Sensibly Speaking podcast #108: Escaping Scientology ft Karen Pressley

[Music] hello and welcome to the sensibly speaking podcast this is Chris Shelton the critical thinker at large coming at you for yet another show with an interview as you can see if you're following here on YouTube I have with me this week Karen Presley who is a former Scientologists in Sea Org member and and who has just come out with a new book called escaping Scientology and insiders true story and I've been looking forward to talking with Karen about this for a few weeks now and literally as we're recording this I think it was yesterday that the book was actually officially released and so so we're gonna talk about that but first we're gonna address you know Karen's history with Scientology and that sort of thing and then just kind of get get right into things here and we'll see where this goes so Karen welcome to the show Chris thank you so much for taking the time to I have a talk with me and first of all I would like to thank you for your work because I love your channel you're covering so many incredible topics that a lot of people who are new to Scientology as Watchers because of Leah Remini show are able to tune into your videos and learn a lot of the basics so thank you for that absolutely and you're very welcome I definitely trying to help out as much as I can i I'm so curious so many questions for you I'm actually just kind of brimming over here but first off for those of you the audience who aren't familiar with you you've been actually talking for quite a while you've been out since 98 and I've you know and when I was doing a little bit of research and stuff I've seen videos going back years that you've done interviews with Steve Hasson and other people and you've been on you've been on some pretty serious media over the years you know talking about this stuff so I'm I'm really happy to have you on board here so first off why don't we just start with you know how did you kind of get into Scientology when did all that happen and and also talk about your former husband well it's a big story I had to take 800 pages and put half of it on my book website so anyway yeah I you know going back to the beginning of your questions Peter schloss and I met in Houston Texas back in the late 70s and I was beginning to be a fashion designer and he was a musician on the road so that's how we met and we sort of partnered up pretty enamored with each other and got married about two years later in 1979 and then we went on the road for his career and we ended up moving up to northern Michigan for awhile when Peter got a phone call from Les Deux Nick who used to play with boss Skaggs and the Allman Brothers and at that time he was playing with cher so he called Peter and asked Peter to come out to LA to play with Cher's new band called black rose and it was incredible timing because Peter and I wanted to move to LA to really you know make it in our careers so this gig with Cher was a great opportunity so first thing when we got to LA this was 1980 by now we started to meet Scientologists everywhere we went you know Peters roadie was a Scientologist so Scientology kept crossing our paths Peter met Chick Corea at a at a concert at a jazz concert and Chick Corea extended his hand to shake Peters and said had you ever met l ron Hubbard so it's like everywhere we were going in the music business we were hearing about Scientology and that's really how we got in people were telling us you know it'll help you with your career so the reason we got involved in Scientology we were not looking for a religion we were looking to really develop our creative skills and communication abilities and we understood that Scientology can help us with that so that was the attraction not religion we weren't looking for religion as usual the communication are for strikes again yeah yeah exactly you know because as artists we're all about communicating you know through music through design whatever so we took the con course but we started out with a field practice and then we ended up we moved from Val York to Celebrity Centre so by the time we got to Celebrity Centre Peter that was around 1982 but Peter had already written the song on the wings of love that Jeffrey Osborne recorded and it was already you know top of the charts so by the time I got to Celebrity Center when we walked in the doors we were treated like very special people and to be honest you know when you're a new artist in Hollywood you're looking for safe places where you you you feel like you can receive support and that's exactly what celebrity Center does that's actually a really good point yeah it's actually a really good point it's something that I think we don't really talk about with the Scientology celebrities that much is the fact that you know in a dog-eat-dog cutthroat world of Hollywood celebrity celebrity Center positions itself has a really safe place and all these absolute like really gushing over with you know compassion and support for the celebrities and that must be something you know a little different for them as far as a something that would appeal to them I hadn't actually thought about that's a really good point it's a major point and actually in my book escaping Scientology I talked a lot about how celebrity Center offers itself as a fortress for artists which is why so many creatives come to celebrity Center because I mean Peter and I experienced it in the music business and in the fashion business the competition is insane and you know the criticisms the the judgment the competition it's very heavy so to be in an environment like Celebrity Centre where you know you walk in the door and you're stroked just for being there you're supported just for being there and then one here getting auditing and you're sitting in the course room every day and you're taking in what Ellen Hubbard says about artists it's like being on an intravenous drip that feeds your ego because he talks about how artists are the people who can change the world just by raising the tone level through the arts great celebrities are really glorified in the world of Scientology for for that you know for the effects they can create you know yeah that's exactly it so that hooked us absolutely hooked us we were new to LA we were you know competing in the business and it offered us what we needed at that time so it became a really safe place and then learning Scientology thinking you know we're gonna really develop our communication abilities and our creative abilities it just fed everything we were looking for at the time but unfortunately we weren't aware of how it was sinking our teeth into us and how we were sinking our teeth into it yeah you know we were replacing our friends with only Scientologists and we were drifting away from our family and never going to see our family or hardly ever so Scientology started replacing our real world yeah replaced our real world with the Scientology world in the Celebrity Centre world and pretty soon you know we were like most people that we knew we were speaking Scientology's and you know acting like Scientologists very interesting through all that it wasn't helping our spiritual abilities whatsoever it was just making us better Scientologists what a great way of putting it that's that is exactly right that's exactly my experience with it too I little later just a couple years after you I got involved in 85 when I first started doing my courses them but yeah communications course first thing you know and actually not even communications ago I started with Pro tears the professional TRS course so I started yeah I dived right in yeah I dive right in anyway so okay now when did that transition to joining the Sea Org because you guys both kind of really jumped in with both feet as far as that goes we really did Chris um as we got deeper involved insight in Celebrity Center we began recruiting we were recruiting celebs and artists for for Scientology through Celebrity Centre so honest so you guys are the reason Tom Cruise is in Scientology well no I was no I know I can't take the fault for that one but you know we were doing everything we could to expand Scientology through the arts we were we were we were living living loyals to the celebrity center purpose of expanding psychology through the arts hook line & sinker we were we were with it so that being said in 1985 when the Julie Kristofferson case came up in Portland the lawsuit yeah the president of Celebrity Center who at the time was sue McClay young she called us and asked Peter Knight to help her to get celebrities to Portland to support the religious freedom crusade right so of course of course osa and ASI turned the whole crusade into a general religious freedom attack on religious freedom which had had nothing to do with religious freedom it had to do with the Julie Christopherson legal case but we all bit you know fit for the bait and so Peter and I we're the ones that rounded up Frank Stallone and Isaac Edgar Winter Al Jarreau we recruited musicians from Santana's ban Michael Caraballo Gregg Enrico Steve Ambrose came up who at the time was working for Stevie Wonder and a lot of other artists and musicians and they hired a private plane and we loaded 25 people onto there with band equipment and went to Portland Wow you asked me how did I join the sea Ark it was because of the crusade all right so we go to Portland and Peter and I bring all these artists and celebs and band equipment we set the stage in Portland and then who moves in but the Sea Org from the in face like all these Golden Arrow musicians people from the RPF at the end bass executives from the it bass so they all come and we're all working to make this crusade happen Ken Houghton was you know the main organizer but we were coordinating this liberty an artists aspect so we were working side by side with people from gold okay and it was really really impressive to us how those people worked and the speed of lightning to get things done and we have never seen people work with such purpose and intention and honestly that whole sea org camaraderie thing impacted us really heavily and we had read this thing that Hubbard wrote you know power is the speed of particle flow oh yeah speed of particle flow alone determines power Herman's power that's right that's right so all of that being said that whole experience had a really huge impact on us because we became so caught up in the purpose of supporting religious freedom without realizing that that's not what we were doing and we got very hooks into that into the fourth dynamic purpose right fourth dynamic meaning mankind and working meaning more the good of mankind yes working for the good of mankind working for the good of everyone and honestly that alone influenced our choices and influenced our critical thinking skills to such an extent that it caused us to start losing interest in our own careers because that became that was like a self first dynamic purpose and we got very focused on the group which is third dynamic and mankind fourth dynamic and that is what really that's where we made the first major transition and you know I talked about in my book about radicalization and I know that you've been interested in radicalization you talked with Johnny tech about that yeah and to me that is such an important topic for people to be aware of because that whole religious freedom crusade and being introduced to the Sea Org and the concept of third and fourth dynamic that was the beginning of the radicalization maybe it started earlier for us just learning Scientology when we were replacing our friends with psychologists and we were taking on the Scientology language I think that that's all part of radicalization building up slow and gradual so slow that you don't notice it exactly and that's a that's again a really key point what you just said so slow you don't even notice it yeah you know this seems to be something that people somehow there's some people who just can't seem to get this idea of how the indoctrination works it is I know one is hitting you with the Xenu on day one no or the Moors or beating you or telling you how horrible you are or or calling you a suppressive person or labeling you pts or any of this hard stuff that ends up happening that's way after you have bought it wait I know many things yeah you know it's a very gradual process takes years you know really together yeah to get people into the into the mindset where they go into the crazy and so we sit here and talk about the cray-cray and people are like well why would you join something like that you go well okay we really need to have a to longer talk about this runway that goes on you know right so I'm glad you glad you're bringing this up yeah so it was so gradual to the point that you know by the time the crusade was over Peter and I got home we lived in a beautiful home in Los Angeles up in Coldwater Canyon you know 3,000 square foot mini mansion we had a recording studio in our home we had had everybody from Al Jarreau to Van Morrison's wife to you name it up in our studio recording right yeah so we had we had really achieved a certain bit of success in our careers but that became so minimalized compared to this new idea of working for the third and fourth dynamic like supporting the group of Scientology to benefit all of mankind and we were absolutely bowled over by that concept so that is why I bring up the point of radicalization that that's what was biting at that time that's what was happening to the point that after the crusade and we got back to our home in our recording studio you know we had been gone for weeks in Portland and the bills would piled up we hadn't made a single dollar of income in a month and at that time our lifestyle that was you know 1985 we needed we needed eight thousand dollars a month income to cover monthly bills yeah and so by dedicating that one month to the crusade we were underwater you know that much so what's the upshot of that well we actually moved out of wish we closed down our recording studio and we moved out of that home into the Celebrity Centre Manor Hotel really went really we we rented an apartment for seven six or seven hundred dollars a month and moved into that that is the radical transition we went through right there Wow were you actually in the CC building or at shangri-la across the street or Y okay you were at you were in CS we're we're at the Manor we were you see the manor hotel it was before it was renovated who lived on the seventh floor in the penthouse apartment Wow you know if you look up at CC and you see that open open patio at the very top of the building with a little fence around it that was our apartment that's right okay I'm Jeff Jeff Pomerance live moved in right underneath us so the radicalization was happening you know artists and celebs were starting to move into the building Peter set up a recording studio in the lower level of the manor and he started to use it to recruit people into the building to come into his studio so that we could then introduce them to Scientology okay okay talk about radicalization no I mean that is a full immersion yeah full immersion so I signed my see your contract right before LRH died so it was after the crusade I cited to see your contract but I didn't activate it until after LRH died okay which was January 86 yes so I activated my contract at the end of 86 and Peter didn't want to come in the Sea Org he didn't want to do it right no he didn't he didn't want to join the sea but david miscavige kept him up to the gold base as a gold musician or to work with the gold musicians you remember the road to freedom album yeah okay so Peter worked on the road to freedom album and he was going up to gold all the time to the point where he starts staying up there to work on this project and that was part of his radicalization because now he was working with the gold musicians and he was at the in face every day surrounded by senior members and that's all that he was with he was losing connection with his outside career and he literally stopped working with outside musicians at that time okay so was the church paying him we're paying you guys for the work yes we're doing okay okay the church paid him for working on the road to freedom album okay and then of course like every Scientologist when you're when you're they used they call it fsme being a field staff member what you're really doing is you're you're recruiting for Scientology and you get paid commissions for everything that you're selected buys and a lot of people don't realize that as a recruiter you can make more money than a real estate commission bringing people in if they're buying like chunks of training and chunks of auditing so you can make a pretty hefty income and I know a lot of people that gave up jobs to be full-time recruiters for though there was there was one guy in the in the LA area who literally bought a Lamborghini and this is and in this time period in the mid in the mid late 1980s I was a full-time field staff member whose full-time fsm guy who was bringing people into Scientology I'm guessing that might be somebody like Barry Stein or one of the there were eleven there were eleven episodes that had a monopoly yeah pack that's right yeah yeah but it was a furtive I mean it was lucrative Wow no they were making some big bucks then I don't think you could make that kind of money although it's dwindled I mean there's a couple people who were making that making big money now but I don't I don't know if it's a I don't know if I'd call it Lamborghini money anymore but you know but there was some very very successful you know people doing that back then so that's a you guys or doing that have what what was it that that turned Peter to okay I need to do this I need to join the Sea Org David Miscavige okay because when when Peter was at gold we working down the road to freedom album he was then asked to do other music scores and he started to do videos for events and I think he worked on a film score so David Miscavige invited him to join the Sea Org despite the fact that Peter had taken LSD and Oh Peter was no sdks Peter was an LSD case but David Miscavige took it upon himself to waive that policy course he did is crazy because that is if there is any policy that I would point to in Scientology that l ron hubbard was 1,000% crystal clear on never violating it was the it was they do not recruit people into the Sea Org who have taken LSD he literally said this is not petition Abul and in other words you can't write a petition asking to be an exception to this when in the petition policy however it says you can petition anything right anything is petition Abul except this point the flag order on LSD says absolutely positively never is anyone who has taken LSD to be recruited in the Sea Org if any Sea Org recruiter does this they're to go immediately to the RPF and and it is not petition Abul so I mean it was very strongly worded flag order on matter so I am yeah a little that that's why I'm sort of like wow of course David Miscavige would throw that to the wind you know but because it was the first time that I had seen a church leader obviously come up with their own policy and of course Miscavige is the only one who could do that so that was my first experience with somebody blatantly violating LRH policy which put David Miscavige on my radar as someone that operated independent of policy show you so at that time you did notice that I did notice it okay and I questioned it as a matter of fact David Miscavige's father Ron Miscavige was the one coming down from gold meeting with Peter and I to help recruit Peter up to Gold and so I never talked to Ron about that about the LSD issue because you know in Scientology we're afraid to question any leader and you can never question David Miscavige or LRH so I kept it to myself right but it it was like the first red flag waving something's wrong with this picture and what a precedent that set for me honestly because when I ended up transitioning from Celebrity Center to the it base David Miscavige stood out to me as someone who is constantly quoting policy to show that he couldn't follow it in twisting and you know that's that that's about because before I got to the in face celebrity Center sent me to the International training org to become an OE CFE BC trained exec okay me and all that jargon really means to be the to get the training that would put you at the highest level of executive administrative training in Scientology that's they always see in the FE BC or two courses that people do they're very very long extensive courses where you read all of Hubbard's policies so it's a it's a very extensive training to do that yeah so I came out of I came out of the training and I went back to Celebrity Center I never got to finish the complete F EB C because they pulled me out before I was done and gave me the post of at first I was over the celebrity public divisions and I was responsible for the recruitment of new people into Scientology I was over all the division sixes the public divisions yeah and this celebrity recruitment as well so we were responsible for dynamic auditing training in the basic course room we were responsible for all the recruitment into Scientology and book sales and things like that and then I got promoted to become the commanding officer of the Celebrity Center Network so oh okay now something probably a lot of people don't realize is and we'll just explain this real fast is Celebrity Center internationalism is a building and an organization in Los Angeles that caters to celebrities but it also used to be and that maybe still is the management network senior organization for all the other celebrity centers that exist in the world there was one doing one in Vegas Paris New York I think there's other not a lot of them but there are other celebrity centers around 13 okay there were 13 in my day yeah and they I think I think they've combined some of those now that they're opening these ideal orgs like Las Vegas is a celebrity center but it's also a regular org and you know this kind of thing but they used to be separate distinct organizations and so there was a celebrity Center in Las Vegas and that's all it was was a celebrity Center and there was one in Paris and there was one in 13 them you said so they were managed by the celebrity center international and that was that was your job I did not know that that's it that was my job so can you imagine I mean what other church do you know on the planet that has a specific celebrity outlet so to speak for its most important people can you imagine a celebrity Jewish temple for a celebrity Buddhist center yeah yeah yeah and yet Scientology has tried to say that they don't recruit celebrities but yet there's an entire network of celebrity centres specifically to recruit celebrities so it's a little bit hard to hide that evident right to deny that yeah exactly well you don't recruit celebrities well what's this whole building here it's called celebrity Center what what well it was funny but after I got out of Scientology and I started speaking out and talking about my experiences I did an interview on NBC Dateline and Hoda Kotb who interviewed me was talking to me about recruiting celebrities so I was telling her exactly what we did and after that show aired Mike Rinder who was then the head of Office of Special Affairs yeah what went on the show and said Scientology does not recruit celebrities how could you have ever said that and Tommy Davis said the same thing and Corinne Pao said the same thing so the not to finger Mike because mike has obviously become the greatest oh no of course I say that tongue-in-cheek of course yeah exactly so you know the what why would they deny that they recruit celebrities because they want the world to think that Scientology is so cool and so wonderful that people just flood in the doors all on their own steam without requiring any prodding or assistance and you know they don't want people to think that they have strategies and people in place to you know purposely bring celebrities in so I mean when when I was involved in celebrity recruitment we would strategize myself the President or whoever other celebs were working with and we would plant people at industry parties in Hollywood specifically to be at certain places at certain times we have a whole plan of how to bring certain people in that's that you would talk about Dianetics at a cocktail party but you would make friends with people and then arrange to meet them elsewhere for coffee or tea and or a drink and you know everything was strategic it was so strategized there's nothing not much spontaneous about celebrities just walking in the door oh for sure and I'm sure people are wondering right now who are you talking about whoever it is you guys recruit what can you give any examples of that I don't I don't want to get into a whole huge thing here on celebrities but I I I am a little curious well you know and I talked to just about everybody that we worked with not that we actually got them in but you know that recruiting is a gradual process you have to kind of open the door open the conversation I mean Peter worked with cher he worked with les Dudek and played with the Allman Brothers he worked with Melissa Manchester he played on Kenny Loggins album he's playing on so many albums and and wherever he would go like have a studio gig or performance I would go and we would go backstage and hang with musicians and so we would talk to everyone who was there we were very extroverted about Scientology the the couple of people that we actually got in who actually did services Frank Stallone is probably one of the more recognizable names so Salons brother Peter wrote a song with Frank that became the theme song for Rambo First Blood Part 2 and friend Frank sang the vocals so Frank got some oddity and he did a little bit of training but he did not like Scientology and he did not stay in it we brought in some of the musicians from Santana's band Michael caramello and Greg and Rico they were percussionist Michael was drummer Greg was percussionist we brought in you've heard of Greg Rowley who was the lead singer and keyboard player for journey and also for Santana his wife Garnett was one of our selectees and she is still in since the late 80s as far as I know she's the only one still in that we brought in I was working in design and I worked with somebody from the mash remember the mash TV show yep yeah Marie she was the she was on the show I brought her in there were quite a few people that we brought in who asked us to not mention their names because they didn't want to be associated right right of course that and I thought that might come up in your answer all right so now you guys ended up going from CC to int I mean you guys went to the you were at CC was Peter ever at CC or - he did scope did when he joined the Sea Org did he go straight to it base as a musician when uh when Peter when Peter was at CC he was like he was an FSM recruiter and he had a studio in there so he was not actually he was never in the Sea Org there and he was not on staff but he was a permanent fixture he was always there while I was in the Sea Org then when Miscavige recruited him for the Sea Org and he went to the advice I also went on clearance lights to go to the in pace and I got replaced at CC and Ron Miscavige was my recruiter to go to the he actually recruited me to be the music manager for gold since I had background in the music business but when I when I when we got to the it base our entire life change oh yeah I have no way of knowing what I was walking into no bet okay I have I have one thing to comment on before we get into that and and yeah and then you don't know this I didn't tell you this before when did Peter do the EPF do you remember when that was when he actually join the C work 89 he did the EPF in 89 yep are you in there I was at pack doing supervisor training and I was at his EPF graduation because he gave a little concert and he had written a little EPF song about his time on the UPF I saw him running around a blue boiler suit in pack and it recognized him from the road to freedom album and that's how I knew who he was I was a staff member Scientologist not a Sea Org member yet but I have always remembered that EPF graduation because they do a graduation when they graduate people from the EPF and he has set up a whole thing in the main mass with keyboards and band and he played this song and validated you know the the state's project forced the EPF which is the scientology boot camp for Seawork members is what the EPF is and so so he finished it anyway and I was there and I just I I had to comment on that because it was just something I've always remembered small world that's right that's right so he goes up to the int base you end up up there and your whole life changes so let's talk about that because I really wanted to ask you about the day-to-day of life at the int base we've heard about the whole we've heard it which came much later that the whole was not around when you guys first got there you arrived to the int base in the late eighties you know what was it like what was what was the schedule what was your life like at that point that's a great question because when I arrived to the in base which was very early 1990 maybe January of 1990 when I arrived to the end base Chris and I drove up I want to start with that first scene I drove up to this garage that had a single light bulb hanging over it that looked like something from the 1940s and there was a young Sea Org member now this is out in the middle of the desert right he's wearing a long-sleeve military shirt with a black tie Navy pants and black leather shoes and a Sea Org buckle and he had a walkie-talkie in his hand and when I drove up I saw him and I looked beyond him Chris I looked down the road and that the whole place was surrounded by chain-link fence with barbed wire and I'm like are you kidding me this looks like Guantanamo yep stop that begins the first impression of the in face and I asked him his name was Kevin O'Hara I said Kevin um why'd the barbed wire on top of the chain-link fence and he said oh that's to keep out intruders I said why intruders this is a religious organization and he looked at me and he said there's a lot of people that would like to get into this place to cause problems and I compromised my first reality my first thought was that barbed wire was to keep in the staff not to keep out intruders oh yeah that actually occurred to you okay the moment I drove up in it occurred to me Chris and I that was my first compromised had I been a critical thinker I would have got I would have turned around in my car and drove away and instead I compromised what I saw and I accepted his explanation and that was that was the beginning of the downfall because once get on the inside once you pull into those gates and the gate locks behind you you're locked in there's no oh excuse me I changed my mind you can't turn around and drive out without going through an incredible amount of policy and protocol etc so yeah that's that that's the first impression all right so what's life like at the in-phase um all right waking up is very early in the morning about around 6:30 and all the staff at the time we're living in off-base apartments and if you were single you lived in an apartment if you were a guy or a woman maybe you lived in an apartment with about 12 men where they had bunk beds stacked up to the ceiling like three or four high so people were crammed in there like sardines and you had no privacy whatsoever if you're a married couple you share an apartment with another couple it's a little apartment you know with a little kitchenette and a small living room so you never lived alone you had no privacy but you had your own bedroom you had a bedroom where you could close the door and if you were lucky you had your own bathroom so the you know the first thing that I lost when I first got up to the base because Peter arrived about two months Pride it was privacy we had as a married couple we had no privacy other than we could close the door on our bedroom and that was it okay so you get up about 6:30 everybody piles into the busses and these were old white rattletrap buses that looked like something that a prison used to transport inmates and that's exactly what they look like and somebody reported that to David Miscavige and he bought Greyhound buses and got rid of those old white prison buses because he didn't want people to think that we look like prisoners now isn't that ironic because we were prisoners exactly he just he just didn't want to reveal how much we were prisoners so he gets rid of the buses so we now have these Greyhound buses transporting people so everybody arrives to the base and you report to the mess hall everything is set up like a military base with a mess hall and a px where you can buy cigarettes and you know gum and soda and stuff but you have your breakfast and if you're an officer you sit on one side with the officers and you get served your food if you're not an officer and this is all military ranks you sit on the other side and you get your trays of food and then you bus your own dishes as soon as you're done everybody reports to muster and there's a military-style roll call in you're lined up military-style where the master-at-arms calls roll call and you're at attention and then you're at ease so it's completely military tip and then depending on what org you are in because there's many orgs at the it base I started out in the filled narrow productions you go to study up and up in the quali cuales where people would study Scientology and you spend until noon unstudied and then you go to lunch then you have another military-style muster and then you go to your post in your building wherever you work as many as lunch was half an hour depends what point was an hour but then then that's when things were different in the very early days but it got reduced to 30 minutes but if you were in an ethics condition where you were in trouble or if you were a gold staff member and you didn't have all of your team share cards you had to only have 15 minutes and you ate rice and beans otherwise you ate you ate some very well compared food the food was actually very good very well prepared yeah and then you've got a muster and then you go to work now the the tough the tough part comes with the work depending on what your post was because we worked we were at the base until 11 12 1 o'clock every single night but we never knew what time we were going home so there was no finite end point you know often times we were made to stay up all night sometimes we were made to clean all night until it was white-glove clean and we had to pass an inspection it was extremists every step of the way like every waking moment was controlled and at one point Miscavige was very unhappy with the in base and he fired in a mission with James Byrne and Greg will hare who came in to put gold crew under lockdown so that gold crew would be conformed exactly into what Miscavige wanted it to be and during that time if we were a second late to muster or if we non complied with an order or if we were late with a post deadline we were thrown in the lake overboard it okay and if those if those sorts of things repeated we were RPF sent to the prison camp right when was that that that was going on the burns well hair mission was I'm thinking in the early 90s I'm thinking it was early early to mid 90s okay um before before the IRS win yes okay before 93 okay cool just here I didn't cuz curious about that one yeah I think so I might be wrong but I'm thinking it was it might have been right around that because that was 80 that was 93 yeah that was 1993 so during that time I I happen to get onto the Miscavige's radar as a clothes designer and so he me the project of well this was at the time when Celebrity Center was pouring millions excuse me it management was pouring millions of dollars into Celebrity Centre because Tom Cruise had just come into Scientology so Miscavige wanted to change everything to make it look good so that as Tom Cruise and Scientology stuck its teeth into him they wanted to make Scientology look good so they poured millions into CC and Miscavige put me on a project to design new clothing for Celebrity Centre and I partnered with Claudio lugli who is a designer from Italy a very successful fashion designer and we did the CC uniforms the new CC uniforms and I don't know if you're aware of this or not but during that time there was a project of looking at all the celebrity Center staff and if you weren't good-looking enough or if you were too thin or too fat or you didn't have quite enough good skills to service celebrities you were taken and used as a coin and traded with other staff from PAC who were better looking or had higher skills and that's what happened there it was it was horrendous can you imagine being a CEO remember and being traded like a coin for someone better looking or I mean I have no problem imagining that I have that does not surprise me in any way and your use of the word coin is interesting because that is a Hubbard ism he talked about that in the executive training in fact in the FPPC lectures he talks about how staff are like coins you trade them you move them around you know you you are investing and spending your resources and he refers to them specifically as coins right right I was just going to say so Hubbard dehumanizes staff and thinks of them and that's exactly how staff were treated as coins so when I did the CC uniform project that put me on Miscavige's radar for hmm this is somebody that can help make Scientology look good so in 1993 I was working in cold air productions in this in the film division in the film studio I was a costume designer and I was also designing sets and stuff like that but he put me on a project to go to st. Hill in 1993 to do the same thing at st. Hill that I did it Cece because the big is event 1993 was happening at st. Hale in October so I went and was given the task of transforming the image of the staff and let me just say that the staff at st. Hill in those days we're living in very sorry conditions you know Scientology wasn't making a lot of money but what but what was being made was not invested back into staff well or care the staff lived in the stone lens and Bullards which was both Bullards I think is what it was called stone lens was in Copenhagen but they lived in these horrendous buildings and when I got there I found out that they didn't have hot water hardly ever had hot water and there you're living in England with hot worked without hot water so how were staff going to shower and maintain good grooming standards and wash their clothing their uniforms so staff were coming to work every day in like you know they only had one or two shirt you know outfits to wear and you wear them every day 16 hours a day seven days a week not clean your grooming is embarrassing and Miscavige specifically gave me the task he said the staff stink and I want you to fix this well when I got there and found a you know no hot water on a regular basis very poor shower facilities Bullards was a slum living condition and I'm like okay me Richmond is making about seven million dollars a week and they're not investing in the staff this was a major turning point for me in terms of my disaffection towards management when I was out doing these projects because I got sent to st. Hill then I went to Copenhagen at a oh Sh II you the advanced org in Copenhagen mm-hmm David Miscavige and Mark Yeager told me he said the steps these were his exact words the staff stink so bad you have to handle them and that he laughed and went into glee about the fact that he was giving me this horrendous task so I took it upon myself to just dig in and find out what was going on and I found it stolens they had the same problem no hot water no showers um after you work 16 hours a day he's gonna stand there waiting for hours trying to take over our so what the reason I'm dwelling on this point Chris is because I discovered management was making millions of dollars a week on the backs of sea org slave labor yep and I get sent out to do these projects and I see these staff dedicating a billion years they have no outside life no touch with families people abort their babies to stay in the Sea Org and they don't even have a shower to use at night and and this actually really ramped up my own disaffection mm-hmm and my disaffection specifically with Miscavige but then it began into Scientology in general because I felt that the policies of Scientology were set up to make Scientology accumulate billions of dollars of assets on the back of seorak members as slave laborers who made forty to fifty dollars a week on the weeks that they got paid so this this began to whittle away at me and I would come back to the base from these projects having seen what I did and I would talk to Peter about it who at the time was working in a beautiful golden era productions music studio and he's living in this bubble with very little outside connection and they buy him all the musical equipment that he needs and he's an officer so he gets his food served on platters and the officers lounge you know in the officers dining room and he was even on the security blow drill he was one of those kinds of officers in other words he'd be one of the people who would go chase down people who took off without authorization he was so gung-ho about the whole thing he'd be willing to go chase after them and bring them back yes and for anybody that watched Leah Remini Scientology in the aftermath I think it was episode four or five where Gary Jackson Morehead was on he described the blow drill Peter was on that blow drill he used to ride on this motorcycle in fact Peter was one of the ones that intercepted mark Yeager who was running down highway 79 when he blew really yes Wow see one it's not well-known that Mark Yeager actually tried to blow yes that's less - knowing that Peter slice was one of the people who brought him back Wow so you know I was dealing with a husband who he and I were like you know moving towards opposite polarities when it came to you know any critical thinking skills about what was going on um what Peter never questioned anything he went with everything status quo right it's always on the other side questioning everything and so for example David Miscavige recruited Peter even though he was an LSD case David Miscavige put our film division instead of allowing us to continue to go to study which is covered in LRH policy David Miscavige decided that our film division was only going to go to study once we finished a film well l ron Hubbard policy tells me that I get two and a half hours day well I wrote a knowledge report only I didn't realize at the time that David Miscavige was the one who sent that policy in place he used 10 Horner who was the commanding officer of Commodores messenger org for gold ok that corner Ted Horner ordered this change I wrote a cat a knowledge report on Ted Horner when my knowledge report hit the wires I had five motorcycles of four four strike commanders are captains whatever executive director international RTC Marc Jaeger COC mo inte and eventually David Miscavige himself on motorcycles came down to my office how dare you question how dare you write a knowledge report on a senior executive and here I was you know thinking I'm gonna use knowledge report policy and I'm protected by LRH policy forget it you never report a senior executives transgression and you never question you never question command intention I ended up on I ended up blowing that was my first blow and I was trailed by security guards I was coerced to coming back and I landed on the RPF I was on the RPF in the prison camp for seven months wow I didn't know that you've gone to the RPF and this was there was this in Happy Valley yes happy valley what the most ironically named place I have ever heard of Happy Valley where the Sea Org imprisons people yeah but I have to say I enjoyed being on the RPF and Happy Valley more than I enjoyed having a post at the end base because at Happy Valley even though we had to do hard labor and we ran everywhere we went even though it was a hundred and three degrees in the desert and we wore black clothing top to bottom as they were we degraded beings and we couldn't look people in the eye or speak to them I enjoyed that environment more so than the environment at the in face because the in face was so insane and cruel and abusive and on the RPF I had to sleep every night and eat three meals a day because I had to go in session every day to do my program so I actually lost weight I got healthier and got sleep for seven months straight I got sleep and when I returned to the advice you know it's just back to the insane living conditions of the in face and I blew I blew the first time in 1990 I blew again in 1993 and and was coerced into coming back again believe it or not and the only reason I came back was to keep Peters in my marriage together and after that second escape I said I can't get out I failed at two different escapes so this time I'm just gonna stick it out I'm going to become the best version of a Sea Org member that I can be and I rose in the ranks I became I I did special projects under David and Shelly Miscavige they were running me directly on my scientology image projects they sent me to flag i completely transformed the flag land base got them out of the military uniforms into you know tropical dress went all over sydney australia washington DC just you know i was transforming everything and it was during that time that I saw that David Miscavige cared more about the buildings and the way Scientology looked then those of us who dedicated our lives to it and because of because of my project I got to care so much for the staff that somebody actually wrote a knowledge report on me that I was worker oriented right another Hubbard ISM for actually caring about people and that became you know I actually got in trouble of a particular case and my my committee of evidence stated me as being worker oriented it was just such a sham but long story short I did all these projects and had a very good reputation under David Miscavige which gave me ethics presence at the end face a very unusual position to be in you know I'm yeah from a man who who gave that gave me ethics presence but I didn't believe in the man but I I had to suck up to him in order to survive and live a decent life so great literally built myself a bubble that I lived within and that helped me to understand how Peter lived in his bubble in the studio it's like you talk to anybody at the end base and you'll see that we all live within our own worlds you know it's like we didn't really know each other there was no time to really make friends no time to really get to know people when you work in 16 18 hours a day there's no time to have a marriage really yeah you know marriages were falling apart left right and center people were getting divorced you your original question was what's life at the end face and that's this is my big long answer right yeah no I get it let me ask you another question here just from what you were just saying cuz I just sort of flew by something I'm I think a lot of people would be very curious to hear the answer to this question what was it like working for Shelly Miscavige that's a great question and I do write about this in my book I share a couple of really interesting anecdotes because I had I was in positions at the in face throughout my nine years while I was working on special projects it was Shelly Miscavige who would like we had internal email that was called murk mercury we used the income system she would murk me directly just you know and say I've got a special project or come up to the villas I want to talk to you and I would get on my scooter and write up and meet her up in the villas and we would sit in a room and have a conversation and she would talk to me about different projects I found her just super approachable I I felt that she was very compassionate but then I began to observe her indirect ways I became the int management public relations officer which David Miscavige posted me as that and my direct senior was idiots Guillaume Lusa so when I was impr David Miscavige would email me directly Shelly Miscavige would email me directly and Shelly always took a very a kinder softer approach whereas Miscavige was very hard nosed but she would always show compassion but where this started to change for me where I got to know her better is when David Miscavige used to come into del Sol which was the building that the senior executive strata worked in and the commodores messenger work International worked in the same building and my office of impr was directly across the hall from Ray Madhav's office who was senior c/s international and idiot was right down the hall from me and the exec heads were right down that Hall David Miscavige would come bounding in the front door and I could always know that it was him by the way he pounded the floor when he walked and Shelly was in his entourage David never traveled without an entourage of maybe oh that's insane five people are more but he he would always have Shelley Shelley when it was there his communicator at least one communicator was always there to take notes or to record his orders and then he had Louise Duke and Brock who her roles changed but he had at least Shelley Lou and a communicator there and a master-at-arms RTC master-at-arms at least one and sometimes additional people like enforcers who enforced orders but he would come in to Raymond ops office and I was witness to two times when he dragged Raymond up out of the office and slammed him up against the wall by holding his tie no David Miscavige is like five foot one or two Raymond F was like six feet and here's Miscavige doing this two minute and all these people are standing around doing nothing to keep Miscavige from physically accosting Raymond up right and I looked at Shelli I looked at Shelly Miscavige and I thought to myself what the are you doing excuse my language allowing your husband to do this and I realized there was no husband-wife relationship at play there in other words if you were I was out in public with our spouses and our spouses were doing something that was reprehensible I think you or I would you know kind of where our moral compass on our sleep and prevent our spouse from doing something harmful yep she stood there and let him do it and I looked at her I was I was watching your face thinking this woman is so trapped and controlled by him she cannot exert her better judgment her good sense I could tell by the expression on her face that she didn't approve but she did nothing when she could have right and so I realized how trapped she was within that relationship because she was CEO B's assistant I have have many stories that I could tell like that I'll share one and this one is in my book one time Shelly invited me up to her office to talk about a potential uniform project for CEO B's office she wanted to talk to me about designing a special uniform just for CEO B's internal staff and we were sitting in her office and we were sort of running down some ideas we were talking back and forth kind of casually and she said out of the blue she said Karen what tone level do you think the interface crew is in and I said fear and she said I think it's apathy I said sir what do you think it's happening and she said because they're not even trying to do their jobs without orders and I said I wanted to say to her I wanted to say so much to her but because we're so constrained with our with what we can say to each other I didn't dare say sir do you think that all the end base staff are pts to someone that's what I wanted to say scientology lingo for all of the staff on the base being suppressed held down you know by David Miscavige exactly of course I wasn't free to express my thoughts right so so what I did say was sir do you think that the staff are afraid to make moves on their job because I think they're in fear but do you think that this is so because they're afraid to make mistakes to disappoint she'll be or to make a mad I did say that and she said no I think it's apathy so which just indicates that she bought into the same crap Miscavige would feed her and others about his attitude about people on the base that they were all a bunch of scum sucking no no gooders you know no Niro do wells that's his ass people below him well of course it is and you know I was convinced years prior to that that David Miscavige was the SP you know I had done the PT SSP course and it was a no brainer I mean there's so many signs years ago back it didn't take getting into the late 90s or the mid-2000s to notice him as an antisocial personality it's just that people continually denied what they were seeing right before their eyes they didn't believe it could be true right so think yeah they kept convincing themselves that it was other than that I think the 1990s might be one way of looking at it might be the decade of denial everybody at the end base I mean that's like he takes over in the 80s never is look kind of shocked and awed and then the 90s come around they're like well it can't be that bad it can't be that bad it can't be that bad and it's kind of like our current presidency it's kind of like it can't be this bad it can't no way no way can it get worse and then of course you come into the 2000s and it's like yeah actually guess what it can get a yes it is yeah because then the whole comes along and all that you know well then in in the mid 2000s we we saw the exodus from the it base staff yep and I you know I'm friends with several people who were I considered them to be really awesome people but they had their cult personality while they were there now I get to know them as who they really are but they said you know I can't believe it took me this long to see it and it's just you know we all had our own lenses that we went through and I think that for me one thing that really helped me Chris was because I left in 1998 yep um you know Peter and I lived with Ranma scavenge I don't know if you know that but you know I told you that married couples shared an apartment oh yeah Ron and Beckham escape which after I blew the second time and came back we went into an apartment with Ron and Becky and they had recently gotten married but Ron used to talk to me about his son and these were very no-no conversations because you know he's talking about the leader of Scientology but he was really tough talking as a father about a son who was dealing with a very complex conundrum and I wrote a little I wrote a chapter about it in my book about how I was able to get insight into David because of my talks with Ron thus cabbage yeah so that'll be an interesting chapter to read but I saw Ron you know we couldn't be honest with ourselves we weren't allowed to disclose what we were thinking about at risk of getting in trouble or appearing to be disaffected and then being punished so we lived in a very fake world at the in face yeah there was nothing yeah nothing truthful about life at the invasive was you know a lot of people say well there's a lot of good people there and we really wanted to help people and we really had good intentions to apply Scientology and while I agree that's true on a person-to-person level the lifestyle we had there was so phony because we couldn't be honest we couldn't tell anyone else what we were really thinking at the risk of like I said being disaffected or getting in trouble yeah yeah and I think that's what that's what really enabled that cult personality to move in because it was such a facade we lived we lived within such a facade everyone had a facade exactly Ronnie couldn't talk about his thoughts about his son with anybody you know so he had to live within that facade in it it ate away at it Oh bad I'll bet it did he as he of course eventually escaped himself escaped you know he literally escaped yeah so you got out in 89 and I'm sorry 98 sorry my best my dyslexia there so okay good so you get out in 98 now your book covers a tremendous amount of detail on all of these events and a lot more and there's no way we're gonna cover you know even half of all of that stuff here in this podcast we're gonna in fact we're coming up on I think we're gonna need to wrap this up pretty short wait I I I'm really glad that we could get a bit of an overview of of int base life right and the in the in the Truman Show as Mike Rinder has described it Oh Cory Chrisman started the Truman she identified it as the Truman Show good perfect and it very unlikable to being based specifically although all of Scientology as well is in that there's this you know this painted on smiles and everything is fine but you know there's just there are so many cracks in the facade and you're afraid to you know to let any too much out because it'll all just come flooding out and the whole thing will fall apart but somehow people's faith in this system and and and in Scientology and l ron hubbard sort of somehow overcome this this terror and environment you know this is a horrible environment of of what it's like there and then you got out actually i think just in time because i think it was 1999 when Miscavige came back from some trip and did this whole huge series of what are called evaluations he wrote up this whole series of programs for the for the base to do and they worked and worked and worked and worked for years on those things and you know sleepless nights endless days you know just working working working on these orders never getting them complied too and eventually his view of the staff degraded so badly that he started putting bars on windows locking doors and treating people like just plain plainly treating them like animals and you know and and that was the whole you know and and there have been you know a lot of people coming out since who have talked about that so so I think I you know I want people to check out your book now that it's out where so let's just kind of talk about that for just a second as we wrap up here you've actually started a website you know about this and you've got the book out there so what so where what's the website where do they get the book how do how do people find out more about all this from you okay Jefferson Hawkins did a great job designing my website he he it's it's at WWE scaping Scientology dot-com so it's the title of the book the full title of the book is escaping Scientology and insiders true story with a subtitle my journey through the cult of celebrity spirituality greed and power and of course I play on the Time magazine article from 1991 we didn't get to talk about that but something that is I think an interesting story in the book is how shortly after I arrived at the in face the Time magazine article came out by Rick Behar and the way he described Scientology in his article is what I found at the in-phase and it absolutely played out in my own life so for new to Scientology I think they would find that very interesting and all that I self-published the book this time and my publishing company is called Bayshore publications it's registered with the Library of Congress so I'm going to be working with that program to get the book into libraries all around the country and right now the Kindle version is available and the Kindle version us I think sells on the 17th the hardback and the paperback versions will be posted in about a week so it's a little late on that but they'll be available in about a week but you'll be able to go to Amazon and I'm using other distributors so you can buy it through other places than Amazon as well but my website you can buy it through the website so people can go to escape in Scientology calm right now yeah and get the book from you yes yeah okay good go right through the website it's linked to Amazon or they can go straight to Amazon whatever whatever then they can get it on Amazon okay perfect yeah good yeah great okay and I really I have been impressed with your efforts on that and getting the the book put together and getting this website put together it's very nice it's very slick it looks really good and the book looks beautiful and and it's and it's meaty you know there's a lot there for people to sink their teeth into so anybody who is curious about you know the inside world of Scientology what it's like and this is not you know the other thing about this is that you know you got out in 98 but the the things you experienced and the the things you described this is not dated material I mean we're this is still how things are there you know and it's and it is always an education to get every people every person's individual experiences to understand how this kind of thing goes on how the abuses are allowed to perpetuate and now of course you know as whistleblowers what we can do about it to try to you know stop that abuse from happening because that's all what would you agree you know leah has said we're not trying to bring about the destruction of the Church of Scientology we're trying to stop the abuses would you agree with that that's a very big question I know my first my first answer to that I think the answer has to be Part A and Part B because number one I I really believe that all of us that have come out the first thing we want to do is stop the abuse because you know that's got to happen I think it's gonna take time for the organization to be dismantled why would I want it dismantled you know I don't think that that's a question of religious discrimination I think it's more of a question of dismantling a business that is harmful to the general public I don't see it as a religion I think it's a very harmful business it's a fraudulent organization that charades is a a business and so that's my answer there's a lot more to that but number well it's a great answer number one stop the abuse number two and if I just would like to add one more thing about the book if you don't my dad no please the book is a bit of a different it's kind of an interactive book in the sense because the book started out as 800 pages and my the person that was helping me on the book design said you really want to print a book as long as war in peace and I said no not really that's a bit cumbersome isn't it so I abridged it to 422 pages but I took the original content and it is arriving on my book website in excerpts chapter by chapter so if you read throughout the book you'll find all sorts of places where I say for example in the chapter called merchants of fear fair game and vigilante justice I have a lot to say about that subject but I can't fit it all in the printed book so there's a lot of excerpts that are on the website so you don't have to buy the book to read the excerpts but they won't totally make sense to you unless you read the book and you're looking at the website with it so it's kind of an interactive thing but for those people that read the book especially people that are newer to Scientology that are not familiar with a lot of the things are that like people like us are read the book and as you get to a place where the book says if you'd like more information about this go to the website and read this story so people people can do that and that's a big reason for the website and I also will be continuing to post additional bonus information on the website so that people can go and read that as well awesome and that having done this work myself I know how much work that is that is a tremendous amount of work you've invested in us and that very very much appreciated yeah yeah and it's and it is it's yeah I was I was actually really impressed with what I read and I'm more impressed when I saw the website and and and knowing you know again from behind the scenes how much work goes into stuff like that it's you've really done a stellar job here with this and it and it deserves yeah you know the attention and it deserves you know people to check it out so I so I encourage everybody to do so I do want to say also that I absolutely agree with your two points in terms of you know the Scientology and and it not being a religion but a business and that sort of thing in a very very very much agree with you on all those points so okay well we're gonna wrap up now because I again I got another 20 questions I could ask you and we'll probably do another podcast at some point in the future but I I gotta I gotta wrap this up now so thank you very much for your time here really appreciate it thank you so much Christmas is really a great discussion appreciate it absolutely okay good so check out our website folks check out our book and oh is there gonna be an audio version yes okay for that so I will definitely do that and I will also be posting on the website the book signing to I'm going to develop a book signing tour great I already I already have plans for Austin Texas of course Clearwater in Tampa and Los Angeles and so maybe I'll come to Denver - yes please do awesome I know I know the perfect place you can come do a little talk it's when Tony came here on his book tour I arranged for him to do a speaking engagement here in Denver and we could absolutely set that up for you - Oh fabulous yes the calendar yeah I think that'd be fun okay all right well thank you very much for coming around everybody as always any comments feedback good better sideways leave it in the comment section below here on youtube or at sensibly speaking dot-com and thank you very much for coming around and we will see you guys next week bye bye

Channel: Chris Shelton, MSc

Views: 33,175

Keywords: Scientology, Escaping Scientology, Karen Pressley, Sea Organization, David Miscavige, L. Ron Hubbard

Id: o7GHFXPQ6gs

Length: 84min 51sec (5091 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 16 2017