Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(119)
Although Haggis never used such a filter, one already existed in his mind. During his thirty-four years in the church he had purposely avoided asking too many questions or reading materials that he knew would disparage his faith. But now, frustrated by his exchange with Davis, he began “poking around.” He came upon an interview on YouTube with Tommy Davis that had been broadcast by CNN in May 2008. “The worldwide interest in Scientology has never been higher,” Davis boasts on the show. “Scientology has grown more in the last five years than the last five decades combined.” The anchor, John Roberts, asks Davis about the church’s policy of disconnection, in which followers are urged to separate themselves from friends or family members who might be critical of the organization. “This is a perfect example of how the Internet turns things and twists things,” Davis responds. “There’s no such thing as disconnection as you’re characterizing it. And certainly, we have to understand—”
“Well, what is disconnection?” Roberts tries to interject.
“Scientology is a new religion,” Davis continues, talking over the host. “The majority of Scientologists in the world, they’re first generation. So their family members aren’t going to be Scientologists.… So, certainly, someone who is a Scientologist is going to respect their family members’ beliefs—”
“Well, what is disconnection?” Roberts asks again.
“And we consider family to be a building block of any society, so anything that’s characterized as disconnection, or this kind of thing, it’s just not true. There isn’t any such policy.”
Haggis knew this was a lie. His wife, Deborah, had disconnected from her parents twice. When she was in her twenties and acting in Dallas, her mother and stepfather broke away from the church. They were close friends of Hana Eltringham, who had stood up for them at their wedding, so when they had doubts about their faith, they went to see her. Eltringham was then counseling people who were considering getting out of Scientology or other new religions. She helped Scientologists confront the contradictions that were implicit in their faith, such as Hubbard speaking of events that had taken place trillions or quadrillions of years in the past, although scientists estimate the age of the universe to be less than 14 billion years, or the fact that it has never been shown that anyone has ever obtained any enhanced OT abilities. Eltringham also talked about the abuses she observed and experienced. “Hana told us how Sea Org members were treated,” Mary Benjamin, Deborah’s mother, recalled, “how they were kept in a basement in Los Angeles and fed rice and beans if they didn’t keep their stats up. How, in the desert, in terrible heat, they would march in a circle for hours.”
Like many active members of the church, the Benjamins kept money on account—in their case, $2,500—for future courses they intended to take. Deborah’s mother insisted on getting the money back. Deborah knew what a big deal that was for the church. She didn’t speak to her parents for more than three years, automatically assuming that they must have been declared Suppressive Persons. But when her sister was about to get married, Deborah wrote to the International Justice Chief, the Scientology official in charge of such matters, who said that she was allowed to see her parents as long as they didn’t say anything against Scientology. The Benjamins readily agreed.
A decade later, however, Deborah went to Clearwater, intending to take some upper-level courses, and learned that the previous ruling no longer applied. If she wanted to do more training, she would have to confront her parents’ mistakes. The church recommended that she take the Potential Trouble Source/Suppressive Persons course.
Many Scientologists have taken the same course. Deborah’s friend Kelly Preston had taken it as well. “I was PTS, but I didn’t realize it, and so I was told, ‘You need to be on PTS/SP,’ ” Preston later recalled in her interview for Celebrity magazine. She discovered that her life was full of Suppressive Persons. “Being an artist and having a lot of theta, you really attract those type of people,” Preston said. (“Theta” is a Scientology term for life force.) “I ended up having to handle or disconnect from quite a few different people.”
It took Deborah a year to complete the course, but it didn’t change her parents’ status. She petitioned officials at the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles for help. They put her on another program that took two more years to finish. Still, nothing changed. If she failed to “handle” her parents—by persuading them to make amends to the church—she would have to disconnect not only from them but also from everyone who spoke to them, including her siblings. She realized, “It was that, or else I had to give up being a Scientologist.” The fact that Paul refused to disconnect from her parents posed yet another conflict.
According to the church, Deborah’s parents had been part of a class-action lawsuit against Scientology by disaffected members in 1987, which was dismissed the following year.2 The church required them to denounce the anti-Scientology group and offer a “token” restitution. That meant performing community service and following a rehabilitation course, called A to E, for penitents seeking to get back into the church’s good graces; it includes repaying debts, taking additional courses, and making public declarations of error. Deborah told her parents that if they wanted to remain in contact with her they had to follow the church’s procedures. Her parents, worried that they would also be cut off from their grandson, agreed to perform community service. For three months they delivered food in a Meals on Wheels program in Los Angeles. But the church wasn’t satisfied. Deborah was told that if she maintained contact with her parents she would be labeled a Potential Trouble Source—a designation that would alienate her from the entire Scientology community and render her ineligible for further training. A senior official counseled her to agree to disconnect from her parents and have them formally branded SPs. “Until then, they won’t turn around and recognize their responsibilities,” he said.