They are stepping forward — from Dallas and Denver, Portland, Las Vegas, Montana — talking about what happened, to them and their friends, during their years in the Church of Scientology.
Jackie Wolff wept as she recalled the chaotic night she was ordered to stand at a microphone in the mess hall and confess her “crimes” in front of 300 fellow workers, many jeering and heckling her.
Gary Morehead dredged up his recollection of Scientology leader David Miscavige punishing venerable church leaders by forcing them to live out of tents for days, wash with a garden hose and use an open latrine.
Steve Hall replayed his memory of a meeting when Miscavige grabbed the heads of two church executives and knocked them together. One came away with a bloody ear.
Mark Fisher remembered precisely what he told Miscavige after the punches stopped and Fisher touched his head, looked at his palm and saw blood.
These and other former Scientology staffers are talking now, inspired and emboldened by the raw revelations of four defectors from the church’s executive ranks who broke years of silence in stories published recently by the St. Petersburg Times.
Those behind-the-scenes accounts from Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder, the highest officials ever to leave Scientology, were buttressed by detailed revelations of highly placed former managers Amy Scobee and Tom De Vocht.
Now their stories have prompted other former Scientology veterans to go public about physical and mental abuses they say they witnessed and endured.
Some want to support and defend the initial four, whom church representatives labeled as liars attempting a coup. Others say they feel more secure now that Rathbun, Rinder and the others are on the record with their unprecedented accounts of life on the inside.
But fear still prevents many defectors from talking. For every former church staffer willing to speak out, one or two more refused.
Full Article at TambaBay Times
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And we’re all supposed to act surprised? You know, it’s hard to feel an awful lot of sympathy for these people since they signed up to this bizarro cult/religion in the first place. It’s kind of like those businessmen who pay money to be dressed in diapers and beaten up by a lady in a catsuit. If you’re going to sign your life over to some bully who wants your cash, what’s the best possible outcome you could be expecting?
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Fosca – While I can see your point… rather like abused spouses it doesn’t really let the abuser off the hook, nor should it.
Most of these people are emotionally vulnerable suggestable types and David Miscavige deserves to be taken to the cleaners, regardless of the gullability of his followers.
Being head honcho of an abusive cult should count as a crime in itself IMO, leaving aside his violent outbursts.
They didn’t see what was going on when they signed up. When you first get into CoS, it’s presented as a very harmless, not really religious self-help type of thing. The training routines break the newcomers down before they really have a chance to understand what’s going on, and as the recruits progress through them more and more of their time and money is taken up by CoS. This is before they even get to Clear. The guys like Mike Rinder were very close to the top, and it probably took years and years to get them so mentally broken that they would take beatings from Miscavige and go through Rehabilitation Project Force without just getting out.
Once they’re as high up as that, everything they know is CoS. They have no real non-CoS friends, in fact if they had friends or family who voiced concerns over their involvement, they would have “disconnected” from them – cut off all contact. Their jobs are CoS-based, and they don’t have enough of an income to leave easily. They live with CoS and follow CoS laws, and are physically coerced into doing so. Their mental state is often pretty bad thanks to intense overwork, lack of sleep, purification rundowns and malnutrition. They are completely and utterly broken.
.”…to live out of tents for days, wash with a garden hose and use an open latrine.”
People pay good money to do that at Glastonbury.
I never got those people .. who wanted to be part of those type of things .. but hey … they probably wanted to be part of many groups in their youth as well ..
Partially it has facets which resemble things in business life … Money and Ego’s (the “I am God” syndrom as well ..) .. which will have its influence on their ideas that will become more and more extreme I guess ..