About Karen Pressley
Cultic Studies interests
Media Interviews
Philosophy of teaching writing
Presentations
Portfolio
Publications
CV
Karen Pressley is an author, communication specialist, and director of KAP Communications in Atlanta. She maintains an active speaking schedule, and provides professional writing, editing, and desktop publishing services to contract clients. Passionate about freedom of expression, she plans to finish her master's degree in Professional Writing in 2011 and then teach writing at college/university level while she pursues a Ph.D. in Public Communication and Rhetoric. Karen’s scholarly interests include application of communication theory to bring further insight into how cult rhetoric affects creativity, how it is used to justify human rights violations, how it affects the power dynamics in cult life, and its use by authoritarian cult leaders that harm members. She's also interested in women's development in the context of coping with coercive control in unhealthy relationships that may oppress women's creativity.
Background
Prior to moving to Atlanta in 1998, a series of creative, entrepreneurial ventures accent Karen's professional background, including in graphic design, and fashion design. In the early 1980s, Karen put aside her career as a fashion designer for celebrity clientele in Hollywood to work with her (then) husband, Peter Schless, musician and Grammy-nominated composer. She established their music publishing company and managed their recording studio, Schlessmusik, in Studio City, California. They published hit songs including “On the Wings of Love” co-written and recorded by Jeffrey Osborne, and the theme song for the movie, “Rambo: First Blood Part II.”
A cultic sojourn, 1982 - 1998
A 16-year sojourn with the Church of Scientology from 1982 - 1998 turned the course of Karen’s life. She recruited celebrities for Scientology's Celebrity Centre in Hollywood before she signed a billion-year contract to work for the church's management group, the Sea Organizaton, in 1985. She served in executive positions at Celebrity Centre before she became the Commanding Office of the Celebrity Centre International network in 1988. She managed the international network of Celebrity Centres before she went on to work for the senior level of church management at Scientology’s desert headquarters near Los Angeles in 1989.
Karen held various positions at the International Management base, also known as Golden Era Productions. Starting out in the Cinema division as a research officer and then costume and sets designer, Karen went on to work in LRH Book Compilations as a proofreader of Hubbard's re-published materials. Church leader David Miscavige promoted her to the office of International Management Public Relations (IMPR) in the Senior Executive Strata, where she worked as Deputy Events Art Director for international events. Karen next worked as deputy to Diana Hubbard, who headed up the routes for getting new people into Scientology around the world. Karen was then promoted by Miscavige to the IMPR Officer post where she worked for nearly a year in 1995 under the Executive Director International, Guillaume Lesevre, while also juggling the role of international uniform designer for staff. She created her own full-time post of designer for the international uniform project, responsible for staff image throughout the Sea Organization worldwide and some of the Scientology public servicing organizations (Celebrity Centre in Hollywood, CC Washington D.C., Los Angeles Organization, and more). During this time, she worked in the International Landlord's Office, located in the International Finance Office of the Commodore's Messenger Organization International. She was supervised on her projects in London, Copenhagen, Sydney, Clearwater, Washington D.C., the Freewinds cruise ship in the Caribbean, and more by David Miscavige and his wife and assistant, Shelly Miscavige.
During her nine-year tenure at the International Management base, and traveling to Scientology bases around the world on her special projects, Karen's disillusionment with Scientology beliefs and practices dwindled. At the Int base, Karen witnessed David Miscavige and other church leaders commit physical, verbal, and psychological abuse on staff, using beatings, humiliation, and foul language to punish, reprimand, and disempower those junior to them. While caring for staff image and getting a first-hand look at staff living conditions on several continents, she observed human rights violations committed by management against staff, including condoning of abortions, substandard living and child care conditions, and violations of labor laws with slave-like working hours and compensation. Karen failed twice in attempts to get out of the Sea Org in 1990 and 1993, returning under coercion both times to maintain her marriage with Peter. She finally escaped Scientology in 1998, without Peter. Miscavige urged Peter's disconnection from Karen and enforced their divorce. Grammy-nominee-composer Peter Schless remains to this day behind the barrier-guarded fences of the International Management desert base.
A time of personal renaissance
Karen reunited with her family in Atlanta in 1998 and began to rebuild her life. She found faith in God in 1999 and formed Wings of Love Ministries, in affiliation with Atlanta Community Ministries, to help others cope with the challenges of leaving a cult as well as to educate media, individuals, and organizations who consulted her about Scientology. Karen remarried, and lives with her husband Gregory in the Atlanta metro area.
She earned her B.S. in Communication (Media and Public Relations) in 2008 at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and plans to graduate with her Master of Arts in Professional Writing degree in 2010. Her college education after leaving Scientology unfolded not only new ways of thinking but led her to develop invaluable relationships with faculty, two who have become mentors. Their scholarly support, encouragement, and direction have added to Karen's growing creativity and scholarship, and marks a significant period of empowerment in the ongoing process of rebuilding her life.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King
Despite threats from the Church of Scientology's chief legal counsel to be quiet about her experiences in Scientology management, and particularly not to appear in major media, Karen refuses to be silent about things that matter to her. She has actively exposed Scientology's human rights violations. She is consulted regularly on Scientology issues by media and former cult members and their families. She is a guest speaker for radio and television shows, conferences, seminars, and academic classes. She has appeared on Dateline NBC (about recruiting celebrities for Scientology), CBS Inside Edition (commented on the death of Jett Travolta), CNN (commented on Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ wedding in Italy), and many local and national television and radio shows. Her published interviews include the Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Sunday Paper, Andrew Morton’s book, An Unauthorized Biography of Tom Cruise (St. Martin’s Press, 2008) and a new book on Scientology by a New York publisher (forthcoming, 2011).
"A book should be a ball of light in one's hand." - Ezra Pound
Her first two books exposing her Scientology story, Chasing After the Wind (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001) and Escaping Scientology: An Insider’s True Story (New Hope Publishers, 2006) were suppressed from publication by Scientology officials who used a fraudulent claim as the basis for threats of lawsuits, holding the publishers culpable (for her alleged violation of a bond of confidentiality--that she never signed) in the event of publication. She is presently preparing for the upcoming release of a revised version of Escaping Scientology: An Insider's True Story.
Passionate about freedom of speech, Karen directs her writing interests mostly toward cultic studies. She authored five entries for Baker Dictionary of Cults (forthcoming, 2011), and numerous articles on Scientology for websites and e-publications. She is preparing to teach writing at college/university level and is shaping a pedagogy for teaching composition that is based on liberation and developing creativity. She is also interested in writing about women's empowerment and leadership, and co-authored her first women’s inspirational book, Seven Secrets to Timeless Beauty with Norma Day (Harvest House Publishers, 2005).
Concurrent with Escaping Scientology, her newest work in progress, Experiencing Creativity: Breaking Free from Spiritual Abuse and the Emergence of the Creative Self, provides a theoretical framework for understanding how cult rhetoric can suppress creativity in individuals under coercive control. It illustrates the communication process within the hegemony of oppressive relationships, and addresses healing from spiritual abuse. This book references her recently published research article “Creativity and Cults from Sociological and Communication Perspectives: The Processes Involved in the Birth of a Secret Creative Self” which includes a case study on Karen’s experiences in Scientology. She co-authored this article with sociologist Dr. Miriam Boeri, who also included a case study on her former membership in the Children of God (Family of Love) cult. Their article appears in the "The Last Draw - Creativity and Cults," the final issue of Cultic Studies Review, a journal published by the International Association of Cultic Studies (ICSA, August 2010). Karen and Dr. Boeri co-presented their paper at ICSA’s international conference in New York in July 2010 with a discussion on “Creativity and Cults.”
Karen maintains an active speaking schedule while finishing her master's degree and actively developing numerous writing projects. Her display of a strong creative self since departing Scientology debunks Hubbard's claim that people who leave the Sea Organization will not make it outside. On the contrary, Karen's personal, academic, and professional achievements confirm that once an individual breaks free from a suppressive, unhealthy relationship, and reclaims sovereignty over one's life, the individual can experience a personal renaissance.
Karen invites you to read one of her recent articles, "From the fire to a blessing field: Transitioning from an unhealthy relationship to a life of creativity." She describes "coercive control" and the radical difference between a life subject to it versus a life free of it. After reading this article, you'll understand how Scientology's Sea Organization environment of coercive control reduces the ability to think autonomously or creatively and instills terror and powerlessness. Her article offers insight into the importance of creativity and maintaining self-autonomy, as well as options that disempowered individuals have when coping with coercive control in any type of relationship.READ THE ARTICLE
