Part 1, transcript of Stacy Young and Jesse Prince on WMNF radio


[Transcript 3 December 1998]


From: Xenubat@primenet.com (Bat Child (Sue M.))
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: XENU: Part 1, transcript of Stacy Young and Jesse Prince on WMNF radio, 12/3/98
Date: Wed, 09 Dec 1998 08:42:37 GMT
This show is available in RealAudio at :

pnm://audio3.wmnf.org/120398/live86.ra

(Scientology segment starts at about 9:38 of the RA file).

=================================================
HOST:  There you have some listener comments following yesterday’s
show.  Now I’m happy to welcome Stacy Young and Jesse Prince, both of
whom are former members of the Church of Scientology.  They’ve left
the church and they’re here this weekend because there are gonna be
vigils outside the church headquarters in Clearwater as opponents of
the Church of Scientology speak out against the church.  Stacy and
Jesse, welcome to WMNF, nice to have you here.  Thanks for coming by.

JESSE PRINCE:  Thank you.

HOST:  Jesse, let me start with you.  How long were you in the church?
What did you do in the church?

JP:  I was in the Church for Scientology for 16 years.  I started
out--well, that’s a story in and of itself.  But I became a staff
member here at the church in Florida in Clearwater, and I was here
from the years of1979 to 1981, at which point I was recruited and
promoted for senior executive position within a church corporation
called the Religious Technology Center, which is a corporation which
holds the trademarks of Dianetics and Scientology and licenses other
organizations to use its materials.

HOST:  These are the official church secrets, so to speak, or official
church philosophy?

JP:  Yeah, it is the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, his technical
writings as well as his policy writings, as well as their confidential
secret materials.

HOST:  How high up did you get in the church hierarchy?

JP:  Um, corporately I was the second most senior person within the
Church of Scientology from the years 1982 to early 1987.

HOST:  What attracted you to Scientology?  What did you find valuable
in Scientology?

JP:  Well, in the beginning, I was--I was young.  I was 21 years old
and confused, I guess just as confused as most 21-year-olds are, and,
um, you know, I had an interest in helping people, I had an interest
in learning something that would make me an asset to society, and
Scientology had many claims of being able to do such a thing.

HOST:  Um-hmm.  Stacy Young, let me turn to you.  How long were you in
the church and what attracted you to the church originally?

STACY YOUNG:  I was in for almost 15 years, from 1975 until 1981.  Um,
I think I have to agree with Jesse, when I first got in, I was 23, it
was the mid-‘70s, very idealistic times, as you remember. Um, and I
felt very strongly that I wanted to do something to help people.  I
was an idealist and, um, really wanted to feel like I was doing
something to change things for the better.  And, um, Scientology
seemed to offer that possibility and that potential.  Um, so I was
very excited about getting involved in, in this organization, about
which of course I knew very little; um, and I should have found out
much more about it before I got involved.  But, uh, that was basically
why, how it started for me as well.

HOST:  How high up or, what did you do while you were there in the
Church of Scientology?

SY:  Well, the first few years that I was in, I, um--again because I
wanted to do something to help people--I learned how to be one of
their auditors, which is the term they use for counseling.  Um, and I
did hundreds and hundreds of hours of auditing on people.  And then I
moved up to supervising other people who were learning how to do the
counseling procedures.  Um, so I, I learned really as much as there
was to know about their, quote-unquote, auditing technology.  Um,
after that I did a little stint in their prison camp, which is the
Rehabilitation Project Force--if you see these people around the Fort
Harrison Hotel in their black boiler suits running wherever they go,
those are people who are on the Clearwater branch of their prison
camp, basically.

HOST:  Why do you call it a prison camp?

SY:  Well, because it’s basically a political prison.  People are sent
there for disaffection, for being critical of management, for
disagreeing with the way things are being done in one way or another.
Um, and they’re kept on it until they stop being critical.  

HOST:  What did you--

SY:  Just as in any political prison, I suppose!

HOST:  Why were you assigned to the--to this?

SY:  I was assigned to it because I refused to work with the leader of
Scientology, whose name is David Miscavige.  Um, I think there was a
big article about him in the "St. Pete Times" recently.  Um, contrary
to the way he was portrayed in that article, I found him to be, um, an
extremely vicious, very corrupt, um, very, really fairly psychopathic
personality.  Um, he really enjoyed degrading people, ridiculing
people, you know.  He had one staff member get down on his hands and
knees and push a pencil down the hall because he was late with a
report one afternoon, and he just stood there laughing at him.  And,
um, I was in a position under him in which I was supposed to be
carrying out his orders to treat other people in that way, and I
refused to do it.  And, um, he got very, very angry at me because I
was not agreeing to follow his orders.  And finally, one night he
became so angry at me that he put me into an office, locked the door
and screamed at me until I really--you know, I hadn’t slept in several
days because sleep deprivation is a big part of the way they control
people at the higher levels in Scientology management.  So I hadn’t
slept much for about a week.  Um, I was feeling very shaky already and
his screaming caused me to feel, um, that I was going to lose my mind
if I allowed myself to be subjected to this treatment any longer.  So
I went into another part of the organization the next morning and
announced that I was not going to be able to work with him any longer.


HOST:  And you were assigned to what you describe as a prison camp.  

SY:  Well, I was assigned very quickly thereafter.  Um, I was up at
their secret management compound outside of L.A. at the time and, um,
at four in the morning there was a knock on the door and two guards
were at the door and ordered me to pack my clothes and come with them.
And, um, so I did that and I was escorted physically to a van which
drove me down to Los Angeles in the middle of the night, and I was
taken to the Rehabilitation Project Force where I stayed for the next
eight months until I--

HOST:  Are you saying that you tried to leave this or you wanted to
leave but you couldn’t get out?

SY:  Um, I wanted to leave very badly but I could not get out, it
wasn’t--I was not physically kept from leaving all the time that I was
in there; I was kept physically from leaving for about four months.  I
was kept on the seventh floor of the--there’s a big complex in Los
Angeles which used to be the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, um, and the
RPF was on the seventh floor of that complex at the time.  Um, and I
was kept under house arrest on the seventh floor for about four months
during my stay in the RPF until I was able to convince them that I
would not leave if they allowed me off of that floor.

HOST:  Well, how would they prevent you from leaving?  What
would--what mechanism would they use? Would they--

SY:  Well, I was under guard; there were guards at the door.  I was
not allowed to leave.  I mean, Jesse was--Jesse had an even worse
experience in being held against his will than I did.

HOST:  Jesse, what was your experience?

JP:  Um, well, in 1976, again in the ‘70s when I got into Scientology,
I got in in San Francisco and then I was recruited into the
fra--Scientology fraternal organization known as the Sea Org, Sea
Organization.  Um, I was in the Sea Organization I guess for
two-and-a-half, maybe three months, at which point I, you know, I was
being forced to stay awake and work long hours.  I was being paid
under five dollars a week for working 100+ hours.  And I finally went
to them and I said, you know, "I’m not doing this, I’m leaving."  And
they told me, "Well, no you’re not!"  And at that point, uh, this same
location, Cedars of Lebanon, was fenced in in barb wire because it had
not, I guess--the Cedars of Lebanon had moved to a new location and
the building was for sale.  Um, I was held in that facility, which was
surrounded by barb wire--well, a barb wire fence and patrolled by
German shepherd dogs as well as other guards, and I was forcefully
taken up to the seventh floor in another building in that complex and
held there for nearly a year.  

HOST:  How were you held?

JP:  Uh, two to three people were assigned to guard me all the time in
case I ever tried to leave.  I was constantly supervised by guards,
and, you know, there’s no access to any telephone so I was not able to
call my family or call the police or do anything.  And as I said, this
went on for nearly a year.

HOST:  Did these guards have guns?  Or what would have happened had
you tried to walk past them? 

JP:  I would have been stopped.  I mean, and that did happen, you
know, they hold you--they hold you down.  Basically, they physically
hold you down, or lock you in a room.  

SY:  But you have to understand that the same time you’re being
subjected to relentless indoctrination 24 hours a day.

HOST:  What kind of indoctrination?  

JP:  Basically how bad of a person you really are.  It kind of starts
with the introductory tests that they give a person in Sciento--coming
into Scientology, this Oxford Capacity Analysis test, which is a
200-question questionnaire, which then is--the sum of those answers
are graphed on a graph, and you have low points and high points.  And
on the low points they, they explain to you, "Well, this is really
bad" or "This is really ruining you and this is why you feel the way
you feel now" and, you know, "Read this, read this Hubbard book."  You
need to read the books whether you want to read them or not.  And you
participate in the counseling whether you want to or not.  And, you
know, after a while, after this continuous indoctrination, you--one
comes to believe that this is the only way through this experience,
which is to comply and do what they want you to do.

HOST:  What about your families?  Were your parents still alive?  Did
you have brothers and sisters?  Did you have contact with them?

JP:  Yes.  My family--my father actually thought I was dead because I
wasn’t able to contact them or speak to them for over a year.  As I
said, there was no access to the telephone.  Also, Hubbard doesn’t let
his followers that are on staff watch television or read the
newspapers.

HOST:  Why is that?

JP:  Well, I can only assume why it is, is because he doesn’t want
them to realize the truth.  He doesn’t want them to be contacted into
the real world and feel a connection because there is so much against
Scientology and people that have been hurt, as came up in the 1979
court case against Scientology where L. Ron Hubbard’s own wife Mary
Sue Hubbard went to jail for practicing criminal activities against
the government and private citizens.

SY:  Well, and I have been contacted by many, many people coming out
of Scientology who had discovered the other side of the story from
reading the Internet.  Um, the Internet is Scientology’s worst
nightmare because it’s a free flow of information which is, uh, not
only positive about Scientology but also critical about Scientology.
And so someone getting into or thinking about getting into this
organization now has an opportunity to find out what is actually
happening within--within Scientology.  Um, they definitely, uh, very
much curtail the flow of information so that, uh, their indoctrination
will work, you know.  We’ve been down picketing in front of the Fort
Harrison because of, in honor of Lisa McPherson, who died in 1995, on
December 5, and there are people that see us doing this and they say
things to us which make it very clear to me that they have been told
very specific things about me, about Jesse, about the other people
that are there, that aren’t true.  And they believe it because they
have no way of getting any other information.

HOST:  Because they’re cut off from any sort of other avenue for
information or--

SY:  Absolutely.

HOST:  Stacy Young and Jesse Prince are our guests today. You’re
listening to Radio Activity on WMNF; I’m Rob Lorei.  We’re talking
about the Church of Scientology.  Stacy and Jesse are two former
members of the church, reaching pretty high levels within the church,
Jesse a one-time Number Two or Number Three person in the church
hierarchy.  Stacy, you worked for "Freedom" magazine and you described
"Freedom" magazine and what you did, um, as the propaganda arm of the
Church of Scientology.  Why--why do you describe it that way?

SY:  Well, um, because it’s a--it’s a magazine which is produced very
specifically to, uh, propagate Scientology’s world view to the media,
to, um, political figures, to major figures in business to try to
change the minds of those particular people about Scientology and get
them to think that Scientology is a good thing.  And that’s the
purpose of the magazine.

HOST:  Who is the magazine sent to?

SY:  It’s sent to the media and political figures [laughing] and major
figures in business.

HOST:  You told me a case in which there was a lawsuit in Portland and
the Church of Scientology was involved in a lawsuit in Portland, and
the magazine was used in a very specific way.  How--tell me, tell me
that case.

SY:  Yeah.  There was a woman named Julie Christofferson who was
damaged very badly by her experience in Scientology and later sued
them for intentional infliction of emotional distress and other
damages.  And, uh, Scientology lost--the jury, it was a jury trial and
the jury found Scientology responsible, um, to the tune of $30
million.  And this was a terrible, terrible blow to Scientology, not
only financially but also public relations-wise, legally.  And so the
head of Scientology, David Miscavige, ordered that a--that we produce
a special edition of "Freedom" magazine which was, um, basically
designed to tell the, quote, true story, unquote, about Julie
Christofferson and the various witnesses that had been in that case,
whatever.  And we, um, were ordered to have it distributed to every
single house in Portland.  And it cost about $2 million just for that
one little public relations propaganda activity.

HOST:  But, but how do you know what was in the magazine was
propaganda?  Why do you, why do you say what you worked on was
propaganda?

SY:  Well, as you know, uh, a regular journalist, when they’re doing a
story, they make sure that they’re telling the truth.  They get both
sides, they talk to--you know, if they talk to one person who is
critical of the subject, then they usually try to talk to another
person who’s got a different point of view to make sure that they’re
not just, uh, parroting someone’s own agenda.  Um, the way the
"Freedom" magazine stories are written is not that way, you know, we
were fed information by the intelligence division of Scientology, um,
or--, ordered to write a story from our seniors or whatever.  And, uh,
if we questioned the point of view that we were ordered to take in the
story, we were considered, um, to be disaffected or, you know, in some
way suspect of our motivations for doing so, so--

HOST:  What happens to people who are disaffected?

SY:  They go to the RPF, which is the prison camp [laughing].

HOST:  How many, how many RPFs are there?  How many of these--

SY:  Well, it’s a Sea Organization thing, so there’s--there’s an RPF
unit wherever you find a Sea Organization unit.  Um, in Los Angeles
there’s a big one.  In Clearwater there is also one.  Um, there’s--

JP:  Europe.

SY:  In Europe, you know; in Copenhagen there’s another RPF; and, um--

JP:  The U.K., there’s another one, in the U.K.

SY:  Yeah.  

HOST:  Why did you guys leave?  What--Jesse, why--what made you leave
the Church of Scientology?

JP:  Well, there’s very--you know, there’s a very exact reason why I
left.  There was a point in time where, even after the first two years
of my Scientological experience, at the end of that imprisonment at
that time, I was told it was a big mistake, you know, "This should
have never happened to you" and I was given several thousand dollars
and asked to please state, because now you understand what we’re
doing, and to help us along.  Well, you know, I did--I did that and
instead of making $3/week I was raised to $24/week.  And then I came
here where--you know, at Flag--where I made a better income and I was
able to--I went home and I saw my family and told them I was OK and
saw my children, saw my brothers and sisters and, you know, kind of
explained that there was a mix-up at the beginning but now I’m OK.
And, um, then I was drafted to go to the Los Angeles secret location
at which point I learned that the hierarchy of Scientology itself
doesn’t believe in Scientology and actually is just like any other
major corporation whose main objective is money.  But the way the
church procures money is through deception, um, high-pressure sales
techniques; I mean, even the--this poor girl that died at the hands of
Scientology, Lisa McPherson, um, was paying X amount of her income
every week to the International Association of Scientologists, and she
received no services whatsoever.  Um, I learned how they pressure
people to max out their credit cards, get money, lie to families, get
trust funds turned over, and they were just amassing this giant
treasure chest of money.  They being David Miscavige, Lyman Spurlock,
um, Norman Starkey, a South African fellow that’s extremely
prejudiced, um, Marty Rathbun, um, a person that is over their, uh,
intelligence and legal arms, which are criminal to the point that even
as I sit here, there are private investigators calling my children,
posing as police officers, saying that I am wanted in Denver, Colorado
for jumping bail or leaving because I have some kind of legal action
going on; and then they’re explaining to them things that I did in my
life earlier because they’d gone through my confidential auditing
files and pulled embarrassing things, or, you know, things that could
cause trouble; and they’re spreading them around to my father, my
sister, my cousins, my friends, business associates, as we sit here.

HOST:  So you--so you’re saying the harassment goes on now.  Uh,
Stacy, I want to ask you about why you left; but first of all,
auditing--describe what auditing is. When you say that they keep a
file on you, what’s in that file?  And what is auditing?

SY:  Uh, within that file is all of your, um, innermost secrets, you
know; when you’re a Scientologist, you believe that what you’re
telling your counselor, your auditor, is going to be held in
confidence.  Um, and in fact the information is written down in detail
in folders; sometimes people will end up with 30, 40, 50 of these
folders that have all of their confessionals recorded--

HOST:  So, so if you shoplifted, if you lied, if you--

SY:  Everything--

HOST:  Had sex with somebody, if you did something even worse than
that--you’re confessing this all during the auditing process.

SY:  Right--

JP:  Right--

SY:  Right, you are, and you’re--and you’re assuming that you’re
confessing it in confidence.  Um, but if you leave and decide to try
to expose what you’ve discovered is really going on in
Scientology--which is what I’m doing, what Jesse’s doing, what various
other people are doing--um, you quickly discover that those
confessionals are only confidential as long as you’re, uh, willing to,
to maintain your loyalty to the Scientology leadership.  Um--

JP:  And never do you imagine that the information that you’re
giving--in an effort similar to other religious faiths where you, you
give a confession and you try to change your life--never in your
wildest imagination would a person believe that now this information
would be taken and given to my family or maybe given to my employer or
given to my children or whatever.  And it’s--it’s a very spiteful
organization.  I came to learn from my experience in that hierarchy of
Scientology that Scientology truly is no church at all; it’s an
intelligence organization masquerading itself as a church and acting
in a very Mafia-like way.  I mean, I’ve seen Miscavige have staff
members held so that he could spit in their face, kick them, punch
them, ranting and raving.  I mean, he’s, he’s pretty much a lunatic,
you know, for lack of a better way to describe his character.  But he,
and he has many different sides.  But it’s a very vicious organization
and, um, I left for that very reason.

HOST:  Do--I want to get to Stacy and your story, but do we know how
much money Scientology takes in every week?  Or every year?

JP:  Well, I know when I was--worked in Clearwater at 210 S. Fort
Harrison at their establishment there, they would often send to Los
Angeles $1.1-1.2 million/week.

SY:  And that was just from one organization--

JP:  One organization.

====================================================

(CONTINUED IN PART TWO)

====================================================


Sue, SP4(:), listed on the Scieno Sitter list 5 times!
--
http://www.primenet.com/~xenubat

"It will take a *long* time to find another enemy
with the combination of evil and incompetence
you see in Scientology."--Keith Henson



Background courtesy of Windy's Web Design



Back to Lisa McPherson page