Next in the ongoing series of essays by Terra Cognita. See earlier posts here: Auditing: a PC’s Quest for the Holy Grail, The Knowledge Report, Integrity, The Almighty Stat, The Reg, The Horrors of Wordclearing, Why Scientologists Don’t FSM, Respect, The Survival Rundown – The Latest Scam, Communication in Scientology… Or Not, Am I Still A Thetan?, To Be Or Not To Be, An Evaluation of Scientology, Fear: That Which Drives Scientology and Justification and Rationalization.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time there was a Treasury Secretary in a Class 5 Org located somewhere in the United States. She’d taken a couple of accounting classes in college and had always been good with math and figures. All the bills got paid on time and the audits were always up-to-date. She liked working with numbers and he was good at her job.

Which wasn’t necessarily what was always needed and wanted.

Off to Flag

She hadn’t started out in Treasury. Just after joining staff she’d been flown to Flag for training as an Ethics Officer but while there, had ended up doing a Hard TR’s course followed by the full HAS hat.

A fellow staff member from her org had been mired there for two years when she arrived. She was supposed to have been gone a month or two. She was determined not to become one of the forgotten outer-org souls who’d been stuck forever doing pilot course after pilot course. She lowered her head and powered through her materials in two months. It didn’t hurt that she had a boyfriend waiting for her back home.

Home

She liked being the EO when she got back. She liked helping people—mostly just people having difficulties on the Second Dynamic or with some family member who didn’t fully understand the greatness of Scientology. She’d studied about justice actions while at Flag, but they didn’t seem to apply at her org. She worked hard and people liked her. Soon she got promoted and took to heart, LRH’s words “The HAS makes the Org.”

Recruiting wasn’t hard in those days. The course rooms were full of good people and signing up two to four new staff every month was the norm. Today, those kinds of stats are unheard of. Meanwhile, her facility for hiring didn’t go unnoticed by her seniors at St Hill.

Another Brick Removed

Every few days, seniors from up-lines would grill her on how she was going to get her stats up. According to them, she was in Danger, if not Liability. She pointed out that by graphing her stats by the month, she was actually in affluence, if not power. Didn’t matter. They didn’t care. She was sacked. There was no investigation. No Bof I. No hearing. Just sacked.

Was the HAS replaced—the person entrusted with “making the org?” Nope.

Zen and the Art of Numbers Riding

Treasury was a respite from the demands of Division 1. She could sit in her office for hours, handling receipts and invoices and adding up long columns of numbers all by herself. Accounting made sense. Two plus two always equaled four. There was something almost Zen-like about arriving at answers which were perfect and indisputable.

Not having to deal with the public and the crazy mad Sea Org members from St Hill was a relief. While it lasted.

The Dreaded Mission

She’d grown to loathe Sea Org Missions during her time in HCO. Typically, two or three uniformed officers would swoop into town, pretend to get “tech in,” and leave in the dead of night—with the org more unstable than before they’d arrived. More often than not, these were recruiting missions.

They’d been trained well in convincing trusting teens and twenty-something’s that joining the Sea Org was the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics and that there was no greater purpose in the universe. Commonly, they’d recruit some poor Div 6 neophyte, instant-hat him, and throw him onto post as a replacement for the fully-hatted, veteran staff member they were stealing. Confusion and disorder would ensue. The org was one step closer to oblivion.

KR’s and protests on the off-policy and injustice of these missions fell on deaf ears.

Fading Zen

Just when everything was running smoothly in Treasury, some “important person” up lines decided that this small org needed an FBO—a Flag Banking Officer. Right now. An FBO is supposed to make sure an org is following standard financial policy and that Management receives their cut of the weekly income. Shortly, a mission was fired off to remedy the “problem.”

As usual, they grabbed some unsuspecting Div 6 soul whose entire experience with Scientology consisted of three or four trips to the Reg and two weeks on the Comm Course. Let’s call him Larry.

Two days later, Larry was posted as the FBO. And suddenly, our Treasury Secretary had a new “senior.”

Larry knew next to nothing about how a Scientology organization worked, much less the workings of Division 3, Treasury. He knew little about finance and the words Staff Status 0 weren’t part of his vocabulary.

This didn’t stop his seniors at Management, though, from demanding more and more from him. And in turn, Larry demanding more and more from the Treas Sec. Inane, completely impossible orders began to flow into Treasury.

Peace and tranquility had been good while it lasted.

The Purloined Org

One afternoon, a few weeks after his posting, Larry sauntered into the Treas Sec’s office, dug his hands into his pockets, and rocked side to side on his feet. Something about the rug seemed to interest him.

“Hey, Larry, what’s up?” the secretary asked.

“I ah…I need to see the check books,” Larry replied.

“What for?”

“I need to write some checks.”

All seven or eight check books were locked up in a filing cabinet next to the Treas Sec’s desk. There was a Main account; a Book account; a Reserve account; an FSM account, a Building account, to name five.

“Why do you need to write these checks, Larry?” the Treas Sec asked.

“We’ve been ordered to send some money to the Guardian’s Office.”

“How much?”

“Well…like all of it.”

“You’re kidding. All of it?”

“Yeah, like all the money from all the accounts. My senior ordered me to get it done. So like I need access to the check books.” Before they’d left, the Mission that had posted Larry made sure he was a signatory on all the accounts.

The Treas Sec stared at Larry with wide eyes. “Let me get this straight. You want to take all the money from all the accounts and send it to the GO?”

“That’s right. We’re behind on our payments and stuff like that, so like we owe em the money.”

“No, Larry. We don’t. This is our money and nobody else’s.”

“Well, whose ever it is, we gotta send the money. Like it’s an order. And that’s just the way it is.”

“Sorry, not happening. No way in hell.”

Larry took a big breath and let it out. “Listen, I’m ordering you, man. And I’m your senior. So unlock the fuckin’ filing cabinet. Or give me the key and I’ll do it myself. Like now.”

The Treas Sec locked eyes with Larry and shook his head. “No,” she said. (Per policy, a good Treas Sec was good at saying “no.”) “Never in a million years.”

“Well…” Larry said, “then I’m gonna report you.”

“Do what you gotta do but I’m not unlocking the filing cabinet and giving you the check books.”

Larry stormed out of the office.

She Should Have Known

The Treas Sec walked into the org the next afternoon to find her office had been broken into, the filing cabinet had been pried open with a crow bar, and all the check books were missing. A quick call to the bank confirmed that the Org was dead broke—one hundred percent penniless.

Life in Treasury was about to get fun.

Never Enough Beans

Even on the best of weeks, setting aside sufficient money for rent, bills, Sea Org reserves, and staff pay was a task better suited to a magician. More often than not, staff got nothing (at least everyone moonlighted and had a roof over their heads).

Prior to Thursday at two each week, the Treas Sec would formulate an FP—financial plan—to submit to the Executive Council (made up of the three highest ranking officers in the org). The Exec council was in charge of the FP and responsible for approving all allocation of funds. Since they knew little about finances—or rather chose not to involve themselves—they would rubber stamp the recommendation from Treasury.

Every week the Treas Sec would struggle with what to pay, for there was never enough money to cover all the expenses. If she paid the rent and the utilities, then Sea Org reserves and org staff got stiffed. If she paid Sea Org reserves, she risked having the power and phones shut off and breaking the lease on their building. Since all the org’s money had been stolen recently, the task had become especially challenging.

The Treas Sec believed that dead phones and studying by candlelight was scary enough, but breaking the lease and being evicted would have been the ultimate church nightmare. The subsequent PR would have been horrific, and so she always made sure she first covered the rent and utilities. The Exec Council always approved her FP but apparently there were those up lines who didn’t see the logic.

Summoned

After ten weeks of not paying Sea Org Reserves, a Committee of Evidence was called on the Treas Sec and she was summoned to St Hill. There were no other interested parties and the Exec Council avoided her like she had the plague. She arrived at St Hill a few days later armed with what she naively thought were reasonable arguments. Not only had she studied every HCOPL on finance, she was a Flag-trained HAS and knew her policy.

Including the famous one where Ron talked about “heads on pikes.”

Courts and Kangaroos

The Treas Sec explained to the three young members of the committee that there were only so many beans to play with, and after paying the rent and the bills there was literally nothing left. There was no money for building upkeep and the staff weren’t getting paid, either. She posed the question to the committee: Which was worse, a Scientology church getting evicted or putting off paying Sea Org reserves?

Their answer: “YOU should have just made more money.” Period. End of discussion. End of Comm Ev.

The Treas Sec was stripped of all her certs, put in a lower condition, and ordered not to work on any finance lines ever again. They told her to be thankful she hadn’t been declared.

Finale

Since nobody else in the org had the faintest idea of how to handle bills, mock up an FP, or audit the accounts, the defrocked Treas Sec continued her Div 3 duties while indoctrinating new people at her new post in Div 6. Nobody seemed too concerned.

Some months later, just short of her contract expiring, the Deputy Director told her that from now on, if her stats weren’t up for the week, she had to work what amounted to a combined Day and Foundation schedule. She said that if she refused—“had other fish to fry”—she could just leave right then and there. Making a decision didn’t take long. Her aura had been darkening for months and it was only a matter of time before she snapped and was declared once and for all. She gathered up her things and left. Freeloader debt be damned.

Still not Declared,

Terra Cognita