Who is Bill Franks?
Training-wise, Franks was a Class IX auditor, OT VII and OEC FEBC graduate. He reached the highest level of administrative training, doing the FEBC directly under LRH on the Flag ship. In December 1981, Bill Franks was thrown out of his office in Clearwater and fired from his position executive director. In August 1982, he was declared a suppressive person by the Watchdog Committee.
Bill Franks' story about brainwashing
Firstly, I swear that this is the absolute and complete truth even though it occurred 37 years ago.
Secondly, a little about me which might put things into perspective as to why I saw what I am about to say as very significant and in a way horrific. I was in the SO for a little under 14 years. I attained the "rank' of Lt. Commander through promotions only by Hubbard. I was OEC and FEBC (trained by Hubbard), HSDC, Class IX when I left in December 27 1981, as well as DSEC, NOTs auditor, plus assorted other stuff. I was OT V plus NOTs, plus sec checked up the wazoo over the years. I also audited between 3-4000 hours conservatively speaking-probably much more, a lot of this was under Hub as the C/S. I spent about 3 1/2 years working with Hubbard pretty directly on the ship at various posts. I got to know him as well as anybody did.
Thirdly and to the point of all this preamble, on one night in 1974 I found myself in David mayo's office in the tween decks of the Apollo.
It was very late or early in the morning. We were, I believe in the port of Safi, Morocco. A student of mine, I was currently D of T and Mayo was Flag Senior C/S, had blown. Hubbard was extremely angry with us due to this blown student of mine on the FEBC program. In an attempt to show Hubbard what we had done to handle this guy we collected up all the sec checking that he had received over the last 2 months, it had been a lot poor guy, and presented it to him along with an outline of this student's progress on the courses he had taken. We had also wanted to show him how we had been careful that he hadn't gone by misunderstoods, etc.
We waited and waited and about 0300 hrs a messenger came down with a Despatch written by LRH. My memory does not recall any folders being returned. The despatch was entitled Very Confidential underlined. "He went onto say that if you or Franks ever reveal any of this information that I am about to reveal, the consequences will be severe for SCN."
He then wrote "a person does not blow due Overts or Witholds. He blows only due to ARC BKs.
"However, if any of this information ever became public, I would lose all control of the orgs and eventually Scientology as a whole." Signed, LRH.
Both Mayo and me looked at one another completely incredulously. I cannot speak for Dave but I was completely flabbergasted as I realized at that point of digestion that he is talking about something that 75-80% of the tech is premised upon. Furthermore, the OEC/FEBC was currently anchored by the latest" development" at the time -being the L's, L-10, 11 & 12. Which for those who don't know is about OW's. I don't believe Mayo or I talked about this again until we were out where I saw him at his auditing facility in Montecito, California in 1983. I believed we were a bit shell shocked about this.
As for me, I began to see more and more that Scientology was merely a big prison camp. I stayed in for another 7 plus years but I was always mindful of this and always had in mind changing this "tech." I believe it is the key to what we have all seen and experienced as brainwashing.
That is all. I hope someone who wants to use this will do so as there is no doubt that there is good in the tech it is just a matter of where is it.
How do you sort out the good and the bad and at the same time keep the good without throwing out the baby with the bath water.
I regret that I could not fix this during my tenure.
Best, wogman Bill Franks
Verification
The discussion board post excerpted above originally occurred on Facebook (see image to the right) in response to a message Robin Scott posted to Bill Franks timeline. It was passed on to the ESMB community by "gwells," a friend of Bill's who was helping him navigate the internet. Despite initial disbelief, Karen de la Carriere initially confirmed it was indeed posted by Bill Franks. Once Bill navigated his way through the registration ESMB process, he personally confirmed it himself.
Additionally, Glenn Samuels independently confirmed this account with through a source close to David Mayo who is unable to speak out directly due to a gag order he was forced to sign during a legal settlement with the Church of Scientology.
Similar to Bill, Glenn lived and worked aboard the Flagship Apollo where he was also personally trained as a counselor by Hubbard. Glenn left Scientology in 1982 after seeing Scientology’s corruption and greed firsthand. His response to Bill's remarks was that "it makes sense; did you leave because you committed some huge crime? Probably not. You left because of abuse, human rights violations, or some other form of harassment."
Additional insights
The Edge with Tom Smith, June 2010 - a previously recorded interview with Bill Franks was re-published on YouTube in January 2014. The topics discussed include Fair Game, Paulette Cooper, the framing of Mary Sue, orders issued against elected officials of a major Western government, Miscavige's psychopathy, Hubbard's psychopathy, etc. Bill also explains the story of the Hubbard despatch that admitted people blow due to ARC Breaks (upsets) rather than transgressions.
This interview was most likely Franks' original telling of his first hand account regarding Hubbard's emphasis on O/W being the source of people leaving the Church Scientology being a blatant deception instituted to control people.
Furthermore, this deception should raise questions regarding the real purpose of Scientology Ethics, PTS/SP tech and Sec Checks. If Hubbard was right when he stated that human beings are basically good, then what is it about Scientology that causes a need for all these coercive tactics, corrections and punishments?
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