Acronym for
Scientology's
Rehabilitation Project Force (
q.v.).
Hana Eltringham Wakefield, a former executive (Deputy
Commodore of the
Sea Org --
i.e. Hubbard's deputy) in the Church, and someone
who was exposed to the
RPF in 1978 -- four years after its creation --
describes it thus:
RPF members ... were completely segregated from "normal" staff
and slept, lived and often ate in the Fort Harrison(*) garage in the midst
of continual exhaust fumes. They were not allowed to talk to, mix with or eat
with "normal" staff. They wore old, tattered, ripped up navy jump suits or
boiler suits and looked just like derelicts from skid row. Women were not
allowed to us any makeup or have any hairdos. No jewelry was allowed. Even in
the incredible hot and humid Florida summers, women were not allowed to wear
short cut-offs but had to wear longer shorts or skirts or long trousers. ...
-- Affidavit of Hana Eltringham Whitfield,
August 87, 1989
(*) The
Fort Harrison Hotel building, in
Clearwater,
Florida --
part of the
Flag Land Base ("
Flag").
She goes on to explain how they had to run everywhere, all the time, never being allowed
to walk, and how they could not ever use the elevator instead having to
run up and down 12 flights of stairs. They slept on the floor, and when performing
their ablutions were not allowed to shower for more than 30 seconds. There were no holidays,
no days off, and even worse still, the RPF had its own RPF: the RPF's RPF:
... A place in the lower boiler room under the Fort Harrison Hotel, among the boilers
and hot water pipes which rumbled and hissed twenty-four hours a day. The place was only dimly
lit. It consisted of interconnecting-spaces through which one had to crawl on hands
and knees at time past or underneath huge pipes and massive 10 foot high
boilers. It was a dark, forbidding, somewhat scary place.
Scientology maintains the
RPF was established for the stated purpose of "
rehabilitation
and
redemption". Survivors maintain it was established for torture.