Breaking with Scientology
March 7, 2010 by XENU TV
Filed under Latest News, Newspaper Archive
Christie King Collbran (center) has had her whole family disconnect from her, even though she is still a firm believer in Hubbard and the tech.
The New York Times has a heartbreaking story of disconnection from a Scientologist I haven’t heard from before. Christie King Collbran believes in Scientology but not in David Miscavige. She and her husband had seen enough of the abuses inside the organization to know something was wrong. When they went on the net , they discovered they weren’t the only ones who felt that way.
Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.
They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.
But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.
“Why did we work so hard for this organization,” Ms. Collbran said, “and why did it feel so wrong in the end? We just didn’t understand.”
They soon discovered others who felt the same. Searching for Web sites about Scientology that are not sponsored by the church (an activity prohibited when they were in the Sea Org), they discovered that hundreds of other Scientologists were also defecting — including high-ranking executives who had served for decades.
Fifty-six years after its founding by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986, the church is fighting off calls by former members for a Reformation. The defectors say Sea Org members were repeatedly beaten by the church’s chairman, David Miscavige, often during planning meetings; pressured to have abortions; forced to work without sleep on little pay; and held incommunicado if they wanted to leave. The church says the defectors are lying.
The defectors say that the average Scientology member, known in the church as a public, is largely unaware of the abusive environment experienced by staff members. The church works hard to cultivate public members — especially celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Nancy Cartwright (the voice of the cartoon scoundrel Bart Simpson) — whose money keeps it running.
But recently even some celebrities have begun to abandon the church, the most prominent of whom is the director and screenwriter Paul Haggis, who won Oscars for “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash.” Mr. Haggis had been a member for 35 years. His resignation letter, leaked to a defectors’ Web site, recounted his indignation as he came to believe that the defectors’ accusations must be true.
“These were not the claims made by ‘outsiders’ looking to dig up dirt against us,” Mr. Haggis wrote. “These accusations were made by top international executives who had devoted most of their lives to the church.”
The church has responded to the bad publicity by denying the accusations and calling attention to a worldwide building campaign that showcases its wealth and industriousness. Last year, it built or renovated opulent Scientology churches, which it calls Ideal Orgs, in Rome; Malmo, Sweden; Dallas; Nashville; and Washington. And at its base here on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it continued buying hotels and office buildings (54 in all) and constructing a 380,000-square-foot mecca that looks like a convention center.
“This is a representation of our success,” said the church’s spokesman, Tommy Davis, showing off the building’s cavernous atrium, still to be clad in Italian marble, at the climax of a daylong tour of the church’s Clearwater empire. “This is a result of our expansion. It’s pinch-yourself material.”
As for the defectors, Mr. Davis called them “apostates” and said that contrary to their claims of having left the church in protest, they were expelled.
“And since they’re removed, the church is expanding like never before,” said Mr. Davis, a second-generation Scientologist whose mother is the actress Anne Archer. “And what we see here is evidence of the fact that we’re definitely better off without them.”
Ms. Collbran, who is 33, said she loved the church so much that she never thought she would leave. Her parents were dedicated church members in Los Angeles, and she attended full-time Scientology schools for several years. When she was 8 or 9, she took the basic communications course, which teaches techniques for persuasive public speaking and improving self-confidence and has served as a major recruiting tool.
By 10, Ms. Collbran had completed the Purification Rundown, a regimen that involves taking vitamins and sitting in a sauna (a fixture inside every Scientology church) for as much as five hours a day, for weeks at a time, to cleanse the body of toxins.
By 16, she was recruited into the Sea Org, so named because it once operated from ships, wearing a Navy-like uniform with epaulets on the shoulders for work. She fully believed in the mission: to “clear the planet” of negative influences by bringing Scientology to its inhabitants. Her mindset then, Ms. Collbran said, was: “This planet needs our help, and people are suffering. And we have the answers.”
Christie and Chris Collbran were married in a simple ceremony at the Scientology center in Manhattan. Although she and her parents were very close, she said they had spent so much to advance up the bridge that they could not afford to attend the wedding.
It was in Johannesburg, where the couple had gone to supervise the building of a new Scientology organization, that Mr. Collbran, who is 29, began to have doubts. He had spent months at church headquarters in Clearwater revising the design for the Johannesburg site to meet Mr. Miscavige’s demands.
Mr. Collbran said he saw an officer hit a subordinate, and soon found that the atmosphere of supervision through intimidation was affecting him. He acknowledges that he pushed a 17-year-old staff member against a wall and yelled at his wife, who was his deputy.
In Johannesburg, officials made the church look busy for publicity photographs by filling it with Sea Org members, the Collbrans said. To make their numbers look good for headquarters, South African parishioners took their maids and gardeners to church.
But the Ideal Orgs are supposed to be self-supporting, and the Johannesburg church was generating only enough to pay each of the Collbrans $17 a week, Mr. Collbran said.
“It was all built on lies,” Mr. Collbran said. “We’re working 16 hours a day trying to save the planet, and the church is shrinking.”
There’s much more at the New York Times website including a video interview with Christie. I’d like to thank the Times for reporting this story and everyone who agreed to be interviewed.
UPDATE:
Tony Ortega at the Village Voice blogged about the New York Times piece and had some interesting things to say:
The New York Times has just sent a clear endorsement of a Pulitzer for last year’s blockbuster series by the St. Pete Times.
Here’s hoping the Pulitzer committee is listening.
As someone who has been writing about Hubbard’s nonsense for fifteen years, I’m especially grateful to Goodstein and the Times for taking on a subject I didn’t want to be bothered with: the mistreatment of Sea Org members.
This has been a drumbeat with church critics over the last couple of years — ABC News took it on in a mostly forgettable Nightline piece — and I’ve resisted writing about it for exactly the way it comes off in Goodstein’s piece.
Critics implore journalists to write about poor Sea Org members, who work long hours for almost no pay, are eternally stressed out and underfed, and who are discouraged from having children and encouraged to get abortions.
When my Scientology sources ask me why I don’t seem interested in writing about that part of the Hubbard universe, I try to explain how easy it is for a church supporter to fend off that kind of criticism — which is exactly what happened in Goodstein’s piece.
Life in the Sea Org is brutal? Well listen, moron, you signed a BILLION-YEAR CONTRACT to worship and work for a 1930s pulp science fiction hack who invented a religion that believes space aliens have taken up residence in your body — what the hell were you thinking?
While I have the utmost respect for Tony Ortega and enjoy reading everything he has to say on the subject, no matter what you say of a critical nature to a Scientologist, they are going to shrug it off with the same ease. The blinders are on and the thought-stopping techniques instilled by Scientology training are running at full steam when someone presents “entheta.”
But the message being imparted by Rathbun and Rinder now is having a massive effect on the flock. There are OT’s and staff looking at what is being said by people that were held in high esteem and they are listening to that message far more than they would anything I have to say or Tony Ortega would have to say. That’s one of the reasons Paul Haggis left. That’s one of the reasons this couple in the Time’s piece left…and it will inspire others to stand up and say, “things have got to change.”
It may not be the full message. It may not be the most important message. But it’s a message a particular audience needs to hear and one worthy of being told. And if it’s told often enough, maybe someone will actually do something about the poor staff who are being mistreated. It looks like action may be taken in Australia in the near future and that may well change the course of Scientology and David Miscavige’s future.
Read Tony Ortega’s full blog entry and tell me what you think.
This is Huge!!!!!! The NEW YOUR friggen TIMES !!! I cant wait for Tommy’s reply….let me guess, “they are all lying and are disgruntled employees.”
Awesome. Tommy can’t tell members use the ole “Why do you think the newspaper is called SPTimes? Bc they are all SPs” now.
New York Times Baby!
Soon I think I will get a XenuTV update that says “Tommy blew” or “Miscavige Indicted”
Weeks away, not years.
I was never in Scientology. The first time I saw some of the materials was in a conference room in Dux Software, run by Bob Adams. It was in an office complex at the intersection of San Antonio Expressway and El Camino Real in Los Altos, CA. I was talking to him about working at Dux and while reading material about the company’s products, I was shown a seat in the conference room. The walls of the room were covered with information about Scientology and after a few minutes Bob came in and told me the room was used for Scientology training in the evenings. He made it clear that the other Dux employees were Scientology members (as I recall) I made it clear that it would be a problem with me.
I read this story in the NY Times and went digging on the Internet for information about Bob Adams. He rose quite high in the organization. There is a transcription of an interview he did with Ronn Owens of KGO where he said that he didn’t know anything about the weird aspects of the cult:
Ronn: but what’s the spacecraft thing, didn’t, didn’t Hubbard have something?
BA: I don’t know what he’s talking about..
Ronn: Hubbard never mentioned anything about spacecraft, rocketships, things like that?
BA: Nothing I’ve ever read…
Ronn: ok, never?
BA: I don’t know what he’s really talking about…
Bob Adams is lying. I saw all of that on posters on the walls of that conference room.
Ah yes, the standard Tommy line: “.. the X org is thriving since left.” He says that about everyone. By this point, Nobel prize winners would be in charge.
“As for the defectors, Mr. Davis called them ‘apostates’ and said that contrary to their claims of having left the church in protest, they were expelled.”
Tommy needs to word clear “apostate.”
That last line of the article breaks my heart. Scientology succeeded in breaking them up. Poisoning another relationship. She’ll probably end up going back in, only to blow a couple of more times like so many other stories we’ve heard in the last few years.
And once again there’s that brainwashed martinet Davis, spinning his inept version of “PR”. He’s like a child pretending to be an adult.
I have to remember that Davis was essentially an abused child and that Miscavige probably suffers from an undiagnosed personality disorder. In that way are both victims of Hubbard’s megalomania and charlatanry.
And yes, this is big.
That is great they are out of the cult. That can be very hard to do. It will be great to meet them soon. I hope they put everything that the cult does to them with FAIR GAME on the net. Stay safe guys.
Tommy Gorman
“apostate”
a.pos.tate
noun
aperson who renounces a religious belief or principle.
ORIGIN Middle English : from ecclesiastical Latin apostata, from Greek
apostates, ‘runaway slave.’
Will the Co$ hire more “independent” investigative reporters to investigate the New York Times to determine whether or not the paper followed proper “journalistic protocol” in its article on the abuses within the “church”/cult?
It seems to me that the common thread in all of these recent stories from former Scientologists is the Church’s betrayal of individual members. And will some reporter please point out when quoting Tommy Davis that none of the Churches he unendingly cites, i.e Catholics, Mormons and the Amish, practice anything remotely resembling disconnection instead of just recording the Scientology party-line?
The cult isn’t shrinking. Tommy Davis says the Johannesburg Org started “thriving” after that couple left.
They had the biggest explosion in membership there in South Africa, since Marty and Mike left, and the whole cult EXPLODED.
Wait until everybody leaves, there will be billions in the cult, billions of Body Thetans, all over Tommy Davis and David Miscavige, sitting on a big pile of gold.
Yes, it was a heartbreaking tale, especially since she was not only disconnected from her family, but her handsome husband woke up and doesn’t believe in the whole nine yards. Isn’t that the silver lining though, in a way?
I picture him growing up in the cult, but feeling liberated now, excited at the big, wide world. Kind of like back from the dead, without the zombie wife.
She’s still got Xenu, and eternity, and Marty Rathbun. Just think, without Marty, she’d probably be with her husband and children instead of her Body Thetans and e-meter.
I didn’t shed any tears over this story. I don’t think producing a child just for the sake of getting out of this cult was something a person should do. But I guess a lot of children are born for worse reasons, or no reasons at all, so I don’t judge her for that.
I’ve probably read 200+ Holocaust memoirs. At least her whole family didn’t die in a concentration camp, and there’s always hope they’ll wake up, or find Martyology too.
Also, unlike many kids who grow up in the cult, she didn’t end up on the street. She’s very pretty and young. She’ll find some Indep. Scilon who wants to take care of her, hopefully one that’s not certifiably insane.
About the article…it is what I’ve been waiting for the New York Times to do since I started following Scientology, back when the Cruise video came out and shocked the crap out of me. Finally, a piece that isn’t a puff piece, from the NY Times!
It’s well written and covers many dimensions. However, it is too soft, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to cause ripples. It is the New York Times and it means a lot. Tomorrow, I expect even great expansion in the media mentioning the article.
As a NY Times reader, I think back to my frustration at their coverage of Iraq in the early years of the war. Well, at least now they’ve got the ball rolling with Scientology.
However, I think the Aussies are really going to take off with this.
One great part of the NY Times article: THE COMMENTS, especially some of the people who come out of the woodwork, one woman mentioning how her 90 year old uncle had Scilons shoving propaganda under his door decades after he left the cult. They just couldn’t make them stop even after they changed his mailing address and everything.
When they say WE COME BACK, they aren’t kidding, but what they mean is they come back with junk mail and harassing phone calls for anyone who had the misfortune to ever take one of their courses, or even give them their address.
Scientology needs to be dismantled, with all these victims given a substantial reparation payment, including the two in the story.
Tommy David gloating about the opulence of all their new buildings, how he has to pinch himself. Well Tommy, enjoy pinching yourself while it lasts.
I see Mike Rinder still has some of the ol’ cult spokesliar in him, in spite of getting away from the evil midget and his reverse Dianetics…
LRH didn’t mean DISCONNECTION for family members….no, no, no. He just meant it for Marcabian invaders with the mark of Xenu tattooed on their flippers.
Xenu to me seems like a cool guy.
Say that and piss off every Scientologist, just for fun.
Scientologists are entertaining when they’re angry.
They say the Stupidest stuff.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20100308/scientology/
ABC Australia’s Four Corners documentary on Scientology featuring more lies from Tommy Davis. the Headleys are included among the exes that speak out in this interview
I think Tony Ortega’s comments disclose an unnecessary defensiveness on his part. The part of the story he has elected to cover is very important. At the same time the range of abuses in Scientology is so great that no single reporter (or news organization, for that matter) can cover it. It’s possible that on an individual level the pain and suffering the stories of Sea Org defectors may cause Mr. Ortega discomfort (as it does for all of us reading them) and he may briefly question the area he has decided to focus on. This may prompt his response to the Times article.
I am tickled pink that the New York Times media giant is daring to air the Scientology ‘thing’.
Now it’s time for the U.S. government to get off their sycophant ass and fix the mess made by allowing themselves to be blackmailed by Co$, recover the tax dollars stolen by the ‘Church’, and reimburse Co$ victims!
And please Ms. Collbran, don’t waste your time with L. Fraud Hubbard or the vestige of his insane fairy tale. Go get your family back, and don’t hold any punches when dealing with the Co$ bastards.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20100308/scientology/
ABC Australia Scientology: The Ex-Files
Click in upper left hand corner for the full program. There’s also the full interviews (unedited) with some of the people in the program.
I’m sure Mark will do a post on it soon. Let me say that this program is OUTSTANDING. Any criticism I had of the weakness in the message in the NY Times article, well, this show really delivers the wallop. Historically (with great footage of Hubbard in the old days — Hana E-W commenting on RPFers made to eat their meals out of slop buckets with their hands), emotionally, and the diversity of the ex’s stories, including some new Australian ex’s, it is wow.
Tommy Davis comes off as a fool, even more than usual. I think he may have set a new record in saying more stupid thing per minute of talking than ever before. I’ll post more about it in the thread dedicated to it.
Thing is, even though Anonymous etc. will do what it can to get it out, it won’t have the impact of the NY Times article.
Scientology is a cult of personality, built on Hubbard. The Australian ex-files programs manages to capture that whereas the NY Times didn’t reach that far. The Australian program also tells the compelling stories of several ex-members, combined with all the abuses, and manipulation.
Scilontology, Scilons, and Tommy Davis, How do I mock thee?
Thine stupidity is greater than the number of your followers.
Thine Dwarven leader makes thee trollish.
Thy Idiocy is as moronic and laughable as that tale about Xenu and Body Thetans.
Need I sayth more.
ABC Australia’s Four Corners documentary on Scientology is indeed excellent! Now, if the New York Times had the balls to put this sort of meat into their coverage of the cult, then they might share the S.P. Times’ Pulitzer!
And once again, Obama and cronies… get the f— off your asses and confront the Co$ bastards! Unless you feel content to remain as blackmailed spineless pussies!
The Australian report was EXCELLENT. WBM, please post!
Just viewed the ABC Australia report and agree that it’s excellent. It makes me wonder if knowing that all this was in the pipeline emboldened the NY Times to decide that it’s now safe to write investigative pieces about Scientology.
johnny d,
Thank you for posting that definition, which helps to illustrate my point quite nicely.
For Tommy to say that the defectors did not leave the CoS of their own accord, but then to describe them a word which means that they renounced the religion suggests that apostate is an “M/U” for him. (Let us ignore for moment that said defectors still claim to be Scientologists.)
But perhaps Tommy is just, as he might say, engaging in “obstication.”
Some of the best stories are in the COMMENTS section of the article. I liked this one because it paralleled a friend of mine’s experience with taking just one course in Scientology, where he thought not only the teacher, but other students in his class were behaving like zombies:
From Tammy of New York
In the late 70s, at the behest of a Scientologist friend, I took a Scientology “communication” course. Quickly I realized it was all about brainwashing and control and asked to leave. I was told I had to finish the course and when I insisted on quitting I was taken to a meeting with a leader who explained that I “needed to understand” before I could make a decision about leaving the course, therefore I needed to finish the course in order to know enough to decide whether I should leave the course. Ha! Not taking kindly to control, one day I stood on my chair and loudly told other participants that I was not allowed to leave and that they were all being brainwashed. I was let go from the course, I refused to sign some disclaimer, and for good measure said that if I was harmed in any way I would make all this public. Never heard from Scientology again.
@Astrid
Respect to your friend. I wish my friend had the strength and mentality of yours. Unfortunately my friend is brainwashed and spewing the trash that is scientology. If my friend left scientology, I would have to struggle with the dilemma of whether to trust her again or not. I’m still wrestling with my conscience over that one. Kudos to your friend!
@Malka:
I hear your dilemma. I hope your friend does manage to escape Scientology. As to the trust issue, it is difficult. So much of you probably wants to be able to return to the pre-Scientology level of trust, but knowing the level of brainwashing involved it is legitimate for you to be wary.
FINALLY. A NY Times piece is great. More solid reporting from the likes of Frontline would be excellent. The only good part of the sham that is the cult of scientology is listening to Tommy Davis destroy the english language and show his complete lack of intelligence at the same time. Lying continuously, looking like the moron he is when asked simple questions, trying to be a spokesperson by asking questions as responses, and generally helping to bring to light the sham that the cult is. You couldn’t ask for a better person to represent the cult because he makes it so obvious that it is a sham. “Millions of members”, “Xenu? what’s that? does that sound crazy to you?”, and it goes on and on. The rolling snowball of people blowing the cult is becoming an avalanche-the bad part is, it will only become more dangerous for those who stay.
@Cory;
If you think Tommy Davis shows himself to be incoherent in the Times piece you should read the full transcript of the Australian ABC interview. The Times quotes Don’t begin to show how disjointed his thinking is. Here’s the link.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2010/s2839634.htm
Tommy Davis is a Moron.
He wouldn’t Boron
From Mormon.
He is Idiocy
Defined.
Truly I say to all thee,
He has the brain of a louse.
He has the courage of a mouse.
He is truly living in Stupity.
Where it say He Wouldn’t Boron, I meant to say He wouldn’t know Boron from Mormon.
Message to Christie Collbran. I was a Scientologist at 19, am 34 now. I understand you were in your whole life. I’ve seen your interviews and appreciate seeing a Scientologists that I can be proud of – you believe in the philosophy as I did. There is more to the philosophy – research the data on L Ron Hubbard – obviously the church gives a PR watered down version. For me, after I got over the shock of leaving, I had to continue my search for truth in Scientology. You have a beautiful child, a loving husband who is the reason you got out. I know a ex-Sea org’s member mother who worked with LRH and left, and embraced living life – family, lifestyle, etc – I present you this as the only way to happiness and I regret that you may be hurting your lifetime experience by divorcing over Scientology. In my search for the truth of the whole Scientology situation, I was in for more shocks, but a true Scientology spirit is not being afraid of discovering what is. Scientology feels like the game where everyone wins, but there is a flip side to every coin and you need to know both sides.