Just Take What You Want From Me
I don’t recall anything like this happening in the 90’s or later, but in the 80’s, it was often that Sea Org members would burst into our berthing for surprise inspections, and take items that were forbidden.
It was always because Hubbard would write an advice about something, then Sea Org members would enforce it.
For example Hubbard discovered that television was bad, and possibly even sending us messages subliminally. This was sometime in the early 80’s. I don’t know if Sea Org members were ever asked to turn in newly forbidden items, but the way I saw it as a child was they would randomly burst into our homes and take. And so, that time it was the television. I couldn’t watch Felix the Cat, my favorite show as a child.
It was very unsettling to have this happen so often.
I remember one time my mother rushed home (we lived in a studio apartment room at the Fountain building in LA) to tell me we had to hide all of our soaps and shampoos. Hubbard had written an advice about scented products and now all of them had to be removed.
The problem with that is that with so little money, we had no way to replace them. We needed them to stay clean. And so we hid them all.
Of course for future purchases we had to buy unscented. Of course my mom had to save her meager weekly paycheck to purchase the new items needed over time.
And just a random extra thought here. Sea Org members with children did not get any extra money to be able to care for their children. Maybe that was why I had hardly any clothes to wear. I got bullied a lot in public school about wearing the same outfit every day.
One of the big confiscations, the one most upsetting to me as a child, was when my letters from Hubbard were taken from me.
Anyone was allowed to write to Hubbard. And though I didn’t know him, I still wrote. It was mostly messy writing about school or I would draw a picture for him. He would always write back telling me something nice.
I don’t know if they were really from him or from his staff.
But after Hubbard passed away, there was a Sea Org group sent to scour everywhere for any Hubbard writings. They took all my letters. It made me very upset.
They were taking everything that might have been written by him, no matter what it was.
I never saw those letters again.
It was just another day in the life, where nothing was predictable, and nothing belonged to you.