Extenuating circumstances can exist that act to prevent a person from leaving Scientology. When I began to wake up from my Scientology trance and started talking about it to Scientology clients at my shop and to people (Scientologists) I thought were my friends, I learned a thing or two about them. Namely, I found two categories of Scientologists who were unable to listen to what I had to say.
The first category consists of people who make their living with Scientology or Scientologists. The most obvious example that comes to mind is a Sea Org couple I know who sold all their possessions and quit their high-paying jobs to sign the billion-year Sea Org contract and go on to work 100-hour weeks at low or no pay. They rearranged their whole lives to join this organization they thought was saving the world. 
People sometimes do this. If they find out soon enough that the Sea Org is not what it’s cracked up to be, they can get out quick, while they still have the money from the sale of their possessions to tide them over while they re-establish themselves in the real world. But often — especially if the cult knows about the money — they go through a honeymoon phase where they’re love-bombed into donating the money to contribute to the save-the-world efforts they’re so passionate about. Then they’re stuck.
They’re also stuck if they’ve been there for a few (or many) years and have (1) no more money, (2) no real skills or stuff to put on a resumé, and/or (3) no idea how to start from scratch as a middle-aged (or older) person in the real world.
Sometimes it’s not that extreme. Sometimes it’s just that they’re operating as a public (non-staff) person using Scientology to make a living. In other words, they’ve made themselves part of the Scientology dissemination network in order to get some of the money people get seduced into contributing to Scientology. Field Staff Members (FSMs) fall into this category. They “select” people to go to the orgs, and the orgs give them a 10% to 15% commission on what their “selectee” spends on services.
Field Auditors and Field Groups also fall into this category. They sell and deliver services outside the orgs (but with the blessing of the so-called Church) up to a certain level and then “select” their people to go to the orgs for the higher levels that the Field Auditor or Group isn’t authorized to deliver.
And finally, this category also contains people with business connections to Scientology. Businesses owned by Scientologists typically hire other Scientologists, who would be forced to quit their jobs if the boss became disaffected. If all the Scientologist employees quit, it would probably happen suddenly and en masse, so it would be highly disruptive to the business, if not ruin it altogether. And if an individual Scientologist became disaffected while working for one of these businesses, the boss would have to fire him/her.
I found that it was futile to try to get any of the folks in this category to engage in an intelligent conversation about the misgivings I was having about Scientology and my involvement in it. When I tried to do so, all I got back were disconnection letters from people I thought were my friends, knowledge reports written on me, and Fair Game dirty trick tactics from the Office of Special Affairs.
There’s still more to tell on this subject. So I’ll be back to do that later.
picture of Sea Org Recruitment poster courtesy of whyweprotest.net
sitemap