Ensifer

One of the curious side-effects of too much Scientology theory and not enough forward motion in life is the tendency for some Scientologists – not you, of course, I mean them – to just stop moving forward with time and get all hung up trying to figure out what caused some incidental phenomena. Deciding you are PTS, or a Potential Trouble Source as a cause for a temporary event like getting ill is a common way to freeze yourself in time while the rest of the world clips by you at freeway speeds.

Having just recovered from two days of bed time due to a 24 hour flu bug I thought I might share with you the first time this particular bug lodged in my gut and knocked me on my ass. And yeah, my 24 hour flu bugs often last for 48-72 hours. I need the extra sleep so I like to drag them out just a bit by playing the “I’m sick” card.

In early 1968 I finished up my R6 at St. Hill. We were told that in order to proceed to the Clearing Course we had to go to a secret location somewhere in the Mediterranean. Since this was over 40 years ago I have no idea where I came up with the money for the plane trip. Maybe someone lent it to me? More likely they just bought me a ticket because I was broke. Whatever the case, if you’re person who paid my way to Spain… thanks.

Six of us flew down to Valencia. Yeah, we knew were we were going, apparently it was tough keeping a secret location really and truly secret unless you were willing to pay for the airfare of the people who were headed to that secret place. We were told to buy tickets to Valencia and keep our destination a secret. I’ll tell you right now, I was looking forward to heading to Spain. The winter of 1967-68 in England was brutal. From what I overheard listening to actual English people talk was that it was the most brutal winter ever. Or at least for many decades. I was constantly cold and so any chance to head to a warmer clime was an added bonus for me.

So we left gray old England, rose above the clouds to the first sun I’d seen in a couple of months and then descended into the gray clouds covering the Spanish coast. Hooray.

My memory gets a bit sketchy here as well, but I seem to recall a couple of people in dusty naval uniforms with grayish-white blouses that had dirty collars meeting us at customs. They were in some sort of small vehicle and so instructed us to get a cab to the port. So we did. Then we walked for quite a ways and came upon a black and gray vessel that had the correct name: The Royal Scotsman.

Faces peered over the edge at us, we walked up the gangplank and went through lines. Again, everything was grayed out… at least that’s how I recall it. My personal stateroom wasn’t gray though. It was beige… with yellow tones. Not bad for a closet. I had to audit, sleep, brush teeth and change clothes in the tiny little space. There was a fold-down table top that dropped over the sink and the bed folded down from the outer bulkhead. A single light burned overhead and while it wasn’t emitting gray light, it was pretty dim… sort of beige-yellowy-gray. Here’s what we saw when we boarded:

The Royal Scotsman. Launched in 1936. The first Sea Org home.

I was on board for maybe two days when I got slammed by some sort of intestinal virus. When I say “slammed” I really, really mean slammed. Hit hard. Flattened. Run over. Creamed. Rendered unconscious. One minute I was fine, enjoying the view of gray ships in gray water with a low gray ceiling of threatening clouds and surrounded by gray-faced Sea org members scurrying around in what seemed to be endless gray circles… and the next minute I was sicker than a dog, moving in and out of consciousness and being sick from all orifices in a 4×6 closet. Thank God for portholes! I recall awakening several times and just pitching whatever foul things I was wearing or using out the porthole.

I was down for the count over a 2 day period. Then it took me a day to recover. Partly I spent my recovery day cleaning up my closet and slipping out to the common shower several times to douse myself in clean water. There was some rule about only 30 seconds of hot water for “guests”, but I said “Fuck ’em” and ran as much as I wanted. Sea Org people weren’t allowed any hot water anyway, so there was plenty for me.

So here’s the good part…

Not once did anyone ever ask where I was. Nobody knocked on my cabin door. I was officially on the Clearing Course and so was required to audit daily and then turn my folder in for C/S’ing every night.  None of which occurred. To this day I have no idea what the folks in charge were doing or thinking regarding my absence. To say that being on the Flagship in early ’68 was a bit creepy is somewhat of an understatement. It was real creepy. Somewhere during my stay LRH either left for or returned from the fabled Mission Into Time journey on that little sloop that was faithfully followed by the slightly larger trawler that carried whatever Hubbard felt he needed if he came across Xenu’s secret prison. Perhaps the reason I wasn’t missed is that more important events were transpiring that eclipsed something as mundane as a paying public doing the Clearing Course… which just happened to be the whole reason many of us were in Scientology to begin with.

The two other Sea org vessels. I bagged this from one of the CofS sites so it will remain until somebody threatens me. Then I suppose I'll start Googling in earnest and fine images they don't own.

What does all this have to do with being PTS, you ask?

Nothing really. In reality I hadn’t thought about being on the Flagship or my illness until I got sick the other day. The “bug” just reminded me of something… it had a particular harmonic to it that was similar to another point in my life and since I had nothing to do but sleep, turn up the electric blanket and introspect, I ran down the only other time such a feeling had knocked me flat.

I don’t recall any particular assignment of causation when a Scientologist got sick until sometime after the Sea Org was fully established as the dominant policy-making Org in Scientology. Before PTS=ill surfaced there was PTS as a condition that had distinct sources and a clear effect on an individual’s ability to make and retain case gain. People got colds, flu, head aches and other assorted things all the time and were never diagnosed one way or the other. hell, it’s possible that some CMO twerp came to my stateroom, opened the door, wrinkled their nose and then reported back to the C/S that “he’s sicker than a dog” and they just left me alone.

When I finally recovered I simply started auditing again and suffering through the unbelievably bad food the galley served to paying customers. And here I want to comment on one thing… where the hell did the idea for scrambling up some eggs with some tomato chunks and then baking them in a pie pan come from? What a godawful thing that was to both behold and consume. And I did consume the food. We were, after all, on a ship and it’s not as if I could just pop off and go to McDonald’s for something tasty and healthy.

When Fred Hare laughed at me for making faces about the food I asked him what was so funny. He pointed out that except for officers like him, the crew didn’t eat nearly as well as the Public did. Ouch. At that point I’d have felt sympathy for the Sea Org people except for the fact that I knew each of them had willingly signed up for the experience. The smart ones like Fred remained Officers or left the ship to do Sea Org business out in the field, where people still had a life and access to clean sheets and decent food. Alan Walters comes to mind as one of the folks who somehow remained a Sea Org member when it was convenient and a non-SO person when it suited him. I think it was really because he felt the uniform was stupid-looking.

Your opinion on that may differ from mine.

Anyway, I just want you to understand that many of you are obviously Suppressive Persons or you wouldn’t be reading this blog or any of the dozens of other suppressive blogs and web sites. And, since you are most likely suppressive, and we all know that SP’s make innocent people sick… I most likely got sick because I’m connected to you…even if it’s a tenuous, electronic connection.

But I got better. Despite your best efforts to suppress me. Thank you.