Tanya: 1 of 2, Children in the SO

[ronsm...@hotmail.com]

Scientology: a young sect ex-member reports for the first time

From: "Sueddeutsche Zeitung"
April 21, 1997

Tanya's Training as the perfect machine

She wanted to become a better, happier person - what a 16 year
old went through instead with the elite corps of Hubbard youths in
England

by Michaela Haas

Hamburg, in April. Tanya spoke cooly and detached, like a radio
announcer, as she told how she lost her childhood. She neither
raised, nor lowered, her voice. Her hands rested motionless on her
legs. No picture hangs on the white walls of her small dwelling to
liven up the emptiness. Tanya had been on the highest road there
was, as described by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard in his
vision of a god-like person, "a perfect machine, well oiled,
shimmering with power, and in a position to direct all her own
functions without need of any further expectation."

Tanya does not look like she has just come of age. Her
chubby-cheeked face with no make-up under her shoulder-length,
red hair makes her look child-like, but what she says and how she
says it has nothing to do with youthfulness, nothing innocent. She is
so horribly grown up, as only a person, who has never been
permitted to have a proper childhood, can be. Perhaps it will
become clear to this teenager, what hopes and dreams Scientology
appeals to, how cleverly the organization seizes hold of a person's
identity. Whenever Tanya talks about Scientology, she says "we" or
"church" - just as she has been trained to do from a toddler
onwards.

It has been nine months since Tanya fled Saint Hill with the help of
the British police. The Sea Org in Saint Hill, officially an elite
organization of Scientology in Sussex, England, is what Scientology
parents dream of for their children. This is where the future leaders
of the so-called church are trained, a salvation group which is
supposed to lead humanity over "the bridge to total freedom." From
what Tanya tells us, though, it does not sound like a religious place.

Tanya was 16 years old when she stopped going to school in
Stuttgart and went to Saint Hill - voluntarily. "I thought that the
people there would be like saints," she said. "You heard people
saying that everyone there abided by the rules, no one scolded you,
no one lied, nobody fooled you. You were told that everything
there was so perfect." Her father had just moved in with his new
girlfriend, and Tanya felt she was in the way. In Saint Hill, she
thought, she would be received with open arms by a loving
community. Tanya joined Scientology and signed a "contract for a
billion years." That means for this life and for all others in which you
come back. She sighed. That would not have been stupidity, she
said, half apologizing, "that was naivete." She had been promised
30 (British) pounds per week, and a day off every other Saturday.
However, when she got to Saint Hill, nothing was perfect and
nothing happened as promised.

Bullies in Charge

What awaited Tanya was eight to ten hours work per day, followed
by five hours study of the Hubbardist writings. She seldom got to
bed before midnight. About 300 Scientologists live in Saint Hill,
including, according to Scientology's own statement, 77 children
and teenagers. "There were more and more children," said Tanya.
She pulls a pile of photographs from a paper bag in order to show a
picture of herself. Her red hair shone unmistakably from a crowd of
young girls in school uniforms. At the time she was still slim. She put
on many pounds later, as if she needed this thick, soft, protective
layer.

The photographs also show a castle-like manor, a luxuriously
furnished library, and splendid, wood-panelled halls, "really very
idyllic, a vision of beauty," said Tanya. She pointed to a building in
the background of the 22 hectare (55 acre) park. That was the
sauna for the "purification rundown," a cure in which Scientologists
sit for hours in the sauna in order to sweat out poisons. She and
other youths had helped to build the sauna. "That was hellish work.
Also, we had to dig the path through the park. We had to dig it up
three times, each time approximately one meter (yard) deep and
one meter wide. That was the time that we had to work throughout
the night.

Apparently no work was too rigorous for children, some of whom
were 14 years old. She received the promised amount of money for
her work once or twice, other times she received nothing, "or only
three to six pounds and as good as never got a day off. Because, in
order to have a day off, you had to have somebody to replace you.
And there simply wasn't anybody." Tanya raises serious
accusations. She was not permitted to leave her post, not even
when she had a fever. One time she was beat up by another
Scientologist. "They didn't want to let me go to the doctor, until I
told them I would not lift another finger at work." The doctor
diagnosed a brain concussion and prescribed at least three days
rest, "but I was not permitted to lie down. I was on post."
Sometimes she was not relieved to go eat or to use the bathroom.
"If I went anyway, there was trouble. They took it out on you. You
were yelled at and humiliated. There is a rigid hierarchy at Saint
Hill."

Every offense was recorded in the ethics file, detailed accounts
which are used if someone breaks the Scientology rules. "Then they
write the report which goes into the folder." That way the sect has
information on everybody, "and if you want to leave, they can use it
to put pressure on you." Tanya reported exactly, and, upon being
questioned, recalled precise details. The Scientology Commissioner
of the Hamburg Senate, Ursula Caberta, who takes care of Tanya,
regards her as absolutely credible.

Scientology reacts nervously to all this. Unsummoned, Scientology
speaker Georg Stoffel showed up at the "Sueddeutsche Zeitung"
editorial desk. He asked whether the "SZ" had researched Tanya's
history, and he wanted to present proof that Tanya was a notorious
liar, had stolen, a relative had even threatened to take legal
measures because of this. Weeks before, in a different matter, he
had sent a five page letter from Tanya's father, an ardent
Scientologist, in which he regretted that his daughter had broken off
her "process of self- and truth discovery" at Saint Hill. As far as any
unpleasantness she may have related about his "church", he said she
was an "underage girl ... still unstable", and had problems with
honesty. However, the father was not ready to talk with the "SZ".
His attorney said that he would sue if his family name were to be
made public.

Anyway, the Scientology speaker wanted to present proof against
Tanya. Stoffel and his colleague, Sabine Weber, waited for us in
one of the conference rooms of the Dianetic center in Munich,
under a giant picture of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. They
had a pile of documents - but these did not have to do with Tanya,
but about alleged discrimination against Scientologists. The
accusation against Tanya turned out to be an angry letter by an aunt
who complained that Tanya had drunk nine liters of cola, taken 20
marks, and ran up a 400 mark ($300) phone bill, not entirely
unusual offenses for a teenager. An opinion from Saint Hill
dismissed Tanya's accusations as "dream-like fantasies of a
manipulated teenager." However, the Scientologists confirmed
Tanya's credibility in their letter. She was involved in the
construction of the sauna. The letter read, "her work hours were
from 8:30 a.m. to 10 at night" - as if that were a normal assignment.

The strident orders, the arduous physical labor to the point of total
exhaustion, even the existence of a punishment camp in Saint Hill -
called a "rehabilitation project" in Scientology jargon - all that has
been testified to in detail by both English and and other German
ex-members. This is the first time a youthful ex-Scientologist has
spoken about what happens to children in the most feared and most
secret cadre of the sect, the Sea Org. How an entire generation of
the sect is put to work there, how they have perhaps no chance of
ever finding their way out of the Scientology maze. Previously only
Scientology's failed attempt to put children into their own school in
Hamburg, the successful establishment of a school in Denmark, to
which Scientology children from Hamburg are also sent, was
known.

In Hubbard's teachings, there are no children, only thetans, god-like
beings, in larger or smaller bodies. "Every law which pertains to the
behavior of men and women", wrote Hubbard, "also pertains to
children." An adult German ex-Scientologist said that she had seen
with her own eyes, at Saint Hill, an eight year old who had been
certified as a so-called auditor, a Scientology confessor, who
manipulates others with hypnotic processes. "Age is not as
important in Scientology," said Tanya, "as how much you produce.
Because of this, children can occupy positions of great importance.
You must call them "sir" and hold the door open for them." Her
direct supervisor at Saint Hill had been 13 years old.

Tanya, born in Zimbabwe, grew up in South Africa, and took her
first Scientology course when she was about eight years old. It was
a children's communication course in Johnannesburg. "It was
supposed to improve my relationship with my stepmother," said
Tanya, "but it didn't do that." Her mother died when Tanya was
four years old. Her father and his new wife were Scientologists.
They took many courses and paid a high price. "My family had paid
much money for that," said Tanya, "in Scientology, nothing is for
free." At seven years old, the oldest son of her father's girlfriend had
already had to get auditing, hours long interrogation on a lie
detector. "He hated it, every time. A child does not want to go into
the org on weekends, sit in a room for hours, and be interrogated."

The questionnaire for a typical "Security Check" for six to twelve
year olds shows how systematically children have feelings of shame
of guilt thrust upon them: "What has someone forbidden you to
tell?" - "Have you ever disappointed your parents?" - "Have you
ever done something to your body that you should not have done?"
and so forth, up to 99 questions.

When she was hit as a child, said Tanya, she was not consoled, but
asked instead, "What have you done wrong?" That is supposed to
mean, "What mistake have I made that I have pulled in this kind of
unhappiness?" At home she was very unhappy and lonely. "One
time I asked my father what he would do if I killed myself. His
answer: 'You are responsible for yourself.'" This is a typical answer
for a Scientologist, says Tanya, who settled the matter by going
away to Saint Hill.

After Tanya proved herself by helping to build the sauna, "after
numerous intelligence tests and checks", she was assigned to one of
the seven "divisions." Tanya went to the HCO, the Hubbard
Communications Office. "We were responsible for everything that
had to do with communications, the front line for mail and
advertising," she said. All mail was opened. Advertisements, which
came in bundles of up to 4,000 pieces, had to be folded, and put in
envelopes by the children, and stamped. HCO was also responsible
for recruiting new people, preventing escapes, and bringing back
escapees. More people left, said Tanya, than supposed, but very
few of them are willing to talk about their experiences - out of fear.
The organization knows everything about the defectors. Everything
has been recorded in the "ethics folders", anything said by a
Scientologist during his auditing sessions. Tanya said, "You were
really treated like a piece of garbage." Six months later she knew
enough about the structure to plan her own escape from Saint Hill.

Translation is continuing from this point and will be
posted in the next couple of days -- translator, June
11, 1998.

German Scientology News: http://cisar.org/trn0454.htm

Nots 34
http://home.sol.no/~spirous/CoS/archive/events/9805henson-case/nots34_anal.ht
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