Tuesday 18 October 2011

East. Grinstead and surrounding areas vs Scientology.

I aquired some interesting snippets of information the other day in East. Grinstead and with that in mind am doing a bit of research into these claims.

I am starting off with Stonelands, a large mansion house that was used as a residence to house scientologists and their children.Stonelands was based in West. Hoathly, nr East. Grinstead. I have already read many accounts of the scientologists life in this building but want to expand on that.

The base:
Most crew live in hostels in and around East Grinstead. The biggest is Stonelands, a ramshackle country mansion in nearby West Hoathly.
Staff are bussed to Saint Hill each day. On Saturday morning, everyone is allowed into East Grinstead -- liberty time.
Nearly 200 people were listed as living at Stonelands on September 18 last year, including at least 24 children sleeping in dormitories separate to their parents.
Once a week, there is a white-glove inspection of the premises. An official runs his gloved-hand over surfaces to check for traces of dust or dirt.
Rooms with unmade beds, full wastepaper bins, or smells are singled out for criticism. The worst examples are photographed. No-one, least of all children, is spared any embarrassment.
The comment next to one girl's name on an inspection sheet: "Smell of wet beds needs to be handled." A boy on the list was also subjected to the same treatment.
Copies of the report were sent to the Watchdog Committee, the most senior management committee in Scientology, in Los Angeles and sent to at least 13 other officials and branches of the organisation.
This is acceptable in Scientology. In the eyes of L. Ron Hubbard:
[On page 5, a picture of a grim stone building amidst trees is shown.
The caption reads: Saint Hill Manor near East Grinstead - the headquarters of the Sea Organisation, the Church of Scientology's civil service.
Below this large picture is a box with two faces in it, and the words: "By chief reporter PAUL BRACCI and photographer SIMON DACK."]
"Cleanliness and neatness are the primary building blocks to respect in most societies."
The quotation is printed in bold on the front page of the inspection results.
Mr Mansell said: "It's a bit like when you're a kid and your mother comes in and says 'hey, tidy up your socks.' Is that a massive infringement of your civil rights?"

http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/sussex-cult.htm
News sources about Stonelands
http://www.xenu-directory.net/news/images/thecompiler-1994-4.pdf
http://www.xenu-directory.net/news/images/thecompiler-1993-20.pdf
http://www.xenu-directory.net/news/library-item.php?iid=3720

I found this post on Fortean Times Message Board by Curzone. The whole Thread is pretty interesting.
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=24109

I have a number of bizarre tales about my experiences with some of the cults that reside in East Grinstead. However I need to be careful what I write here, some cult members may cry "harassment!" or "persecution!". I've known a number of people who have been adversely affected by offending these sad individuals.

I hasten to add, I have never been a cult member but I do know a lot of people who are.

I grew up in East Grinstead (Apparently Britain's cult capital) where the UK headquarters for the Church of Scientology is based, and heard a lot of weird stories and had some first-hand experiences of strange goings on.

In fact, shortly after leaving school in the late eighties, I went to work for my dad in the building trade. The cult had commissioned an imposing modern day castle to be built to house the College of Scientology (Apparently castles are exempt from tax in the UK), and we were contracted to do some work here (There were a large number of people in the trade who had nothing to do with Scientology working here also). Anyway, during those few months, we witnessed some very odd goings-on.

The castle is built next to Saint Hill Manor, which is also owned by the church, and nearby is Greenfields Primary School, which teaches cult members children. From the outside it's a picture of peace and tranquillity. But after stepping behind the walls of the castle retreat for the first time, I got a shock.

I saw people dressed in black uniforms with peaked caps running to and fro and were obviously members of the lower ranks because people wearing high ranking military-style uniforms were barking out orders and talking into walkie-talkies. These low ranking guys were called runners. Apparently the hierarchy mirrors the U.S. Navy: petty officers, midshipmen, warrant officers, ensigns, lieutenants, commanders and captains. They call themselves the Sea Organisation.

One day I was in the castle doing some work in a hall, and there were a number of kids, aged about 9 or 10, sitting opposite each other staring into the opposite kids eyes. A woman was sitting in front of them in silence. They weren't allowed to talk or move… just stare! They did this for about an hour!!!

Another time I was working late in a boiler room with a bunch of other workmen, when two officers walked past us down the corridor, holding a runner by each arm. They stopped at the far wall and told the runner to, "Look at the wall - now say hello to the wall".
The runner responded with a very monotone, "Hello wall".
They carried on walking into another corridor and we could distinctly hear them ordering the runner to say hello to every wall they walked past.

Apparently, Scientologists believe that if you hurt yourself, you should touch the object that caused it, so as to suck out the pain. Anyway, whilst working at the castle a number of runners were involved in some rather unfortunate accidents, partly because they were told to work to hard for to long.

I witnessed one runner, a girl of about twenty years of age, fall twenty feet from a pitch roof and although not badly injured was in obvious pain and had sustained a number of cuts and bruises. A couple of hours later, after being patched up, she returned and proceeded to lie on the spot were she landed - first on her front then on her back.

On another occasion I saw a runner carrying a large sheet of wood through a doorway, he managed to trap his fingers between the wood and the door panel, partially severing his little finger. He simply dropped the sheet of wood and proceeded to rub his bloody finger up and down the edge of the wood, splattering blood everywhere.

Every morning the higher-ranking officers would gather the runners up and hold a motivational meeting on a grassy knoll on the castle grounds. They would also try and round up all the contract workers who, not having anything to do with the cult, refused, preferring to read the paper and eat bacon sarnies.

This caused friction between the contractors and the Scientologists, and when building materials started to disappear from the store, the Scientologists accused the contractors of steeling.

In an attempt to find the guilty party the Scientologists proposed that all contractors take part in a lie detector test. Apparently the test was rather primitive and involved holding onto two tin cans, each attached by a wire. Obviously the contractors refused, but when they were threatened with the sack, one burly Eastender, who had obviously had enough of their accusations, decided to head-butt one of the officers, bloodying his nose. After that nothing was said about stolen materials and lie detector tests and everyone kept their jobs, including the Eastender. Apparently (but this isn't confirmed), the officer asked him afterwards if he could place his nose to his forehead.

LOL.

The last straw came one day when I went to plumb in a water pipe at a portacabin where some of the runners were sleeping. Before entering the cabin I noticed this horrible stench, and as soon as I walked through the door I noticed this young guy dressed only in a T-shirt smearing shit over the walls and windows, obviously suffering from some form of psychological breakdown.

Being young and naïve, and understandably shocked I ran to one of the officers and informed him of the situation. He looked utterly blasé about what I told him, and simply got on his walkie-talkie and ordered some of his colleagues to go down, and in his words, "sort the f*%#er out".
Knowing what I now know about this cult, I can only guess that the poor guy was punished and maybe even physically and mentally tortured… Who knows?

Suffice to say, I didn't want to have anything more to do with these people and left the job shortly after, for pastures more mundane.

Man charged with kidnapping friend from cult.
Pages 55 onwards explain the situation in depth ,taken from news paper articles.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/27877/response/201536/attach/3/email%206.pdf

The Foster Report:
http://www.holysmoke.org/fpt/the_foster_report.pdf

The Comparative Theology Page:
http://www.ezlink.com/~perry/CoS/Theology/index.htm

Children housed at Stonelands - Claire Headley's story:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1Y1XBNDjjKMC&pg=PA313&lpg=PA313&dq=Children/+Stonelands/scientology&source=bl&ots=TSe4z-FSLw&sig=YEk18S908eBtVEH9ZLoS8LodQgQ&hl=en&ei=aeqdTp3aNoyVswa5j4CmCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&sqi=2&ved=0CF8Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false

Page 313 of Inside Scientology by  Janet Reitman.

More stories from Stonelands and East. Grinstead
http://www.scientology-cult.com/david-miscaviges-secret-alcatraz-.html
http://xenu-directory.net/news/images/thecompiler-1994-36.pdf
http://xenu-directory.net/news/images/thecompiler-1994-3.pdf#page=7

I lived in the ballroom at Stonelands from 1972-1979, then at Bullards and Brooke House until 1986, mostly Bullards. Bullards was gorgeous when I first moved there in 1979. It was still not bad in 1986 when I moved to LA, although not quite as nice as it had been. At the time is was berthing only, mostly AOSHUK. I heard it deteriorated later on. Brooke House was pretty much always a pit, and (accidentally) burning it down improved it remarkably.

Stonelands was kind of OK in the 70s, if freezing, apart from its inconvenient location. It certainly had character. After 1979 when pretty much all the single people moved out to Bullards and Brooke House, leaving the place to the gangs (mobs of unsupervised kids running amok) during the day, the property deteriorated fast, with lots of windows getting broken and not repaired, and so forth.

I never heard about a secret passage behind a fireplace. Still, the original building dates from c. 1580 (remember that winding staircase next to the kitchen?), so who knows?

Paul

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?22972-ESMB-Poster-quot-David-Mayo-quot/page37

Treatment of children in the SO was appalling. The childcare facilities for the staff at St Hill consisted of a hut at Stonelands, surrounded by a patch of grass (and mud) enclosed by a chicken wire fence. It looked more like a concentration camp than a ‘theta environment’ for children of ‘the most able group on the planet’. There were only about 2 nannies to look after about a dozen young children.

On several occasions, I’ve heard staff refer to children as ‘thetans with little bodies’. Presumably this is something they say to themselves to assuage their guilt at not looking after them properly.

Axiom142 

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?13923-Family-Matters-Just-Venting/page2

I remember scraping food off plates and Mick not being allowed to cook for us. But how it worked was a couple of RPFers went to the galley an hour or so before mealtime and prepared the food for the rest of us. The food-scraping (into pig-bins!) was just us doing KP instead of Mick (and Ian if he was there then).

I never heard of the boathouse being offered to public as accommodation. That is really weird, as Stonelands was gross out-PR with all the broken windows and the kids running amok. Must have been after I left in January 1986.

Paul 

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?2650-The-quot-SP-case-quot/page6

Originally posted by Ex St.Hill on ESMB
Well at Stonelands the berthing conditions were horrid. There was the ballroom where about 50 or 60 people slept in one room, mostly in bunks 3 beds high. Or there was the garage, where 12 people lived in a garage which had about 25 - 30 squaremeters. This was part of stonelands.

Walsh Manor, the current berthing was actually not bad at the beginning. It had nice furniture, eventhough I slept in a room I shared with 5 other. This room whad about 25 squaremeters.

Last time I saw it though many things fell into disrepair and it was quite dirty. Shame, as it was quite nice.
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?2650-The-quot-SP-case-quot/page3

I was on the RPF for a few weeks at SH around October 1979. There was an amnesty and we all got off, hence the short time.

We worked on the Castle extension; cleaning toilets; sometimes the car park. The work was hard but not brutal. The schedule was acceptable, with study time and enough sleep to be studentable/sessionable. The food was the same as the regular crew, not leftovers. Hygiene was OK apart from berthing arrangements. We slept in the damp boathouse by the scummy pond at Stonelands, definitely not up to building codes.

So it had got better there than from earlier times.

Paul
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?2650-The-quot-SP-case-quot/page3

Gottabrain
30th December 2009, 05:18 PM
In 1977, all of PAC except the senior execs were on beans & rice for the longest, longest time. Eventually, even the execs were on it. It lasted at least three months, maybe four.

Needless to say, nobody stuck around to talk to each other immediately after dinner. And it was really bad for the ozone, too.

During this horrendous time of having almost no money allocated for anything, we at Cedars Estates and Pac Training Org (trained the EPF) were greeted at muster one day with someone in purchasing.

He told us we should not be stealing toilet paper from the bathrooms at AOLA and ASHO. He patiently explained to us the correct way to utilize toilet paper to maximize its benefits, that scrunching was wasteful, and demonstrated a folding technique whereby one could actually use just 2 or 3 sheets if it was folded properly.

All of this with a straight face. :roflmao:

But! There was toilet paper at ASHO and AOLA! We went for it.
.:happydance:

http://www.forum.exscn.net/archive/index.php/t-15596.html

A Typical day in....
http://www.forum.exscn.net/archive/index.php/t-16259.html

Who invented the RPF?
http://www.forum.exscn.net/archive/index.php/t-21356.html

To be continued....

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