It’s Independence Day: Tell us about your own fight for freedom from Scientology
Here in the United States we are celebrating our independence, and we hope you are too, wherever you are.
The last two years, your proprietor was feeling especially patriotic in these dark times, and so we made pilgrimages to two of the most important sites in this republic’s founding, in Philadelphia and Boston.
This year, we’re even more worried about the seaworthiness of this old ship of state, but we’ll be staying local, throwing back a few brews and taking in some fireworks or something.
As usual, however, we mark Independence Day here at the Bunker by asking readers to tell us about their own declarations of freedom from Scientology indoctrination. What first led you to question your involvement in the organization? How did you negotiate the tricky path of leaving if you still had family members in?
If you’ve told us before about how you left Scientology, what’s changed for you in the last year or two? Has your conception of your Scientology experience changed over time? Would you have done things differently to leave the group if you could?
And for the never-ins, tell us which of the escape stories you find most illustrative, most exciting, most devastating.
And maybe most importantly, what advice can you offer to those under-the-radar types who today are sneaking a peek at this website as they consider whether it’s time, finally, for them to declare their own independence and dissolve the bands which have connected them to David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology?
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Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:
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
Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology
Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain
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My freedom from the “priison of belief” did not happen until I hit rock bottom. I had no where to go but up. That happened in November 2012. After three years of sever depression I started reading articles by Tony Ortega on Scientology. Two month later I was out.
When I was active in scientology I constructed mental blinders to keep me from looking at doubts and reservations I had about scientology. Below are some things I knew, but wouldn’t fully look at.
I couldn’t leave a course or auditing level without going through a “routing form” during which I had to convince others that I had a good reason to leave. I wasn’t free to act on my own.
The “gains” from training and auditing were temporary mental constructs, with a few exceptions. From 1970-1986, I "went clear", did the original OT levels through “Full OT7”, the new OT4 and 5, and L-11. I also did the “Hubbard Standard Dianetics Course” in 1973 and the Dianetics internship for nearly a year. What's stayed with me are two realizations I had while being audited and one experience I had while auditing another. That’s it after 16 years of involvement and over $70K. As a side note: you'd think those who are in now would notice how many OTVIIIs have died from cancer. That's a glaring fact that the "tech" doesn't work.
When it became obvious my husband was no longer active in scientology (he didn't feel it helped him) I was pressured to “get him handled” or “leave him” and subjected to “ethics handlings”. Despite the blinders I wore, I knew I didn’t have the freedom to assess my own well-being, and — worse — I was required to live my life per Hubbard’s policies and the opinions of my peers. My husband wasn't against me continuing with scientology, but that didn't make any difference. In and of itself, this was a self-confining experience which eventually pushed me to leave scientology. The treatment of me, because my husband wasn't active, was how most of the light got in.
The introduction of security checks (“sec checks”) — before doing one’s next OT level, and routinely for those on new OT7 — defies the promise that as one progresses “up the bridge” they become more ethical, able, and free. By the time these sec checks were introduced, I’d done the OT levels mentioned above without sec checks in-between them. It felt to me like a way to get more money from the faithful.
I decided I wanted out of scientology years before I left but I went “under the radar" for two reasons: my son was "in", and so were all my friends. I didn’t want to lose any of them. However, my lack of enthusiasm was noted by my friends, who then withdrew from me. I knew they were disconnecting to keep themselves from getting into ethics trouble. How is that part of “the road to total freedom” or “making the able more able"? Couldn’t a free and able person continue a friendship with someone who loved them, even if they were no longer active in the same "religion"?
In time, my son left on his own accord, intentionally leaving me out of his thought processes. When he left, I was finally free to openly leave, which was when I realized how much of myself I’d suppressed in order to be an “ethical scientologist”. I wasn’t able to fully make that assessment before I left the confines of what I now know is an authoritarian cult. I had hints of it when I was in, but the blinders helped to keep my focus narrow enough to remain "part of the group".
It’s been 37 years since I left. I miss the friends who are still in, but I don’t miss anything else. I hope those friends will eventually step away and contact me. I know they have the same doubts I did, and it's safe out here. I promise.