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Escaping Scientology:
An Insider's True Story

About the book
and Scientology's efforts
to prevent its 2001 and 2006 publication

See also Experiencing Creativity: Breaking Free from
Spiritual Abuse and the Emergence of the Secret Creative Self

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About the book:

Take the experiences of two Hollywood entertainment artists lured from successful careers to work for the Church of Scientology. Then add their years of recruiting celebrities at Scientology’s Hollywood mecca under duress and taking care of the likes of John Travolta and Tom Cruise, plus nine years of working under authoritarian leader David Miscavige at his cultic International Management desert headquarters, and what do you get? Escaping Scientology: An Insider’s True Story. 

As a three-time escapee from this “church,” I lived to tell the story of my 16-year journey as a Scientologist and senior level staff member who witnessed extremist acts that are at odds with the church’s attempts to present itself with a do-good religious image. With an overriding ideology that a Scientologist is better off dead than incapable and a “the ends justify the means” mentality, and with financial greed and lust for world domination fueling the human rights violations of Miscavige and his minions, the details of this story make the members’ claims of acting in loyalty to the cause of Scientology all the more horrifying.

Drawing from first-person experiences, this narrative provides a unique lens into Scientology as a celebrity spirituality thriving in an age where celebrities are the American idols, but unfolds a disturbing exploration into its dark operations, its founder as messiah and madman, its current abusive leadership, and its goal for planetary domination as the world’s religion. After reading this book, people should no longer have trouble comprehending how a celebrity-endorsed church could be committing human rights abuses, or what justifies fanatically dedicated Scientologists to harass and even threaten or injure ex-members and critics.  Like getting to the end of the yellow brick road and discovering the wizard behind the curtain, these pages take the wraps off the church’s celebrity-glazed facade to expose its operation practicing psychological terrorism as a retail religion while selling salvation under the banner of “total spiritual freedom.”

As I have shared in interviews with CBS Inside Edition, CNN, Dateline NBC, and the Los Angeles Times, my (then) husband, Grammy-nominee composer Peter Schless and I entered the Scientology world through Celebrity Centre International in Hollywood. Our success in the music business, including our songs “On the Wings of Love” and the theme song to “Rambo: First Blood Part Two,” and my career as a fashion designer for celebrity clientele paved the way for our initial silver-platter treatment in the church.  Within just a few years of indoctrination, Peter’s and my life morphed from creative artists to fanatical Scientologists. We abandoned our careers and sold our souls when we signed billion year contracts that pledged our current and future lives to spreading Scientology on a global scale.  Believing that we were involved in a humanitarian-religious effort for which we subjected ourselves to hardships, we moved up the ranks to the confidential International Management desert base. 

This story bursts with accounts of inside knowledge about the strategies and celebrity propaganda used by the church to attract favorable attention, including the manipulation of Cruise, Travolta, and other A-list celebs spearheading efforts to seduce major opinion leaders in the arts, sports, and politics. It explains Scientology’s bizarre, sci-fi beliefs; its policies on familial disconnections, condoning abortions, homophobia, and sexual harassment of female staff; the desperate measures taken by staff who desire to leave the church but suffer through abusive treatment in hopes of achieving total spiritual freedom that they believe Scientology will bring them; and puts Miscavige under a microscope. My accounts of his sadistic treatment of staff identify him as someone who belongs behind bars rather than leading a “church.”  (As I write this, CNN and other media are exposing testimonies of other senior-level executives (former associates of mine) who recently left CSI and whose accounts of Miscavige as a perpetrator of abuse corroborate mine).

Church of Scientology's efforts to prevent publication in 2001 and 2006:

Broadman & Holman Publishers contracted me in 2000 to write a book about my Scientology experiences. Chasing After the Wind should have been released in 2001. However, Church of Scientology International (CSI) chief legal counsel, Mr. Elliott Abelson, threatened B&H with a lawsuit if they published my book. He based this threat on a fabricated claim that I had signed a covenant bond of confidentiality subject to $500,000 in damages if I violated it. This document is typically signed by staffers during the exiting process from employment with the Church of Scientology International Management.

I left CSI on my own terms and never signed this alleged covenant. (People who sign it do so to remain in good standing as a Scientologist after they leave employment with CSI and thus promise not to criticize Scientology publicly; I did not plan to remain a Scientologist after I left employment). Nevertheless, the threat of lawsuit caused B&H to pull the project.  Abelson did not contact me personally at that time. As a note, Abelson’s threat came after B&H sent the manuscript to a Washington D.C. lawsuit for a standard libel reading. I believe someone in that law firm notified CSI of my upcoming book and triggered Abelson’s threat.

A similar situation occurred in 2006 when I was under contract to New Hope Publishers, which was about to print my book Escaping Scientology: An Insider’s True Story. According to New Hope's marketing/sales manager, the winter pre-release sales for the book were the highest of any title in their catalog. Abelson threatened New Hope based on the same fabricated claim as he had with B&H. New Hope pulled the project, not interested in tangling up defense funds with CSI's infamous, inane lawsuits. . Like B&H, New Hope was intimidated by the idea that it could be culpable for my “violation” of that alleged covenant. 

In March 2006, I had received a letter from Abelson demanding that I “cease and desist disclosing information about Scientology to the media.” (My interviews with CNN, Dateline NBC, the Los Angeles Times, and the M6 Network in Paris had come to CSI’s attention). Interpreting his letter as a cookie-cutter threat typical of CSI legal authorities against critics, I ignored it (I had been in Scientology management so I knew this type of letter was one of its common scare tactics).

 After the New Hope publisher informed me that Abelson had threatened a lawsuit and that she might have to cancel my book to avoid litigation, I contacted Abelson in August 2006.  My hope was to provide a copy of this alleged covenant to New Hope’s attorney to prove that it held no weight against me because I knew I had never signed one. If he had a document signed in my name, then it would have had to be forged. I informed Abelson that I never signed this alleged covenant, and I requested a copy of whatever he claimed to have. I also asked him if he had any other “confidential” documents he believed I had signed over the years and he said “a few.”  I told him the only things I had ever signed while under CSI employment were: 1) a statement I signed in 1986 at Celebrity Centre International that I would not reveal information from the confidential counseling files of celebrities whom we serviced; and 2) a statement in 1989 that I would not reveal the confidential location of the International Management base aka Golden Era Productions outside of Los Angeles. Since then, this location has become public record.

Additionally, I told Abelson that my right to exercise my freedom of speech was not something CSI could successfully suppress.  He replied, “You have the right to speak but we don’t like you to do big media.” 

Despite repeated requests throughout August and September 2006 for this alleged covenant document as well as copies of any other documents with my signature that he claimed to possess, he produced nothing and ignored my calls.

Subsequent to my discussion with Abelson, I made the following legal contacts to inform myself further of my legal position on this matter:

1. I  conferred with a California legal counsel by phone. She told me that in the state of California, CSI as my former employer may not be within any legal means to make employees sign documents to keep quiet while attempting to enforce a contract of employment either past or present. She made this statement without the benefit of having the alleged (non-existent) document to review, but said that this description of the matter appeared to violate California law. She said that Abelson’s letter to me was probably in violation of California law in that an attorney cannot threaten or accuse a person on false grounds; and that a publisher could solidly make a decision to move ahead with my book based on the fact that since CSI failed to provide copies of the requested documents, no documents are provided as evidence. Based on my statement that I did not sign the alleged covenant document, this enables the publisher to assume the documents do not exist.
   
2. I spoke with a second California attorney who has successfully defended clients against CSI.  He said that there are strong legal principles in my favor.  For confidentiality to be enforceable, there has to be a legitimate business interest to be protected, signed in connection with bona fide advancement or raise, neither of which occurred or was applied.

It was a mistake to not file a lawsuit against Abelson for his fabricated claim that caused me personal and professional damage and loss; or against CSI for violation of labor laws and other human rights issues relevant to my employment with them. The church officials take personal pleasure and victory over such accomplishments, and squeal with glee when they have caused injury to a critic. They justify this behavior through their beliefs that they hold the keys to humankind's eternity and so, anyone who attempts to expose Scientology for the suppressive group that it really is, is considered a hero. However, I was intensely focused on completing my college degree as well as pursuing another publishing contract. I felt Scientology’s collapse was imminent, and I also felt it was more crucial to get on with my professional advancement (rebuilding my life now out of Scientology) than to take part in a legal action against CSI at that time.