Then, one day in her auditing, she felt something. A kind of “flicker.” Was it a BT? She decided that it must be. An immense feeling of relief washed over her. Soon after that, she discovered more BTs—eventually, hundreds, thousands. Sometimes there was a feeling of lightness or of floating when the BT was expelled. Other times, Eltringham exteriorized from her body. But the headaches remained. Then something new arrived: quarrelsome voices inside her head. At first the voices were faint, but they grew louder and more insistent. Eltringham worried that she was going insane.
When she returned to the Apollo, she was shocked by the hellish changes that had taken place. In January 1974, Hubbard issued Flag Order 3434RB, creating the Rehabilitation Project Force. The stated goal was to rehabilitate Sea Org members whose statistics were down or who might be harboring subversive thoughts against Hubbard or his technology. Because the RPF provided a second chance for those who might otherwise be fired, Hubbard saw it as an enlightened management technique, the sole purpose of which was “redemption.” When Eltringham came aboard, she found dozens of crew members housed in the old cattle hold belowdecks, illuminated by a single lightbulb, sleeping on stained mattresses on the floor. They were dressed in black overalls, called boiler suits, and forbidden to speak to anyone outside their group. They ate using their hands from a bucket of table scraps, shoveling the food into their mouths as if they were starving.
Despite the confusion and the harsh punishment, there were many Sea Org members who experienced their days on the Apollo as a time of incomparable adventure, filled with a sense of mission and an esprit de corps they would never again recapture. Although Hubbard could be terrifying and irrational, and comically pompous, he still held his followers in thrall. Those who were close to him saw a generous and caring leader who used his gigantic personality to keep his ship, his fleet, his organization, and his religion on track. Karen de la Carriere, a young British auditor, remembers watching Hubbard in his office screaming at one of the crew; when that person left, cowering, Hubbard swiveled in his chair and gave Karen a big wink. “He was in total control,” she realized. “It was all theatrical to create a desired effect.”
Hubbard developed many of the basic Scientology techniques aboard the Apollo. In one instance, de la Carriere was having no luck auditing a wealthy Scientologist with a long drug history, who kept falling asleep during their sessions. Hubbard theorized that the LSD he had taken must still be in his system; perhaps the drugs could be sweated out by putting him to work swabbing the decks. After six weeks, he was a changed man. De la Carriere says that was the beginning of the Scientology drug-treatment program, called the Purification Rundown.
A strapping crewman named Bruce Welch had what other crew members diagnosed as a nervous breakdown or a psychotic episode. In Scientology terms, he had gone “Type III.” He had a crush on one of the ship’s young women, and when he learned she was engaged, he went berserk. According to de la Carriere, Welch got a butcher knife from the pantry and threatened to kill Hubbard and other members of the crew. There were no designated security procedures or personnel trained to handle such a case. It took four crewmen to eventually subdue Welch and wrestle him into a cabin in the forecastle, the storage area above the bow, away from most of the crew, where he screamed continuously. There was a metal bed with a mattress, and a metal cabinet, but Welch managed to tear them apart with his bare hands and shove the pieces through the porthole.
A young Australian named Mike Rinder (who would eventually become the church’s chief spokesperson) had just arrived aboard the Apollo and was given the assignment of guarding Welch’s cabin. He sat on a trunk in the hallway, listening to Welch shouting, “Bring the Commodore here! I want the Commodore right now!” Then Welch would yank on the door, which was locked and lashed to the bulkhead with sturdy ropes. Several times, Rinder recalled, Welch beat up other members of the crew when he was escorted to the bathroom or given his meals.