My Nine Lives in Scientology
Introduction
The following is an account of my life in Scientology, a group I was involved in from December 1970 to August of 1976—about 5 years and 9 months. From 1973 to 1975 I lived aboard the Flagship Apollo («Flag»), the home of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Dianetics and Scientology. On Flag, I trained to be an auditor (a Scientology counselor). My life on Flag was a continual roller-coaster of ups and downs. One day I would receive a personal commendation from Hubbard and be held up as an example of what a Flag auditor should be and then, just months later, Hubbard would take away all my certificates and send me to the RPF (Scientology's prison camp) for an auditing error I did not even commit. On Flag as auditors, we were under continuous pressure to be perfect, the standard of perfection being the whim of L. Ron Hubbard.
Many people, no doubt, have read horror stories about what occurred on Flag and I can personally attest to the fact that they are true. This might lead one to wonder why a person would join such a group in the first place. How could anyone put up with such abuse? In writing this testimony, I hope to give people some insight into this question. The fact is that I didn't join Scientology to be ordered around and abused and I don't know anyone who did. The group I thought I joined, as an idealistic eighteen-year-old, bore little resemblance to what Scientology actually was and still is.
When I found Scientology, I thought I had found all the answers to the great mysteries of life. I had found the Truth—or so I thought. What I didn't know at the time, however, was that I was involved in a destructive cult that used deception, followed by subtle, but very effective techniques to control my mind and the minds of many others.
I didn't realize the full ramifications of the impact of this experience on me until years after I left the group. I now realize that this group has caused me tremendous harm—that I was a victim of mind control. My purpose in writing this account of my experiences is to make people aware of how it feels to be a Scientologist, what attracts people to Scientology and to show the techniques that are used in Scientology to control people's minds. It is not a pretty picture, but having this knowledge is essential if you wish to help a friend or loved one to free themselves from the clutches of this very destructive cult.
As painful as my experiences were, I am very happy finally to be free, once again, to make my own choices in life. However, some people weren't so fortunate. Quentin Hubbard, L. Ron Hubbard's son and a very close friend of mine, committed suicide at age 22 because he could see no way out of the trap he was in. Having been born into Scientology, he could not envision living outside of the cult, but could not stand living in it. It is too late for Quentin. He is gone and no one can undo that the damage that was done to him, but it is not too late for others. If writing this gives someone the insight to get their loved one out of Scientology, then perhaps, my years in Scientology will have served some purpose.
How I Got Involved
I have always been, and still am, a very inquisitive person about the questions of life and human nature. As a teenager, I kept detailed journals of my experiences, my thoughts about them and my insights about life. I was very aware of the serious problems that existed in the world and I wanted to do something positive about them. Many of my friends took drugs to escape the pressures of life, but I didn't join them. I was a very strong-willed person who didn't give in to group pressure. I was, in my mother's words, a «free spirit.»
I was very interested in ideas that were departures from the accepted norm. What the world needed, I felt, were innovative ideas and solutions and I hoped someday to make a contribution that would make a real difference in people's lives. I read anything I could get my hands on that might provide me with some insight into human nature and how we could achieve our full potential as human beings. I very much believed that to change the world, we had to change as individuals, so when I heard about a book called Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health, by L. Ron Hubbard, I was very interested.
It was the fall of 1970 and I had just started college at the University of Utah at the age of 17, with a major in music. I had been studying music since the age of four, having come from a family of musicians. I had always assumed, up until then, that I would be a musician, but that year I was beginning to question that assumption. This caused me to feel intense inner struggle, as it was, in my mind, a rejection of everything my parents wanted for me, but, at the same time, I knew I had to follow my own path. This inner struggle, not uncommon to people my age, was one factor that made me vulnerable to Scientology.
I became very interested in the subject of Psychology and was taking an introductory course on the subject which was biased, mainly in favor of the Behaviorist school of psychology. There was very little emphasis on other forms of psychology, which probably would have appealed to me more. Given the limited information that I had, I concluded that the establishment had very little to offer and began to look outside for insights into the field.
There was a music professor at the University named Sally Peck who was involved in Scientology. Sally was principal violist of the Utah Symphony and a respected member of the community. It was one of her students who told me about Scientology and took me to a free lecture on Communication in December, 1970, shortly before my eighteenth birthday. There was nothing profoundly earthshattering in the contents of the lecture, but I was very impressed by the people involved. Many of them were artists and musicians who seemed to be having great insights into the nature of life and their work as artists. After the lecture, I bought the Dianetics book and spent my Christmas vacation back home in Michigan reading it. I just couldn't put the book down; I was fascinated. L. Ron Hubbard, it seemed, had developed an innovative theory about the human mind and the cause of all human abberation and he had developed a technique called auditing, designed to put this theory into practice and thus, bring about a world free of war and insanity. And so my journey began. Upon returning to Salt Lake City in January, 1971, I started my first Scientology course.
The Bait
I think it is important, at this point, to explain more fully what it is about Scientology that appealed to me. Every cult, no matter how sinister it seems, has something positive about it that is used as bait to attract people. After all, if everything about a cult were negative, nobody would join. I don't believe that it is human nature to be masochistic; people don't want to suffer the humiliation and degradation that is rampant in cults. People join cults because they believe that the cult has something that will help them, in some way, to change some unwanted condition in their lives and to grow as a person so they can live happier and more fulfilling lives.
In Scientology, auditing is the bait used to attract people. Auditing is a process that occurs between two people: the auditor (therapist or counsellor) and the preclear («PC», the person being audited). The auditor's job is to ask the preclear a question, listen attentively to the answer the PC gives and acknowledge what the PC says, by saying «thank you», «good» or «ok» after the PC has answered. The PC's job is to look into his own mind and answer the question. One basic rule of auditing is that the auditor never evaluates for the PC, meaning that the auditor never tells the PC what he thinks the answer is to the question or how the PC should think. Thus, the PC is encouraged to look within him/herself for answers, rather than relying on someone else to give the answers, promoting self-determinism. The premise behind auditing is that the answers lie within each of us and that we are fully capable of finding them.