Through the Bubble – Lili’s Adventures in Scientologyland Part 28 The End

Again, my apologies to Lili, this was supposed to have run yesterday.

This is the final chapter in the always entertaining, humorous, yet often heartbreaking story of one woman’s life in scientology. It’s a little longer than usual, but it’s the climax to the story so I indulged Lili a bit, preferring one final chapter rather than splitting it into two. I want to personally thank Lili for taking the time to tell her story. I know it has resonated with a lot of people — many of her experiences are “been there, done that” moments for anyone who has been in scientology. The more people who tell their stories, the better. For a long time, scientology was able to silence, or at least hide, the accounts of people like Lili. I hope her and her family continue to flourish and be happy with real friends who won’t suddenly ghost them because a teenager in the Ethics Office tells them they are now SPs.

Sundays won’t be the same…

 

Through the Bubble – Lili’s Adventures in Scientologyland

This is my quirky recollection of events. Others may remember things differently. Lingo is italicized on the first mention, capitalized after that. I’ve compressed complexities in the cult to simplify your reading pleasure.

Part 28

The New Survival Rundown, a Super Shitty Scientological Idea

Van was off at college. We were proud of our smart kid and missed him. In the teen years of Van’s life, Josh had occasionally been roped into some Auditing program or must-do Course. Our vacation conflicted with the latest Big Event and the Huge New Release: The Survival Rundown.

A local Scientologist acquaintance, no doubt hoping to get a Field Staff Member 10% commission, talked Josh into buying the new Survival Rundown. I used my superior sales skills (and the Power of Postulates) to convince this person that now was not the right time for me to embark on the Survival Rundown. Now that really was a Big Win.

The Survival Rundown wasn’t killer expensive, and it was Auditing that you did with another student, not an expensive, highly-trained Auditor. It was this big deal, big push, wow, wow, do it now, type deal.

Josh had plenty of garden variety Auditing skills and a friend who wanted to do the Rundown with him.

Josh started the Course. From the beginning, this new Survival Rundown presented quirks and oddities that bugged my well-trained, detail-oriented, ex-staff member husband. One day, the Case Supervisor directed Josh to Audit his buddy on a process L Ron Hubbard had used on an insane crazy person who interrupted one of his lectures. Josh queried the order. His buddy was a long-time, OT Scientologist and notably sane person.

Josh got no joy from his written query. But he hadn’t worked five years within the bureaucratic framework of a Class Five Scientology Organization to put up with an irrational order. The Auditing ground to a halt. Since this nutty bit of nonsense had reared its ridiculous head, Josh fell back on some ass-covering Knowledge-Report writing. He noted page, paragraph, and quote, of the rules and procedures in the Survival Rundown Course Pack. He then researched and quoted L Ron Hubbard’s Bulletins in the reference volumes that were the bulwark and foundational writings of the Scientology religion. Josh showed in his KR how specific rules and procedures of the Survival Rundown conflicted with L Ron Hubbard’s earlier writings. Josh was quite thorough. Two days and six pages later, he sent this neatly typed-up missive to the Ivory-Tower-dwelling Case Supervisor.

Josh’s dead-obvious proof that L Ron Hubbard’s, cough, teachings were altered in the Survival Rundown Course pack moved the Case Supervisor, not one millimeter. She stood firm in her order to Audit Josh’s buddy on the process in question.

I was baffled. I’d had to read L Ron Hubbard’s “Keeping Scientology Working” (KSW) Bulletin at the beginning of every Scientology Course past the intro ones. This mandatory Bulletin contained ten points you needed to memorize. And fight for, to keep Scientology working. The ten points are:

One: Having the correct technology.

Two: Knowing the technology.

Three: Knowing it is correct.

Four: Teaching correctly the correct technology.

Five: Applying the technology.

Six: Seeing that the technology is correctly applied.

Seven: Hammering out of existence incorrect technology.

Eight: Knocking out incorrect applications.

Nine: Closing the door on any possibility of incorrect technology.

Ten: Closing the door on incorrect application.

In this bulletin, LRH tells a story illustrating what happens when you don’t hammer out of existence incorrect application. According to L Ron, some shitty Auditor didn’t apply this stuff, and a girl died of cancer from physical abuse. It was just another one of LRH’s wacky stories, invented on the spot to bat his point home to the believers.

I remember having to demonstrate the ten points in clay. Making those little clay bodies with signs sticking out of their heads was a groan-inducing affair. I’d get the Beatles’ song on repeat in my mind:

Bang! Bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer

Came down upon her head

Clang! Clang! Maxwell’s silver hammer

Made sure that she was dead

The whole point of studying the L Ron Hubbard Bulletins, the “tech,” and looking up all the freaking words, was so that we could fully Duplicate his rules and steps for every fucking thing in our lives.

When I’d done my Personal Integrity Course, I’d learned L Ron Hubbard’s Code of Honor point, “Your self-determinism and your honor are more important than your immediate life.” In other words, defending the old man’s writings was worth dying for. Well, Josh could at least write a KR. This Survival Rundown bullshit deviated from L Ron Hubbard’s scriptural writings in many not subtle ways.

You Just Got to Trust the Guy

Even though the Case Supervisor tried to hide out and be all, Wizard of Oz, power-behind-the curtain and shit, that fails in dinky Orgs like Santa Barbara’s. Our Org was not square-feet dinky; it was three stories of an old hotel, yawning in un-peopled-unpopularity dinky. Sometimes the Case Supervisor would have to man the phones at the front desk when some lucky staff member was too sick to come in On Post.

I heard that Josh managed to trade a few words with the Case Supervisor a few days after she received and failed to respond to his lengthy Knowledge Report. When he asked her point blank for the L Ron Hubbard Bulletins that formed the basis of the Survival Rundown, she referred him to the video of the recent Event (which we had missed) releasing the Survival Rundown. Now let me get this straight, the reference materials behind the formation of this new Auditing Rundown is a videoed statement at an Event? What happened to L Ron Hubbard’s all-caps, “IF IT ISN’T WRITTEN, IT ISN’T TRUE” law?

Josh watched the video. I didn’t. David Miscavige, the leader of the Scientology religion since the death of L Ron Hubbard, announced the Survival Rundown in the video. Probably with much pomp and ceremony.

After watching David Miscavige yak on and release the rundown, Josh attempted to run the Case Supervisor to ground outside her inner sanctum. I’m sketchy on the details. I believe he told me that she said of David Miscavige’s release, “You just got to trust the guy.”

Josh found himself the recipient of a one-way ticket to the Los Angeles Scientology complex, Big Blue. Great. I thought he could get the conflicts explained by the more highly trained Sea Org men and women down there. This would be a good thing. Meanwhile, someone else took over Josh’s friend’s Survival Rundown Auditing and presumably Audited him like an insane crazy person.

When Josh returned from his failed fact-finding mission to Los Angeles, a strange detail blared its oddness to me. He told me how a Los Angeles Sea Org executive responded to his queries about the rundown’s reference being a video of David Miscavige. The guy had said, “You just got to trust the guy.” Had the entire Scientology staff the world over Drilled this response after their daily, “just say, Now, Now, Now,” Drill?”

After a third person said it, I felt like I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Being Critical and the 100% Standard of Insanity

When L Ron Hubbard writes about being Critical or about Criticism, it’s not about using your facts to think critically with logic or to seek the truth. It’s about the paranoid mindset of the disturbed. In his Technical Dictionary of Dianetics and Scientology, L Ron Hubbard defines Criticism as, “a criticism is a hope that they can damage, and that’s what a criticism is, with an inability to do so.” I see; it’s all about attacking. And doing evil shit. Oh, and being ineffectual about it.

You can step in deep doo doo if you are found to be Critical (any negative commenting) about Scientology.

My attention was focused on the outcome of Josh’s visit to Los Angeles. “What happened?” I asked the minute he walked in the door. It appeared he’d been called to the appointment, not to address his questions about what looked like conflicting “data,” but to face the accusation that he was being Critical of Scientology.

I’d read his KR. Josh had rendered no opinion that I could see. Just the facts. Too bad. He was given an Ethics program with study, Amends, and the usual Make Wrong crap.

I threw my arms up about the injustice, the wrongness, and the idiocy of calling Josh Critical. It got worse. Josh actually did the Ethics program because he’s not a troublemaker. He drove back and forth to LA for the next few months to clear his name. It appeared that he was sailing through some heavy seas in the process.

I was mentally busted back to the days when Josh was still on staff in the finance department. Back when he was the bad guy for paying the mortgage instead of Sea Org Reserves. I remember back then I was shouting, “Quit already.” At that time, he’d acknowledged me, but stayed on staff. The nicer Josh was about doing whatever the Ethics Officer in LA asked him to do this time around, the more indignant I got.

I’d put up with plenty of horrible Ethics Programs in the past and some mess-with-my-mind Auditing. Since it would have been considered Natter, I don’t remember complaining to Josh about what had happened to me. You don’t want to know. But I couldn’t stomach the abusive treatment I felt he was getting. Josh had followed the rules to the letter in pointing to “Out-Tech” in the cherch. He was trying to help.

The more they tried to paint him as this awful, Critical, disaffected thorn in the side of Scientology, the more disaffected I became. I heard from Lorna that they’d been asked to write Knowledge Reports on Josh. Uh oh, someone’s planning a Committee of Evidence. We’d been down that dead end before.

Just Like Junior High and Throwing Your Bestie Under the Bus

The Committee of Evidence date was set. Josh requested a copy of the Bill of Particulars. And copies of all Knowledge Reports. Per L Ron Hubbard’s policy, he was supposed to get copies. But no, he couldn’t have copies. That was confidential. Since when?

Lorna and Deave had “Temporarily” cut communication with us, “Until you sort out your scene.” I demanded to see their Knowledge Reports. They coughed them up. The Knowledge Reports they wrote up on Josh and me burned my fingers. I especially enjoyed the part where Lorna’s co-worker who had asked her about The Hole, was re-written to Josh or me starting that forbidden conversation. We’d looked it up on our cell phones, and all four of us got an eyeful. We left our normal boring and safe conversational topics behind and launched into “Oh my God,” and “This can’t be right,” in our excited talk about The Hole. Lorna and Josh dived deeper until Deave held up his hands and said, “I don’t want to know.” Or, “I don’t want to get in trouble.” Little Miss Chatterbox had sat mute as a stone, glitching internally while a tidal wave of cognitive dissonance washed over me.

From the outside looking in, I saw Josh asking to see the Bill of Particulars and the KRs multiple times from a revolving door of Sea Org staffers. Seriously, the Ethics Officer in charge of his case seemed to change every week. The problem as I saw it was that Josh was a Flag-trained Ethics Officer and knew all the L Ron Hubbard references about Scientology Ethics and Justice. He’d trot the references about his rights before a Committee of Evidence. The Ethics Officer du jour would have no rebuttal. The interview would stop. The next phone call or appointment would involve a different person as Josh’s new Ethics Terminal. Josh would have to start all over again. If I hadn’t been so pissed off about the Ethics uproar that Josh’s KR had caused, I’d have found the whole situation laughable.

Josh was at last “allowed,” as if they were making some royal exception, to view the Bill of Particulars and KR’s. The Los Angeles Sea Org Ethics person sent the packet of paperwork up to Santa Barbara. Josh drove to the Org to see the paper trail lead-up to his execution, er Committee of Evidence. Josh could be polite to the Devil himself. I didn’t trust my rebellious mouth and stayed home.

According to Josh, the Bill of Particulars was a shopping list of non-specific accusations of his Critical actions. I’ve blocked out what he told me the KRs said. I was still reeling from reading Lorna and Deave’s KRs, digging Josh’s grave, and carving his name on the headstone.

Just like his last Committee of Evidence, Josh would be allowed no witnesses, no friend, no loving wife, no advocate, and no recording device.

Josh decided not to attend. The results were not shared via phone, mail, or Telex. Or at all. Did it even happen?

I Tell Josh He May Need to Divorce Me

It was way past my bedtime on a work night. I was fuming. Lorna had unfriended me on Facebook. Really? You were my best friend for over thirty years. You’re the mother of my two goddaughters. You couldn’t call me or email me first? Back in the old days, if you were someone’s good friend and they were Declared an SP, the Ethics Officer would make you write a Disconnection Letter. Now my best friend did her official Disconnecting on freaking Facebook.

This is Scientology problem-solving at work? Don’t Scientologists think they own the patent on Communication? Just that morning, I’d gotten a freezing look from a Scientologist who scuttled out of my aisle at Trader Joe’s. That just pushed me over the edge. I opened my laptop, and I did the unthinkable. I typed into the search window, “bad news about Scientology.” Over a million results.

My chest started aching one page into the first blog post. It was written by an ex-Scientologist who I’d known years earlier. She told of a painful experience that a never-in would not believe. I’d seen that brand of cruelty happen in my own Org. I heard the truth in her words.

I stared at the screen; my level of misbehavior made me short of breath. I looked up at the ceiling after reading the third Google result. I was no longer a Scientologist. Then I found a video from Chris Shelton, who’d been our Course Supervisor many years ago. One of the nice ones. It exploded the Planetary Clearing Expansion Program from the inside out. Josh had always hated that program with a fiery passion.

I walked into our bedroom. Josh looked up from his book. “Kinda late for you to be up, babe.”

“You need to decide if you going to divorce me.”

“Oh?”

“I just broke a really big rule. You’ll probably have to Disconnect from me. And, well, divorce is a very effective way to Disconnect.”

Josh climbed out of bed with a smile on his face. “What did you do?”

I emailed him some links. I watched his eyes widen and his mouth drop open while reading the first blog post. Josh shouted “No way,” and “Oh my God,” when he watched Chris Shelton flay the cherch’s Planetary Expansion Program on video.

“I don’t think we’re Scientologists anymore,” he said.

“Don’t think so.” A warmth rolled through my chest and washed away a long-held tightness.

We beamed goofy smiles at each other. I shared more links. I finally stopped our mad dive into the ex’s fascinating world of truth-telling. I had to get some sleep. Some happy sleep.

No More Suppressed Communication

A year out of the cherch’s influence, Josh and I had found sassy, say-anything new friends. Josh had published his young adult fiction book, and I had embraced my non-fiction book project about designing jewelry.

Josh and I continued devouring the stories and advice from ex-Scientologists online.

I’d tell my leaving Scientology story to a friend expecting horror, sympathy, or shock. I was surprised to also get laughter. I found a shivery rush in speaking the Nattery truth. Held-down reactions from decades ago flew off my body while telling my friend about how some Reg Cycle had led to a new level of impoverishment. My friend would be shouting, “No way!” I’d be laughing and adding some insane detail. I was encouraged to “Write that shit down.”

But I wasn’t ready to write that shit down. However, I was writing. On my jewelry blog. And I was organizing the photos and chapters for my future jewelry book. I figured if Josh could publish a book, so could I. That didn’t actually make sense, since he’d been an excellent writer for many years. But then, I’d been ignoring practical considerations for my entire life.

An Impulsive Detour

I wanted some sort of closure about Josh’s status with the cherch. I wanted to know if that stupid Committee of Evidence had ever happened. I wanted to know what the cherch was telling our old Scientology friends about us. One day, I marched into the Org and politely inquired if I could see the Ethics Officer. The friendly staffer manning the phones had known me since I’d started Scientology decades ago. She was someone I’d always chatted and shared chuckles with. At first, she smiled warmly to see me. Then she realized that it was “not okay,” and the smile fell off her face.

I looked around and noticed the sad state of the paint and furnishings. The friendly staffer looked tired. I remembered feeling the way she looked and realized anew how right I was to ditch Scientology. She called someone on the phone and a second familiar staff member came stalking into the reception area. Her suspicious eyes pinned me with mute accusation. I smiled at her and asked after her family. She might be Disconnected from me, but I was under no orders to act like we hadn’t been friends. My interest in her kids caused a confusion of pride and horror to march across her face.

I think I gave her a stomach ache. I told them both about recent hikes Josh and I had been on and bragged about Van. Since I hadn’t been cast out, I figured I’d be seeing the Ethics Officer soon. But they’d want to put me in my place by making me wait. And not offering me a chair. While they sat. With lots of chairs behind them for people to fill out Personality Tests. That were empty. Oh yeah, and they’d want me to think the Ethics Officer was super busy. Like that’d be a ringing endorsement for Scientology.

I told one of my funny jewelry-client stories and watched the friendly staffer try not to laugh. I heard the slow tread of heavy steps descending the traffic-scarred staircase carpet. It was the Ethics Officer. Cue the scary music. He led me in silence to his second-story office and shoved the door shut behind me with an unnecessary thump-rattle.

Old memories of my walk of shame into Ethics were triggered. Considering that all the offices we’d marched by were empty, I didn’t see the point in torturing his poor door. But Scientology was all about creating an effect.

“I’ve waited over a year to hear about Josh’s Committee of Evidence in Los Angeles. Did it even happen?” The urge to fidget was hard to control. I pictured Josh around the side of the building waiting for me on this beautiful sunny day. We’d been headed to a matinee. I stilled my body.

The Ethics Officer opened a drawer, rifled through files, and pulled out a goldenrod-colored legal-sized piece of paper. His stubby fingers pressed it across his massive desk. I forgot to breathe. Josh’s name was near the top. It was a Suppressive Person Declare. (The actual paper had to be goldenrod colored, and the declaration that you were an SP was called a Declare). I read a long list of accusations. He was a spy, tried to instigate rebellion among the local Scientologists, was a degraded being, tried to stop other Scientologists’ progress up the Bridge to Total Freedom, and was a failed student… My eyes filled with tears. They were showing these lies to our friends? Lorna and Deave believed this garbage? I read around twenty of these fabrications that appeared to be pulled from some file labeled, “List of Crap to Accuse the Bitter Apostates of.”

I looked up at the so far silent Ethics Officer. “This isn’t true.”

The Ethics Officer handed me a tissue and spewed some L Ron Hubbard quote about the difficulties homo sapiens’ had in Confronting evil. I blew my nose. I pulled out my phone to take a picture of the Declare, and he twisted it out of my hand. “I’ll give it back to you when you leave.” I heard it clomp into a drawer which he slammed shut. He was a tall and heavy man. I did not appreciate his continuing intimidation theater.

My tear ducts got busy. My fists clenched and flew up in front of my mouth. I relived the claustrophobic fear I’d hidden so many times before in Ethics. He stood up. I stood up. I moved away to look out the window and gain some space. He followed me. His heavy paw patted my shoulder. Misunderstanding my upset, he said, “You’re not mentioned by name in the Declare. If you divorce him, it won’t take you long to make it back into Good Standing.” I cried harder, wanting to escape the heat from his too-close body. I endured the last minutes I’d ever spend being intimidated by an Ethics Officer.

“Give me back my phone.”

“You can’t take a picture of it.” He pursed his lips while his fingers slow-motioned their way to the correct file folder. The scree as he pushed open the hanging file to replace the Declare irritated my teeth.

“Do you have a pen? Josh wants to know what it says.”

His lips thinned. “He can make an appointment.”

“I believe he’s left messages.”

“I think you need to leave.”

I held out my hand. We stood for about a minute. He opened the drawer with the slow care of an arthritic grandpa and lifted out my phone. He held it close to his chest as if I needed to tip him. Once my phone was in hand, I yanked open the door and double-timed it to the stairs. When I made it down to reception, the greeting desk stood un-peopled.

I squinted into the sun when I left the dim lobby. I hugged Josh, and we walked toward the movie theater. I rattled off all the accusations I could remember. I was outraged. He started laughing, and I soon realized it wasn’t worth being upset about. The only thing Josh regretted was not having a copy. Just to have it. I was happy never to see it again.

Today

I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I took a lot of chances. I drove myself bloody to reach a lot of good and bad goals. I look over at Josh now and see that I’m not stuck in the quicksand memories of Scientology anymore. Despite the upside-down beliefs we held and the actions we took under Scientology’s influence, we survived intact. We enjoy our lives now and feel spiritually free. My engine hums, ready to be tapped for the next adventure. An adventure I’ll say yes to.

The End