The Rehabilitation Project Force
I. Introduction Within the hierarchical structure of the Church of Scientology exists a religious order comprised of the dedicated core of the religion, individuals who have signed a pledge of eternal service to the religion of Scientology. This group is known as the Sea Organization, so named because, when the group was established in 1967, its members underwent basic training aboard ships, training designed to increase one's ability to deal with a challenging environment, increase one's competence as a team member and heighten one's ethics.
Sea Organization members devote their lives to the service of the Scientology religion. Sea Organization members, like members of other religious orders, are spiritually and not materially motivated. They work in Church organizations for a small stipend and live in a religious community with housing, meals, clothing, medical care, dental care and other necessities provided by the Church. They study the fundamentals of Scientology for a portion of each day and dedicate themselves to whatever their assigned task may be in the furtherance of the objectives of the religion. Their disciplined lifestyle in a religious order is comparable to that of members of religious orders in many other faiths. The ecclesiastical leadership of the Church of Scientology are all members of the Sea Organization.
As with any religious program requiring high spiritual and ethical standards as well as dedicated service, there are some members who stumble in their effort to maintain such high standards and a few members who commit serious breaches of the ecclesiastical rules governing their conduct as a member of this order.
In such a situation, the individual is given the choice of either leaving the Sea Organization or participating in a religious program designed to provide the individual with an opportunity to progress spiritually and remedy past short comings. This program is called the Rehabilitation Project Force ('RPF'). It was created during the 1970s at the request of Sea Organization members. This program is solely for Sea Organization members, who comprise approximately one third of Church staff and is not administered to Church staff or parishioners who are not part of this religious order.
II. Rehabilitation Project Force
The Rehabilitation Project Force is a voluntary program of spiritual rehabilitation. The emphasis is on the word "rehabilitation," meaning, in this context, to restore one's condition to an optimal spiritual state. It represents a free religious commitment by the individual to a spiritual discipline. The word "force" in this context means "[A] group of people working or acting together.,' Thorndike Barnhart Dict., 1992.
The RPF is based upon one of the oldest and most fundamental concepts in religion -- a religious retreat in the form of a cloister focusing on intensive spiritual contemplation and study, and balanced by some form of physical labor. This practice is common to the religious orders of many different faiths including Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and the monastic orders of the Roman Catholic Church.
Scientology comprises a body of unique knowledge about man, the mind, the spirit and man's relationship to the divine. This knowledge is the foundation for a religious technology which, when applied, enables an individual to, among other things, systematically uncover the root cause of problems in life and resolve them. In the RPF, away from the pressures and the stress of a challenging staff position, an individual learns and applies these fundamentals as a form of spiritual retreat and rededication. The program is designed to achieve fail spiritual recovery and renewal, thus enabling one to return to his position in the religious community as a contributing staff member.
The program is a religious retreat which represents an opportunity for redemption. The program is entirely voluntary and an individual is free to leave at any time. It is structured as follows.
· Those who choose to participate in the program engage in five hours of religious study and spiritual counseling each day.· Individuals work eight hours per day as a team on tasks which improve the facilities of the Church. This includes such activities as landscaping, gardening, woodwork, painting, renovations and construction. The work is designed to allow the individual to contribute to the religious community while on the program and to regain confidence in himself through pride of accomplishment by successfully completing constructive physical tasks. The purpose of the work is to balance intensive daily spiritual study and contemplation by providing physical release and accomplishment.
· Sea Organization members participating in the program study, work, live and eat together in community. This arrangement is intended to create esprit de corps and enhance spiritual support and growth.
· Sea Organization members participating in the program dedicate themselves to this religious retreat of spiritual study and redemption. The length of time spent on the program varies according to individual requirements and every person's unique situation, but the average time is one year.
· An individual completes the program once he has successfully overcome his impediments and is spiritually refreshed. A requisite for graduation from the program is that the individual must also help another person on the program advance spiritually and achieve spiritual renewal.
Contrary to misinformation spread by a handful of apostates, Sea Organization members in this program live in comfortable quarters, get adequate rest, eat well and pursue spiritual betterment and renewal in what is in essence a voluntary religious retreat. The program is designed to provide an opportunity for valued and respected members of Scientology's core religious order to overcome problems and to facilitate their productive return to the general religious community. Members rededicate themselves in the program to their religious goals and the achievement of high spiritual and ethical standards through this time-honored form of religious discipline. Upon completing the program, members return to their duties within the Church and many eventually assume or reassume high level ecclesiastical positions.
III Comparisons to Other Religions
Experts who have examined the program have determined that it is similar to -- and in many ways less stringent than -- programs run by religious orders of other religions.
A noted comparative religious scholar and former Franciscan monk, Dr. Frank K. Flinn now Adjunct Professor in Religious Studies at Washington University, Missouri in the United States, undertook an examination of the RPF program as part of an independent study he conducted on Scientology. (See Attachment 1). Dr. Flinn is a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and holds a Ph. D in Special Religious Studies from the University of St. Michael's College in Toronto. He has completed advanced study at Harvard University and the University of Heidelberg, where he was a Fullbright Fellow in Philosophy and Ancient Near Eastern Religions.
Dr. Flinn notes that, "It is my opinion that the spiritual disciplines and practices, such as the Rehabilitation Project Force of the Church of Scientology, are not only not unusual or even strange but characteristic of religion itself when compared with religious practices around the world. Contrary to the generally second-hand opinions of outsiders and to the claims of disaffected members, whose motives are suspect, I would say that submission to such practices ... follows as a natural consequence from a free religious commitment to a spiritual discipline in the first place."
As Dr. Flinn notes, physical labor is a daily activity in Roman Catholic monasteries for both men and women and consists mainly of gardening, woodworking, washing laundry, running and repairing farm equipment, harvesting and preparing food for the monastery. Those who have chosen the religious life undertake such rigors willingly, even as Dr. Flinn did himself as a Franciscan initiate:
"Contemplatives, monks and mendicants and other religious societies not only take the three vows mentioned above, but also commit themselves to other religious practices such as long hours of meditation each day, periods of manual labor, midnight choir (the singing of Psalms), fasting during Lent and Advent, study of the rule of the order and other spiritual writings, and silence. As a member of the Franciscan order (which I left voluntarily and was free to do so), I myself freely submitted to the religious practice of flagellation on Fridays, striking the legs and back with a small whip to mortify the desires of the flesh and to commemorate the flagellation of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion. In the tradition of St. Benedict's dictum 'ora et labora' (Latin for 'pray and work'), I also spent several hours each day, with the exception of Sunday, doing physical labor, including woodworking, tending a garden, cleaning floors, washing laundry, peeling potatoes, etc. These tasks were assigned to me by my superiors, and because I took a vow of obedience, I did them. Furthermore, as a mendicant, I took a vow of absolute poverty such that I owned absolutely no material possessions, including the robe which I wore. When rules of the monastery are broken, monks and friars are regularly assigned menial tasks as penances. Compared with these Roman Catholic practices, the practices of the RPF are not only not bizarre but even mild."
As Flinn points out, similar practices exist in Jesuit orders and in some eastern religions
The rigors demanded of a monk, priest or nun who chooses a life of such religious dedication and service vary from withdrawing to cloister for brief period of study and meditation to dedicating oneself to a lifetime of asceticism. Through isolation self-mortification and penance, members of such orders expiate their sins, atone for the sins of others, become closer to God and attain spiritual enlightenment.
Buddhist monks elect to follow an eight-fold path of right views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness and right meditation. Some monks take vows of poverty and support themselves by begging for alms, an activity intended to strengthen them spiritually.
Jainism embraces an ascetic ethnic. Members practice self-mortification in an effort to master accumulated karma. They do no harm to any living thing, even insects, and by living a life of self-denial they expect to gain spiritual salvation.
Atoning for one's sins and transgressions is also a concept common to Muslim faith. As stated in the Qur'an:
"The vanguard of Faith think nothing Of self-sacrifice. Their reward is God's Good Pleasure. Even those who do wrong But repent will obtain His Mercy: not so Those who persist in Unfaith, Hypocrisy, And Mischief. Allah's grace is free and abounding For the righteous. Even if they waver Or fail, He will turn to them in Mercy, If only they repent and come back unto Him.
Though severe asceticism is more commonly associated with the traditions of eastern religion, Christian faiths, particularly some monastic orders, also engage in forms of self-denial and isolation from society in order to foster spiritual growth.
Poverty, Chastity and Obedience
Vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are common to many monastic orders. Though stringent, nuns and priests have voluntarily adhered to these requirements of cloistered life for hundreds of years and continue to do so today.
Both nuns and monks pledge themselves to a life of austere simplicity. In imitation of Christ, some adherents own nothing. Even the habits and robes they wear are considered communal property. Members of cloistered orders live in a small spare room called a cell. The floor is bare cement, the walls bare concrete block. Furniture consists of a bed - a straw mattress laid over wooden boards -- a chair and a desk. Above the bed is a crucifix without corpus, a constant reminder that the nun herself is expected to take the place of Christ on the cross. Food is simple and often garden-grown or donated. Both nuns and monks wear coarse woolen garments in both summer and winter. Adherents of some orders wear only hemp sandals or go barefoot in all seasons.
Those who adopt the cloistered life also take a vow of chastity. Even those in training are expected to abide by this rule and are not allowed contact with members of the opposite sex. Canon 599 explains the reasoning behind this vow: "The evangelical counsel of chastity assumed for the sake of the kingdom of heaven as a sign of the future world and a source of more abundant fruitfulness in an undivided heart, entails the obligation of perfect continence in celibacy."
Virginity is consecrated to God forever, not merely for a few months or years. A woman does not give herself to the divine Spouse for a short period of time, but until death just as another woman vows herself to a human husband for a lifetime.
Nuns and priests lead chaste lives free of distraction in order to practice complete devotion to their religion.
The third vow is that of obedience. Priests and nuns are taught that their superiors within the order speak as representatives of God and based upon that premise, total obedience is thus expected.
Devotion to God
Upon entering a convent or monastery, an individual to a greater or lesser degree, withdraws from society to devote himself full-time to study, prayer and fulfilling the duties of a priest or nun. Special religious ceremonies exist to symbolize this willing departure from the material world.
Upon entering the monastery, a Benedictine monk draws up a document which resembles a last will and testament, in which he disposes of all he owns and forgoes the right to inherit property or accept gifts. Given a present of any kind, he is required to take it to his superior who may requisition it on behalf of the community.
A nun who has professed her vows sacrifices even the right to property and must make her will within 60 days of her initiation. A novice, though not forbidden from the right to property, is nonetheless forbidden from ownership. "[She] may have personal possessions but cannot exercise ownership over them any more than if she did not have them ..."
A vow of poverty goes beyond material things. Initiates are forbidden to become too attached to a certain residence, room, book or even a position of responsibility.
The austerity of religious orders extends to nearly every aspect of an individual's lifestyle. Nuns and priests live in cells, concrete rooms with bare floors and a single cot with a mattress of straw. Their monastic robes are of heavy rough wool uncomfortable in both summer and winter. Some orders wear only rough hemp sandals, others wear no shoes at all. Initiates do not even own the robes they wear.
A nun entering a convent does not immediately take her vows of poverty, chastity or obedience, though she is still expected to live by these in preparation for the day she does. During that time, she is continually tested for her strength and desire to remain in the convent. Initiates of some orders surrender their given name and take on new names give by a superior to symbolize taking on a new life.
When a nun does take her vows, she participates in a ceremony of marriage to Jesus Christ and her Church. She appears in a wedding dress, is consecrated and given a wedding ring to symbolize her betrothal to the Church. After this mass, the nun undergoes another ceremony to symbolically divest herself of worldly beauty. Her hair is cut short by the Mother Abbess who then dresses the new sister in the order's habit, usually of rough hewn wool.
A similar ceremony exists for novices of the Order of St. Benedictine. When a monk of this order takes his vows, he participates in a ceremony which symbolizes the death of his old life and the beginning of his new life in God. Prostrate on the floor, the initiate is covered with a shroud. Candles are lighted around him and superiors pray over his body.
Withdrawing from the world of material concerns binds an initiate to the disciplinary rules of his or her order and a strict routine of religious exercise. Nuns and monks follow Canonical Hours, a special form of prayer chanted or sung at certain times during the day. Canonical Hours begin as early in the morning as 3:00 am, when monks and nuns are expected to arise and pray for a determined period of time. Such periods occur again at set times throughout the day and vary depending upon the order.
A Trappist monk of Gethsemani rises at 3:00 am for his first prayer and prays eight more times throughout the day. Benedictine monks awaken at 4:15 am and pray throughout the day until they retire early in the evening. Cloistered Dominican Nuns of Perpetual Adoration begin their day's prayers at 5:30 in the morning, pray six times a day and retire at 8:45 pm. They arise again at midnight for yet another prayer. The Carmelites of Our Lady of Divine Providence arise at 5:40 am and pray seven times before retiring at 11:00 pm.
Strict Discipline
In addition to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, other forms of discipline exist in monastic orders.
Stricter orders observe a vow of silence. At one time, Trappists were not allowed to speak at all and developed a sign language to communicate with one another. In 1967, the rule of silence was modified to allow brief conversations only in certain areas of the monastery at specific times. Similarly, Carmelite nuns observe a strict vow of silence for fear of interrupting the silent meditations and thoughts of another. They use sign language to communicate, do not listen to the radio and only on rare occasions are allowed to watch special events on television.
In other, less cloistered orders, incoming and out going communications are sometimes monitored and are subject to censorship by superiors. Letters being sent out are left unsealed so that they can be examined before being sent out. Telephone calls are allowed only with special permission and, in some cases, forbidden.
In cloister, time with family and friends is limited, in some cases to only a few hours on one Sunday each month. Stricter orders such as the Poor Clares are not allowed to touch family members during visits with them and are only allowed to speak to them through a screen. Nuns who have completed indoctrination are allowed visitors only four times a year. One initiate was not even allowed time away from the monastery to attend his mother's and sister's funerals.
Restricting communication with the outside world is part of withdrawing from society, family and friends. Its purpose is to impress upon the monk or nun that there are certain things he or she must let go of in deference to serving God.
Different restrictions imposed upon the members of other monastic orders. In some orders, members bathe infrequently, as a bath is considered a pagan luxury. Franscian monks turn in their robes once a month for laundering and wear their alternative robe for another month before cleaning it.
Dietary standards are also strict. Many orders do not eat meat. Others are allowed only meager meals of a few ounces each sitting. A monastery is responsible for its own food, growing
it in gardens or relying on the community to provide in times of need. Food is simple to complement the austere lifestyle of the monastery.
Fasting is a part of monastic life. It is common amongst nuns and monks alike to fast during a six month period between September and Easter. A fast consists of one meal a day or a significantly lessened amount of food per day, such as a dry piece of bread with coffee in the morning and 12 ounces of food for supper.
Meals are sometimes accompanied by readings from sacred scriptures and other religious writings. This ensures that initiates continue their religious contemplation even while eating.
Hard physical labor is a day activity in monasteries and consists mainly of physical labor and gardening for food. Both men and women participate, cleaning floors, woodworking, washing laundry, running and repairing farm equipment, gardening, harvesting hay and preparing food for the monastery. Discalced Carmelite nuns labor for approximately five hours a day. Nuns of the Order of the Poor Clares work at their chores using only simple tools as they are forbidden to use modern machinery.
Conclusion
The practice of withdrawing from the pressures of day to day life for a period of contemplation and spiritual renewal is nothing unusual. It has been a tradition in Christian and non-Christian faiths for centuries.
Sea Organization members on the RPF are undergoing a program of spiritual rehabilitation. It is entirely voluntary. It represents a free religious commitment by the individual to a spiritual discipline. Members on the program are provided adequate food, clothing, shelter and all necessities. They do perform basic physical tasks such as renovating and improving Church facilities while on the program, but this work is not overly taxing and is designed to enable the individual to contribute to the good of the religion while gaining beneficial physical release from the intensive spiritual retreat and study which forms the heart of the program.
As recognized by Dr. Flinn the RPF has many comparatives in other religions. Though it requires religious discipline, that discipline is undergone willingly by those who participate in the program. The results they obtain in spiritual revitalization are gains which last a lifetime.
The individuals on the program are all valued and respected members of the core religious order of the Church who voluntarily undertake this religious discipline with the support of their friends, colleagues and family in the religious community in order to improve themselves and have a second opportunity to serve their religious community in the most effective manner possible. The program respects the human rights of the participants, improves their abilities and enhances them spiritually.