Ex-Scientologist story #314, Saved from the Sea Org in a nick of time. For RR.

[Farewell to Sicily]

This is the story of the Hutchinson family, Tom and Carol, daughters
Molly and Laura. This family got out in just the nick of time as they
were about to enter the Sea Org. Luckily, a person who knew what the
cult was all about saved the day and told them the truth about
Scientology. This is taken from a series of stories that appeared on
Nov. 11, 12 1991 in the St. Petersburg Times entitled, Scientology’s
Children. [note the use in this story that the cult knowingly lied
about being able to be a Christian and a Scientologist at the same
time.]

‘THEY TOOK OUR LIVES”
by Curtis Krueger, Times Staff Writer

Eleven-year-old Laura Hutchinson went to Girl Scout camp scared. Not
scared of camp. Camp would be fine. Laura was scared that when she
returned, Mom and Dad might be divorced.

Tom and Carol Hutchinson, self-employed commercial artists in the
Atlanta area, had been having marital problems. When Tom started
getting counseling at Atlanta’s Dianetics center, affiliated with the
Church of Scientology, Carol objected.

The parents fought as Laura left. But when Laura came back, her
parents were together. By then, both were getting Scientology
counseling. Before long, both considered themselves Scientologists.
Soon Laura and her 8-year-old sister, Molly, did too.

But Tom and Carol did more than switch religions. They switched focus.
Scientology, rather than Laura and Molly, consumed them. Within two
years, Tom and Carol spent $60,000 on the church, according to a
lawsuit. They traveled to Clearwater for Scientology counseling and
spent virtually all of their free time on the church. They signed
billion-year contracts and prepared to move the family to Los
Angeles.

Their experience is not unusual. When parents plunge into
Scientology, critics say, children often are swept along and family
life takes a back seat. ”I mean, they took our lives away,” said
Laura, now 17.The Hutchinsons’ story begins in the summer of 1985. Tom
confided to a client that he was having marital problems.

The client referred Tom to Atlanta’s Dianetics center. During a
weekend auditing session he spent 12 hours telling his problems to a
Scientology counselor, or “auditor.” “You come out of it, of course,
feeling like you’ve dumped your troubles,” Tom said. “You get real
high off the whole thing. And of course you want some more of that
feeling.”

After Laura went to camp, Carol went to the Dianetics center, too,
despite reservations. Like Tom, she went back for more. But Tom and
Carol did not discuss their counseling sessions with each other. They
had learned an important rule of Scientology: You can’t discuss your
“case” with anyone else even your spouse. And then, one brief remark
changed everything.

One thing troubled Tom. Could he be a Christian and a Scientologist
too? No problem, Scientologists said. They kept saying, ‘Well, you
can be a Christian and a Scientologist at the same time,’ ” Tom said.
”Eventually the lifestyle takes over and the Christianity kind of just
goes by the wayside,” Carol said.

Laura was put off by the first Scientologists she met. They seemed
pushy and phony. Both girls were enrolled in a Scientology study
course and found it boring. But within a couple of months, Tom and
Carol were spending seven days a week at the Atlanta Dianetics center
for auditing or Scientology courses. The staff encouraged them to
bring Laura and Molly.

While their parents sat for hours in auditing sessions, the girls went
to the basement and stuffed envelopes with Scientology literature.
Mom and Dad were happy.

“We thought, well, this is good, you know,” Carol said. “They’re
staying busy doing something that’s of benefit rather than just
wasting their time playing or watching TV.” Molly was audited only
once, but Laura was audited several times. Like her parents, she was
hooked to an “E-meter” – a device similar to a lie-detector. She held
two metal cans while the auditor asked her questions and evaluated
her responses.

She, too, found that auditing made her feel good. “I just felt like I
was floating.” Eventually, the girls went along. Molly told her
friends she belonged to the Church of Scientology, which she thought
was a new denomination of Christianity. At Christmas, Laura gave her
friends books by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Laura was awed by some of the other Scientologists, especially the
ones called “OTs” – for “operating thetans.” She knew OTs supposedly
could remember past lives, and that fascinated her. ”I used to ask
them if they had met God at any time, you know? And like, what was God
like? I never got an answer.”

The auditing sessions soon got expensive, but Tom and Carol wanted
more. Scientology staff members told the Hutchinsons they were lucky
because they could afford to get enough auditing to attain the state
of “clear,” an important goal within Scientology. Scientologists
believe that by going “clear,” they can increase their IQs, improve
their health and accomplish their goals.

Many people couldn’t have afforded the $35,000 price tag to go clear.
But the Hutchinsons could. A Scientology official explained how: All
they had to do was get a second mortgage. For later counseling and
training, they also cashed in their individual retirement accounts,
charged up to the limit on their Visa card and sold a collection of
antique, sterling-silver mint-julep cups.

Tom and Carol eventually were told to go to Los Angeles to be
evaluated and certified as clears. Thrilled, Tom and Carol flew to
California. But Laura was not thrilled. This Los Angeles trip meant
Mom and Dad would miss her 13th birthday. Laura’s birthday just
didn’t seem so important, Carol said. ”We felt that the most
important thing was to do the (clearing process), and that Laura would
have other birthdays and she would get over it and, you know, no big
deal. That’s the way we felt,” she said.

As a Scientologist, Carol said she was taught that children sometimes
manipulate their parents in order to get attention. So she said she
learned not to give her children much sympathy. ”The normal,
mothering, motherly feelings that you have, where you want to nurture
and care for your children is taken away from you.”

Laura remembers that “We’d be sick or we’d hurt ourselves or there was
something we were upset about and Mom would just say, ‘I have no
sympathy.’ “ ”I was always sick because I needed her attention so
bad.”

The news in Los Angeles was shattering. Although Carol successfully
became clear, the Scientologists told Tom he failed. He wasn’t clear.
And it was his responsibility to get clear – by buying more auditing,
even though he and Carol already had spent $35,000.

“I thought my whole world had fallen apart,” Tom said. “I sat there
and wept…. I had done everything that I could do to get what they had
promised me., and then coming up empty-handed . . . just seemed to me
to be the ultimate rip-off.” Returning to Atlanta, Tom and Carol
soured on the church and found themselves swamped in debt, working
extra hours to keep their business afloat.

Out of the blue, a Scientologist called from Clearwater to offer free
auditing. Clearwater, known among Scientologists as “Flag Land
Base,” is considered the spiritual headquarters of Scientology.

“We had always been told that Flag (Clearwater) was the Mecca of
Scientology, that at Flag you could get the world’s best auditing,”
Carol said. “And so I thought, this is fantastic. Free auditing at
Flag!”

It was in Clearwater, at the Fort Harrison Hotel in 1987, that Carol
had her last auditing session. In the auditing room, Carol said she
sat in the chair and relaxed, settling into something like a hypnotic
trance. She picked up the two metal cylinders connected to the E-
meter. Closing her eyes, she started feeling uncomfortable. Carol
could see something; she wasn’t sure what.

“I could see a lot of fog, and it was like the fog didn’t want to
clear, because there was something in the fog, or behind the fog. And
I felt my back was hurting . . . and I didn’t understand why.” “And
finally . . . I started to get an image of what was in the fog. And it
was Christ on the cross.”

The auditor peppered her with questions. “She kept pushing me for more
and more information… and that’s the way you do it with an
auditing session. And the more I described it, the clearer the picture
got. And finally I heard a voice speaking to me, and I knew that it
was his voice, Christ’s voice. But I didn’t want to tell the auditor.”

But the auditor pushed, and eventually she explained. ”I knew that
what he was saying was, Don’t be afraid, I’ll always be with you.
”And I burst into tears, and I felt this immediate, incredible
relief, and this understanding and knowledge that was true.” She
wasn’t sure what it meant. But she was exhilarated.

Carol went back to Atlanta ecstatic. ”She comes home from Clearwater,
and it’s like her feet don’t touch the floor,” Tom said. He wondered
what had happened, but, under the rules, she couldn’t tell him.
Before long, Tom was off to Clearwater. While they chased that dream,
their debts were catching up to them. At about this time, a
recruiter visited them from the “Sea Org,” short for Sea Organization.

Sea Org members are full-time Scientologists who work 12-hour days,
and wear naval-style uniforms. Tom and Carol were told they would
earn $35 a week. It was a way out. They could sell the house, leave
their debts behind and move to Los Angeles with the girls. Tom and
Carol joined and signed the Sea Org’s standard billion year contract.
Tom, Carol and the girls told their friends they were leaving. ”I
was really scared,” Laura said. I felt like I didn’t have anywhere
to go. There was no home for me, there was nothing.” As he prepared
to leave, Tom ran an errand to a typesetter. He told a woman there
that he was moving to Los Angeles. She asked why.

Ever heard of the Church of Scientology? he asked. “She says, ‘I was
an auditor in Los Angeles 15 years ago,’ ” Tom recalled. “And she
says, ‘Now I’m a Christian, and I don’t believe in anything that they
were doing, and it’s a cult.’ “ The words hit Tom like a lightning
bolt. Thunderstruck, he went home and told Carol. Neither of them had
read any material critical of Scientology or run across former
Scientologists.

“Oh my God,” Carol said. ”We sat there,” Tom recalled, “and said,
‘Could it possibly be that we are making a huge mistake?’ “ They
took the telephone off the hook. Tom and Carol told their daughters
to turn away anyone who came to the door. The children stood guard
while the parents holed up in the bedroom.

Tom and Carol each had doubts, but, in accordance with church rules,
they had never discussed them. Now they talked heart-to-heart. After
two days of talking virtually nonstop, they realized that there was no
way they could go back to Scientology. Tom and Carol were exhausted
from their marathon discussion. They needed an excuse to get out of
the house.

Molly said her girlfriend had invited her to a church play. The whole
family went along. Carol said she walked into the Peachtree Christian
Church and stared at a stained-glass window depicting the baptism of
Jesus. ”I looked up at that and I just burst into tears, because I
was just overcome, knowing that this was where we were led.” A
memory came to her. Don’t be afraid, I’ll always be with you. After
the play, a crowd of churchgoers surrounded the family and welcomed
them. Tom met the minister. ”I remember distinctly tears welling up in
his eyes,” the Rev. James L. Collins said. Collins told him
Scientology was a counterfeit religion that had caused turmoil in
many lives.

Today, Tom and Carol still are working as commercial artists in the
Atlanta area. They say they cannot think of a single benefit from
their two years in Scientology. The Hutchinsons have sued the Church
of Scientology in Georgia, seeking unspecified damages for their
unhappy experience in the church and seeking to prevent Scientology
from using what the suit says is a policy of harassing former members
who speak out. A countersuit says the Hutchinsons’ action is
frivolous.

The family still attends Peachtree Christian Church. At first, Laura
said, she had reservations about getting involved in another religious
organization. But now, Molly and Laura both said their Christian
faith is strong.

To read the rest of the story go here: http://www.caic.org.au/stories/sci-kids.htm


For more stories in this series go to the index:
http://androvillans.wordpress.com/category/ex-scientology-story-index/


For the real history of L. Ron Hubbard go here:
http://androvillans.wordpress.com/category/l-ron-hubbard/


Where did Hubbard get the idea for the OT series?? Just look at the
pulp fiction of his era.
http://androvillans.wordpress.com/category/origins-of-ot-iii/