Titles of Address

This post is in response to the poll results of June 26, 2025. Be sure to get your votes in as soon as possible on this week’s poll as I may close it a couple of hours early tomorrow so I can get on the road.

The Sea Org was a strange place, but nothing was stranger than being treated like a man yet being treated like a helpless woman at the same time. Hubbard was so back and forth on this that it was scary.

There is all kinds of esoteric teaching in Scientology that a person is just a person, a thetan in a meat body. They are all a similar age, no matter what age the meat body the currently inhabit. They are also sexless. Or so we were told. Women were supposed to do the heavy lifting right alongside the men.

Yet in marriage, the woman was definitely lesser, as Hubbard made clear in the marriage ceremony language:

That’s correct, a woman needs her caprice, a man needs his freedom. Just understand that’s right in Hubbard’s wedding ceremony. So, a woman is equal, except she’s not. And when a woman is working, not only. is she equal, to the point where she does exactly what a man does, everyone around her is required to treat her like a man.

The policy Forms of Address shows just how nit picky it was to call a person by the name Hubbard deemed they should be called. But, it was also very confusing. For example, he was Commodore, only he wasn’t.

Then there was the Steward, who was always to be called the Commodore’s Steward, even when Hubbard was to be called the Captain.

But always, whether male or female, a person was Sir or Mister. Never Ma’am or Miss. Then there were various other titles that people were given, and you had better know them and refer to your seniors by that title. This remained true even after Sea Org was no longer aboard a ship. Our ASHO Day Commander was LTC Irene Howey. She was a sir. Her second in command, HCO Area Sec Jack Dirrman, was CPO Jack Dirrman.

It was a complicated hierarchy of names and titles, but it was necessary that you know and memorize them. In mid 2024, I did a post on Scientology’s Org Board for the Underground Bunker. You can refresh your memory with the above link. The Org Board is required to be posted prominently in each Scientology Organization. These days, the majority of the positions are Held From Above.

And here’s the stickler. For those of you who still believe all the draconian punishment that is happening in Scientology originated with Miscavige and it was all sunshine and roses before then, the same policy that tells you how to properly address everyone you know brings up “rocks and shoals.”

He talks about the ethics conditions and then says as long as you do your job properly, you have nothing to be afraid of.

The problem is, the job changed from day to day and there was never any training for your job. You were expected to know everything because you had done it before in another lifetime. It is a miracle any of the Sea Org ships actually had anyone live through their journeys when you look back on it.