Tonka Talk Community and Connection
Welcome to Tonka Talk, the podcast that explores community and connection around Lake Minnetonka.
Nestled near the serene shores of Lake Minnetonka in the Twin Cities, our show is your guide to discovering the inspiring stories of individuals and groups who are crafting vibrant, meaningful community and connection in this picturesque setting.
From lakeside gatherings to community events, from stories of local heroes to heartwarming tales of collaboration, we dive into the ways people are coming together to create a strong sense of belonging.
Whether you're a longtime resident, a newcomer to the area, or simply interested in the power of community, Tonka Talk has something for you.
Do you know of someone creating community and connection in a unique or big way? Share it with us. We would love to hear from you.
Learn more and connect with us at https://www.tonkatalk.com
To connect with Natalie: Natalie@tonkatalk.com
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Tonka Talk Community and Connection
Children in Scientology: Part 4 Scientology - Life After a Cult
Welcome back to another riveting episode of Tonka Talk. Have you ever found yourself questioning the dynamics of a group you were a part of?
Join the conversation with host Natalie Webster, as she continues the heart-wrenching tale of her experiences growing up in the Church of Scientology. Together with her sister Lana, they embark on a nostalgic journey that will make you laugh, cry, and gasp in disbelief.
This episode promises to unravel the complex web of Scientology, its secretive organizations, and the life-altering experiences of those ensnared in it.
From the shocking revelations of a teenage recruit coerced into signing a billion-year contract, to the devastating effects of a culture built on surveillance and reporting.
Additionally, listen as we uncover how family bonds are tested when duty to an organization is prioritized over childhood.
Join us as Natalie and Lana courageously delve into their therapeutic journey. They discuss the healing process and the power of open family communication. The importance of shared experiences is emphasized as Natalie encourages listeners to reach out with their questions or if they seek support.
Join us on this emotional roller coaster as we unveil the harsh realities of life within the Church of Scientology. You won't want to miss it.
Learn more at https://www.tonkatalk.com where we share more about our Lake Minnetonka community, including upcoming events and our take on local experiences.
Connect with us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TonkaTalk/
If you have feedback, questions, or suggestions of a future guests creating community and connection, email natalie@tonkatalk.com
We appreciate your support in sharing Tonka Talk Community and Connection with someone you think could benefit from our content.
Hello everyone and welcome to Tonka Talk, where we talk about community and connection, and each Friday I share my personal story of growing up in Scientology, leaving, and how I found true community after that in the community that I live and work in. Today, I'm Natalie Webster, and this is Tonka Talk. This is part four of my story. Today, though, I have a special treat for you my sister, lana, who you've heard me talk about in the last. Well, we're on part four, so in the last three parts, I've probably mentioned Lana each time. Welcome Lana.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody, and the cool thing is this is actually Lana's first time publicly saying anything about Scientology her time in the C organization. Right, yeah, like you've not talked about it at all. Nope, yeah. So here we go. I'm going to wrap up a little bit, or actually, I'm going to kind of remind you where we left off. Where we left off in part three we talked about how my well, our grandpa became our dad and where I left off. I left off on the part where I ended up being sent away, and this was in 1983. So I had just turned 13. We were living in Waipahu right.
Speaker 1:And my big sin, the thing that I did at 13 that got me banished for three months by our grandpa dad, was that I kissed a boy. It was at the remember that park in Waipahu where it had the baseball field, and there was a pool there.
Speaker 2:It was Waipahu Rec Center.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I was there at the time. I had a kind of boyfriend, Joseph Rivera I even remember his name, which is crazy. We were 13 and we were in the dugout at the baseball field and this was my first kiss ever and we had a little make out session and the crazy thing is I didn't even enjoy it. I thought kissing was kind of gross.
Speaker 2:I believe you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I remember I was kind of spitting on the way home because I thought it was kind of gross that he put his tongue in my mouth and it seemed very not hygienic. This was at 13 and my first kiss not the most you know magical experience I don't know if anybody's first time I don't know, maybe it is Mine wasn't Not memorable either. Nope, so I kissed this boy. I had a home I'm kind of excited about it because it was my first kiss and I was 13 and I shared it with our cousin who would come from California and stay with us sometimes and for a while she was living there as well and she was a year younger, a year older than me, and I shared with her what happened and she ratted on me.
Speaker 1:She told our grandpa my grandpa dad, because by them our mom had already married him and he flipped out and the result of that was me pretty quickly being sent to Washington state, to Moses Lake, washington state, which is I kind of it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere to go live with our mom's sister and our cousins, cindy and Julie, who were just a week younger than me. They're twins and that was the deal and at the time it was this kind of this attitude I was being told of I needed to see how other people lived. It was this vibe, the way I recall it, that I was just ungrateful and I broke this rule. We weren't supposed to have boyfriend. Do you remember being told anything about it when I was sent away?
Speaker 2:Just that you kissed a boy and that you were banished to go live with our cousins in Washington state and there was no set time that you would be back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was no, this was not a round trip ticket and it was in the dead of winter. And, remember, we grew up in Hawaii, so we were on the island of Oahu. I had left only one time, which is when we left. It was probably like the year before when we went to California, which was the first time I'd ever been off island out of Hawaii, and that's when our mom and grandpa went off to Vegas while we were in California and got married. So we're back from that, they're married, and then I kissed this boy, I get sent off. It's the fall of. What was it like? 83, 84, I was 13. So I had to have been the fall of 83.
Speaker 1:I spent three months in Washington living with my cousins and my aunt and pretty much had to kind of beg my way back. I remember asking mom a few times like when do I get to come home? At first it was kind of cool because I thought, oh, I get to go see snow and experience the mainland, something I'd never done. You know, you know me, I'm always looking for the silver lining. Yep, the traveler too. Yeah, so I was going to be able to travel and it was a real eye-opener because I'd never been again to. I'd never gone to school on the mainland. It was where I learned to speak proper English, using good grammar, because in Hawaii we grew up speaking what's called pigeon English and I didn't even realize that I didn't speak speak proper English. So I did learn that there in Washington.
Speaker 1:Three months go by. By then it's January 1984. I finally am allowed back and pretty much understand that if I want to stay in the household, I need to. It's not unusual for a family to say you know what you need, our house, our rules. My pushback is not against that. It was more like if we didn't, you know, like kiss butt basically, and not have a voice and not question him, then there wouldn't be an issue. And there were issues because he had a beef with the church of Scientology in Hawaii and so he would get upset when we would go there. I remember you getting in trouble once for going to the church in Hawaii and wanting to do one of the services. Maybe it was the purification rundown. I remember this causing a this like big, this big problem. But we're just trying to like I'm back, I'm trying to lay low. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm still 13 at that point and I'm.
Speaker 1:I was feeling a little resentful when I got back, like, oh wow, I I did get to see how other people live and it was not like how we lived. That was. You know, it was 1983, not 1920. Kissing a boy at 13 is something very normal to do and it was made into this dirty, horrible thing, which I find really interesting, given that our current stepdad, grandpa dad was sleeping with our mom, got married, his son's wife left his wife of many, many, many years and decades to marry our mom. And I'm like, seriously, like you're going to call me out for kissing a boy at 13 as a single 13-year-old kissing another single 13-year-old no scandal at all After everything that just went down in our family. Yeah, very hypocritical. Yeah, yeah, completely. So I come back and do you remember, lawni, if you guys, if you were hanging out at the church in Hawaii anymore, or were you kind of just home doing your thing While you were gone, while?
Speaker 1:I was gone yeah, or when I got back.
Speaker 2:I was basically floating around playing with our cousin Burgundy and being a kid because part of it was summertime, I thought.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you were 11 at this time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was. I just started working at the trophy shop and so I just kept busy doing that, playing with our other cousin and trying to stay out of trouble, staying quiet, staying obedient, having a good work ethic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is nothing wrong with having a good work ethic, and I will say we did develop a good work ethic.
Speaker 2:We did.
Speaker 1:But could have been done in a little bit of a different way. So we move forward here and I'm back in Hawaii and I start hanging out with I make a new friend who's the son of the executive director of the Church of Scientology in Hawaii and his name was Bruce and he was my age. We hit it off, we hung out. We were really really good friends. My, in fact, my mom would let him sleep over at our house and we would all hang out. It was completely platonic. And he was recruited. He ended up joining staff in Hawaii and he was 15 then. He might have started when he was earlier, do you recall?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I don't remember when he started, but it was somewhere between 13 and 15. But at 15, I remember, he was recruited for the C organization. Now, if you don't know, the C organization is Scientology's I would call it their paramilitary branch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, management, yeah, global organizations and middle management and international management.
Speaker 1:You sign a billion year contract because you're dedicating not just this lifetime, but in Scientology they believe in multiple lifetimes, but that you're going to come back lifetime after lifetime to serve these billion years, to serve Scientology Now. So because Bruce was a staff member there in Hawaii, you were not allowed to leave to go to the C organization if you had a current contract there. Staff members signed two and a half and five year contracts, which is an interesting point because they're considered volunteers, which is how the church gets around, not paying them. Yet you can't leave, not like any other volunteering that I have run into since then. So Bruce wants to go to California to join the C organization, but he has to replace himself first. So he recruits me to take his job in Hawaii so he can go on to California and join the C organization.
Speaker 1:So by this time I'm 15 and I was. It was my sophomore year in high school and the plan was for me to drop out and join staff, be working at the Church of Scientology in Hawaii. My mom was fully on board because joining staff or joining the C organization was just like, I don't know, becoming a doctor in some families or joining the priesthood Right. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:She would be very proud of us.
Speaker 1:Yes, so at that time and I'm thinking, oh, I get to drop out of school, which, honestly, I think was one of the biggest reasons why I did it.
Speaker 2:That's one of the big reasons why I joined the C org. That's why I joined the C org is because I didn't, I was going to flunk out of ninth grade and because you missed so many days. Because I missed so many days goofing off and yeah it was, it was, it was one way out. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this and this is a theme that you will hear in, I think, both of our stories is always trying to find a way out of a situation, and you'll we'll talk more about some of the rules in the C organization and Scientology that in the end, we ended up using against them to get out. So I dropped out of high school. I joined staff in Hawaii. Bruce goes off to California to join the C organization. I not long after get sent to California to do training for my job in Hawaii and again I thought, well, I mean I'm 15, but you know I'd already gotten sent off before, but I was living with family. So at this point I'm like well, this you know, you stay in a dorm. I thought it would be kind of like going off to college. You wish I know which. If you know anything about Scientology and the C organization, it is nothing like that. Think more prison or prison camp. Yeah, what did you say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So I go to California, I'm 15 years old, to start this training to be able to be a staff member in Hawaii, and I remember the first time when I arrived and was taken up to the dorm, the way that C organization and I'm going to call it C org for short, because it's just easier, but the C? Org is the C organization, which again is the paramilitary branch of Scientology where you sign a billion year contract not unusual to as a young teen, or even child, to do this. So they take me up to where I'm going to be staying and point out my bunk and I'm mortified. I walk into this room. There's rows and rows of bunk beds, three beds, three beds high. It looked like what you see on television with jails. They were small, right, they weren't twin beds, they weren't they smaller than that, do you?
Speaker 2:recall I think they were twin extra long beds technically, but more caught like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were really thin mattresses, and so my bunk was to be the top bunk. Now there's no. I'm 15 years old. The only time I'd really left home was when I got sent to Washington, but even then I was staying with family. It was, I remember, that night just balling in that bed because it was so gross. I don't think there were even sheets. It was the building that we lived in, worked and studied in used to be a hospital, and if you go to Hollywood in LA and you look for these big blue Scientology buildings, that's where. That's where we were, that's where I was. In fact, the main road they renamed off the sunset is now called Elrond Harboured Way.
Speaker 1:So I'm thinking, okay, this is horrific, the living conditions, but I'm going to try to make the most of it. If nothing else, we know how to survive under unusual and difficult circumstances. So I start my training, I'm going at it. In the meantime, you're back home. At this time you're almost 14. You're not even 14. You're, it's getting towards the end of the school year and you drop out of school Yep, which you weren't even legally. That was the whole thing. When I dropped out, I was 15, but I would have turned 16 by my junior year of high school, so I they felt like, well, that was fine.
Speaker 2:You mean, which meant that you could just drop out at 16?
Speaker 1:Yep, you could legally drop out of school in Hawaii, at least then at 16. And I dropped out at 15, but I was. I would have turned 16 before the next school year. So I'm in California studying. You're back home in Hawaii, you're 14. Tell me about how you got recruited for the C organization.
Speaker 2:Well, a C org member came to the Hawaii org and he was recruiting for CMU Central Marketing Unit and I was there and and I would say I got coerced into signing the billion year contract. You know, they play it up, they don't, they don't say oh, your bunk bed is going to be the highest, it's going to smell like bedbugs and you're not going to have any sheets and blankets until you figure it out.
Speaker 1:They don't tell you that up front. No, they make it sound almost like you're going to go to summer camp.
Speaker 2:Yep Summer camp. I would have a guardian.
Speaker 1:Your guardian was to be your recruiter, right, correct? And your recruiter was a man named Jonathan Glasford, yes, who I think now like he escaped the C organization eventually, and I think he went to Canada, but I'm not positive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not sure. Long story short, he never showed up. I went to LA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, remember, she's 14 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he never showed up. I believe he blew.
Speaker 1:And to blow in Scientology means to depart and leave without authorization, which, a lot of the times, is about the only way that you can leave. Then I really sign off on people leaving that often. So you're 14, you get recruited by Jonathan. He tells the family that he's going to be your legal guardian. Make sure that you're in school, keep an eye on you Because, again, you're only 14.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:You get to California, you never see the man.
Speaker 2:No, I never see the man. I was introduced to the Sea Org by getting to the birding building in the middle of the night and it was dark. There was no reception, everyone was sleeping and I was told take your bag and go find this lady who is going to be your. She's going to take care of you while you're in the EPF.
Speaker 1:And the EPF is the Estate Project Force, think Boot Camp for Sea Org members. It's training that we go through, where you spend how many hours a day for studying Five? I think five hours or so. You study, you study Sea Org courses To become a Sea Org member and the rest of the time you're doing physical labor Correct. So you're 14, you're not in school, you arrive at this, you know again, three bunk beds high and all that, and you're starting the Estate Project Force to become a Sea Organization member.
Speaker 2:Yep, Yep, and so I arrive. There were no signs or anything in the building. It was a shanty kind of a building. The stairs inside were cement and crumbling and the when I did find the lady and she brought me to my dorm, same thing. There was no sheets or blankets. The bed was really gross and we could not use the bathroom or the shower Because it didn't work. They worked. I don't know if it was because they didn't want to pay for it, or you know, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure you know, I have no idea. You mean you were told you could not use the bathroom or the shower in the room, correct? And you have to kind of picture these rooms with these bunk beds, three high. These are not large rooms and I would say I know my first dorm probably had 15 women in it and there was one bathroom. So most of us went to another building to shower or even use the bathroom. 15 women, I think there were 15 to 17. And they're all one next to the other, these bunks. There's no like living room, there's no kitchen. You eat in a cafeteria so you get sent to then. Are you staying then with the other people who were in the boot camp?
Speaker 2:Yep, staying with them at this point and the next morning. You know LA, you know the smog settles and it stinks. You know in the mornings and it was cold and I was coming from Hawaii so I didn't really have proper winter gear for the mornings, but you know there's blood on the sidewalk from. You know the night beforeers mugging or killing or who knows, because it was right in Hollywood. Yeah, right off of Hollywood.
Speaker 1:Boulevard, yeah, in the 80s?
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah, just with a bunch of tired, disheveled people trying to make it through the EPF? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, one of the things that happened and I think this was this would have been, would you say, one thing that happened in 1986, and a lot of what we're talking about right now happened around 1986. L Ron Harbour died in January of 1986. And it was this. There was this really big event where it was like mandatory well, all the events were mandatory for all Scientologists to attend and it was announced. And that is when David Miscavige took over the Church of Scientology. And at that time, I feel like too, because L Ron Harbour died, there was almost more of this fever pitch to contribute and become dedicated and dedicate your life to Scientology. That was also when that album came out, scientology. The church put out an album called the Road to Freedom, which I think you can look up on the internet and you should just prepare to be. It's so cringe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is cringe.
Speaker 1:It's cringe, but I gotta say it's. Sometimes the songs get stuck in my head and it's not a completely negative feeling, I think, because when there were times when you know we managed to create joy where we could find, find fun where we could find, you know, try to make friends. This Road to Freedom album comes out in 1986 and L Ron Harbour wrote all of the songs.
Speaker 2:There's a lame.
Speaker 1:You gotta hear it was like get on the road to freedom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Help us save all mankind. You know the words yes. Now, if you are an ex-Scientologist and you're hearing this and it's triggering, I'm very sorry. On this album was John Travolta. He sang on the album Chick Corea, leif Garrett, frank Stallone and Karen Black, yep. I don't know if there were other people, but I remember the little twins specifically. It was L Ron Harbour and Friends the Road to Freedom, and this album was played all the time Yep, constantly, constantly, which is probably why it's still stuck in her head.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had some fun in the cult.
Speaker 1:We have some good memories. Yeah, it's something where it's I kind of liken it to, you know, when you go to some countries where they don't have a lot. You know, you've traveled a lot and you've been to the Dominican Republic, you've been to where you see these kids who don't have hardly anything but they're laughing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they're having fun making their own fun.
Speaker 1:They're making their own fun within with the circumstances, with what they have to work with, and I think it's also a way of coping and dealing with what's going on, especially when you're a kid and being children. In Scientology, you're not seen as children, you are spiritual beings with small bodies, yep. So that's why you know like Lana was working at 11 and working, not like were you working part time. Are you doing full time summers?
Speaker 2:Full time. I was even during school. I was. I was earning, I think, a dollar an hour and I got paid 40 bucks quite consistently.
Speaker 1:Yeah For working full time, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's why I dropped out of school. What to make the 40 bucks to because working was more important than school.
Speaker 1:That's very true. That was kind of a theme in our family as well. Our mom, even before she got into science, she got into Scientology and when I was five and you were three she married a Scientologist and I talk about that in an earlier episode. There is this mentality of being one of the worst things you could do, I would say, as a child in Scientology and a Scientology family is be a distraction.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, wouldn't you say yeah?
Speaker 1:That was one of the worst things that you could do or be. So if you were working, we worked in the family business, which is how they got away paying a dollar an hour. And you know, you were 11, not even working age, and I think there were rules. If it was a family business, then child labor laws didn't fully apply. Plus, it was the 80s, it was in Hawaii, I don't know that anyone was was really checking but early on we were indoctrinated to believe that our contribution, regardless of age, as children, being able to work and contribute, was far more important than school and studies and learning short of studying Scientology.
Speaker 1:So there wasn't value put on education, which is why and how you were allowed to, you know pretty much unchecked Go through your freshman year and end up pretty much failing because you didn't, I didn't, never went, you never went. So it's that you got to kind of understand that mentality. But we're still kids. We still wanted to have fun and laugh and find some joy Again, just like children in other parts of the world who who seem to have nothing, and yet there they are laughing. And remember that time you went to the Dominican Republic. Can we tell the eyebrow story, your eyebrow?
Speaker 2:Oh, I do remember that?
Speaker 1:Was that the Dominican Republic? Yes, so a lot in her adult life, post Scientology, has done quite a bit of traveling and you were in the Dominican Republic doing. You were voluntary, yep.
Speaker 2:I was on a mission and we were rebuilding some houses, some shanty homes, and this is post.
Speaker 1:Scientology after Lana. Lana left Scientology in the cult long before our family did, but she did it very quietly. She was very careful about anything she ever said to us because she knew it could lead to us cutting ties with her and disconnecting. But you still. You got involved in other groups and organizations and did good in the world. So you're there volunteering and almost everyone in our family, including our dad, like. Our eyebrows just come out. Yeah, they elopecia. So our grandma had tattooed eyebrows. Both Lana and I have tattooed eyebrows. But before you tattooed the eyebrows, go ahead and share what happened.
Speaker 2:So I'm basically bald in the eyebrow sections and I went to the Dominican Republic on a missions trip and the children there, although extremely poor, they laughed and said I laughed and sang songs and wanted to be with us and explore these Americans that were coming in to help them. And although I didn't speak their language and they didn't speak English, this 12 year old girl points at her eyebrows and looks at me and says no, no, I'm like oh gosh, yeah, I don't have any eyebrows. It must be really interesting to look at a person with no eyebrows. It is.
Speaker 1:It's an odd look. Yeah it's an odd look, but they were laughing, laughing and making fun of this and they were laughing. I thought that was so funny because they were laughing in a way. When you told the story earlier that it wasn't like a in a mean spirited- way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no was just a curious.
Speaker 1:Exactly, they were curious and they found it so funny. Yeah, they did. I thought that was so funny. But that's an example of, I think, when your kids, regardless of what's going on around you, there's still this desire to play. You want to play. I mean, even as an adult. Some of the more happy adults I know are the ones that still play. They get out there and make a snowman if they want, they dance if they want. They're just things that you would relate to more with maybe children doing. But you can't take it too far, because if we did some of the things kids did, we'd be locked up.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so you're in boot camp for the C organization, the Estates Project Force, where you study C org member training for five hours a day and you're doing manual labor the rest of the time. What was that like?
Speaker 2:It was very intense, very strict. You weren't allowed to listen to music or have any kind of fun whatsoever. I had beautiful feet when I went to the C org. I had an arch, just gorgeous feet, and I didn't have shoes that would support my feet. With all the running and everything, you're on your feet all day long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to run everywhere that you go, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my arches fell and they hurt so bad and I should have gone to the doctor. They were swollen. I could barely walk, but I was still made to run and do all of the chores that we had to do. Never went to the doctor about it, so now I have flat feet.
Speaker 1:I wonder if that's why I have flat feet. Maybe we both have flat feet. I wonder we should talk to a what's a foot doctor? Pediatrics yeah, I thought it was maybe something you were born with, but what you're saying is making a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, arches fell and it was very painful.
Speaker 1:Do you remember how long you were in boot camp?
Speaker 2:About three to four months and seeing that I had a background in work you know I made Boson yeah.
Speaker 1:And explain what Boson is.
Speaker 2:Boson, like your own ship, is the person who is in charge of the Estates Project Force people you take down statistics and you check on their work and you make sure everybody's present and accounted for it at Musters. And yeah, it was a, it was a really neat responsibility. That was actually a joy for me because I it was unexpected, completely unexpected. Yeah, it wasn't expect I was 14. I was just a child you know nobody.
Speaker 1:And there were adults in the boot camp. Oh, plenty, adults, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that could have been Boson too, but I guess I was such a good worker yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause you've been working full time since you were 11 in the family business back in back in Hawaii. It was sometimes. This is kind of a question I get often about Scientology, which is how, growing up in Scientology, a lot of people don't understand we're not going to get too much into this now but why people stay, or why you put up with some of the abuses and craziness that goes on. It's a slow boil, but when it starts to bubble it stays. At a boil, I think, is how I would describe it. So when you're kind of you know, growing up we were indoctrinated to believe that our value as people, as children, was based on what we could do, what we could produce. Yeah, what?
Speaker 2:what could we contribute to the group? That was the best for the group, Exactly Not for you All about the group and L Ron Harbour teaches even he.
Speaker 1:There's a Scientology doctrine where he says and this is used often, it was used in our family and it was used, it's used a ton in Scientology. And L Ron Harbour says and I think this is an exact quote we rather have you dead than incapable. So from a very young age we were indoctrinated to believe that if we could not be capable, live up to these expectations, do work well beyond our years, keep schedules, we should not have been keeping as children basically not be children but be adults. Yeah, that we needed to be able to do it and do it with competence. Yeah, and that's a theme in the C organization they have, they have, they have. What is they're saying? It's many are called, fewer chosen. Yeah, and so it really.
Speaker 1:When you're a young person, you really have this young person in Scientology, you're indoctrinated with a sense of duty is not a bad thing in and of itself. But when it replaces your childhood, when it replaces relationships like familial relationships and bonding and I don't, it might have been different for you, but growing up I don't remember a lot of physical contact. No, In terms of hugs or things like that, I always, I always would tease Lana because I always said she was, she was the favorite. So I always just assumed she was getting all the affection. Little did you know? Yeah, there was really not. Not a lot of that, because we were, we were seeing more. It didn't feel as much like a family as it did Like a corporation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were. We worked with our aunts, our aunties and our cousins and our grandpa, dad and our mother. We worked all the time and yeah, we didn't do extracurricular activities.
Speaker 1:I did a little bit of track in high school and I remember having to drop out at that because I needed to work and that was a bummer. So there wasn't a lot of childhood going on, you know, really being able to be kids when we were growing up. But because of this we made good C organization members and that's why they often would recruit the youngest children of Scientologists that they could, because they knew that we were already being indoctrinated into this way of living, working and seeing the world. So when you finally graduated, now to finish the Estates Project Force, which is Bootcamp for C organization members, yours took, you said, three or four months. There are some people who are on it for several months.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, there are a lot of those, and you know me being 14, probably you know, kind of illiterate you know, seeing that I was out of school. There was no school in the C-Org too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, none of these underage kids were going to school.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah. It was just what you could contribute to the workforce.
Speaker 1:Yeah to the cause.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you had to make money.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, if you were selling things in Scientology and that was your job, you didn't get paid anything you got during my day in the C-Org, I think we were getting $40 a week, $40 or $50 when you were getting paid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you were getting paid, and if you weren't, you know, on the EPF, maybe they, maybe I never I don't recall getting paid, but maybe it was $15 here and there, yeah, when you were on the Estates Project Force, which again the bootcamp.
Speaker 1:You, I think you got half pay is what it was. So people would get like $15, $30. It was probably $15, because I think it was between $30 and $40 back in our day in the 80s?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think ours was $30 a week if you were a full-blown C-Org member.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you graduate the Estates Project Force, you're still 14. What happens then? So the I never make it to CMU Because then that's the central marketing unit, which is a C-Organization that oversaw marketing for the whole global Scientology. You went, you started, though which organization did you start?
Speaker 2:at.
Speaker 1:So then I got recruited for CMO PAC which is the Commodores Messenger Organization, referred to a lot as the CMO, and PAC is the Pacific, it's California, it's LA, it's where we were. So the Commodores Messenger Organization for the Pacific area, and to be in the CMO there are specific qualifications, different from other C-Org positions, like you couldn't ever have like and this is why they were mostly children. They were.
Speaker 1:You were a messenger, you were considered a messenger when you were in this organization for Elrond Hubbard and if anyone has studied or watched things on Scientology about the C-Organization, you learned that he had these young kids, elrond Hubbard, who would take his orders and go get them enforced and executed. It didn't matter if the people that they were bossing around were adults. This was their job. You had to call them Sir. Even women in the C-Organization were referred to as Sir if you were senior to someone else. The C-Organization was modeled after the military, the Navy. Elrond Hubbard had been in the Navy, so a lot of that carried over into how the C-Organization was run and what it was like you had. We had roll call. Actually I would argue it was well. It definitely was more strict than the military because it was massively abusive.
Speaker 1:Roll calls, you know you had to be at roll call what? Three, four times a day. This was kind of like a normal thing for C-Organization members. You're lucky if you got 30 minutes for lunch, oh yeah, kind of a thing. So you go into the commenters messenger organization. You're a fresh C-Organization member and I remember, because I remember, because I think your hair was short then and you got your uniform and technically I would have had to have called you Sir because you were senior to me, but at a point you went up to the international base and in Scientology, in the C-Organization, everybody knows where it is. Now it's in Hemet. Golden Arrow Productions is there. But at this time if you were a Scientologist or a C-Organization member, you did not know where the International Management Base was.
Speaker 2:Yes, Huge secret. Everybody knew where it was, except for Scientologists.
Speaker 1:That's so true. They had a giant sign out. So you never knew. You never knew. There was kind of like there would be well, people would drive back and forth, but there would be a van that would kind of regularly go and take people, and when you first go you're not told how long it's going to take, you're not told where it is. So you're recruited up to go into International Management to the Commodors Messenger Organization International, otherwise known as CMO Int. That is then where you headed. Were you about 15?
Speaker 2:by then I think I must have been about 15.
Speaker 1:Freshly 15.
Speaker 2:Yeah, freshly 15.
Speaker 1:So you're on the secretive base. What was that like?
Speaker 2:It was really nice.
Speaker 1:Physically nice. Physically nice.
Speaker 2:Lots of trees, small roads, everything was walkable. A spread out base, not like huge buildings like LA or anything. Sure, it was like bunkers and things, but it was really somber when I went because it wasn't that long after Elwynne Hubbard had died and David Miscavige had taken over the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now they weren't somber because Elwynne Hubbard died. No, I kind of want to clarify that point because in Scientology, especially in the C organization, you are not allowed to show what they call misemotion, negative emotions, cry, be upset, sad. For some reason you can be super pissed off at agreement people, as long as they are junior to you, but you're not allowed to express those type of emotions. So the somberness was coming from people. Being like this is horrible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody was having a really bad time. David Miscavige was a tyrant and getting down on everybody. Golden era productions, I think, was in the state of emergency at the time. So everybody was, like you know, head down. Nobody befriended me. It was quiet, and quiet in the sense that DM had a motorcycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, DM is what people call David Miscavige.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he had a motorcycle and it was very loud and you could hear him start it and roll down the hill to different parts of the base and people would get really scared and anxious. You know when that happened.
Speaker 1:Because this man was and is abusive to his staff. And all you have to do is a quick Google of Scientology and David Miscavige and you will find and understand the abuses that occurred in Scientology at the top levels of the C organization when you were there. Were you ever around David Miscavige?
Speaker 2:Not in the same office or anything, but I did see him around. He would be in the cafeteria talking to staff. A few times he would be yelling at staff, particularly gold staff, golden era productions.
Speaker 1:They created the videos and the cassette tapes back then and then became DVDs of all of Erwin Harbour's materials.
Speaker 2:Yes and yeah. He yell writing people's faces, spitting all red, faced with his IG's right behind him.
Speaker 1:And those are inspector generals. At this time there was an inspector general which would have been like the head honcho over different branches of Scientology. If you think of it like the, what is it in the military, it's like the chief of staff, I don't know. Anyways, they were each over these different parts of Scientology. That went away fairly quickly when David Miscavige, not long after, went full dictator and started getting rid of people, and so you were kind of there around the beginning of that.
Speaker 2:Yep, just the beginning. I should also mention I did get, I did have one friend. That's right, I had one friend in the world at SEMOINT and her name was Rowan Hubbard and she was about 12. And we had a blast together. She was allowed to do a lot of things that regular CRG members weren't allowed to do, like go into spaces and trespass, basically yeah and yeah she. Once we were. She took me up to the rafters of this warehouse where they were using for movie props.
Speaker 1:And we should. We should clarify too Rowan Hubbard was Elron Hubbard's granddaughter Correct, who was born and raised, and at this time she was only 12 at the International Base.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and she. We were up in the rafters one time and DM came with his IGs into the building. So David Miscavige and his his head guys, yeah it was Marty Rathburn, mike Rinder and I forget the guy's other name. I'll think of it in a minute. But anyway, they're talking. They're talking about projects or whatever.
Speaker 1:I couldn't even really hear them, but I was terrified because if they looked up, there we were and Rowan is starting to laugh and crack up so bad that she had to cover her mouth and you know, because she's not going to get in trouble, because she got special treatment as Elron Hubbard's granddaughter. Yeah, but here you are a regular CRG member Regular.
Speaker 2:CRG member, brand new to the base, and you know, of course I knew I would be getting the blame for for going up in the rafters like that, but she laughed and laughed and finally they left and boy, that was a. I dodged a bullet, but yeah, she was really fun. I miss her terribly and you know, we had a lot of fun together. Somebody actually wrote a KR on me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's a knowledge report. So in Scientology if someone violates the group policy, Erwin Hubbard's policy or rules you, they write what's called a knowledge report on you. They basically read on you.
Speaker 1:It's a huge part of the Scientology culture and you're indoctrinated to believe that you're reporting on these people for their own good right, for their own spiritual freedom. But really it's used as a weapon to intimidate, to cause problems and to rad on each other and it creates this atmosphere of no true connection, no real community, because you don't know, if you say something that sounds even the slightest like you're unhappy in this organization, you will be written up and then you will have to undergo reprogramming, re-inductrination, so you really don't open up to a lot of people. So you got a knowledge report written on you. For what?
Speaker 2:It said that Rowan has been very serious since the new girl came around. In so many words and I noticed they'd walk together and just be very serious. And Rowan isn't laughing and playing and no misery.
Speaker 1:Which is so ironic because it's that it's an out point that this child is not laughing and playing yet every single other child in Scientology, in the SEA organization.
Speaker 1:If you're laughing and playing, you're out ethics, you're doing wrong, you need to be corrected, you need to be handled. But for her it was different and I'm happy for her for that, because that's I mean today. She's gotta be well, let's see, we're in our early 50s, so she's gotta be in her late 40s. Yeah, at least hopefully, her childhood was somewhat a little bit more normal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think they tried to. She had home school and-.
Speaker 1:Yeah, meanwhile, no one else is going to school. You weren't going to school.
Speaker 2:No, she didn't have to work all the crazy hours that the rest of us did either. Yeah and yeah, I think she's out now.
Speaker 1:I hope so. I had heard some years ago that she was out. I don't know where she is, but wish her well. I hope she's finding healing and peace.
Speaker 2:If you're out there. Rowan, I love you, I miss you so terribly and I hope you reach out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look for Lana. You can find me easier and I'll connect you with Lana. Yeah, so you get this knowledge report written on you, because-.
Speaker 2:Well, we were talking about serious things, you know, for kids. We were contemplating you know serious things sometimes, and that's all. That's all we were doing.
Speaker 1:Nothing to it. So what happened as a result of that report being written?
Speaker 2:Well, I had shortly after that been sent back to the PAC base.
Speaker 1:And this is in LA. Back to LA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, back to LA. I got into a little bit of trouble I had. You know, there was nobody there for me, there was nobody to show you around, there was nobody to guide you.
Speaker 1:And remember she's only 15 years old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, everyone was living in fear and I was very alone and scared, and you know had nobody except for Rowan. So I did get into a little bit of a trouble. When I was there. I did some naughty things so I wasn't allowed back.
Speaker 1:She was what's referred to as busted off the base busted off of the international base, because if you, you know you step out of line, you pretty much get sent down back to back to LA, back to Hollywood, where there's more Scientology management, because you are unworthy at that point, which I would say there's more people who are probably busted out of there than who stay. Now what I wanna do because we were I don't even know how much time we're into this I wanna get more into what happened after that and when we do another episode, I'm gonna share as well how I became, how I joined the C organization and the kind of C organization member that I was, and it might really surprise you when you find out how that went down. And I think hopefully Lana's gonna join us again, sure. So thank you so much for listening. This is part four of my Scientology story and sharing this. It helps me process it, it helps Lana, it helps you process it as well.
Speaker 1:We've talked about this. It's funny because when we, when I first started talking about this on the podcast and Taka Taka is not a podcast about Scientology, it's about the ways people find community and connection but my story in Scientology, my experience has everything to do with my obsession with community and connection today. So I've decided I think I'm finally ready to talk about it more and process what happened. Interestingly, at the same time, lana started a therapy where she's doing the same thing, and so we thought well, well, hell, why don't we both talk about it then? And a lot of these things you and I have never talked about. Yeah, not really. We've not really gotten into it, and so I hope that you join us.
Speaker 1:You can reach me at natalie at tankatakcom. Thank you so much for the emails and the support and the kind words. This is, it's a lot to process. If you have any questions, please email me and ask, and that goes for my family too. At a recent holiday event, I realized that my son, who's 25, there's some things that I hadn't told him about the family that he heard on part three, so I need to remember to update the family, but please do reach out. I'm doing my best to share this story and share with you what that experience was, which again helps us process it. So much so, lana, we will chat again. Everybody else, I will talk to you later.
