Scientology’s Obsession With Paperwork

I have created a glossary which has over 700 of the Scientology phrases and definitions in  it. There may be words in this post you don’t understand. They are defined there.

Scientology makes a record of everything you do with them from the minute you make first contact. Yes, everything. If you took a personality test in 1971, Scientology has a file on you with your name and whatever address you gave on that test. Your name went on a mailing list, and whoever lives at that address is still receiving mail from Scientology because Hubbard made it a high crime to remove any name from the mailing list.

in 1994, Miscavige went a step further and put cameras in the auditing rooms. If someone said they didn’t want their session to be recorded, they were moved to an auditing room where the camera was a pinhole camera hidden in a picture frame, but everyone, including celebrities were recorded. There is no pass given on surveillance in Scientology, just pretense.

What are all the records kept in Scientology?

The Underground Vaults: The most well known records repository are the vaults, which are located near Twin Peaks, Californa, at the Lady Washington Mine in Tuolmne, CA, in Petrolia, California, and in Trementina, New Mexico They started one in Wyoming, but it has been abandoned. The entire purpose of these vaults is to store all of Hubbard’s written works on titanium plates and store them in these remote outlets in a climate controlled underground location so the “technology“ can be preserved for eternity. How Miscavige plans to do this when he claims to continue to find “transcription errors” which change the works is yet to be seen.

The other files, however, are the ones that are more important and will follow a person who made the mistake of putting their head inside the door of a Scientology organization forever.

Central Files: These files are the ones that always have to be organized before any new Ideal Org can be opened. The files contain the first personality test you took and every single piece of correspondence you have had with them since then. Yes, in this digital age, every email sent to you or received from you is also printed out and put in your CF Folder. Even text exchanges are included in your CF Folder. Hubbard had a policy that said outflow equals inflow. Every person in every organization is required to outflow (contact outside public) every day because that’s what Hubbard says would bring the money in, so these files are filled with inane “when are you coming on course?” letters to people that haven’t been in the door for a dozen or more years. These files are considered Div 6 Files, the person’s public files.

Ethics Files: If a person gets in trouble, they go to Ethics. Trouble is in the eye of the beholder. Anyone can, and is encouraged to write up a “Things That Shouldn’t Be” or a K/R “Knowledge Report” on anyone else if they see something that is non-optimum. In Scientology, with their blame the victim culture, a person who has been assaulted is more likely to be punished than the person who assaulted them. These files are claimed to be confidential because they contain every transgression and every Security Check ever performed on any person in Scientology but are mined for blackmail fodder when the person leaves. These files are Div I files, the person’s HCO files.

Personnel Files: Staff members get these files created on them. They contain every Contract signed by members and even more importantly, the life history questionnaire filled out when a person joins Sea Org. These are also Div 1 files and are mined if a person leaves. The questionnaire is used to hunt them down and ”recover” them, as it contains all their personal information. If they are not recoverable, it is used to smear them.

Student Files: Every day after attending course, a student tallies up their points, an arbitrary number determined by pages read, demos done, clay demos done, words cleared, etc. and turns them into the Course Supervisor who tallies them all and graphs them. These points are kept for several months in case there is a question on the stats. They are files separately from the student files. The student file is a folder with a record of each course a student started, when they completed it, a copy of their certificate and any supervisor notes on the course. This also includes their “success stories” which a student is required to write after completing the course before they are allowed to graduate. These are Div 4 files.

Auditing Files: These files are supposed to be the top secret “priest penitent” files in Scientology. However, as anyone who has ever left can tell you, these files are pored over if the person utters a word about their time in Scientology and used as an attempt to “shudder them into silence.” Depending on how much auditing a person has gotten, these files could number in the dozens or hundreds. They are supposed to be kept locked up but I have personally seen dozens of them stacked haphazardly around various locations in different Orgs. These are supposed to be Div 5 files,

OSA Files: Not everyone has an OSA file, but if you have spoken out against Scientology, whether or not you were ever in, they have created a file on you and are working diligently to determine how best to utterly destroy you per LRH policy. These are Div 7 files.

Finance Files: These files are where copies of every receipt for every payment you made for any course in Scientology along with a Statement of Accounts are kept. These files should have both debit and credit invoices showing payments in them showing when your funds paid in were used and what they were used for. Note since the IAS and fundraising was against Hubbard policy, there is no Hubbard policy on what kinds of records are kept for these funds. The Finance Files are kept in Div 3. 

So there you have it. Next time you scratch your head about why the files aren’t up to date, perhaps the better question is, how in the world is any of the mountain of information on each person relevant and how many rain forests has Scientology killed in their quest to document the inane?