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.
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Tonka Talk Community and Connection
Signing a Billion Year Contract: Part 5 of Scientology - Life After a Cult
Are you ready to embark on a journey through the inner workings of Scientology? Join us, Natalie and Lana, as we peel back the layers of our childhood spent within the confines Scientology.
Our candid Friday episodes offer a glimpse from the dire realities of our past, into the community and connection we found outside of Scientology.
As we unravel these layers, we touch on the profound repercussions of our time within Scientology, the effects that lingered even after our departure. Leaving wasn't easy, and dealing with PTSD, a bitter aftertaste of our past, was a challenge we had to navigate. But what we found was a sense of community and connection, a healing balm for our shared experiences.
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Welcome to Tonka Talk. This is Natalie Webster. We talk about the ways people create community and connection, but on Fridays I share my personal story of growing up in Scientology, how it impacted my family and how we were able to escape and life sense afterwards, how I was able to find true community and connection, and I'm excited to share that my sister, Lana, is joining again this week. Hello, Lana, obviously, being where sisters we grew up together, grew up in Scientology, and this is the first time she's ever talked about her time in Scientology. We're going to be focusing on the part of our life when we were in what's called the C Organization, and the C Organization is like the paramilitary branch of Scientology. It's where middle management and upper management is. You sign a billion year contract because the idea is you come back lifetime after lifetime to work for Scientology when we left off. This is, I think we're on part five here of this story and if you didn't listen to the earlier episodes, you can go ahead and go back. But you can also jump right in here and we're going to try to be good about defining things as we move along so that, if you didn't listen to earlier episodes, you know what we're talking about when we left off.
Speaker 1:Lana. You were at the international base, so you were at international management. And the last, last time we were chatting, you were sharing how you became friends with Rowan Hubbard, who's Elwin Hubbard's granddaughter, and she was treated differently in the C Organization for obvious reasons and you kind of would get in trouble. And I had been training. I was in Los Angeles training to be a staff member for the Church of Scientology in Hawaii and I was about I was 15 years old them and I had shared earlier how I had dropped out of school to work for Scientology, which is very common, Wouldn't you say there's. There's not value on education, no value at all, Only if you're studying Scientology or the teachings of Elwin Hubbard, Correct, so it's common.
Speaker 1:I would say when you meet maybe not all Scientologists just depends on when you got in but definitely C organization members. And sometimes we'll refer to it as the C org, which is short for C organization. I try to give the full. You know what it is. So people understand if they don't know anything about Scientology, but sometimes it's easy to slip back into the cult. Speak Now. So catch us up. You are at the international base, which back then was a confidential location that everyone knew about except Scientologists. It's in Hemet, California, and only certain people get to go there. There's a very extensive approval process and interrogation you have to go through to make sure you meet the qualifications. Even wasn't it even down to weight.
Speaker 3:Like you couldn't be.
Speaker 1:maybe that was just an OSA, an office of special affairs thing, but I remember hearing that to go to the international base, like you, couldn't be a certain amount overweight, or something.
Speaker 3:I never heard that. It makes sense.
Speaker 1:I can see them doing that, Doing that yeah completely, because it's all a lot about appearances and how things look, and you know that is one thing. That's a theme in Scientology when we were growing up and even into adulthood, where you need to put on this face or this front of how great things are, exactly how good things are going, even when they're not, because you need to be. You need to set a good example as a Scientologist and even saying those words again makes me want to vomit in my mouth a little, because that was thrown in our face so much that it became you need to set a good example as a C organization member, which really is just a way to control. So catch us up. You're there, you're working on the base. What's going on?
Speaker 3:So they have their CMO has their own EPF.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again, this is the Commoders Messenger organization, which is a very high up organization in the C org. You have to be qualified, you have to have certain qualifications to go. You're considered a messenger of Elron Hubbard. You are, you are delivering his, his orders. I always thought of them as like and they refer to as messengers for short as really just being a bunch of enforcers. Yeah, and most of them were teenagers, if not even younger, and I think in large part because of the stricter qualifications that they had to be in the Commodore Commoders Messenger organization. If you got an adult, they've already been through some stuff and done some things that would disqualify them.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:So you're up there, you're working for at the international management level, and and what happens? How do you end up going from there back to Los Angeles?
Speaker 3:Well, I was on the estates project for us at int and I was very unhappy, very lonely, and you were 15 then, I think so yeah, yeah, very hungry and so-.
Speaker 1:And literally hungry. We're not talking about you, were hungry for adventure.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was literally hungry.
Speaker 1:And why was that? Because food was terrible.
Speaker 3:And the breaks were very short.
Speaker 1:You didn't have a lot of time to go eat when you could eat.
Speaker 3:Right and when there was a canteen and so you could buy extras, Like it was in the desert.
Speaker 1:So Gatorade was really important for me since I was doing estates projects you were doing physical work, but you had to buy your own Gatorade with your own money, correct?
Speaker 3:Which I didn't have.
Speaker 1:No, because C organization members are making like $40 a week and when you're on the estates project force, which is like boot camp, it's like half that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you get anything at all, mm-hmm. And so, anyways, I got into the COCMO and his wife.
Speaker 1:And that's the commanding officer of this Commender's Messenger organization. So this is a very, very senior person in the C organization.
Speaker 3:Very. They had a huge bowl of change in their room and I was in charge of cleaning their room. So one day I took some change, took some change, I got myself a Gatorade and before I left the int base you have to do a sec check.
Speaker 1:And that's a security check which is like an interrogation. You're asked not only have you done this or that, but even like have you had thoughts about this or that? Do you have any negative thoughts about David Miscavige? Have you? Have you committed any? What they're looking for is anything you might have done while at the international base Right Against the church.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I took some change, got some Gatorade, and I confessed to that before I left. There was some other another thing too, which I can't remember, but I confessed to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you were pretty much honest. Yep, I did this. I took some change because I wanted to get a Gatorade and I was hungry.
Speaker 3:Yep, I just wanted to get it over with and I didn't want any secrets, so I just admitted everything. They asked me questions about Roanne and our relationship.
Speaker 1:Was so this was in your interrogation, which you were doing to stay at the international base.
Speaker 3:No, I had to leave.
Speaker 1:This is when you were leaving to go back to Los Angeles, correct To still be a Seagorg member. So in this interrogation you come clean about yeah, here's what I did. I took this money and then what happened?
Speaker 3:And then so I got taken to the PAC base.
Speaker 1:And these are the blue buildings in Hollywood. If you've ever seen some seen programs about Scientology, they offer will. They often will, will share about those and that is where and that's where I was. That's where I was living and working at the time.
Speaker 3:So I got sent back, I got sent to the regular EPF again.
Speaker 1:So you had to redo the Seagorg member bootcamp Correct, which you had already done before. Correct, and this is cause you were busted. Cause you were in trouble for stealing. Correct Changed to buy a Gatorade. Cause you didn't have any money at 15 and you were dehydrated and hungry. Yes, Very.
Speaker 1:When you're doing this interrogation and you're, you're sharing like this is. This is why I did it, which in Scientology, would be considered a justification for what you did when you're and people who are listening to this. It's. I know it's a lot to process, but we kind of really want to share the mindset too. In the eyes of Scientology and the other C organization members, if you have, if you want to leave or you have any negative thoughts about Scientology or anyone in Scientology, it is because you committed crimes against those people. That is completely their belief, so they're always looking for that. There's never any responsibility taken on the side of the church. It wasn't like someone sat you down and was like, okay, what's going on? Where you felt that this was your only option to take this change.
Speaker 1:There's no, that compassion's not there. And again, you're a minor, you're 15 years old. At that point was our mom in Florida or was she in LA?
Speaker 3:I think she was in LA.
Speaker 1:So there was a period of time where our mom was gone and she was in Florida doing Scientology services for quite some time. But then she came to Los Angeles and she was working for the Manor Hotel, which is where Celebrity Center International is. That's where, like, tom Cruise would go, where John Travolta would go, and it's not far from the blue buildings, the PAC base. So you're back in LA, you're redoing the Estates Project force, and then where do you go?
Speaker 3:And then I ended up in PAC base crew PVC.
Speaker 1:And that is and this is an interesting twist kind of here. So Lana went from the top of the C organization command chain, if you will, to a degree, and was busted all the way down to what would be considered the lowest of the low organizations, the Pacific base crew, which was the organization within the Seaworth that took care of the buildings, the grounds where people's birthing, where they would sleep, things like that would coordinate that Right. So you're busted down into this. In the meantime I had been training in Los Angeles but I was supposed to be working back in Hawaii. I was replacing my best friend at the time. Bruce had joined the C organization and he recruited me to replace him in Hawaii. Because you have to replace yourself Cause, even though you're there quote as a volunteer. It's a contract that's two and a half years or five years and mandatory and mandatory roll calls and all this. It's how Scientology gets out of paying the people who work for them a fair wage because they're considered quote volunteers.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:With a mandatory contract. That's still happening today, which is just so crazy to me. So I'm in Los Angeles, I go back to Hawaii at one point and a lot of stuff went down. I wasn't doing great there and you were in Los Angeles by then. Our mom was in Los Angeles and I decided I'm gonna go back and I'll join the C organization too. So at least then I would be with you and mom and there was nothing for us left in Hawaii. And if you listen to our earlier, our earlier episodes about this, we talk about how our mom had married our grandpa and it was just chaotic.
Speaker 1:So I go to Los Angeles and I'm like when I was training, when I was in Los Angeles training to work at the Church of Scientology in Hawaii, I had to do what's called work, study, meaning I needed to work because my organization in Hawaii wasn't paying for my room and board. So you go for training but you still have to pay for room and board so that you can study full time. And if your organization is not paying, you have to actually work in the dining room in the galley, as they called it, and that's part of the Pacific based crew. So when I went back to join the C organization. I thought you know I actually enjoyed that, my work, study experience. Even though it was a lot of hard work, I enjoyed it and I liked working with those people and Pacific based crew, or PBC as we're gonna call it.
Speaker 1:Again, this is, I don't know that there was an organization in the hierarchy of the C org that was lower and I think and if, if you're an ex Scientologist or ex C org member and you know differently, reach out and tell me. Definitely at that time, and maybe even ever since, I think I was the only person to join the C organization and join the, the PAC based crew. Just everyone there, in fact everyone I knew in there, was busted down into that organization. But that's where I'm like, hey, I think I'm going to join here. I like the people and I'll tell you what they were fun they were really fun.
Speaker 3:They were really fun they were about to have fun while working.
Speaker 1:Completely, they were a bunch of pirates. A bunch of pirates and bums. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:They because these are people who had gotten in trouble in this organization and they were all busted down to something that was meant to be this kind of demeaning thing or type of work, and I never saw it that way. I just thought, you know, if I'm going to be here doing this, I don't really want a huge amount of responsibility. I was probably the world's laziest C org member. I was. It's interesting because you hear, you know, we've, we've, we follow a lot of other podcasts and we've. I've connected with so many C organization members since leaving and many of them were in upper management and many of the whistleblowers on Scientology were international management and all these things. I'm like I'm over here Like I really didn't do anything I. So I'm thinking like I'm, I'm joining this organization, so I start the estates project force and fairly quickly I get pulled off of it Because somebody in middle management said well, natalie, you never replaced yourself in Hawaii as a staff member, so you can't just go into the C organization without replacing yourself there.
Speaker 1:And I'm like look, I'm 16 years old, I'm a minor, I was like 16, 17,. Then my mom's here. I have nobody back in Hawaii that's an adult, so you want me to go back as a minor with, with no one to take care of me. I knew it was like kind of like it, common sense would dictate for most, why would you send a minor back by themselves? But this has never stopped the C organization from moving kids around or moving parents far away from where their kids are. But at the end of the day they knew that it was a. You know, it's kind of a legal requirement that you need to have a, a guardian, and so she pulls me off.
Speaker 1:The estate project force says that I can't do it until I get replaced in Hawaii, which I refuse to go back to Hawaii. At that point I'm like, no, my mom's here, my sister's here. So what I ended up doing? The estate project force is made up of what? What is it? Five, six hours of study, yep, where you study, see or see or remember training, and then the rest of the time you're doing physical labor. Right, like a lot of physical labor.
Speaker 1:For hours, seven days a week. There's like no time off. So I think, well, if I'm working for the PAC base crew in the galley in the dining room, that's physical work, and then I would go on my course time and I would do the same courses that Seorig members and boot camp did. So I did my own version of the Seorig boot camp to get into the lowest of the low organizations that you can be in Cause again. I thought they were great back then. Um well, lana was there but she had been busted there and I think Shane Woodruff was the commanding officer. Then it changed a few times.
Speaker 3:It changed a few times.
Speaker 1:There was an Italian guy, franco Bernardi, that's right. And then the chef at one point became the commanding officer in Ian. I don't remember Ian's last name Did not like him. He was a slime ball. He was creepy. He made many of the younger girls feel uncomfortable. I'm not saying that he did anything. I'm not aware.
Speaker 3:Can we sit? Can we share dirt on him on this show or no?
Speaker 1:Oh, why not? It's factual, it's factual, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:So he was slimy like that, um, uh, and he was that way to me too, because him and his wife were swingers, what they were swingers and they go out on their their day off, yeah, and do swinger things. Have sex with other people, not your partner.
Speaker 1:How did you know? This word gets around. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3:It does, it really does, it was a pervert.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we definitely. He definitely had that pervert vibe and his wife. Well, that surprises me, but it doesn't surprise me. And again, he remember we're young teenage girls at this time. Yeah, he just was really like the leering looks and he would make comments it was total sexual harassment, totally. We didn't have the words for that. And it wasn't an environment where you had anyone to go to and say, hey, this is happening or he's making me feel this way. You would be cause there's no victims, right, there's no victims in this organization. You must have done something to cause that to happen Exactly, and that's not only when it comes to sexual harassment or sexual assault. That is crazies. That's why he got busted then.
Speaker 3:Maybe I don't know why he got busted to PBC, but no, he was doing this when he was in the PBC.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Wow, that is crazy and what you know, just, I mean that that's a different way to live, for sure. But what you need to understand is to do this in this environment. I mean, that's the equivalent of I don't know, going to mass in the Catholic church and having sex on one of the pews.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's really um, it's not allowed. How can you get away with that? Yeah, and that's with the Seaworth schedule.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what time off? Cause hardly you rarely got time off. Um, wow, that's just blowing my mind right now.
Speaker 3:Sorry, mind blown.
Speaker 1:But it explains why he was so creepy again, and it really it kind of takes me back to there's again. Whether you're a child or you're a teenager, in Scientology you are a spiritual being in a small body. They don't differentiate that you're a child or that you're a teenager. There's no accommodations made for these things Not really and that is how a lot of abuse ends up occurring because, no one's really keeping track.
Speaker 1:Remember, too, there was another guy who was not a Seaworth member. He was like hired help. He worked in the dining room. Victor, he was uh, he was a Hispanic man, he, he, I think he was like one of the cooks downstairs. Anyways, he was one who really would make inappropriate comments and stuff to the young girls who work there and again, nothing got done about it. I remember even saying something about it because he wasn't a Seaworth member. He was, he was working there, he was being paid to work.
Speaker 1:He was hired staff, yeah, and nothing. Nothing got done about it. It's like nobody cared if you were being mistreated in that way. You must have just done something to to make it happen. And later on I won't get into it now but with my own sexual assault that was completely covered up by the Seaworth, I'll share about that, as we were kind of doing this in kind of a timeline order and this happened a few years later. So I will be sharing that in the future. But it really it kind of sets the stage that this was the kind of environment that that we were in. You really had to watch out for yourself. At the same time, there were some really really good people in there and at this this, this pack based crew, I felt like we were more of a team, more of a group. There was a sense of loyalty. Yeah, it's kind of watching out for each other. Remember the plumber, paul? He had a beard, he had all these tattoos tattoo, tattoo yeah tattoo was the name that he went by.
Speaker 1:Everybody kind of had a handle, because they used the radios Mm-hmm. I don't think I had one, though, but that's where I met my first husband. So we're there where I'm doing these courses, so that I can be a C organization member, even though I was already taken off of boot camp the only one in the history of the seaworth again to, I think, join the Organization that everybody else has been busted down into. But I meet these people when I'm doing my work city program, and I'm like these are my people. They were fun, they had a great attitude. It was the type of work we were doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they all. They always won the birthday game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which was a game within the suit well, all Scientology organizations where everybody has a statistic and and the whole goal each week. If your job was to write letters and you write 50 letters one week, you would better write at least 51 letters the next week. The whole thing is every week your statistics needed to be up, needed to be moving in an upward direction, and if you wanted any time off, you would only if you got it. Your statistics had to be had to be up or you didn't get it. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So it's very common. Most Seorg members Work seven days a week. We had Sunday mornings where we could do our laundry and clean our room Maybe. Maybe if you had that, some people weren't even allowed to do that, but that was kind of what I liked about working in the in the pack-based crew is is we did. It's kind of like it was. These group of people Misfits totally, completely.
Speaker 1:You know you got busted out of a higher organization, but I find it so interesting that in my entire Seorg career, or even time in Scientology as a parishioner, they were probably the least pretentious mm-hmm group of people that I think I ever met and when I look back on because you and I have talked about this there's there's so much crazy and there's so much abuse and things to work through and unpack, but at the same time, we still had moments of joy. Mm-hmm where we create our own fun, and this is a group of people that knew how to do that. Yeah, and it's where I met my husband and got married at.
Speaker 3:I was 17 and you were there, you were there then right, I was somewhere on the pack base when you got married.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you were at my wedding, mm-hmm. And so at 17, in the C organization you this is not a rule for all Scientologists, but in the C organization you are not allowed to have sex unless you're married. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:You're not allowed to what they call heavy petting Unless you're married. So what happens in the C organization is you don't date, you marry, you get married and then you get divorced and you get married and you get divorced. For some, some people stayed together, but it's this. It's a whole different type of world. One of the reasons, too.
Speaker 1:I wanted to get married as well, when it was just what you did, and at 17 I was almost an old maid Is you? Then? When you're married, you get to have your own room, not apartment, not house room, and that was better than sharing a room with 15 20 other women with bunk bed stack, three high Right, which is what it was like. It's not like bed bugs. Yeah, exactly so I, dan and I that's that was my first husband. We got married, we were able to get our own room and we still share the bathroom, our bathroom connected to another married couple. So we we shared that bathroom, but that was such a a step up from being in a dorm with 15 18 other women Sharing one bathroom or having to go to another building to go to the shower in the bathroom.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm when you were living at the pack base again, then in the blue building. So then you were back in a dorm. Right, you had to have been, because you weren't married then.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Now Again, when you're in the sewer organization, there's no time. You're not going to Friday night out with your friends. It's like you would spend maybe 20 minutes together at lunch. Maybe you have 30 minutes at dinner, if you're lucky. You mean with your partner.
Speaker 1:With your partner, or with your friends, or getting you know whoever you're trying to get to know. I don't even remember Dan and I I mean it just how it went in the sewer. You get engaged really early. One of my good friends was 15 and she was married. Wow, it's just crazy to even think about now, but it was just super common. How old were you when you got married? 18.
Speaker 3:You were 18. I made it to 18.
Speaker 1:And I got married when I was 17. And I remember this is when mom was in California and I needed her approval if you're under age, so she had to go to the courthouse with us to sign off on us getting married. Dan was two years older than me, I think, so he was probably 19 and didn't need that. I do remember that day mom being really pissed off because she had to take time off of her post, her job, because it doesn't matter what your job is in the C organization, it's this. You're kept in a state of fight or flight all the time.
Speaker 1:If your job is to wash dishes and you slow down and you're not washing as many dishes as you did the week before, the entire planet might fall apart. I mean how would you describe how that felt?
Speaker 3:You mean like if your stats were down and produce as much as the last week you were. It depends on organization you were in, but for me it was. You were frowned upon by almost everybody. You didn't get to celebrate with the rest of the org If they won the birthday game or if they went out to the movies or whatever. Yeah, which was few, and far between.
Speaker 1:But at Pac-Base Crew, I feel like we went to the movies maybe a couple times a year, a couple times a year and we say that like it's such a great thing, like oh, it was cool, we went to the movies like twice a year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a big deal when we went, but that pressure to produce. Yeah, the pressure to produce is everywhere, all the time, and it doesn't matter what your job is, it's like there's no different.
Speaker 1:Blah, blah, blah, there's no difference.
Speaker 1:Everything is this chaotic emergency. Yes, even, and I'm not joking when I say if your job was to wash dishes and you're washing less dishes than you did the week before your intention is counter to Scientology. You were trying to stop Scientology. Yep, that's how it's. Pretty much was put to us. If you don't do your job not just do your job, but do your job to a certain level yeah, then you're just this piece of crap and you know you get in trouble. And then, when you do your job and you get your statistics up higher, it's like well, you have all kinds of freedom that you know.
Speaker 3:Freedom as much as you can in the Seor. You can go to the outing. You can maybe slack off a little, you know, because your stats are up, so you won't get in trouble, yeah, and this, this change.
Speaker 1:Now, the time period that Lana and I are talking about was what was that? The late 80s? I heard that later in the Seor organization. Like it didn't even matter. Like you you do something to get in trouble, like you're just busted. It doesn't matter what your statistics are. So when we were there it was a little bit of a I don't know Seor light, yeah, compared.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Compared to that. But if you can imagine having that kind of pressure on you every single day, that you have to produce more than you did the week before, or you become convinced that I am this just piece of crap and I'm trying to stop Scientology because I'm not working to the level that I need to be. I saw somebody on on one of the Facebook groups may ask a question or a comment. The gist of it was I don't remember exactly what it said, but the gist was you know, couldn't you just say I'm doing the best that I can.
Speaker 3:Hell. No, no, no, no, not allowed.
Speaker 1:There is no excuse in Scientology for not producing right For having statistics that would be down.
Speaker 3:Even as a kid, you know, as a teenager. Most of the time I was in the Seorgs oh minor yeah. And being a kid you know and told that, no, you can't go to Disneyland because this one week your stats were down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, forget about the whole year. Yeah, yeah, exactly it. Just the pressure is crazy. The week in the in Scientology organizations and the Seorgs organization goes from Thursday at two o'clock to the following Thursday at two o'clock. So Thursday mornings on the base were just this crazy craziness, with everyone trying to do what they could to get their statistics up. Over the previous week I think it took me I don't know how many years after leaving to where I stopped seeing Thursdays that way, when, because I still felt this pressure, this incredible pressure, even though I was. It was after we had left Scientology. I want to say it was maybe like six, seven years before I finally stopped thinking about Thursdays in terms of Thursday at two o'clock, the week ending. I have to get my statistics up.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:That constant pressure.
Speaker 3:You can see a pattern here what we're talking about, with why we would have PTSD. Yeah, I had nightmares and I couldn't sleep. This is me being a teenager in the Seorgs and yeah, there's just nothing you can do about it. You just have to keep going. Yeah, you have to keep going.
Speaker 1:You kind of get into the state of mind of it's just survival mode. At one point I was promoted, traded to a higher organization. I went into middle management, which was the continental liaison organization, as it was called, and they ran Scientology for the Western United States. So I didn't want to go. I don't even remember how I ended up there, but it was for most the organization members. I think you want, you want to get promoted. You know you want to move up. I did not. I did not because I knew I kind of had, like considering the environment a somewhat of a good thing going here and again I was like by anyone else's standard, I think, outside of Scientology, my work would have been considered exceptional. But by Seorg standards, you know, I was kind of a slacker because I didn't believe in the staying up all night thing and I pushed back on a lot of that and frankly I'm surprised I even got as far as I did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like did away with a lot of stuff I know and saying things and that makes sense. No, but I could never. My brain didn't work that way. I was just subservient, you know quiet.
Speaker 1:I would use so in the C organization and in Scientology. Anything that Elman Hubbard says is gospel, like that's the rule. He even wrote policies on how we should wash a car, how you should do laundry, and then that's how everybody does it. M there were a lot of violations of supposedly what his policy was like about keeping schedules and this staying up all night stuff wasn't part of existing policy, but it was done all the time and I remember having a messenger come to my door really late at night banging on it. I get up and enter the door and she's like you need to be on your post, you need to be downstairs at your job. Blah, blah, blah. This is what we're doing and I'm like, no, it's late, it's off schedule to do that and per policy, blah, blah, blah, Like I basically would use church policy to stop policy To stop policy Exactly, and I don't know how I got away with it for as long as I did because, honestly, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It was amazing how I didn't end up on like the rehabilitation project force which is like the punishment camp that Syrog members would be sent to for re-inductranation.
Speaker 1:That is the lowest of the low, absolutely the lowest of the low. And I think in large part it was because when I would push back I would be fairly pleasant about it. I wasn't a screamer, it wasn't getting all emotional, I'd just be kind of a matter of fact about it and I think I just had a way of breaking through, like I still can see her face, this woman, when she came to my door and I was telling her this super senior to me, and you could see like she realized, like what I was saying was true.
Speaker 1:It kind of broke through a little bit of the brainwashing where it was like well, wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right. It says over here, ron Herbert says you should get sleep, you should be taking care of yourself, but none of that actually gets done. Instead, other policies get enforced. They just pick and choose, which I suppose is like a lot of religions right, you can pick and choose what you believe in a certain doctrine and in Scientology and the student organization. The vast majority of the time they are following what Ellen Herbert says to do and a lot of what he said was wacko. But there's that added twist when your statistics need to be, you know, need to be gotten up. Now, when you got married, was I already out of there or was I still there? I feel like I was mine.
Speaker 3:You were already in Seattle, well, you were 18, 1920.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, I would have just moved. So I got married when I was 17. And I had I had a miscarriage. I don't remember if you were there for that or not.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know that I was having a miscarriage, because I didn't know what it was and I was. I think we got married in June or July and I was turning 18 in September, so I was probably 18 when I had the miscarriage. I just know. I was working and then I thought I was getting my period, it was just so. It was really painful and I thought they were really bad cramps and I went downstairs and at the time do you remember, george? This is when I was still at the Pacific base crew. I was still there, I was working in the dining room. The galley.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:George was my senior and I went into his office and I was like I don't know what's going on, but my stomach hurts really bad. And you got to remember we weren't really raised there, weren't. I always felt like we were. There's these feral kids who kind of raised ourselves to a degree. No one really sat us down and said I mean, obviously I knew how babies were made. You know we had cable.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 1:But the timing of it all and when you get your period or even when a miscarriage was. I had no idea and I was bleeding so much and I was downstairs going through this just pretty much by myself and I ended up going to the C organizations doctor who was down the road, Dr Dink. Dr Dink, who has I think he died years ago and he was also our one hubbard's doctor. That is like the one doctor I think we were allowed to see and it was, was it like a mile away?
Speaker 3:down the road. Yeah, it was walking distance. I wouldn't say it was walking distance. It's probably one or two miles. Yeah Well, I had to walk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had to walk too Walk while having a miscarriage to the doctor and and and get it taken care of. And he basically told me I remember he said that you're, if something's wrong or going on, it's your body's way of kind of taking care of it. And then he put me on birth control because in the C organization a rule had come out saying that C work members were not allowed to have children and if you had a child you were sent away from the C organization to a smaller, failing Scientology church, which is how I ended up in Seattle. But this topic, this subject of coerced abortions in the C organization, was huge. It happened to me after, after I had the miscarriage. I was kind of I I wanted to have a baby. That made me realize that, oh my gosh, like I lost a child and I hadn't. I always knew I wanted to be a mom, but then that C or girl came out and then you couldn't. So my husband and I weren't taking precautions. It was kind of like we were just, you know, run it up the flagpole, see who salutes. And I did end up getting pregnant again and we're kind of. We're coming up on about 40 minutes. So I think we're going to wrap this up.
Speaker 1:But when we talk again, let's talk about the coerced abortion in the C organization, how women were put under intense pressure to to abort their children, whether they wanted to or not. Well, they were put under pressure if they didn't want to, if you wanted to keep your baby Very ironic being that Elrond Harbour in his teachings is anti-abortion and we'll go ahead and share what happened, because that happened to me. When I ended up getting pregnant, I was already promoted to that other organization and it was insane what happened. And then the same thing happened to you later on, when you were 18 and was pregnant and married, because, keep in mind, any C organization member who's getting pregnant is married, but you're. You were still put under so much pressure to abort the child because if you kept it you would have to leave and then they lose their free labor. So we're going to wrap it up now, but I think we're going to go ahead and we'll pick up with that maybe the next time. That's a pretty intense topic and I think we're going to need more than a few minutes to delve into it. I will say this if you want to learn more about that, you can Google it. C organization, scientology Coerced Abortion.
Speaker 1:I participated in a story with the Tampa Bay Times after leaving Scientology with my daughter Shelby, who obviously I didn't get the abortion because there she was Back then. My name was Natalie Hagamal, but it's really something that I think speaks to helping people understand what that environment was like and how far it actually went and why it creates PTSD in people today. You've been out longer than I have. I've been out for like over a decade now I think maybe 13 years, but this is the first time Lon and I have ever sat down and talked about this. So it kind of really and it's taken, I think, this amount of healing and, for you, therapy and working through so much. So we hope you join us again each Friday.
Speaker 1:We're sharing. These are the reasons why going through this experience and coming out of Scientology and finding community and connection. Afterwards I'm so amazed by the way that people connect and what real community is, and that has everything to do with having grown up in Scientology and gone through that. So we're going to share more about that. So thank you, lana, for joining again. So tune in.
Speaker 1:During the week also, I drop other episodes about the ways people create community and connection, which is the main thing this podcast is about. But again, on Fridays, and for the time being, as long as she will, lana is going to join me and help kind of work through and share the story and, like I said, it's the first time we're talking about this with each other as well, and for our children, who are grown now, it's the first time they're hearing a lot of this too, and I guess it's the first time some of you are hearing it too. So we hope you join. If you have any questions for us at all, you can reach me at Natalie at TonkaTalkcom. So for now, thank you, and I'll talk to you later.
