‘Piece of Blue Sky’ author Jon Atack hits a big Scientology anniversary

[We’ve been so honored over the years to publish pieces by Let’s Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky author Jon Atack here at the Bunker. And once again, here he is, and this time celebrating a milestone.]

I’m writing this on October 18, 2023: the fortieth anniversary of my resignation from the Church of Scientology. I resigned because I believed that the priceless technology of Scientology had to be rescued from the ‘Church.’ I had no intention of becoming the rescuer, but on the morning of October 15, 1983, I was awakened rudely to find a stranger looming at my bedside who saluted me and called me ‘sir’.

No one had ever saluted me before and I was drowsy, so I said, ‘yes’, when he asked if I would become the Chairman of the OT Committee UK and host a meeting at East Grinstead’s Crown Hotel in three days’ time.

I had no idea what an OT Committee was and – hard to believe – back then I was as shy as the man begging me to take his place. But I was a true believer and Scientology had to be saved, lest the whole world be lost, so I agreed to host the meeting.

The night before, I persuaded a videographer to leave the ‘Church’ (inverted commas because ‘church’ is strictly Christian; Scientology most certainly not). This was the first of hundreds of talk-outs for me. He taped the ‘event,’ but the next day, after handing me the tapes, rejoined the ‘Church.’ He’s probably still roaming the dungeons of Saint Hill Castle for this sin.

I have hours of the unpublished recording somewhere, but here is a pirated scrap from a poor copy. It is an important document because it shows the unbridled fervour we felt. It was the first ever public gathering of disaffected Scientologists in the UK.

Captain Bill Robertson – the star of the show – had already published his Sector Operations Bulletins (or S.O.B.s), claiming that Ron Hubbard (‘Elron Elray’) had departed this world and was sending telepathic messages from his ‘mothership’. Bill moved to East Grinstead soon afterwards and spent eight months trying to convince me of his bizarre ideas. I eventually realized that the signature on those S.O.B.s ‘Astar Parmejian’ was Bill’s avatar from 75 million years before, when he had been Elron Elray’s girlfriend. I spoke at length about this in ‘Captain Bill, the craziest Scientologist.’ There you can find out about Bill cross-dressing and singing to Elron Elray every night. But that is another story (and what a story!).

Bill said that 200,000 Marcabians had already landed and were operating through Transcendental Meditation and the Freemasons from their base in Switzerland. Scientology had been taken over by the FBI. In 1986, the Marcabians would crash the economy through gold trading and take over the world (erstwhile Scientologist, physicist and psi-investigator Hal Puthoff was still pushing the alien line with To The Stars, 30 years later). The only hope was the ‘Free Zone’: disposing of the hierarchical structure of the mother cult and acting as independent nodes. And it is still
out there (and I mean, ‘out there’).

At the Crown Hotel, Bill introduced the Special Zone Plan which would be achieved through his New Civilization Game. It looked like one of those board games that has 400 printed slips of paper and an encyclopaedia for a rule book, but these were early days for the New Civilization.

The event was interrupted by the appearance of David Gaiman – Neil Gaiman’s father – who had headed Hubbard’s Public Relations department for 15 years before being sent to dig ditches at Scientology’s then secret headquarters at Gilman Hot Springs. David told us to ‘go another mile with the Church’ and to ‘remember Amprinistics.’ I suspect that like me most of the sixty people assembled had never heard of this splinter group. It was one of more than 200 splinter groups I’d later research. It annoyed the hell out of Ron Hubbard back in 1965.

Captain Bill was an imposing figure – about 6’4” even without his heels – and lost patience with Gaiman. He leapt onto the stage, thrusting his arm forth and shouting, ‘I have been with Ron for more than many centuries!’ and taking back control of the room. My friend, who was sat in the front row, said she had a headache for a week after Bill’s yell.

We’d been met at the door by two grinning members of Scientology’s Guardian’s Office – Mike Garside and Robert Springhall – who were carefully noting down the names of every attendee. The next day, the first Suppressive Person declare was handed down to Unni Auker. Mine took a while longer. It was my first encounter with Scientology harassment. I was active for the next twelve years, but the harassment continued unabated for sixteen. The late Arnie Lerma was almost right when he said, ‘Before the Internet and safety in numbers, there was Jon Atack.’ I really don’t know why I kept going. Pig-headedness, most likely. If no one had harassed me, I’d have been gone long ago.

A dozen of us travelled to Spain a few weeks later to the most surreal gathering I’ve ever witnessed. Bill had decked out a conference room in a Marbella hotel with flags and pennants of his own design. We learned that both David Gaiman and John Chadder from the Guardian’s Office were holidaying in Marbella (see the ‘liability formula’), and Sea Org executive Peter Warren burst into our meeting, asking if anyone wanted to hear a message from Diana Hubbard. Of course, we did but Peter broke into a rant and it took four able-bodied men to carry him screaming from the room.

Then there was Captain Bill’s music – previously performed on the streets of Clearwater by the Sea Org Marching Band, so I later heard. It was like waking up in a Terry Gilliam movie. Bill’s theatrics shattered any faith I had in his Marcabian madness. His friend Mike Baker-Rogers told me that after his Suppressive Person declare in 1982, Bill had turned up on his doorstep asking for the smallest possible room in which to stay. Bill told me the room hadn’t been small enough and he’d spent the next days in a wardrobe trying to regain his sanity. I suspect that he failed. One day, he had been flying high as the Second Deputy Commodore of Scientology and the next he had been expelled by the young Turks of the Commodore’s Messenger Organization. A few days later, he was in a wardrobe, wondering where the last 20 years had gone.

A few weeks after my return from Spain, John Hansen arrived on my doorstep with a huge bundle of papers prepared by the legendary and elusive Michael Linn Shannon (I expressed my gratitude to him in Let’s Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky, but have never found out who he really was). Here were documents showing that Hubbard’s boasts of being an explorer, a pupil of eastern gurus, a nuclear physicist and a ‘much-decorated’ war hero were all fanciful in the extreme. For me, it was the beginning of a long journey.

As my belief in Scientology eroded, I became the historian of Scientology and the biographer of Hubbard. I was fortunate enough over the years to help hundreds of people to renounce their allegiance and recover their money and their self-determinism from Hubbard’s spiritual vampirism. I had no idea that my original title – Chairman of the OT Committee UK – was the gift of the Second Deputy Commodore. As soon as I resigned from that position – having decided that the ‘technology’ was a scam – I was summoned to a Committee of Evidence by the OT Committee UK. My successor, Julian Bell, chided the Committee before they could even read the charges, and they apologised and asked if I’d keep on editing Reconnection.

I’m very happy to say that forty years later, I’m in good health and fine spirits, and although there were some very hard years, and I was derailed from my creative career, I’m still glad that I spoke out and very grateful for the thanks I’ve received for my work. Here’s to the next forty years!

— Jon Atack

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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

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

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