File talk:Interview Aaron Saxton part 2 of 7.ogv

 

Transcript

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Aaron: - announcement “Hey, Monica Potter’s going to have a baby!” The joy of life, this, there’s no announcement of this.
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: Instead it was “Monica’s betrayed us, and she’s going to leave the organisation and we’re going to have to work harder! Because SHE’S betrayed the trust.” That’s the viewpoint. It was never the word ‘love’ spoken in one single conversation.
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: No, it’s “Do this.” You know, I’d look out on the public Scientologists – at least they had the option to have that!
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: As a staff member, in the Sea Org, there wasn’t that option. You could have a relationship, you could have love. A public Scientologist, he had the joy of getting auditing and this apparent privilege to speak. I had the penalty, I had security checks and an interrogation every two months. That was MY auditing. I mean, something went wrong with a public Scientologist’s auditing, you had a chance to get it corrected. I didn’t, we went off to the cramming office and we were told “In line!”, you know, “Clear up your misunderstood words! You’re out-ethics!” you know?
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: That was my experience. Your experience: you had a win in Scientology, you enjoyed a moment, you can go out to a café and talk to your friends. The moment I had anything out of it, I come out of the auditing session, 5 minutes later I’m back on post: “Right, who am I gonna court marshall today?”
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: Or “Who’s on my list to go off and get?”

Carmel: So what was your post when you were doing this?

Aaron: Most years I spent was over in Los Angeles, there I was the, I was in charge of the, the communications with the establishment division of the Messenger organisation. And the Messenger organisation are those people who are charged with the highest authority in the Church, to basically do what’s ever needed at any time, written or verbal, is not applicable, and enforce that on management. So whereas management were over local management units within continents that were then over the organisations, we were over management, and overrode their decisions or asked them to do whatever was needed. Because often parts of the puzzle didn’t understand why they were doing particular activities. It seemed innocent enough,
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: but only the CMO and RTC were actually in full control of the facts. Why do we need that org over there, that organisation, to do particularly well right now? Why? Well maybe we’ve got a legal case coming up and we need to strengthen the field out there, we need to get that part working.
Carmel: Right.
Aaron: It’s all about the Church. I don’t care, I didn’t care about the individuals involved. It’s just “Can we get it done?” You, you’re a piece of meat. We call, we called staff members ‘coins’, that was the term. When we had a, when we had a person that we could get a position filled with and we would shove them off to Flag, you know, shove them down to Florida, it didn’t MATTER if he had a child there, it didn’t MATTER if he had a wife in Los Angeles. That’s not the point. I can take this guy, I can send him over to the Flag Land Base and I can fix that problem. And then he starts screaming about the fact that he’s away from his family. It’s like “Excuse me, Sea Org policy says you will do anything required of you in the name of the Sea Org” and you will do it. If you don’t… “You’re in ethics conditions, do you have doubts about being a Sea Org member? You, you have doubts?! You’re a Suppressive Person! Do you wanna be declared? We’re gonna have to tell your wife and kids that.” And then you go and separate them off, “Right, communication’s over.” And then you go and talk to the wife “I’m sorry, but your, your, your husband has decided that he’s got doubts in the Sea Org, he’s not willing to perform his duties, and you know, we’ve done a security check on him, and I’m sorry to tell you but he’s actually thought about going out-2D on you, he’s thought about other woman.”
Carmel: Right.
Aaron: “You know, he’s not really in line with the purpose any more, and, sorry to say, but you’re not really part of his equation any more, either. You can do something about this, you can leave him and stay in the Sea Org. You can do this.” And sure enough, she sits down there and goes “Geez, why did he go to the, why did he go to Florida and walk away from me?” And then she takes a look at him, was he a good father? “Oh, I never got to spend time with him anyway. What value is he really as a, as a partner?” Because there IS no value, because you don’t have time to have a relationship. So it’s not hard for that person to go “Alright, I will divorce him.” If you took a look at the statistics of the Sea Org, and every member in it, and how many marriages they had, we’ve got people who’ve been married two, three, four, five times.
Carmel: Yeah.
Aaron: And this is all from a Church which claims to be able to solve these problems in relationships, and just about every Sea Org member has a history of one or two marriages.

Carmel: So how often did that happen? What you described about, you know, talking to the wife and getting that marriage to be dissolved, how often did that happen?

Aaron: Well quite a lot.
Carmel: That you knew of.
Aaron: Well quite a lot. I mean, let’s understand one thing. When I was over in Los Angeles working there, we had the entire middle management, some 500 staff.
Carmel: This was the late 80s, early 90s, wasn’t it?
Aaron: Uh, the mid 90s.
Carmel: Mid 90s?
Aaron: 93, 94, 95, (Carmel: Ok.) 96. We had around 500 staff, now if you can imagine for a moment possibly having, uh, each staff member being in some serious trouble perhaps twice in a year. That equated to 1000 incidents per year. Over my 3 year period in there, that’s some 3000 incidents. Now, this staff member over here may hear something, but from my position in the Communications Office, we’re the ones dealing with it every day.
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: So I dealt with this quite a lot. How many instances, you asked? I couldn’t even give you a figure, it would be, you are, if we’re going to talk about specific incidents of sitting a guy down about his marriage, or the issue of talking to his family?
Carmel: Yeah.
Aaron: Then we’re talking hundreds.
Carmel: Right.
Aaron: Some of these young kids, they’re all from around the world. They’ve got no other hope, other than the hope that we give them. They’ve been told to disconnect – their families are asking for them back, they want them back for Christmas!
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: We don’t want them to go away for Christmas, because we know if we send them away, if we allow them to go, there’s a high probability that they’re not gonna want to come back, so don’t let them go in the first place.
Carmel: Right.
Aaron: So what happens is, the family arcs up, goes “Come on, you’re entitled to several weeks leave per annum, come back, have it.” What I would do? Give them a security check, give them an interrogation. “I’m sorry, but you did this wrong. You’re gonna have to do conditions, you’re gonna have to do liability. This could take you several months. We can’t approve your request for leave. Denied.” Then the family starts sending letters: “What are you involved in that you can’t even take time off?” I received a letter – all the communications to the staff from the public are monitored – I receive the communication, and I go “Oh god, they’re gonna get him out.” So I pull the staff member in, put the letter over here. “Excuse me, your family is, uhm, anti-you being here.” And they look down and go “God, I know.” They know it! Of course they’re anti them being here, they haven’t been able to see them in a year or two.
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: And you talk to them and go “Well, what you’re doing here in the Sea Org with Scientology is far more important than your immediate family. Let’s get them on the phone and talk to them,” and you coerce them into talking to them, give them a public relations story “Oh, I, I will come back in a month or two.” Another month or two goes past; they start getting angry, they start making phone calls. You start blocking off those calls and finally you tell the staff member: “You know what? It’s time to disconnect. They’re really against you being here.” And guess what, the staff member goes “You know what, they’re right, cause I talk to them and they just yell and scream at me now, and start criticising Scientology, they must be crazy.” “So, disconnect.” “Ok, disconnect.” “Good.” Fair roads, fair weather, you only write them, write them once a month, talk about how great it is, talk about, tell them you’re having fun. You don’t want to get them upset about you. Eventually, the family line disappears.
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: Then one day, this person wants to think about leaving the Sea Org. How are they supposed to? They’ve got nowhere to go in life. They don’t have bank accounts, they don’t have credit cards. They don’t even know what’s going on out in the world: there’s no newspapers, there’s no television, there’s no magazines. They’re completely dependent upon now the life that you give them.
Carmel: Yep.
Aaron: What do you do as a human being? If you even know you’re a human being any more, if that concept is still real to you. You haven’t played sports, you haven’t sat, been to a movie together… you’ve worked, 14 hours a day. You’re a machine now. Machines don’t have the luxury of thinking. Just do, you just do, do, do, do…

Carmel: So tell me, what’s your take on uhm, DM being responsible for this, as opposed to say, LRH and Scientology itself?

Aaron: Oh, it’s good for somebody to point the finger and blame, that one man is in his entirety-

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