Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [53]
By the time Jeff Hawkins arrived on the Apollo in 1971, overboarding was no longer used*—or at least Jeff never saw it. The Sea Organization was now Scientology's senior management organization, and Hubbard's flagship, the only vessel of the original fleet to still be sailing Mediterranean waters,† was its headquarters.
Hubbard tended to remain out of view. He spent most of his time locked away in the Research Room, his private cabin above the main deck. No one was quite sure what he did in there, though it was assumed that he spent at least part of his time exploring new realms, such as the OT levels, by auditing himself. Once, Jeff almost ran headlong into the Commodore, who was standing at the foot of the stairs, talking with his aides. "H-h-hello, sir!" he stammered. The other Sea Org officers looked at Jeff as if he were a fish that had flopped onto the deck. But Hubbard smiled at him. "Well, hello there!" he boomed, and laughed.
That was the last time Jeff saw Hubbard on the Apollo. His days were taken up with the Executive Briefing Course, as the training was called. Much of it involved listening to taped lectures delivered by Hubbard, as well as studying, and in some cases memorizing, all of Hubbard's so-called policy letters, a voluminous collection of memos that outlined his concept of "management technology," a set of business principles Hubbard had come up with to streamline the administration of his organizations. His concept, Jeff learned, was the ne plus ultra of organizational theory, much better than anything one might learn at Harvard Business School. Every facet of Scientology—from sales figures and financial data, to membership, to the number of students being processed in auditing, to the employees themselves—was evaluated statistically. There was one guiding principle of this analysis: an organization or an individual should remain "upstat," or successful, at all times.
While the Apollo sailed up and down the Moroccan coast, Jeff sat in a hold of the ship that had been outfitted as a classroom, absorbing Hubbard's theories about promotion. As with all other topics, the Old Man had very specific ideas. "Don't explain. Penetrate," he wrote. Don't waste time describing Scientology to the public. Let the promotional literature do that for you. Even when asked point-blank what Scientology is, never tell anyone. Just encourage them to find out for themselves.
But, Hubbard insisted, do it aggressively. He advocated the hard sell, a technique he'd picked up from studying the methods of car salesmen. An important tactic was to avoid giving potential customers an option: telling rather than asking them to buy. This method worked, said Hubbard, the old hypnotist, because most people lived "more or less in a hypnotic daze," due to their aberrant state, and thus tended to respond to direct commands. Early Scientology ads embodied this idea, featuring slogans cast in the imperative: "Buy This Book!" or "Get Auditing!"
Jeff wondered about this technique—wouldn't it be better to explain to people what Scientology was all about, rather than simply telling them to do something? But Hubbard was adamant. "We have learned the hard way that an individual from the public must never be asked to DECIDE or CHOOSE," he stated in one policy. Just tell them that Scientology could handle their problems, and then tell them to read a book or take a course. Then the Founder himself could explain Scientology to them.
Jeff spent close to six months on the Apollo in 1971, one of forty Scientologists selected for the Executive Briefing Course. At twenty-six, he was regarded as an up-and-comer in the movement, as he had recently taken over the largest division in the Publications Organization, the