My name is Royal Jandreau. I have been a Scientologist since 1976. I first got into Scientology after a four-year stint in the Air Force in Sacramento. A buddy of mine named Daryl Gray in the Air Force introduced me to Scientology. Soon I joined staff at the Sacramento Mission at Arden Way and was assigned to work in Division Six, the public outreach division with a fellow named Bill Straass. Good times! Back then, Scientology was all about helping others. There was no such thing as the “IAS” or straight donations. The Church, at least publicly, did only three things: delivered auditing, training and books. So being on staff was about one thing only: helping people better themselves.

The pay was "not great"… meaning some weeks we made less than $5. But usually at least once a month, I’d make enough money to cover my half of the rent at an apartment I shared with a friend.

After two years on staff at Sac Org, I was recruited into the Sea Org in 1981 along with Bill Straass. We were fortunate enough to be at Flag during the early 1980s while it was still possible to enjoy one’s post (job), i.e. and have fun at the same time — and I sure did. Hubbard had said, “If it isn’t fun, it isn’t Scientology” and I took him at his word. We worked hard... and played hard, every day. After post might ride motorcycles or go swimming at the beach. We worked on cars, had parties, and went dancing. One guy spent all his free time wind surfing by the Sand Castle. My senior had a ski boat that he kept at the Sand Castle. We worked HARD but at the same time we were living life like normal people do. Again, it was Hubbard himself who said people survived on 8 dynamics, not just one. So again, I took him at his word.

The year that I got to Flag, the Flag Crew had built a replica of the Apollo inside the Flag Auditorium for the Bosun's party (an annual party just for staff around Christmas). The beer was flowing and there was dancing. The following year, in 1982, for LRH’s birthday party they built a pirate’s cove requiring staff to walk through a tunnel to get to the cove where we partied all night. In 1985, we rented pirate costumes and went from table to table carting off the women.

Suzi, Steve, Royal (in red stripes) and a NOTS auditor ham it up at the 1985 Bosun's Party (for staff only)

During those inital years I even managed to get myself up the Bridge to a large extent. I held posts at Flag as Board In-Charge in Flag’s upper level HGCs (“Hubbard Guidance Centers” where auditing is delivered). I also held the post of Director of Tech Service (DTS) in the Solo – OT III HGC throughout the 1980's where hundreds of Scientologists moved through the “Wall of Fire.”

At the time, my senior was an artistic individual who was constantly coming up with creative ways to keep the Solo auditors motivated. If a Solo auditor made their quota, they’d get a colorful cartoon depicting them in some earlier lifetime, conquering a giant or whatever and literally everyone came into our HGC daily to see the latest sketches. It brought people up tone and everyone was happy to get one. Even the senior execs like John Danelovitch, Chief Off, would come in to see these drawings, lol. I can’t imagine that kind of thing being done today.

To give a little flavor of what it was like in those days, one night after post, I was helping Bill Straass work on a car. Bill was exceedingly strong and had the nickname of “Big Bear.” Unbeknownst to me, Bill had forgotten to block the front wheels and while working under the back end of a VW Rabbit, the car rolled off the jack. To keep the car from crushing his head, Bill did the only thing he could do: he took the weight of the car on his arms, locking both elbows as the jack clinked over onto the pavement. In a calm but strained voice, Bill spoke:

“Royal?”

“Yeah, Bill?”

“Can you please put the jack back under the car? It's a little bit heavy.”

Production was high, and we couldn’t help but have high morale. And with dozens of stories like the above, our days were punctuated by fits of laughter.

Whenever Bill wanted to comment on something, he would respond zombie-like “Far out man” as if stoned out of his mind (harking back to his hippy days) while rolling his eyes back in his head so that only the whites of his eyes showed. Bill would have us laughing until our sides hurt. And if anyone got in trouble, Bill would be there to say, “BUSTED, by the pigs!” and again on the word “pigs” his eyes would roll back into his head. Of course in this case, the “pigs” were Flag’s senior executives. It could have been applied to members from HCO, but there was only one person assigned to handle the ethics situations of all Flag staff, about 700 people. So we never even saw anyone from "ethics."

In 1985 a wealthy lady named Judith Saldarriaga was recruited to be the LRH Personal Public Relation's Officer (abbreviated LRH PPRO) at Flag. That meant she would come over to the FSO and give theetie-weetie (sweetness and light) briefings about LRH's life. Well, the story was that she had once been a Romper Room lady and we believed it because she spoke to everyone in hushed tones exactly as if she was speaking to preschoolers through a "Magic Mirror." Bizarre. This simply motivated us to skip staff meetings and ride out on our motorcycles to catch a midnight movie at Countryside Mall.

Anyway, Judith somehow conspired to arrange an "educational" costume party in 1986, of course for LRH’s Birthday. All staff were to show up in costume to promote the idea of being “team players.” In the Solo HGC, we thought the idea was incredibly juvenile and offensive. So we decided to mock the whole event by showing up as a whole track motorcycle gang, which isn’t exactly the kind of team the organizers were thinking of. We stayed up all night creating costumes as the “Solo Warriors” and at 8:30 AM as all Flag base staff (about 750 people) assembled for morning muster in their pink tennis outfits or baseball uniforms, we crashed the event by riding our motorcycles dragging chains right into the hotel auditorium from the 2nd floor of the parking garage. The crowd parted and girls jumped on the back of our motorcycles and for the rest of the day we posed for photographs outside the HGC.

The Solo Warriors crash the costume party on motorcycles in the Flag Auditorium.

Royal (Solo Director of Tech Services), Mitch Weigand (Solo C/S), Steve (Solo In Charge). We parked our bikes outside the HGC and had a steady stream of people wanting photos all day.

We enjoyed spending the whole day goofing off for a change.

In short, we did not take ourselves too seriously.

Unbeknownst to us, some dignitaries from City Hall came to visit Flag that same day and saw the three of us posing for photos outside the HGC by the pool. They were somewhat alarmed to see us and so asked the Chief Off, John Danelovitch, “Who are those biker guys?” and the Chief told them, “Oh, they’re pretty nice guys. They don’t make any trouble.”

Parishioners coming to Flag for service were also a never-ending source of mirth, fun and entertainment. The power of Scientology technology was in full force and the people who came to Flag did not go back the same person. That’s what really powered everything — the fact that the tech worked. And that was why we worked such long hours willingly for so little pay. The pay was really the knowledge of how we were helping to change people’s lives.

But the dream job was not to last and in 1987, a year after Hubbard’s death, the mood was changing drastically at Flag for the worse. My senior got sick of the BS and so he got himself transferred to the Central Marketing Unit in Los Angeles.

To make a long story short, my wife got pregnant in 1988 and she was banished from the Sea Org immediately (sent to LA) while I was told to go back to post. I obeyed dutifully at first and put myself on the right lines to go and join her. Per the issue banning children from the Sea Org which ED Int had supposedly written (today I know the writing of this issue was actually directed by David Miscavige) the husband was to be immediately replaced on post and sent to join his wife. That turned out to be complete fiction.

Instead of finding a replacement so I could join my wife who was by now 4 or 5 months pregnant, they dragged their feet and made excuses and I saw that they were not going to do anything. I decided to take matters into my own hands, grab the reins myself and do the right thing by going to be with my wife.

So I loaded up my Camaro, got a small U-Haul trailer, and one morning I just left without authorization and went to LA to the Flag Management Org and demand better treatment. There they packaged us up and sent me and my wife to Dallas to work on staff at a small organization there on what's called a “garrison mission” — meaning we were sent there to remain rather permanently. We worked on staff there for about 5 years but eventually decided to become public Scientologists and stop working on staff since it was very difficult to raise children while living below the poverty line of staff pay. After a time our decision was accepted by the Church. We bought a house in Dallas and raised three lovely daughters.

I think it's important to mention that all the while I still took my Sea Org obligation rather seriously. Over the years I would often "beat myself up" for letting the group down.

Looking back on it now, it's easy to see that if left to our own devices, my wife and I would never have moved to Dallas in the first place. We didn't know anyone there. Instead, we would have moved to my home state, Maine where I had friends I could have gone into business with. Or we would have moved to Germany, my wife's home, and started a new life there. Or we could have even stayed in Clearwater where I knew hundreds of Scientologists and could easily have found a decent job and a new life. It never occurred to me that the Church was harming my wife and I — and our two children — by forcing us to move to an unknown city where had no connections nor financial means to raise our children as we could have otherwise done. This was human trafficking and is today considered a crime punishable by prison sentences. This experience proved to be a huge mistake and a turning point in my life that I am still working to recover from. I joined staff because I wanted to help others. So I never saw the bomb coming our way when the Church dropped it into the lap of my young family. What corporation dictates human trafficking as the solution to parenthood? What corporation punishes parents for having children by sending them to a place where they will surely struggle to make a living? Yet that was a central aspect of the Church's solution — punishing parents by sending them off to a locale where they will have to live in poverty. That punishes staff for having children. It also punishes innocent children who never deserved to be harmed. This is destruction of the family unit by the Church of Scientology. 

In 1988 when my wife got pregnant, there were people getting declared for getting pregnant. If you could get out without catching a bullet, you were one of the lucky ones. The head of the honor guard at Flag who was a friend of mine — his wife got pregnant and as soon as they got out, they were both declared. Another friend of mine, a veteran course supervisor — his wife got pregnant and they were both sent out and declared.

Moreover, when you dedicate your life to the mission of helping the human race, the last thing you expect is to receive a dagger in the neck from the very organization you have dedicated your life to helping. But the Church of Scientology didn't just stab the dagger into my neck, they put it into the necks of my children by doing their best to set them up for a life of poverty; meanwhile the top guy, David Miscavige, who is supposed to be there on the same terms as the rest of us... he lives in luxury like a Roman dictator. It was a struggle but somehow we survived.

Then in 2012, a Senior HCO International recruit mission showed up on our doorstep wanting to snatch away my 17-year-old daughter. My other two daughters had managed to grow up, get married and start new lives with their husbands. Unfortunately for the recruiters, my youngest daughter was not at all interested in joining the Sea Org so they proceeded to talk to me about finally coming back.

As it turned out, I was an easy prospect for smooth talkers as I was already feeling remiss for leaving the Sea Org in the first place. I ended up going to Los Angeles with them (with my wife's eventual blessing) assuming that the recruiters would then work on getting my wife to follow me out. After all, she had also been a Sea Org Member once and their motto is “We Come Back!” But that was not in the cards even remotely.

Instead, when I got to L.A. I was immediately ordered to divorce my wife!

Shortly afterward, my cell phone was impounded which completely severed any ability to communicate with my family. The top dog over HCO (the Hubbard Communication Office) in LA was something else. I’ve forgotten her name, but she was a cold chrome-steel Miscavige McNazi. She was a fairly young lady in her ‘30s, of mediocre looks but with a mouth that would make a drunken sailor look like Mary Poppins. “When is this fucking cocksucker going to fucking get here? That fucking dumb-ass cock-sucking son of a bitch needs to get his shit together and get his ass in here!” She had a short fuse and absolutely no patience for anything.

However, I did show her the photo of the Solo Warriors and when I did, she lapsed out of her chrome-steel personality for just a minute and asked salaciously, “Who’s that stud in the picture?” referring to Steve, the owner of Scientology-cult.com. Then, as quickly as her inner libido escaped, she got it back in the cage, reverting to Cold Chrome Steel and walked away.

I was told that any message from my daughters would be passed on to me, but I knew that was false as the atmosphere and duress precluded any time for “distractions” and “frying other fish” such as staying in touch with family.

Within days I realized that I had made a terrible mistake. This was not the Sea Org I remembered so fondly, but a new creature entirely. They made numerous attempts to stop me from leaving, telling me that my wife, Anita, was criminally out ethics (since she was also ex-Sea Org but refused to rejoin). And worse, when I stated that I had attention on being able to see my daughters one of them said, “They’re just meat bodies!” and got nods of strong agreement. I found that was the consensus — that my children were nothing more than meat bodies... just animated, machine-like tissue. Irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. Not worth caring about certainly.

What sort of parent would agree that their own children were just oblivious meat? Their attitude and callous treatment jarred me and grated on me so badly that I left and walked off in anger — left the PAC base. I would never dismiss my own children as just “meat.” This new generation of “Sea Org” members were more like monsters who had no clue of Scientology and no humanity at all. But after cooling off, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. They were so disorganized, they didn’t even know I had been gone for 6 hours.

But it wasn't long before I ran into the same attitude. Within 5 days I actually "blew" three times.

Finally about a week into my stay, I could no longer deny the reality of the Brave New World mentality that has taken over the Church of Scientology. So I packed up my things and left again, only to meet the Queen McNazi from Senior HCO right outside. As soon as she saw me, she walked over and said, “What are you doing out here? You need to go back inside!” But at that point I had surely had enough. So I said “No, no I’m not” and looked her straight in the eye with a look that would have turned Clint Eastwood’s blood to ice as if to say “you better get some help because you are going to need it if you even think of trying to stop me.” But she just froze and then the Senior HCO Int Queen McNazi went back into her lair.

From there, I walked across the street, tossed my stuff over a fence, climbed over myself and just kept on walking.

When I got back to Dallas, I found that I was now persona non grata at the local church. I was assigned Lower Conditions and informed the only activity I was allowed to engage in was clean up projects around the Church... and of course I.A.S. fundraising events!  I really felt quite on my own at that point. The Sea Org I knew was dead. The org was as good as dead. The Dallas “new Ideal Org” had Public course rooms that were virtualy empty all day and an Academy that mostly delivered hyped up Introductory level courses to pad their statistics due the lack of scientology Clears and auditors being made there. It is a very nice 5 million dollar building, however empty with a Hubbard Association Secretary manning the phones and an Hubbard Executive Secretary whose job it is to “put the org there” who himself is almost never there during the week except for some nights as he must sell roadside items the rest of the week to make ends meet, barely. And the dream of Scientology as a force for doing good in the world was dead. “Helping others” had been replaced “taking money.”

With no one else to turn to, it was around October of 2013 when I was contacted by my old friend Bill Straass. I was shocked to discover that not only was he no longer staff at the Freewinds (the Church's passenger ship where upper level courses are done) but had declared himself Independent of the Church. He told me of another old friend of mine named Steve.

With nothing else to lose, I went to visit Steve and it was from that time that I proceeded to have my eyes opened as to the various "going's on" of the Church. I read this very website with shocked amazement and from there I decided to look further and so read books by Larry Wright and also Russell Miller.  Russell Miller’s book, Bare-faced Messiah, is a must read for any scientologist in my opinion.  It detail’s the life of L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics and Scientology, the Sea Org etc. in a factual, non-partisan way and is an incredible historical reference. These books shed light on facts the Church has kept covered up for decades.

It turns out that as L. Ron Hubbard became more and more reclusive throughout the 70's and 80's, a couple of individuals positioned themselves as the sole conduits between L. Ron Hubbard and Church of Scientology management. One was Pat Broeker who was apparently a nice enough fellow who was Hubbard's personal communicator. He had no real aspirations of running the church but wanted to simply buy and tend to horses which Hubbard had at his ranch. The other was quite different. This man, David Miscavige was a power-driven fellow that used fear, intimidation and outright violence to get whatever he wanted. When people like Mary Sue Hubbard or David Mayo tried to correct or stop him, he dealt with them ruthlessly. He upset Mary Sue Hubbard so badly that she threw an ashtray at him. She referred to him as “Little Napoleon.” This occurred while he was ousting here from authority as head of the Guardian’s office. David Mayo, then Senior Case Supervisor International and Hubbard’s personal auditor ordered Miscavige to undergo Security Checks and he [Mayo] was immediately taken off post as Senior C/S and shortly thereafter Declared as Suppressive [wrongfully of course]. Miscavige is responsible for the complete destruction of the Church's former hierarchy (consisting of long-time Sea Org veterans). He systematically replaced them with much younger, more manageable people who would do his bidding or else.

Upon Hubbard's death, on the very same day while others at the house where Hubbard lay in one room were mourning his departure, sounds of laughter and joking could be heard in the next room where David and Pat were celebrating their newfound positions of power.  David Miscavige soon consolidated power and Pat Broeker was sent packing along with a couple of private investigators to follow his every move. Meanwhile, David has since built himself quite a little empire where he gets to do the following while staff work like slaves for little pay:

1. David Miscavige lives a lifestyle that Prince Charles and Camilla would envy. Food and drink shipped in from around the world of the very best quality which is prepared by 5-star chefs. Lamb from New Zealand, the best whiskeys from Scotland, a meal budget of $3000 to $20,000 per week for he and his wife and depending how many private guests he may be entertaining that week. Meanwhile his staff at Int. have a 75 cent per meal budget. [the Californian Prison system meal budget is $4.00 per meal per prison.]

2. He and his personal staff of about 8 or 10 people share a $70 million building that he had built using parishioner’s funds.

3. He owns a fleet of cars and motorcycles and spends his time attending movies and sporting events, scuba diving and hobnobbing with Tom Cruise.   
He then shows video of his scuba diving exploits to the lucky staff on the Freewinds who are stuck on the ship working 7 days a week on little sleep.

4. He took around 100 of the top International Execs and imprisoned them in a couple of double-wide trailers complete with iron bars on the windows, no furniture and a bare floor to sleep on, round-the-clock security, no possible means of escape and routine black Dianetics techniques being applied which amounts to mind control and torture. Ray Mithoff, Heber Jentzsch, Guillaume Lesevre to name a few.

5. He has orchestrated several campaigns in which he has altered the technology of L.Ron Hubbard with great fanfare but for the main purpose of raising money for his coffers, of which he has sole control (upwards of 2 billion dollars). And as LRH said, whatever you control, you own.

6. In today's church of Scientology Inc., the slightest whisper of anything critical concerning David Miscavige will land that person in Ethics and heavy discipline.

7.  David himself has never been a professional Scientology auditor yet thinks nothing of altering the tech, C/Sing folders, etc., whenever and wherever he sees fit. David was a super body builder whacked out on steroids even as a kid back in the seventies who suffered from epileptic seizures and would totally black out when these occurred. He once hit his preclear in the face that he was auditing [ a woman]  while he was auditing for a short while at St. Hill in England. She could be seen crying and holding the side of her face following David out of session. Needless to say, he wasn’t auditing much after that incident.

8. While his staff work like dogs on poor quality food with often 3 or 4 hours sleep (sometimes none at all) David Miscavige routinely sleeps till noon after staying up till 3 or 4 a.m. playing video games, watching movies on his big screen TV and enjoying late night snacks prepared by 5-star chefs.

9. If the above weren't enough, he also has his close minions fleece the poor staff at Scientology International from their meager pay checks to buy him expensive presents for Christmas and his birthday. And pay up they better!

The plain fact of the matter is that the CoS does not put an equal value on earh of the separate dynamics and so their group mission is the all-important mantra. All else is secondary. So as a public Scientologist, the money tap is inserted from the time you first walk in for either money for services or money to the IAS which goes  mostly into David Miscavige's doffer for him to alocate as he sees fit. If you are staff, you are heavily indoctrinated from the get go that money for you is unimportant. Your berthing space is unimportant, your personal belongings, quanitity or quality there of, are unimportant.

You as staff are there for the cause and having a life of your own is not required. In fact, it is nothing but a distraction.

Well, one point I want to make clear in writing this article is that these notions are completely out of sync with the ideals in Scientology. Every person's family, their income, their belongings are important and so I part ways with the Church. Particularly upon discovering how important money, power and celebrity are to the Church's "great leader," David Miscavige. What person in their right mind who understands the changes that have gone on with the church since Hubbard passed away, could continue to support such an organization with a leader like David Miscavige? It's not the church I joined back in1976.

I find that I can no longer support it in its current state. My children are not just meat bodies.

Royal Jandreau