Deceived: One Woman's Stand Against the Church of Scientology

294 Pages·2009·0.62 MB·English

by  Bonnie Woods

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Chapter One
Labelled and Libelled
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‘Want a cup of coffee Mum?’ inquired my daughter Desiree
as she opened the fridge door to get out some milk. ‘Oh,
hang on though, I’ll have to see if it’s arrived - we’ve run
out’ she added quickly, as she rushed to the front door
before I had a chance to answer her question.
The early morning routine was kicking in like it did most
weekdays. I had got up at my normal time, and had started
to fix breakfast. My younger daughter Andreanna was still
to surface and meanwhile the television was mumbling
away in the background, with a commercial break
clamouring for attention every ten minutes or so. The TV
was tuned to an early morning news programme
interspersed with travel reports and showbiz items. All I
wanted to know was what the weather was going to do.
England was very unlike my own country of the United
States, where we never had to think too much about what
the weather was going to be like on any given day. As long
as we knew what season we were in, we roughly knew
what kind of day to expect.
Although it was an early June morning, I felt a draught
from the front door. How long did it take, I wondered
impatiently, for a teenage girl to bring in two bottles of
milk?
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Maybe she had stopped to chat to my husband Richard who
was up and about somewhere, maybe encouraging
Andreanna to get a move on. Although he was British
through and through he had spent some time in the States,
where we had met and married, so we both understood
enough about each others’ cultures to get along well.
Desiree suddenly reappeared, looking upset. ‘What’s wrong
honey’ I said, trying to think what could have made her
look so distressed, having gone no further than the front
door.
‘You’re not going to believe this Mum,’ she said, plonking
the milk bottles on the work surface, and staring hard at a
piece of paper in her hand. ‘It’s horrible!’ ‘What is?,’ I said,
suddenly feeling disturbed, without knowing why, ‘please
give it to me’.
She handed it over, still looking concerned, and then she
turned away and started to open one of the bottles. I took
what looked like a newsletter from her, and to my surprise
saw a picture of myself with the words Hate Campaigner
emblazoned underneath. I felt dumb with shock. How dare
they! I knew immediately who was responsible. This was
the work of the Church of Scientology.
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The Scientologists hated anyone messing in their affairs,
and I had begun trying to warn people about the dangers of
getting involved in their organisation as I had once been
for some years. Their way of defending their beliefs was to
go on the attack as hard as they could.
‘Was this thing pushed through the letter box’ I said to
Desiree.
‘No, it was lodged in between the milk bottles’ she said
tearfully. ‘Oh Mum, this is just horrible’.
She started to cry, and I wanted to as well. But I felt too
angry to cry. Now I wasn’t safe from their grip, even in my
own home. I began to read beyond the offending header to
the main body of the text. I quickly saw that it was alleging
that Escape, the counselling service that I had started to
help those who wanted to get free from the entanglements
of the Scientologists was just a front for a ‘deprogramming’
organisation which tried to force people away from their
chosen faith by brainwashing. It suggested that I had come
to East Grinstead to wage a campaign of hatred and
discrimination against religious groups. It went on to say
that I falsely and hypocritically claimed to be a born again
Christian in order to facilitate my campaign of hatred and
discrimination, and that my actions were motivated by
hatred and religious intolerance.
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As I read the offensive and distorted spiel that had upset
my daughter so much, the things that I had suffered at the
hands of the Scientologist movement over many years
flashed across my mind. I remembered how they had made
contact with me at a time of great vulnerability in my life,
and how after I had showed an interest in their methods
they had gradually sucked me into their net, so that in the
end I wasn’t free to think or act without their agreement.
I recalled the long hard hours of mind numbing work for
little or no pay, how I was punished if I didn’t fulfil their
impossible quotas, and how, in trying to do so, I forfeited
valuable time with my infant daughter, who they disturbed
then, just as they were upsetting her now, many years
later. Then other incidents that I had endured at their hand
started to surface in my mind, but I refused myself the
indulgence of dwelling on them at this moment. ‘I’ve been
abused, robbed and deceived’ I thought, trying not to get
angry, ‘so just when are they going to stop hounding me?’
Suddenly my thoughts and my unanswered question were
interrupted by a knock on the door. Richard, who had
joined me in the kitchen, shut the kitchen door before he
answered the front door. I could hear him speaking quietly
to one of our neighbours.
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It seemed as though the conversation was over almost
before it had begun, and then he returned carrying another
copy of the leaflet. He explained that the next door
neighbour had brought it round thinking that he’d better
let us know he’d received it. I started to cry as he explained
that other neighbours had received the leaflet as well. I
wasn’t sure if I was crying because I was angry or
embarrassed. This unpleasant incident, coming as it did at
the beginning of the day, made us all wonder what to do
next. Andreanna made her entrance, looking sleepy and
then puzzled at our glum faces. I put her in the picture as
calmly and quickly as I could, not wanting her to be upset
at the very start of her day. Then after a few minutes
chatting together we all decided that it would be best if the
girls went to school as normal, united in the idea that we
didn’t want to change any of our schedules to suit our
tormentor’s tactics.
After the girls had left the house I read the leaflet again in
more detail. It seemed to be implying that I was some kind
of religious bigot, who did not want people to believe
anything other than what I believed! Nothing in fact could
have been further from the truth. As an American, I
believed firmly in the freedom of speech, and the right for
everyone to practise whatever religion they felt was
appropriate for them.
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I was in fact the child of a ‘mixed’ marriage, my mother
being Protestant and my father a Catholic. I too had been
associated with the Catholic church for many years, before
getting involved with Scientology. It was only through
God’s grace that I had finally heard the Gospel message
and responded to it, which gave to me strength to break
with the Scientologists. And it was because of the control
and domination that seemed to hold the organisation
together that I wanted to at least warn people of what they
potentially could be getting into.
About mid-morning the doorbell went again. It was our
good friend Tony Hennell. He didn’t waste any time in
telling us that he and his wife Mandy had received one of
the offending leaflets too. This was getting serious. Tony
and Mandy lived a few streets away from our house in East
Grinstead, so the fact that they had had one also made me
wonder just how many houses had been targeted. It was
possible that the whole of the town had been covered. The
Scientologists were a powerful enough organisation to do
that if they wanted to. And the chances were that many
people would read it, because it looked at first glance like a
newsletter, with the heading Religious Freedom News -
Issue 1.
But informing us of the leaflet was not the only reason for
Tony’s visit.
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He was there because Richard and I had agreed to go with
him to attend a vigil outside the Scientology bookshop in
the East Grinstead High Street that morning.
The shock of seeing my name and photograph with the
words Hate Campaigner had deeply upset me, and I had
temporarily forgotten our plans for the day. But I now felt
determined that although the leaflet was probably designed
to scare me off, I was not going to be bullied. After a strong
cup of coffee, and a quick prayer, we all made our way to
the bookshop, arriving about 11 o’clock.
As soon as we arrived we donned badges which read
Christian Vigil Against Scientology and started to walk up
and down outside the shop, praying as we did so. Before
long we were joined by two other friends of ours, Hazel and
Paula. Although the High Street was fairly busy, no one
showed any interest in actually going into the shop.
However, a Scientologist was positioned outside the
premises, holding a clipboard, and trying to get people
interested in taking a personality test, a scheme they often
used to have initial contact with the general public. If any
of the people that he approached took a leaflet, we would
offer them one of ours which was entitled What the
Scientologists Don’t Tell You.
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Thinking about the problems I had had with this
organisation, it was very important to me that anyone who
was potentially going to get involved with them made an
informed decision. I suppose I was partially motivated by a
strong need to redress the shame I felt at having recruited
so many hundreds of people during the time I worked for
them.

By the end of the morning I gave out about three or four
leaflets, and I reckon about a dozen leaflets were given out
by us all in total. But I had only been outside the shop for
about half an hour when several Scientologists arrived in a
kind of jeep.
A women jumped out, stood in front of the bookstore and
held a copy of the Hate Campaigner leaflet above her head.
At this point, I was standing near the kerb by the bookshop
and a man who worked for a printing company who had
connections with Scientology was talking to me. I hadn’t
given him one of our leaflets, because he knew about
Scientology already.
As we talked, several of the Scientologists came and stood
very close to me. They started shouting things like ‘Hey,
this is the woman’ and ‘Have you seen what she has done’.
I felt threatened by their behaviour, as they stood there,
each of them clutching a large number of leaflets.
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