this organization into question, nor the placement of children on it. - Martin Hunt.

Scientology officials like to say that the RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force - Hubbard's double-speak for gulag) is where staff can go to be "redeemed" and it is all "voluntary." That is a lie and it is proven in their own literature.

First, the RPF and its rules were Hubbard's creation. There is an "RPF Series" that lays down those rules. He created it on the ship Apollo. Those assigned to the RPF are from the Sea Organization and despite the "spin" that is put on it, people were and are sent there for the most ridiculous reasons. Many times, they were sent by whim or in moments of rage from Hubbard or a senior. It was a way to punish and to reprogram ("rehabilitate") the person by putting them in terrible conditions, with long work hours (6 am to 6 pm), short meal breaks (30 minutes with Hubbard's instructions that they are to be leftovers from the crew meals), little sleep, no family or social connections and the rest of one's time (5 hrs per night) being spent studying Hubbard or undergoing interrogations where one confesses one's real or imagined crimes. These "crimes" are written down and to be used against one, as needed. This can go on for years.

The RPF gives a chilling, real example of what Hubbard wanted to do to "delete" people from society, to "remove" them "without sorrow," that has already been posted here to alt.religion.scientology. Unable to do so to society in general, he was able to establish these programs in Scientology, first on the ship and then ashore. (Parallels can be found in the "reeducation" camps run by the Chinese where one goes and works and confesses so he/she can reenter the society.)

The RPF's RPF is literally an RPF within the RPF, a gulag within the gulag. What you are about to read as to the rules is basically the RPF's alredy brutal restrictions applied once AGAIN. Let me quote the definition of "RPF's RPF" from their Admin Dictionary. The definition itself is one long paragraph in the book. I will break it apart into the sections, merely for formatting purposes and ease on the eyes. I will insert my comments in [brackets].

"RPF's RPF, the following restrictions are applied to members: (1) segregated from other RPF members with regard to work, messing, berthing, musters and any other command activity. [This is already done to RPF members. They are segregated from the rest of the staff. They cannot speak to staff or be with them, unless they are spoken to and are assigned to work in the area. If spoken to, they must address all as "sir." On the RPF's RPF, one is segregated again.]

"(2) no pay. [RPF pay was standardly $5 per week, per Hubbard's orders. And it was not unusual to be on the RPF for more than a year. I was on it for 16 months, which meant my income was $80 for 16 months of labor. Some were there for years. Richard Tinklenberg (sp?) - also from Author Services, Inc. - had been there for about a year and a half when I arrived. He was still there when I left.]

"(3) no training. [The only training you get on the RPF is RPF training, to help you be "redeemed" or "rehabilitated." No training means that your "progress" is interrupted and you will not be able to "graduate."]

"(4) no auditing. [Same as 3. It merely means you cannot "progress." However, one does write up "crimes" for the MAA. See below.]

"(5) may only work on mud boxes in the E/R. May not work with RPF members. [The mud boxes were the filthiest place on the ship, in the engine room. What it basically came down to - when applied to RPFs off the ship - is that those on the RPF's RPF are given the dirtiest, filthiest, most degrading tasks possible and only those. Being isolated from the rest of the RPF also has its impact for one is a complete outcast, a leper, after having striven to be a team member. The apparency being created is that one has not one friend.]

(6) six hours sleep maximum. [Note: _maximum_. The rest of the day is spent at hard, degrading labor, with no friend, and then one gets six hours sleep MAXIMUM. Sleep deprivation is cited by experts as a key element to create what is often called "brainwashing" or "mind control" and here is where Hubbard really uses it to break a person.]

(7) is under the RPF MAA [Master At Arms] for all matters, including production. The RPF MAA may designate another to supervise their production. [This is Hubbard's way of saying the person is to be kept under guard. They cannot even go to the bathroom alone. The MAA is the only person they can speak to. The MAA is the RPF's "ethics officer." He/she drives the group with punishments.]

(8) Standard ethics penalties that apply to them to be triple for each offense they are found guilty of, until they fully join the RPF of their own determinism. {Here is the truth about the "voluntary" nature of the RPF. The person is kept on the RPF's RPF, overworked and deprived of sleep with triple penalties of already brutal penalties until they "join the RPF of their own determinism." It is, in fact, where one starts, before one even joins the RPF.]]

(9) may communicate only with the RPF MAA or his designated assistant. [This means exactly what it says and includes no communication with family. One cannot speak or write to or receive communication from relative, spouse or children. The "segregation" is complete. So if one wants to see/speak with family, one decides to "join the RPF of their own determinism." Are you reading this Chick Corea and John Travolta when you complain about how Scientologists are treated?]

(10) may not join RPF fully until acceptable amends made to all RPF members. [This is called an "amends project" and must be done in one's own "free" time. The "amends' might be as simple as agreeing to do everyone's wash for a week. The catch is that there is no free time, except in one's sleep time, so what finally happens is the person gets no sleep at all or only a couple of hours a night, in order to do the "amends."]

FCO 2990-2 [This is the directive from which the above is taken. It is a Flag Conditions Order titled "RPF Assignment" dated 24 Apr 74.]

The definition then goes on with a bracketed remark, apparently inserted by the editor of the volume and to mean that it was not part of the FCO. It gives further insight.

"The first RPF's RPF assignment was made because the person considered their RPF assignment amusing, an award and was therefore unable to recognize a need for redemption or any means to effect it. Until such time as the person recognized this need and of their own self-determinism requested to be include in RPF redemption actions, the restrictions applied."

In other words, punishment was increased until the person, "of their own self-determinism," gave in.

Can you say, coercion?

But this is Hubbard's idea of "self-determinism."

Welcome to double-think.

As a final note, and to show how "ethics" are applied in the RPF, the following is taken from the same Administrative Dictionary.

"REHABILITATION PROJECT FORCE MAA, responsible to the RPF Bosun [the RPF member in charge of the RPF] for the ethics of the section leaders to keep ethics in on their sections[the RPF is broken into sections, like military sections - there is no set number so an RPF of 50 people might have six or seven sections], and if he [the MAA] has to take ethics action on a section member, that member's leader suffers the same penalty also." This is what drives the RPF, that the section leaders are threatened with suffering the same penalty of each of their section members if the MAA must step in, so you can bet it can get brutal, on people already deprived of sleep. To complain or noncomply can send one to the RPF's RPF until one "changes one's mind" and agrees to the program.

So the next time Chick Corea or John Travolta complain about the treatment of Scientologists, would someone let them show them either this post or the entry from the Administrative Dictionary and ask them to protest how Scientologists are treated INSIDE Scientology? (Don't be surprised if an Orwellian edit on this definition is done, if not done already.)

And also pass it on to those who say there is no form of "cult mind control" that goes on in Scientology. Better yet, let THEM do the RPF's RPF and keep them there until they change THEIR minds "of their own self-determinism" and let's see what they say.

Robert Vaughn Young
writer@eskimo.com