‘Brothers Broken’ gets its New York premiere, with Mike Rinder and your Proprietor

[A previous movie premiere, ‘Going Clear’ at Sundance in 2015]

[Today’s guest post is by Geoff Levin]

What would you do if every day you woke up to a nightmare? Mine was being trapped in a cult for 46 years.

In 2019 my brother Robbie Levin and I started producing the full length documentary Brothers Broken about our years in music and Scientology. The film debuts with its east coast premiere in the prestigious Dances With Films festival that celebrates independent film with events in Los Angeles and New York. It’s having its New York festival this coming weekend at the Regal Theatre in Union Square. And two of my heroes who influenced my escape from Scientology will be there: Tony Ortega and Mike Rinder, who will both be taking part in the Q&A after the screening.

Back on August 30, 2011, I read my first article by Tony on Scientology, then at the Village Voice. The title of it was: “Tommy Davis, Scientology Spokesman, Secretly Recorded Discussing ‘Disconnection’.” (In 2021 Tony re-posted that piece here at the Bunker.)

For the previous three years I had been mired in deep depression with no end in sight. And I was still a Scientologist.

I was forbidden to read anything critical written by ex-Scientologists and Suppressive Persons such as Mike Rinder and Jon Atack. Randomly I stumbled onto Tony’s article on Google news; the timing was perfect.

The Scientology pseudo-therapy had not worked at all to relieve my depression. The Advanced Organization in Los Angeles could no longer help me. Their solution was to assign volunteer caretakers to check on me every day; to get me to eat and exercise. I was agoraphobic, so the caretakers had a hell of a time getting me out of the house.

I was not eating and I was down to 124 lbs, from 165.

After three years of constant depression I was at a point that I did not care about the Scientology rules or anything else for that matter. So I said to myself, “What the fuck, Tony Ortega is a journalist and is writing about someone I personally know, Tommy Davis. So I’ll read his article in The Village Voice. After all he’s not an apostate, he’s a journalist.” Little did I know what would result.

I was impressed with the way Tony wrote about the self-help organization I had joined in 1968. He seemed to know things I knew from my first-hand observations. plus he knew more. I could not put down the article. After that I would check the Village Voice website every day. I devoured Tony’s articles when they showed up. This went on from September to November in 2011.

When not reading his articles I fell back in my depression. However, a strange thing was happening in those two month of revelations. I now looked forward to “something” every day.

Without knowing it, reading Tony’s articles was undermining my brainwashing. And on a bright sunny day in early November, I woke up and I was actually grateful to be alive. The depression was gone. Vanished. And I knew with complete clarity I was no longer going to be a part of the Scientology organization ever again.

After that I got the courage to start reading Mike Rinder’s blog. And I personally knew so many people in Mike’s articles.

And at the age of 67 I began the six-year journey deprogramming myself and digging out of the debt I was in from giving so much money to the church ($100,000 just to the IAS). My ex-wife and children were in Scientology and most of my friends were in. On the bright side, I now understood that my brother Robbie had been right when he sat me down in 1984 and tried to tell me truth about Hubbard and Scientology. I disconnected from him then. I thought he was nuts. So I contacted Robbie’s son Max, who immediately reached out to his dad, and Robbie emailed me. We reconnected. It was a joyous reunion.

As the years rolled by I became an avid follower of Chris Shelton, Jon Atack, Karen De La Carriere and other writers who had been on staff or in the Sea Org. For years I had done events for the church and saw the lies first hand. I became a source of information for Tony and Mike. In 2016 I was on the new PTS/SP course at Celebrity Centre. Being on course was so different now, seeing how Hubbard inserted material in his doctrines that were meant to manipulate and control me, not enlighten me. It was actually fun to do the course and pass with flying colors because I knew the inside skinny. Scientology was not the gospel truth.

As my confidence grew I reconnected with my band members in PEOPLE!, the group that had a hit record, “I Love You,” in 1968. Fifty years after that hit, we started to produce a new album. And I began thinking about how to tell our story. That’s when I started thinking about producing a documentary about our journey. And the film director I was working for (I was his composer) knew my story and he suggested we make a full length documentary. We named it Brothers Broken.

The next thing you know we had a crew, and Robbie was in full agreement to do it and he became the executive producer as well as being in it.

Now, twelve years after I began to wake up from my Scientology nightmare, our film Brothers Broken is screening at the Dances With Films festival in New York City Sunday Dec 3, at 11:15 am at the Regal Theatre in Union Square. Dances With Films is a top festival independent filmmakers, and I’m so excited that Tony and Mike will be there at the screening to take part in the Q&A with me. These were the first two writers to expose me to the truth about L. Ron Hubbard’s pseudo-religious philosophy. If you are anywhere in the New York area please come to my screening. I would love to see you there.

Come and be inspired by our story. “HOW ROCK & ROLL TRIUMPHED OVER THE CULT OF SCIENTOLOGY.”

— Geoff Levin

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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

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