My story right here ...
[18 Aug 1997]

It all started on the autumn of 1970 when I was out for a walk with my babygirl...

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Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 00:17:37 +0200
From: Birgitta Dagnell <bid@extrico.se>
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My story about scientology

Part 1

By Birgitta Dagnell, Sweden

It all started on the autumn of 1970 when I was out for a walk with my
babygirl. A man came by and asked me to do a
test for finding out more about myself. Later the same day I went into
the so called Church of Scientology in Örebro,
Sweden for doing the test. I had never heard of this church before. I
found the people in the church very friendly and
interested in me. After the test was done I was introduced to the
Dianetics book and told that it was a brand new science
discovered in that book. I didn't really believe that so I said no about
buying a copy. Then I was asked to do the
communication course and said no to that also as I didn't think I had
any problems with communication. I had been singing
in public since the age of six and was used to talk and sing without
being nervous. And my public seemed to like me. I was
told that those facts had nothing to do with it - the comm.course was
entirely different. Anyway - I sad no thanks and went
away as this church thing made me a bit suspicious about what it really
was about. I didn't want to believe in or join some
kind of organized new religion.

In March 1971, I received a letter from them, saying that they wanted me
to come to them, some important person was
about to hold a lecture. When arriving in the evening I saw a man in
uniform walking around and the others told me
whispering "this is Captain Bill - Rons closest man" and I understood
that he must be something special, but I wondered
about the uniform. He showed a movie about Sea Org and it started very
dramatically with the music "Also spracht
Zarathustra" which impressed on me. So I signed finally up for the
comm.course and started next day.

oooooooo

The years passed by with many courses and lots of auditing and in
December 1979, I joined staff and started to work as
an Class IV auditor in the Malmoe Org. All the training was paid by
myself. In March/April 1980 the Malmoe Org was
raided 3 times by the police and they wanted me to handle bad press and
public relations. So I had to join the Guardians
Office and I was surprised to see that the GO always did know some ten
minutes in advance that the police should come
to the org and also that the GO did know what the Treasure Sec was
telling the police when he was arrested. I was sent
to East Grinstead in England for an comprehensive PR-training. I
remember I read "Public Relations" by Cutlip and
Center, "A spy and his Master" and "Art of War" plus tons of issues from
L Ron Hubbard. I had to understand "Operation
Snow-white" and other secret operations and programmes.

Back in Malmoe I started to work with PR and actually did good in this.

oooooooo

In 1982 many rumours and turbulence was going on. We had to learn that
the mission holders and the whole present
management was suppressive and most people in the Guardians Offices over
the world. In January 1983 the Guardian of
Malmoe received an order from RTC to send all reserves money to
Luxemburg, which was complied with. Shortly after
that I found myself upgraded to AG Malmoe as the former AG and the other
GO staff was ripped off. The AG hadn't sent
enought money. So we were two people left in the GO; me and AG SOCO.

In February I was called to come over to FOLO in Denmark for a briefing.
I went over and met with the person in charge
Allan Hubbert from Special Unit in Los Angeles. He smiled and told me
nicely that I had to do a little
"spring-cleaning-programme" called DPF (Deck Project Force). Had never
heard about it, but he showed me an Flag
order written by LRH. I was told that all remaining staff from the GO's
in Europe should show up on the DPF. The reason
was that we were the cause why the churches didn't expand and that we
were enemies of the Church. The GO's should
close down and be replaced by "Department of Special Affairs". Only very
clean, especially choosen, non-guardian
people should be appointed to this Department. We, the enemies and
traitors should be put onto the DPF as an
rehabilitation.

I found that I had to start on the DPF right away. There was no time to
go back home to change clothes or bring more
clothes or even to make a phonecall to my husband and children. In order
to make phonecalls one had to write a dispatch,
asking for permission and telling the purpose of the call and so on. It
took me around one month to get permission for my
first call home. So there I was in my black long trousers, black jumper
and my mink coat. I learned to use my mink coat as
my pillow as well. Those cloths I had to wear for more than one month. I
was one of the first on place, of the 82 of us
who soon should be collected from all over Europe.

The "rehabilitation" consisted of lots of work, mainly cleaning, and
started at 8 AM with roll-call. We had to say "Ay Sir"
when called upon or spoken to. We were not permitted to talk to people
outside the DPF and later on not to
DPF-members from other countries. In that way be became isolated. The
first night we were only 2 people in a normal
2-beds room. Next night and the following, we were 18 people in it. We
happen to get breakfast sometimes, but that was
not normal. I remember one morning when the 82 of us got 16 slices of
bread to share and one man took 6 of them. It
was near a civil war got started. The meals was eaten in a cellar where
we shared the space with lots of pidgeons. It was
very dirty, filled with birdshit. At one occasion I had to fight with
the pidgeons to get my meal. The food was never enough
for all of us and consisted of rice and beans. No plates, no cutleries
and no pots. Once we got soup, and I was lucky to
possess a small plastic mug so I could drink it. We used to feel like "
the poor man with no spoon when the sky is raining
semolina".

The work consisted of mainly cleaning toilets, corridors and hotel rooms
or some painting and construction work. Supplies
for cleaning was very poor, like brushes with almost no brush left. Only
cold water and no washing detergent. I was mainly
doing cleaning at Hotel Nordland and the small hotel opposite to
Nordland. At one occasion I should clean bathrooms
and a long hallway in the other hotel. I had high fever and the floor in
the hallway was very dirty. I had to do the cleaning
with a toothbrush, crawling on my knees as I wasn't able to stand up.
Next day I couldn't get out of my bed, I was too
sick in pneumonia. Guards came and tried to get me up, but I couldn't.
The day after I had to get back to work again. The
working hours was to 11 PM but we were often waked up in the night for
doing more work. Sometimes we worked til 5
in the morning with only two breaks of 30 minutes each, during all those
hours. We were never allowed to walk or sit
down - always running.

Some work was pure evil;

1. One of us was assigned to paint the reception area at FOLO and 3
others of us did the preparatory work. She
thought it was quite a nice job and it looked nice and clean when she
had finished painting. But after 5 days the colour
hadn't get dry and we found out that the paint was mixed without drying
substance in it. She had to scrape the whole
reception from this wet paint and then she received an SP declare and
left.

2. Some others had to wash scrap papers. It was 5 of us, standing on
the yard at FOLO, taking scrap papers from
sacks, put it into ice cold water, keep it under the water til it was
soaking wet and then press out all water and make small
balls of it. Then return it to the sack again. The hands ached as it was
below freezing outside. The purpose of this washing
was to be able to put more paper into the sacks as the air was pressed
out.

After a couple of weeks, we got to know that we should start doing
ethics in the evenings. We were pleased as that gave
us a possibility to sit down on chairs. It was not the kind of ethics we
were used to anyhow; first one had to write up all
bad actions done (overts) in this lifetime and past lives. Then one was
put before an auditor with an E-meter. On each side
of the auditor a missionaire was standing (Mike Sutter and Isa-Bella
Ferrer) The auditor, his name was Des, read up the
overt, checked it on the Meter and the missionaires started to yell at
you. This is called gang-bang sec checking. "This is
not what you have done, you have HUGE overts, you are the most evil one
on earth, we want your real overts.... " This
screaming could go on for an hour or more til we "recognized" that we
really was that bad and evil. Many couldn't stand it.
One night an italian man started to cry and admitted to be that evil and
became very thankful to the missionaires who had
revealed the truth about him. He went down on the floor. Crawled on his
knees to missionaire Mike Sutter and kissed his
shoes. Mike looked at him scornfully and said "you are declared, get out
of here". The italian man had no money and
didn't really know how to get back to his country. Later I heard that he
had found a cargo ship in the harbor who gave him
a free ride to Italy.

Another lady I remember was from Belgium. She got about the same
treatment as described above, but she gave them the
wrong cognition. In the session she told them that she finally
understood how much she had neglected her husband and
children because of scientology. After the above treatment she tried to
escape but failed. The following week after this
incident, she didn't speak with anybody. She sneaked around on the yard,
sometimes laughting hysterically for herself. I
was told that she went mad. Then she suddenly was gone. I don't know
what happened to her, but have been thinking
about her a lot.

After a month I got permission to go home and see my children over the
weekend. I called my elder daughter, she was 13,
and told her that I should come home on Saturday. She became so very
happy and should make a nice dinner to welcome
me. We were both in tears of happiness when talking about it. When
Saturday came, I was told that my permission was
cancelled because they thought I shouldn't come back or tell people
about what's going on in Denmark. Half of the day
was spent trying to convince them that I had to go home to see my
children, that they were expecting me and so on.
Nothing what I said helped. It was no. As I couldn't stand the thought
of my little girl being so happy, making dinner for
me, I decided to escape in the evening. So late in the evening I sneaked
out from Nordland, walked my way to the ferries
and went to Malmoe. I arrived to my home around midnight and waked up
the family. We were all so happy to meet again
until my husband told me that I had to go back in the morning. I said
no, no way, I never go there again. But he persuaded
me by saying that I had to go to the RPF or that we had to divorce if I
didn't. So I went back.

On my way to Nordland I met Barbara Schwartz from Germany. The two of us
were room-mates and friends as I helped
her one night when she was gone and they asked me if she had been in her
bed during the night. I didn't really know if she
was, as I was sleeping, but told them that she was there the whole
night. Now, I met her and she told me that she had to
report my going away and that I should be sent to the RPF (about the
same, but usually is a longer cycle). I convinced her
to not report me and she finally agreed as I had helped her once.

So I was back on the Deck again. One night all of us were yelled at by
the missionaries. After the yelling one of them
asked if we had any questions. I had a question and stretched my hand.
As they thought it to be very impudent of me
having a question, they should make an example and ordered me to come
forward. I was put onto an chair and faced the
other 80 people. They told the others to look at me as the real
suppressive personality. The three missionares yelled at me
and derided me for two hours in front of the others. Finally my comrades
was told to go and I was alone with them. I was
sitting on the chair for three hours with them yelling at me, telling me
that I had never done anything good in my life. Mike
Sutter worked up such an anger that he spit into my face, threw chairs
around and threw a table so it hit my stomach.
Mike told me I should be expelled from scoientology for ever. There was
nothing in life I was so afraid of as to listen to
those words. I remember I was thinking "expelled, but I'm still alive".
After those three hours, I started to cry and told
them that I always had been trying to do alright and that I had been
following LRH policies all the time on staff.

That became the turning point. I was told that this setup was a test to
see if I could keep my position. Now I was
their first product! And I was their star! I should become the first
officer in the new Department of Special Affairs!
I felt very happy and very, very strong as I wasn't broken.

oooooooo