Katherine Olson's journey is no ordinary tale—it's a gripping saga of resilience and rebirth after escaping the Church of Scientology. At only 16, she embarked on a path that would lead her deep into the church's inner workings, from the bustling recruitment hubs in Los Angeles to the quieter, unassuming streets of Columbus, Ohio. But it's her escape that will have you on the edge of your seat, a testament to the human spirit's unyielding quest for freedom.
Through Katherine's eyes, we peer into the day-to-day existence of Scientology staff, contrasting the sardine-packed dorms of LA with the relative tranquility of Columbus—a change as stark as night and day. The "Chase wave" credit card scandal that shook Scientology to its core is laid bare, revealing the operational chaos and Katherine's awakening to the reality of her situation. Her courage will astonish you, as she maneuvers the intricate web of an organization that demands unflinching loyalty, even in the face of personal crises and medical emergencies.
Witness Katherine's transformation from a life shadowed by Scientology's dictates to one of self-directed exploration and healing. With the help of the Aftermath Foundation and a clandestine Facebook account, her escape is no less dramatic than a blockbuster thriller. But it's the aftermath that resonates deepest—her journey of self-discovery, her passion for photography, and her commitment to helping others find their way out of similar situations. Join us for an episode that's not just a story, but a beacon for anyone seeking the courage to change their life's narrative.
BFG Store - http://blownforgood-shop.fourthwall.com/
Blown For Good on Audible - https://www.amazon.com/Blown-for-Good-Marc-Headley-audiobook/dp/B07GC6ZKGQ/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Blown For Good Website: http://blownforgood.com/
PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2131160/share
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blown-for-good-behind-the-iron-curtain-of-scientology/id1671284503
Spotify: ...
Katherine Olson's journey is no ordinary tale—it's a gripping saga of resilience and rebirth after escaping the Church of Scientology. At only 16, she embarked on a path that would lead her deep into the church's inner workings, from the bustling recruitment hubs in Los Angeles to the quieter, unassuming streets of Columbus, Ohio. But it's her escape that will have you on the edge of your seat, a testament to the human spirit's unyielding quest for freedom.
Through Katherine's eyes, we peer into the day-to-day existence of Scientology staff, contrasting the sardine-packed dorms of LA with the relative tranquility of Columbus—a change as stark as night and day. The "Chase wave" credit card scandal that shook Scientology to its core is laid bare, revealing the operational chaos and Katherine's awakening to the reality of her situation. Her courage will astonish you, as she maneuvers the intricate web of an organization that demands unflinching loyalty, even in the face of personal crises and medical emergencies.
Witness Katherine's transformation from a life shadowed by Scientology's dictates to one of self-directed exploration and healing. With the help of the Aftermath Foundation and a clandestine Facebook account, her escape is no less dramatic than a blockbuster thriller. But it's the aftermath that resonates deepest—her journey of self-discovery, her passion for photography, and her commitment to helping others find their way out of similar situations. Join us for an episode that's not just a story, but a beacon for anyone seeking the courage to change their life's narrative.
BFG Store - http://blownforgood-shop.fourthwall.com/
Blown For Good on Audible - https://www.amazon.com/Blown-for-Good-Marc-Headley-audiobook/dp/B07GC6ZKGQ/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Blown For Good Website: http://blownforgood.com/
PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2131160/share
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blown-for-good-behind-the-iron-curtain-of-scientology/id1671284503
Spotify: ...
Welcome to the channel. Welcome to another episode of Scientology Stories. I'm Mark Headley, your host. Joining me today is my lovely wife Claire.
Speaker 2:Thank you, we're going to have a good one today.
Speaker 1:We have a great story today. This is going to be part of the series on the channel, or the playlist on the channel, called Scientology Escape Stories. In this episode we are going to cover Katherine Olson. Let's bring Katherine in here.
Speaker 2:Good to see you, Katherine. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3:I always do that to make sure everyone's awake.
Speaker 2:Yes, there you go.
Speaker 1:If you haven't seen the other video that we did with Katherine on the channel, we'll put a link in the description. Katherine, you were a Sea Org member. Why don't you just tell us just your basic background in a nutshell before you got to Columbus Ohio?
Speaker 3:I joined Scientology in Portland Oregon in 1992. Soon after that I went on staff with my mom and my sister.
Speaker 1:How old were you when you went on? I was.
Speaker 3:I always get this wrong. I think I was 16. I guess I was 15 or 16. I always get mixed up on my age.
Speaker 1:When you say staff, people should know that there's different levels of Scientology employment. Being on staff is you just live it wherever you live and then you come in for a certain amount of hours each day. They have part-time staff and full-time staff. You were part-time staff.
Speaker 3:I was full-time staff. This particular org had an organization, church, whatever you want to, I don't like to call it church. They had a day, what's called day in foundation. There's people that work just during the day and then there's people that work in the evening. I was on the foundation schedule, but really I was there almost all the time.
Speaker 1:Wow, then what?
Speaker 3:Then I got recruited for the C-Org. It took me almost a year. I got recruited, I got signed up in 1993, and then you're supposed to replace yourself on your post and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:When you say signed up, that's when you signed a billion-year contract.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I signed my billion-year contract in 1993.
Speaker 1:When you were 16?, 16, yeah, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's the preferred age, if not younger.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Then I was supposed to recruit a replacement for my post, and I couldn't recruit anybody. I could not recruit anybody.
Speaker 2:To clarify you signed a billion-year contract, but in order to go and do your billion-year contract, you have to get somebody else to do your job in the organization where you were working first.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because they can't afford to have anybody move anywhere without adding another body. Right, it was a very small work.
Speaker 1:How did you end up getting? I'm not trying to tell the whole story that we told in the other video, but I'm just trying to give somebody background so they know how you ended up in Columbus. Then, when did you actually start in the C-Org organization and where?
Speaker 3:I started in the C-Org in LA on.
Speaker 2:Hollywood.
Speaker 3:Boulevard in the Hollywood Guarantee Building, which is where middle management is. I started there in April 1994. Yes, sorry, yeah, april 1994.
Speaker 1:How old were you then?
Speaker 3:I was. I guess I was 17 by that time.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:I think I was 17. I'm telling you, I get confused.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't even remember my current age. For the longest time whenever we, when somebody would be like oh hey, who would be in conversation, and Claire would be with me, and somebody would ask me how old I was, and I would look at Claire and she would be like you're 37, you're 42 or whatever it was.
Speaker 3:I did that with John because he's really good at all this stuff. He's like you were 16, you were 15 when you signed up and you were 16 when you joined. That was in 1992, 1993. He has all these dates.
Speaker 1:Somehow he knows my entire life Well but also in the real, in the outside world, outside of Scientology. There's usually milestone events that happen at certain ages, like grades in school or levels in school and high school and college. We don't have any of those kind of markers. Once you're in, it just seems like a just a forever period. That's a good point.
Speaker 3:That's a really good point. I never thought of that.
Speaker 1:We don't really have the same time markers to remember things. It's just like oh, you were working for Scientology. What years, I don't remember man, it was just a lot of years.
Speaker 2:And we don't even have the media markers, either Like the oh yeah when friends was playing, or when substance or whatever. Like none of that is just even a part of the timeline.
Speaker 1:It's just big old blur.
Speaker 3:My markers are like major things that happened organizationally.
Speaker 1:Like this was when all these people got busted and it said you know PF and that happened around the time when remember when there was like 50 people a day were loaded from the Seaworth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, yeah, I remember. And like this is when the anonymous has started.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, okay, so you were, you were in this, so you were in the Seaworth in Los Angeles. And then, what year? So that was 1994. What year did you end up being moved to Columbus to be in the sea? To run that Scientology organization.
Speaker 3:It was October 2019.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, so that's what is that? Is that it's a?
Speaker 3:lot of years, I mean you're in Nath. Wez, but that seems like 25 years 25, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you were in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember that, because I got my my 25 year pin right before that.
Speaker 1:That's right, they still have those. It's like a like a. Is it like a Seaworth symbol with like a diamond in it?
Speaker 2:Well, it was supposed to be a ring, right, it was supposed to be a ring.
Speaker 3:It was supposed to be a ring and people were so pissed off when they changed it to a pin. I'm like we were supposed to get our ring. This is a stupid pin and plus I was in a. I wasn't in a state's uniform, so I couldn't even wear it, yeah.
Speaker 1:But now let me ask you this Did you have to pay for the pin?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:So somebody told me that they got a pin or a ring or something and they had to pay for it. And then there was another person who told me that they got a ring and then they kept it. When they left, Like when they got their stuff, the ring was in the oh, you can't keep the ring.
Speaker 3:Oh, interesting, you can still have the pin. They would. They would probably. I do have the pin. I can get it.
Speaker 1:No, Okay, so you were in. You were in Los Angeles for 25 years. Then you go to Columbus Ohio.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:Okay, and the reason that you went to Columbus Ohio was because the the org tell us why they sent all these C-org members to take over like a Scientology org. Cause that's not a, that's not a normal thing for like a Scientology outpost, Just one of these organizations, those are usually run by the staff members, the part-time and the full-time staff members. It's not billion year contract people at those outlier organizations.
Speaker 3:So usually you just have a few C-org members there as, like, representatives for various things Finances.
Speaker 1:Usually it's the director of special affairs or the the flag banking officer or some of those people because they're in more sensitive areas like the money and the. You know the nonsense department where basically all organizations have one person, that's the. Is it the department of special affairs? What do?
Speaker 3:they call it. Yes, it's the, it's the department of special affairs and actually most of those people out in in the in the city organizations like that, they're not they're just.
Speaker 1:They're just staff members.
Speaker 3:They're just staff. Yeah, most of them are, and most of them have been there for like forever. And so, even if somebody wanted to say, oh, all these guys should be C-org members, it's kind of hard to like switch them over because like they're, like you know, whether they're the ones that are set up. They're pointing, they did with their, you know, police department and various things like that, and everybody knows them publicly. And so yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, so, but why did this one get all these C-org members sent to it?
Speaker 3:So there were two organizations that that in 20, okay, so backing up. So beginning of 2019 was when the whole quote chase wave thing blew up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so those who aren't yeah, those who aren't familiar, Scientology had a worldwide credit card scam going, where they were billing people's credit cards and without authorization and overcharging, and it was millions and millions.
Speaker 3:It was a whole system set up of getting more credit, like someone in the org would contact the company and get their credit up and people would pay off each other's cards and all this. All this stuff was happening and it all it all came from from LA org, which is where they started, and they exported it to every single org because they had this training program where the executives will come in and train in LA org and they'd be like shown how to teach them and they ended up being all over the world.
Speaker 1:And in the end, the reason it's called the chase wave is because Chase the bank or the credit card company said we're not accepting Scientology, you're out, you can't be part of, you can't use Chase anymore because you, because it's all. There's so much widespread fraud going and Scientology does this with all credit cards. I don't know why. Chase is the only one that cut them off In the 1990s. I remember in 80s and 90s, I remember AMEX, black American Express had black, bald Scientology and said you're not allowed to use our cards.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just really happy to have a Chase credit card now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, I've got one. What's in your wallet? I think that's just one, but anyway, but a lot of it, anyway, okay. So that's what the chase wave was, and so one of those places where that was being done was well, it was being done everywhere. So why did it get all the money it was?
Speaker 3:being done everywhere. So what happened was, as part of that, they busted all the people that were signing up people for service. They busted all the missionaries that were like out Syorg members out in various orgs that were recruiting people so that the org could open up because they, like, they do renovations, they do all these renovations and then they do a grand opening as if they've opened a new organization, right. So all those people were recalled to LA and nobody was out in the orgs doing any recruiting for like from January 2019, like for the entire year. So what happened was the renovations in Kansas City and Columbus were totally done and the orgs were ready to open. They were just sitting there, totally ready to open, and they couldn't be open because they didn't have enough staff, because nobody was out there recruiting. So finally it kind of came to a head and I'm sure somebody was like you're going to open those orgs, I don't care how you do it. Probably Ms Gavage was like you're going to open those freaking orgs this year, and so middle man.
Speaker 1:So they have to do it, that's right, so so yeah.
Speaker 3:So somebody in middle management is like, okay, fine, we're sending Seward. So they pulled people for those two organizations, kansas City and Columbus. They from LA, from flag, from from PAC, big Blue, whatever people call it now, from from the, the continental liaison office in East US. I think there were even some foreign people pulled.
Speaker 1:They got all the rounded up, all the Seard members, that they didn't, they weren't essential or they didn't, they weren't going to live or die without those.
Speaker 3:They rounded up whoever they wanted. It wasn't even just whoever they could spare. It was like I want this person for this post, I want this person. They just tore everything apart, wow, and they took. They took a bunch of the missionaries that were busted and put them in there as well.
Speaker 1:Wow and so. But the other thing I want to make clear, and if you're a Scientologist watching this, or you're an ex Seward member, or if you're just a what we call never in, but so these people, you didn't all know each other. Not necessarily not, because you could have been from any Seward installation anywhere that just ended up in this one location.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was interesting. I think that was that was one of the only times where they like, took all these staff and put them all in at the same time and just like, and then just open the org. Usually it's like people trickle in and get recruited and blow in yeah, slowly, you were all brand new in the org open.
Speaker 1:You were all. You were new there too, even the Seward members that were running the organization. Right, you didn't know anybody in Ohio, you didn't know where to eat or you know, so you guys were all just fresh, that's right.
Speaker 3:There were a few non Seward members that were there too. That were the already existing staff in Columbus.
Speaker 2:That were like less than 10 people that weren't part of the credit card fraud or any of the nonsense, and how many Seward members approximately was it that were brought in to Columbus org.
Speaker 3:It was over. It started out. It started out with over 100 people.
Speaker 2:Wow. So there was less than 10 staff there, and then, all of a sudden, more than 100 Seward members come in, and so let me ask you so how long so you arrived in Columbus? How long was it until the organization then opened?
Speaker 3:So we arrived. I arrived at the end of October and it was like over a couple of week period that everybody was sent in, right, and then the org opened November 11th.
Speaker 1:Hmm, yeah, yeah, wow and November 11th what year?
Speaker 3:2019.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then 2019 it opens. Okay, and then what did you? Did you only have one job that whole time? Did you have one post? Yeah, what was your post?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what? What they did is they got everybody. They got everybody together At the New York one day, like a few days or like a week before we're supposed to open, and and they're like, okay, we're gonna tell everybody what your job is. And then they, they announced each person and I was put in division six as the director of public promotion.
Speaker 1:And for those that don't, know, division six is the Division of the Scientology organization that is responsible for getting new people to come into the organization.
Speaker 1:That's their total job is to get people in and then maybe do a seminar or a course or some kind of extension thing, and then to get them in, and their job is to get them into the organization and then to turn those people Over to division four, which is where they get trained to be Scientologists. That's, that's the sole purpose of division six, or what? In Scientology everybody just calls it div six.
Speaker 2:And so so how did they choose that? That job for you? I?
Speaker 3:Have no idea.
Speaker 1:I didn't say I want to do this. No, no, no, nobody.
Speaker 3:No, no, some people were asked like, like, on the more like executive type positions. People were asked or like told, like hey, we want to post you as this, what do you think? But, but on the lower level posts, didn't ask you just okay, you know but and it's, and it's not like you'd ever had experience in that.
Speaker 3:That was the thing I was put in charge of. A major marketing campaign that that because we got like, uh, how much, from what was it? I think it was like $200,000 or something for for a marketing campaign, as soon as the order this whole Non-existence campaign for the organization. So I was put in charge of this. No experience in marketing, no training.
Speaker 1:No, let's know, that's clear for for the many years prior to going to Columbus, you were in the food service department. Yeah, I was in. I was in.
Speaker 3:I was in food service for 12 years and then, before that I was, I was working in in the data bureau, which is that's a whole explanation. But that's what that's like when you were doing an office job and then you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was doing off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:And then you became. Now you're in charge of all of the marketing for a Scientology organization. That is that whole. It's the only organization in Ohio right, the one in Columbus. There's not another one.
Speaker 3:There's one in Cincinnati, there's two actually.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's one of the few states that has more than one, okay, but you're.
Speaker 1:Your job is to get people into Scientology in Ohio, that's right. You never did that anywhere before, except for when you were in the org. That's right.
Speaker 3:I was doing it in the org.
Speaker 1:When I was in the org, somebody HR couldn't even recruit somebody when you were at the org. Now You're just. That's your whole job, just bring it, reb it in.
Speaker 2:Why don't you honey?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm sure it was just like oh she's, she's gung-ho and and and High-toned, and you know she gets things done. So okay, we're in there.
Speaker 1:You also need somebody that can talk to people. Yeah, you can't have, you can't put a gut, you know, like somebody in Treasury who can't even, you know, say hello when you walk by and they're like down in there in their calculator. You need somebody who can walk around and talk to people and stuff. Yeah, so what was your main activity? That, like, if you, if you had, if, what's the thing that took up the most amount of your time, that you, you did all the time.
Speaker 3:Walking around on my own little two feet and passing out promo.
Speaker 1:So passing out flyers to come in for a personality test.
Speaker 3:That was what I spent a majority of my time on. And then I get, I get other staff or other div six staff to come with me or whatever Public or, but it was mostly just my own little two feet, by the way what?
Speaker 2:what was that like going from being in the C organization in in the LA area in a more high-control environment? Right, that's fair to say. Oh yeah To now being in Columbus, ohio, this I'm guessing this was your first time to Ohio.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean, it was my first time out of LA since 1997 what was that like I? Actually loved it. I actually loved it. I loved getting out of LA.
Speaker 1:I hate it, Yuck anyway well, the other thing out of LA I love being like Columbus is kind of pretty.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. It's, it's, it's. It's nice, it's it's boring. Compared to like where I am now, or compared to Colorado, it's so boring, but it's so much better than LA.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing I was gonna say is when you're in LA in the Seawork, you're usually in a dorm or there's like a lot of people crammed into small, like you know, a normal dorm. We could have four guys in one room, like two sets bunk beds. So you, when you went to Columbus, they didn't have seawork but they had to have apartments or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were in apartments and, and it was as per the lease agreement, they could only have four people per apartment and there was two rooms, two bedrooms in the apartment and there was a living room and a kitchen.
Speaker 2:So it's like living in the real.
Speaker 3:It was almost like living in the real world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you're not three other people. Yeah, you're having to share a shower with 30 other girls and yeah night, or you know, in the complex they have communal. They still have communal showers at the complex, right.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah and bath. I lived at the complex on one point. I hated it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're in a department, you're in Ohio, you're passing out flyers. Should we? Should we show the map of where all this kind of stuff was? Because, yeah, yeah, let's do this. Okay, so, let's make sure we've. Let me see if I've got this right. Folks, you know I'm not there. It is Okay, good. Okay, so United States is where all this took place. For any of those folks out there that don't Don't know what we're talking about, that's the United States and this is where Columbus, ohio, is. Shagush, right there, and then I just highlighted it. So this is where the org was right. Let's see, oh.
Speaker 3:And, by the way, when we, when we flew to Columbus In order to save money, they flew us into Pittsburgh, they flew us, they flew us into Pittsburgh and then we had someone drive as from Pittsburgh to Columbus so that they could save a couple bucks on airfare. How long? Of a drive is that I was like a six-hour drive.
Speaker 1:You have to rent a van, or you have to, or did they just pick up? Well, I guess it's a hundred people. They probably is it. Was it buses, or how did they?
Speaker 3:well, it was like in waves they didn't send everybody at the exact same time.
Speaker 1:It was just like Tuesday. Hundred people showed up, it kind of. I was in over a week or two.
Speaker 3:I was with like ten other people, and, and, and they had to do two trips because of our luggage. So they did the first trip all the way there and then we waited in the airport and then they did that the second. I was on the second trip.
Speaker 1:Oh, I like a little bit of light, another just light, maybe it was like four hours, I think it was like four hours.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, you had to wait for them to drive, drop the first round off and then come back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow, and they could have just flown us into Columbus, right it was. It was so dumb, so dumb.
Speaker 1:Okay so here's the org. This is the Columbus org. Now I want to say this is just because, when all these new organizations that we show they, there's some sort of LR on Hubbard policy that says the org needs to be where there's people, like what there needs to be, like.
Speaker 2:Foot traffic yeah.
Speaker 1:All these new organizations I've seen. They're all like in business parks or just that's right. That's right.
Speaker 3:It's some of the things around you know you know, one of the one of the arguments for that for that org is that the public were apparently surveyed and they had the they were. They were all pissed off that there was no parking downtown and so this org has three levels of parking. Isn't that fantastic.
Speaker 1:Wow. Is a parking lot, or just, yeah, just look right under the org you can see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can see that's a parking lot to the right of the org is also the org's parking lot.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you say three levels. It just means three different parking plate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I mean. That's what I mean.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then you're. So when you say you passed out flyers, so you told me a few different places, well, first of all here, let's just see where you're, oh let me just.
Speaker 3:Let me just say one other thing about the org, because we were talking about this. So. So around this org is okay. So across the street is a TV station, right next to the org, right next to the org is a Air conditioning repair place, and there's all these like specialists and medical type places around. There's nothing that anyone's gonna go to, yeah, unless they specifically have an appointment or they work at the TV station, or you know what I mean. It's not like people are just walking down the road and they're like oh, scientology and there's not even sidewalks, there's no sidewalk.
Speaker 2:Yes, and, by the way, we should comment on the fact that the reason that the org is the organization is supposed to be in a high traffic Place is so you can body route people. Organization like go out, hey Joe, come on in, come, take a personality test, come with me right now and walk them in the door right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, well, that's the thing I was gonna show. So you Mention some places that you'd go do, because if you, if, though, if the organization is not where the people are, then somehow you got to get you gotta get the people and then you got to get them there. So you said to the organization you said you went to this call like a college campus that was nearby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, that's OSU or.
Speaker 1:Or. University yeah and so Basically this whole area, pretty much the whole map here is the campus or the stadiums and the sport.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's. It goes for blocks and blocks. And then they they own so much property in Columbus you wouldn't believe it. It's like it's even more than what you're showing right there, because they own a bunch of agricultural Place for agricultural stuff and it's just, it's huge. Wow, okay, so like it's like always around that place and yeah, it's like OSU owns half of Columbus and, I think, nationwide insurance.
Speaker 1:So you would just pass? You just pass out flyers like would you oh, where'd I go? I love you, I think oh you killed your camera.
Speaker 2:Ah, we hear you, we just can't see you.
Speaker 1:There you are so you just pass? What kind of flyers did you pass out?
Speaker 3:Okay, so there were special flyers made specifically for Columbus that were apparently Surveyed, but it doesn't seem like they're a survey because people were almost never interested in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you say surveyed, Scientology has this thing. It's called the survey network. Do they still have the survey network?
Speaker 3:They do, but it's, it's. Yeah, it's kind of non-existent.
Speaker 1:Scientology believes if you put out a promotional material it needs to be based on what the people are want or need in that area. And so they have people do surveys to find out what they need and what they want. And then Scientology has to kind of mold their messaging and their promotion to match that. So you'd pass out personality tests or free film tickets or what.
Speaker 3:Yeah, film tickets and then like these handouts that would tell somebody to come in and like check out Scientology or whatever. And then we had promotion for Dynetics come and see Dynetics film or Get the book or come in to take a personality test. Like we had these posters that had little tear-off sheets on them when you could call in and then come in and take personality test.
Speaker 1:All that stuff and what was I mean? I know what the answer is gonna be, but what was the main reaction that you get to handing these people these small pieces of paper?
Speaker 3:It was. It was everything up and down the tone scale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but no, but I mean, like, what do they do?
Speaker 3:Okay, like, okay to like. Nope, that's a cult To All right, like people, like a lot of people would just take it. But then you watch them and they like throw it away, like, like, turn your head and watch them and they like. Or we would go out sometimes and go and try to Get appointments for people to come in for testing, for personality testing. Yeah, people just would bullshit you. Oh, yeah, this is cool, this sounds cool. Okay, oh, come in. Okay, never hear from them again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they basically yeah and I got so many of those and I was all excited at first. I'm like all these people are so nice and they're gonna come in and Nobody would come in. And the testing the staff over testing were like in trouble all the time because people weren't coming in.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, okay, so then Really bad you would, so you do it at the campus.
Speaker 2:One of the other places that you said you did it at was and is this something, by the way, that you would do every day, like every day, yeah, every day I would either, except on Thursday.
Speaker 3:Every day I would either be doing promo, I would be around doing promo, and then a couple days out of the week, usually on the weekend, I would go. I would be around with another person selling books. So I was out either around Columbus or around other. We went to all these other little towns all over Ohio.
Speaker 2:Books. So you, you had a lot more freedom. All of a sudden you were out in the world.
Speaker 1:People yeah, you kind of were getting acclimated to the real world by go by, this assignment sort of Introduced the whole world to you, essentially because you you never went out, I mean in Hollywood, in LA, you walking down the streets and stuff like that but you're not just by yourself all the time. Yeah, for like hours, hours and report in and you're in trouble and people yelling at you and why haven't you done that? I was, I was so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was out so much and usually I was with at least one other person, but I was. I was actually a pretty trusted Person and and after a while especially after the whole whole COVID thing I was out by myself more and more and more and nobody really cared, and HCO kind of just looked the other way and nobody cared that I was out by myself. So that facilitated things quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah tell me about this nationwide arena place, what was going on?
Speaker 3:Oh, so nationwide. Okay, so they do. They do hockey games there all the time and so we would go. I would, I would round up like 10 staff or as many people as I could get to be out for like an hour or two and we would go and hand out flyers and personalities has some all sorts of stuff before the games and Sometimes we go after the game. So we'd hit people twice. So you'd have all these tons of people coming in and you just hand out, hand out flyers and out flyers and then it was. It got to be really demoralizing for me personally because I was out so much and and you have people just like Some people would get super antagonistic, be like no, I don't want that, get away from, get away from me. You'd be like okay.
Speaker 1:Because you don't know, right, you don't know anything. You only know, we're trying to save the world here, guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, and. And anybody who thinks otherwise is either a suppressive person or their, their potential trouble trouble source. Who's connected to a suppressive person, or they just don't know how great Scientology is or they've given false information.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. But what you? What were you gonna say?
Speaker 3:you were gonna say one time One time after, after we handed out a whole bunch of handouts before the game and like everybody was in in the game, so it was like all empty in the streets and I happened to walk over and see the trash can that was right next to the door. There was so many flyers in there Great, so that. But it's still counted on my stat, you know what I mean? Well, I put it into someone's hand so they at least saw it for a second. But I was just like, yeah, there's so many years when we say stat, that means statistic.
Speaker 1:What was?
Speaker 3:your stat. It was number of. It was Divs six, division six promo, which basically means how how many individual pieces were gotten out or handed out. Handed, well, handed out, or posted like as in posters. And then I had something separate for, for ads. I ran in the newspaper and things like that.
Speaker 2:Wow so so really, you just had to hand out more and more pieces, each right to get your stats statistics up, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, so that's right. So how many would you hand out in a week?
Speaker 3:In a week. It was up to like when we did it, when we did a game. It was up to like 10,000, 10 or 15,000 Wow yeah, if we had a game that week, yeah, okay on like a non-game week. It was a little bit less than that. I like I could do Between five and seven thousand myself. Wow and how many.
Speaker 1:How long did you do this for?
Speaker 3:Like how many months? Yeah, or oh, I did it from. Okay, so I did it from November. November 2019 to June 2021. Yeah, with COVID in between all that and that's not going out for a while because of so, but we're talking about hundreds of thousands of flyers.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, wow, how okay. Do you know that anybody came in?
Speaker 3:There were a few people that came in, but it was a very few.
Speaker 1:But but Scientology has this or 10.
Speaker 3:From the flyers directly.
Speaker 1:I actually don't, actually don't know you said, one janitor came in from.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there was one from the, from the stuff that we did at the university there was. There was one guy that came in, one janitor guy that came in. But Scientology does this thing where they're like, you know, outflow equals inflow, and so yeah. If I was out all day doing promo and they randomly had four people walk into the org, they would yeah, that cosmically was because of yeah, they correlate that with me.
Speaker 1:That's true. I'm like okay.
Speaker 3:Let me keep going out more than.
Speaker 2:Keep, keep, keep going, keep going. It doesn't matter that they're ending up in the trash, just keep going. Yeah yeah, outflow equals inflow. Yeah, that was a huge thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the number of Letters out, and what is it? The number of particle, the size of a mailing list and the number of mailing list.
Speaker 3:Number of mailing sent to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the amount of people coming into the holy moly. Why do we remember that? Okay.
Speaker 3:So it's earlier or earlier or more. Immunity of more. Yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 1:These are all L run Hubbard policy quotations that we are doing about why, scientology, it needs to cut down all of the forests in the universe to in order to send out. That's the other thing. These are. This is all printed matter. So they're mailing things and they're passing things out. No, I, just before we talk about how you ended up get Gtfo and eventually there was this one thing that you told me that you would go to this Street and I just want to show this because you said you would go to this place called the happy. Is that the one?
Speaker 3:happy Greek. It was the beginning of high street. So high street is kind of like it's called all these like A hip shops and places and restaurants, and like it's kind of like the cool place in town. Yeah, there's, there's, there's there tended to be a lot of people there before COVID and before the riots. After the riots it was really messed up, yeah, but before that it was really nice. So there's.
Speaker 3:There's a lot more people there than then downtown or other areas or whatever. So I would start where that little tag is, I would start yeah a few blocks South of that and then I would walk, highway is there. Yeah, I would walk all the way Down that streets that's high street all the way to the University handing out promo.
Speaker 1:So just literally that whole way.
Speaker 3:How long is that? I got so much walking in his?
Speaker 1:awesome. How long is that?
Speaker 3:That's like. That's like a good hour or so, wow.
Speaker 1:Passing out flyers.
Speaker 3:I love it. I loved walking all over the place. That was great.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, so now we're in relation to where the org was. So that's where, that's kind of where everything lays out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think here Okay so, yeah so, and how would you get to the campus? I would go do all this.
Speaker 3:Well, my, my senior, actually had her own car, so she would. She would drop me off a lot of the times and sometimes I'd get like a public Scientologist to go with me and they'd come and pick me up.
Speaker 1:Or there was a few staff that had cars that would take you. You didn't drive, you didn't have a driver.
Speaker 3:No, I didn't. I did not a drive at that point.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you had no driver's license, so if you needed to get somewhere, you had a call.
Speaker 3:You had a phone. I had a. I had a phone on and off.
Speaker 1:One how do you tell somebody to come pick you up? If you don't, can't call them, or you just call them.
Speaker 3:I had. I was if you're out of, if you're out of the org, generally they give you a phone, but I would just use my iPod and I would text text now, or I would call with text now, because there's wifi all over the place, especially on the OSU campus. Yeah, there's, there's university wifi that reaches everything all over the place, like wherever you are.
Speaker 1:So but with an iPod? I've heard this. This is a kind of a controversial thing within the C organization because in Los Angeles they didn't allow um Seward members to have Apple devices because you there's certain kind of filters that you're you can't install on an Apple device, but you can on an Android phone.
Speaker 3:They wouldn't let you have an iPhone specifically, but a lot of people had iPods, at least even when I was in LA, and it would it. It kind of came in waves Like everybody would get devices and it'd be easy to get a phone for a while and then they clamp down and be like why did? Why do all these people have phones? Take all the phones away, inspect everyone's devices.
Speaker 1:But Seward members had bought their own phone and have their own thing. That's not the Seward's not paying for it. Yeah, you're talking about just personal cell phones that have nothing to do with it.
Speaker 3:I'm talking about just just personal stuff.
Speaker 2:And and actually you won't allow to have- in LA.
Speaker 3:You're not allowed to have a non-org phone.
Speaker 2:If, if you're.
Speaker 3:If you have a phone, for your post is issued by the org, it's connected to their network. They have a whole thing.
Speaker 2:They don't allow you access to the internet, has a filters and they can they can check the phone records and all that Like, even even when we were still there. If, if a parent, for example, would send a phone into their son or daughter, it would get confiscated because it was not a device owned and controlled by the organization. That's right.
Speaker 3:That's right you weren't, you weren't supposed to have an outside phone.
Speaker 1:That's a very key.
Speaker 3:That was like big no, no yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very key thing I want to say. I want to make sure people know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I bet, since I was, since I was able to leave with with an iPod the way I did, I bet they I bet for a while they clamped down on on devices in general, like quite a bit, or outlawed them or something. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2:And iPods are. Ipods now are antique pretty much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't, even they're not. You can't buy that. You can't buy a new iPod anymore. I'm pretty sure they've been discontinued, which is because, well, yeah.
Speaker 1:One that has a screen that you can go on the internet.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now, they're just little music players, the ones I think they still are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay. So they expect everyone to get an iPhone. They get something that doesn't have a phone connected.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's kind of silly at this point. Yeah, okay, so the org. So you guys, you got the Scientology Columbus, ohio org. So how would you get from your apartment? Oh, so we didn't show your apartment. This is where your apartment was and that actual little marker is actually the apartment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's just my problem.
Speaker 1:That is right and so so how would you get from the apartments to the org and how would you get from the apartments to the organization.
Speaker 3:There was a van that would pick everybody up and take them home. It'd be like two, two or three runs, for I mean, the more staff we had, the more runs there was. So it'd be like scheduled bus runs and it was only like a 10 minute drive. So it's right there.
Speaker 1:It would just shuttle people back and forth. So so if you were at the org for the day, if you couldn't go home whenever you wanted you need, how late did you have to work at the work?
Speaker 3:We worked at the org until like 1030 or so, but that was just the regular staff. Like a lot of the executives ended up staying up really late doing God only knows what, trying to work out personnel and how to transfer who and?
Speaker 3:and plus, as time went on, they wanted people back in LA. Like they wanted certain people to be, like this person needs to be replaced and come back to LA, and so the org would have to work that out, how to do that, like, I almost ended up being trained and posted as a supervisor, which I'm really glad that didn't happen. It almost did. It was about that was about to happen.
Speaker 1:Wow, Okay. So so you're passing out flyers. You got your apartment, You're going. What time did you go in into the morning?
Speaker 3:830.
Speaker 1:Okay, so 830 am to 1030 pm and then seven days a week, or do you guys have like clean? You know where they have a thing in the C word called CSP, clean ship program. That's when you're supposed to wipe down your dresser and make your bed.
Speaker 2:Do your laundry? Yeah, and we have that.
Speaker 1:Sunday night. You edit Sunday, so what time did you go home on Sunday?
Speaker 3:I'm supposed to go home at like, like, right at dinner time, which is six o'clock.
Speaker 1:And then you get the rest of the night off to do your?
Speaker 3:did people get liberties? I think people started to get liberties like around the time I, before I left, there was a few of that, things like that, going on, because at first it started off with excuse me one, second, give me one.
Speaker 1:I'll explain what liberties is. So in the C organization, when you join the C organization, there's a policy called liberties, a C work flag order written by Elrond Hubbard that says every other week you're allowed to get a day off If your statistics are up and you do what's called a completed staff work to your senior and, depending on what organization year is, it has to go all the way up to the commanding officer and then that person would approve the people that it would be allowed to take a Sunday off or a Saturday off or whatever.
Speaker 3:It depends on what the organization you know they change that at some point, so they change it. They change it at some point to the org stats also had to be up.
Speaker 2:Oh, what, what.
Speaker 1:That's hardcore. Okay, so it used to be. If your personal statistic was up, then you were good to go. So what Catherine is saying is that if you were, you did more this week than last week, but the organization did less overall than you couldn't get a liberty.
Speaker 3:That's hard, yeah Cause it's like like why, why do you get to get off when, when, the when, the org stats are down, like we're not doing liberties this week?
Speaker 2:Wow, so like if you're the janitor and you cleaned everything and it's all sparkly and beautiful, but the income is down. You would no longer to get to to get a day off. That's right.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:Catherine, did you ever have a day off during the time you were in Columbus, in Columbus.
Speaker 3:No, actually, actually, I was just remembering how they did this, because what they did, instead of letting people have a day off, a few people took a day off, but they would do org awards, which means they would have a part. They'd have a movie and ice cream and blah, blah blah during the last couple hours of the night on Saturday night.
Speaker 1:The way to a C of members hard is donuts and pizza.
Speaker 3:Yeah, party Yay.
Speaker 1:I tell you, I've seen, I've been to so many C org installations around the world and you can get pretty much anybody to do anything if you give them enough donuts and pizza.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we'll have to do another, another episode, catherine, with you just talking about COVID, but for now I think we have to get to the details of your.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that. Yeah, that's a bad word. What COVID? Oh my gosh, really.
Speaker 2:Just cut it all out.
Speaker 1:Anyway, okay, so you're working there every day. You're not getting any days off. So what happened? So something happened where you were like I'm done, I don't want to do this anymore. What was that?
Speaker 3:Okay, so it was pretty much. Well, first coat, first there's a lockdown because of the the C thing word yeah. Yeah, so there's a lockdown, so that meant that everybody stayed at the apartments, except for a few staff who lived in the org for many months.
Speaker 1:Sorry, you would say whoa, I just said uh-huh Staff lived in the org like they slept there, yep.
Speaker 3:And the executive director, the DSA, uh, the flag rep and the FBO lived in the order and the flag representative, the executive director and the director of special affairs, the OSA dirty tricks guy.
Speaker 1:They had to stay in the org to keep the org secure.
Speaker 2:Wow, where did they sleep?
Speaker 1:This is an office.
Speaker 3:They brought in mattresses from the apartments they set up, like they set up the whatever office they set up for for sleeping they they took showers in the pier. They lived there.
Speaker 1:For a month. That is the most crazy thing I've heard from an org.
Speaker 3:They did that in every single org. Every single org had to do that. They had to have staff stay in the org. Oh, so that somebody doesn't break in during the fall that week, yeah, so it's like a secure, so that the org is being kept secure.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. So you're not saying they were there because they didn't, because they needed to be there more. They were living there because they're afraid someone's going to break it in the middle of the night and steal stuff.
Speaker 3:That's right or break in during the day, like no one was there for months. The building was closed and it was closed to the pot. It was totally closed, like nobody was allowed to come in.
Speaker 1:So they just lived there. But when COVID stopped, they moved back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, they came back to the apartments once. Once the org, the org opened in stages, like like first it it's first staff started going in there for part of the day and then a lot of staff started going in all the time and there was still some of the apartments. It was like different things happening and then at one point everybody was in the org but the org wasn't opened. And then we were able to open the org.
Speaker 1:So what did you do when you couldn't go there?
Speaker 3:So what everybody? Okay, so what they did is everyone ended up getting a phone so that they could contact public. Wow.
Speaker 1:Colin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, most people just bought their own or whatever. Like, I bought my own phone because I needed access to the internet and I needed to do ads. I was doing ad and doing different things with promo.
Speaker 1:So you had a good excuse to have a phone.
Speaker 3:I did. Well, I I thought I did until I thought I had a good excuse. Um so, yeah, so everybody was was doing Colin, they were, they were redging for the, the IS, international association of Scientologists, where you just donate money to become a new levels of.
Speaker 1:Redging and Scientology is when you get money from people and they call that the registrar is the person responsible and they call it redging.
Speaker 3:So they were doing that and they were signing people up for courses. Um, they were. They had this whole thing going on extension courses, which is just, of course. Somebody takes it home Like they read a book and they do lessons from the book. So they were doing a lot of that, um, and they were doing it all all by phone, so almost everybody had a phone.
Speaker 1:But like you're talking about a hundred people calling, calling just anybody and everybody, but did they have to live in Columbus, or just just that their name was on the list?
Speaker 3:Oh, they started. They started, uh, redging people outside of Columbus because you're you're talking about Seaworth members who knew people all over the world Like these people were like on missions and they've been around in different orgs and they've been to flag and they've been like all over the place. So this is an this was a very unusual org where you had, like, people who knew public all over the place. So they ended up redging people from all over the world.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness so basically it wasn't really fair to the local orcs. This is like why is Columbus redging my guy?
Speaker 2:Right yeah, just because they knew it was because it was somebody who knew somebody.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So okay, so that's all going on. And then, so what was the thing? What happened? There must have been some kind of singular event which was like oh, it's time to GTFO.
Speaker 3:So, okay, well, there was a few things. So one thing is that I I ended up in the ER with gallstones. Oh wow, in the middle of COVID, oh, yikes. But before that I set up an illegal Facebook account and I actually set it up for a good reason at the time I set it up.
Speaker 1:I love how she was in a cult that wouldn't let her leave and she's justifying how she did something.
Speaker 3:I'm being kind of um.
Speaker 2:That's the word In cheek. Yeah, there you go. Okay, you don't have to use it. It's totally okay that you set up a Facebook account. I know, I know.
Speaker 3:I just I like to joke about it. Yeah, so I set this up because I wanted to see other orcs Facebook accounts and see what they did on their promotion. I'm like, I'm going to make this, I'm going to make our Facebook account really cool and I would come up with all these ideas. So I set this up and then, a few days after I set up, I was like, hey, I can find some old friends of mine. This is cool. I was like, if I can find anybody, the internet strikes again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And so I found somebody who's now in the room right there.
Speaker 1:Don't spoil the surprise.
Speaker 3:You connected with a child, yeah, I found somebody who I I originally had met and in high school when I was in Oregon going to school before I joined staff in Portland.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we had 13, 14 years old.
Speaker 3:I was 15.
Speaker 2:So you but you hadn't had any contact with this person in 27 years. Sorry, wow, that's mind blowing, I know yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you start chatting with this person, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then we started talking like pretty much every day because we used to be good friends and we just started talking just all the time. And then I had my my ER experience. It took them five days to bring me to the hospital after I had a first, after my first gallbladder attack. It took them five days.
Speaker 3:I had to have like three more before they take or they actually were like, okay, I guess we should see what's going on, and they were petrified about somebody being sick during COVID and they're going to get in trouble and all this stuff. They're like, no, no, no, we don't want to do that.
Speaker 1:Well, just to just tiny backstory in Scientology, if you get sick, that means that you're either a potential trouble source or you've done something that's out ethics period. There's no, there's no way around it. So if you get sick, your potential trouble source, that means there is a suppressive person in our midst.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And that's a big deal. If you get sick in Scientology and especially in the Seawork, and that's a that's a whole nother level of scrutiny if you get, if you just get ill, even if you just get a cold, it doesn't matter If you, if even gallstones, anything, you did something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we didn't know what it was until I went to the ER and got a got an actual diagnosis from a doctor. Anyway, and at first the doctor missed it too, and then they decided to do some other tests, and then they found it.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, so you're in the, you're in the hospital, and then what happens?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm, I'm okay. So I'm in the hospital, I, I, I get surgery, I get it. I get my whole gallbladder taken out after, like you know, never having surgery in my life, never being under any anesthetic, never anything this whole like dramatic thing happens within a few days and then I go back. I get like a week to kind of rest up and then people started this is around the time when people started going back into the org and so we started going back into the org and meanwhile I was, I I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 3:I would go to sleep, I would wake up at like one in the morning and I would be up until like six or seven and I just couldn't sleep. And then I tried to go back to sleep and then it became a thing of oh, you can't sleep in, you have to get up, and I was like I can't sleep, I need to sleep, and this went on for for actually a couple months and it went on after I was in the org and everything, and I still I couldn't. I couldn't sleep properly for a long time and they wouldn't let me, let me sleep in, which is just so stupid. It was so stupid because at first nobody was even in the org. We were at the apartments, so why not let me sleep, right? I was like but you're basically.
Speaker 1:Your body was in some kind of shock or trauma from the whole surgery thing Cause you've never, ever been to the hospital before, right, I mean, you didn't have a surgery.
Speaker 3:I mean I, I I'd never had surgery before. I'd seen doctors and stuff. I'd never had any, any major surgery, and we're broken a bone, never been under any sort of anesthetic, never anything. So I was just like electrified about the whole thing. Yeah, and I, and I also think that the anesthesia affected like my short-term memory a little bit at one point because I was, I got, I got in trouble for having these, these book ads running with with some money from the non-E campaign and and the ED was all like pissed off and she was screaming at me and she's asking me about the emails that I sent.
Speaker 1:Let me, let me, just, let me, just. I'm just. I know you slipped into crazy talk after the.
Speaker 2:I was like I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the executive director didn't want you to spend money, that was crazy talk.
Speaker 1:I like that, and so you were spending you should basically were spending promotional money. That was just out promotion significant for something else?
Speaker 3:Well, just another promotion while the, while the org was closed, I was promoting and that was a problem.
Speaker 2:Why was that a problem?
Speaker 3:It was financial or regularity.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, wow, I love that one, that's, that's how they got me. Yeah, that's their favorite yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:So. So there was a little bit of nonsense happening?
Speaker 3:Yeah, anyway, the point is is that I I think I had a problem in my short-term memory from the anesthetic because I was like I can't remember what I said in these emails and I was trying to explain this to her right and and, and she was she was just saying, oh, don't blame your body problems on me.
Speaker 1:I guess she's basically saying you're excuse, you're using your body problems as an excuse.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're using this as an excuse to just lie and I was like no, I'm not, I really actually can't remember and that was. That was one of the one of the things that really kind of started to tip me over a little bit, because I was like are you kidding me? I'm like I just had major surgery. Right, give me a break completely.
Speaker 1:Anyway, so crazy, and then. So then what? Then? That's something. Wasn't there something with the phone? Yet a phone. Yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3:So what happened was okay. Let me see if I can tell a short version of this. What happened was my roommate was talking to a public Scientologist who's actually in Colorado, by the way. Kind of funny. She was talking to a public Scientologist who was like this guy was, he was a little bit unstable and he was like completely in love with her, trying to say no, no, don't send me stuff. I want to sing a birthday present. No, don't send me. She's like trying to help the guy but at the same time trying to be like no, don't do anything. And so at one point he threatened to how do you have to say it? You have to. He threatened to unalive himself.
Speaker 1:Oh, if she wouldn't have a relationship with him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, something, yeah something like that.
Speaker 1:He was a Searig member in Columbus.
Speaker 3:No, no no, he wasn't a Searig member, he was a public.
Speaker 2:He was a Searig member.
Speaker 3:She was a Searig member. She was my roommate, which is how I know about all this.
Speaker 1:I see, and the person in Colorado was a male that she was trying to have a relationship with.
Speaker 3:She wasn't trying to have a relationship, she was just trying to sell the guy a book or a course or something.
Speaker 3:So then he was like I really liked you, and yeah, so then he made that threat and she freaked out and went to tell somebody and be like, what do I do? And then she got in a bunch of trouble and her whole phone was inspected and she got like she got in a lot of a lot of shit because the guy had threatened this. So she gets in trouble. Yeah, it makes sense. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 1:If she was chatting with him or talking to him outside of organization channels, right?
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was being done on the phone, but she was legitimately talking to the guy as, like a public guy who's like paying for courses, buying books.
Speaker 1:But he wanted more than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly Exactly, but like you said that was made into being her fault.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, exactly, that was her fault she got in so much trouble because she must have. She must have 2D flowed him, which just means like she must have flirted with him, and she was a bit of a flirt, but yeah, okay, so she got a phone call so she got in on this trouble.
Speaker 3:So, so as a result. So her phone was taken and then all the phones were taken for inspection. Everybody was told to turn in their phones the next day. I knew about it ahead of time because she was my roommate and my other roommate, so you wiped yours clean yeah. So I wiped everything, so I should have burned it down.
Speaker 1:Catherine's like I got to burn this thing down. It's coming.
Speaker 3:I've been talking to my friend. I deleted all our texts. I deleted emails. I deleted emails. I delete. I'm totally cleaned it out, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't delete everything because that would have looked suspicious, I just deleted those particular conversations they might not want to see, like chatting with your Facebook friend, stuff like that yeah.
Speaker 3:That's right. I deleted all that, so they. So we were told to turn in our phones. We weren't told to turn in all of our devices, so I still have my iPod, which I never turned in.
Speaker 3:Nice, yeah so. So I turned on my phone and I expected to get it back the next day. It was like, whatever, I use it all the time for what I'm supposed to be doing and I expected to get back. So the next day I get told you can't have your phone back because you're talking to random LA, random LA or LA C-org members. Because I had friends in LA that I talked to and, especially after my surgery and stuff, I was like talking to people and telling them what happened Exactly.
Speaker 3:So it's like you're talking to all these LA or LA C-org members and you don't need to be doing that, you don't need your phone. And I was like what do you mean? I have to have access to the internet to do my job. We're stuck in the apartments. So they took my phone that I paid for, that I paid for the plan, everything.
Speaker 1:It was your personal cell phone and the phone was yours and you were paying for the cell phone.
Speaker 3:That's right, I just paid for another month of service.
Speaker 2:And it was just about a few days.
Speaker 3:It was just a little Android phone.
Speaker 1:Okay, but they wouldn't even let you have it at all, wow Okay. So then what happened?
Speaker 3:So then, and actually looking back on it now, it may have been because they didn't want her to have access to a phone or something. She's my roommate. I don't know exactly what they were thinking or just a limit?
Speaker 1:You were catching shrapnel from her nonsense and then you were going to lose your phone. So then, what happened after that?
Speaker 3:So then I used my iPod and I had access to Wi-Fi, because my other roommate had a hot spot for a little while, and I told my friend what was going on Because I was so mad that they'd taken my phone that I you told the friend you were chatting with on Facebook. He was not in Scientology, that's right. He was not in the series, not a Scientologist, he was an outside world person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was a real world person and didn't never had any involvement with Scientology. That's right.
Speaker 3:Except for being friends with me.
Speaker 1:That's right and so, but and you? Were you telling him anything that was going on with you, or was this when that started?
Speaker 3:That's when that started. Because I was so mad that my my communication had been cut off so thoroughly and I was cut off from doing my job. I was so angry I was like I'm just going to tell him what happened. I'm going to see how he reacts when I tell him this. So I told him and he's like so it was your personal phone. Yep, I paid for the plan and bought the phone. So it was your property. So they stole your property. I'm like no, it's not really like that. Right, it's not really like that.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3:So I kind of tried to say some of that, but at the same time I was really mad that they'd taken it. So I'm like, so I'm telling him, like I want to change something. I'm sick of this, I'm really tired of this, I'm getting really fed up, and meanwhile he's like, he's like think, oh good, good, good, and I started telling him more and more.
Speaker 3:And I started telling him you know they won't like me sleep, and I just got the surgery in, and and I just started telling him more and more what was going on with me, and the fact that I just wasn't happy where I was.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, and so then, what happened?
Speaker 3:So then, well, he said a lot, but he started he would talk about like OK, so in an abusive relationship, this is what happens, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or you know, when they traffic people, when people are trafficked, this is what happens blah, blah, blah, blah blah. He didn't say you've been trafficked, it's happening to you.
Speaker 1:He was just giving you examples.
Speaker 3:Just giving me comparisons and being like it's it. It sounds to me like you're being abused. You feel like you're being abused. I'm like I don't know, maybe I don't know. No, yes, no, yes, but by the way.
Speaker 2:By the way, as an interesting comment, that response I don't know is a marker for law enforcement doctors and so forth. When someone says I don't know it's a, it's a known flag for you're covering up. That makes sense, Because you, because otherwise any normal person I mean, if you ask me that right now, be like no, yeah yeah, no, yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 3:I have a great. If you don't know, then they go.
Speaker 2:Hmm, this person is wondering if they're being abused or they're wondering if they're or or they're covering up for the abuser by just saying I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. Because you don't want to say no, because you feel like shit. You don't want to say yes, because then it's like OK, I don't have to explain what's going on. Oh, this is going to, this is going to be detrimental to Scientology. People are going to get in trouble. This is going to be, this is going to harm, this might harm Scientology.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a weird thing, yeah, that you're, literally, you're the victim and you're the one that's working and all of a sudden, for nothing really, for, for a sense, an hour, and you're trying to not get them in trouble, right, yeah, literally the whole world is how not to get in trouble yourself, and how not?
Speaker 3:to get in trouble. Yeah, you don't want to get them in trouble.
Speaker 2:And so so, from this point, what was the timeline to your GTFO moment? So so I started.
Speaker 3:I started talking to talking to him in April. I got my surgery in May. We went back. Everybody went back into the, into the org. At like the end of June sort of beginning of July, or maybe it's mid July, beginning of July everybody went back into the org. The org was still closed, nobody was going out.
Speaker 3:I was running ads and trying to do whatever I could without being able to go out and do promo. And then that's when they told me, oh, we might transfer you to training, go into training to be a supervisor. I'm like okay, and then that didn't happen. And then we started getting okay to go out again and do promo and do books and stuff and sell books I mean.
Speaker 3:So then I started being out again and because there was such okay, so as a sort of going along with the whole COVID thing, people if, if, if they were exposed to anybody who had symptoms or who was found to have the illness, they would be quarantined for two weeks or whatever it was. It kept changing, the rules kept changing all the time, but so you'd have a large amount of the staff in and out of quarantine like all the time. So it was really hard for me to find somebody to go out with to do promo, because everybody was like so, like no, I have to know I can't, I can't. I just got back from quarantine, or they were in quarantine, or they didn't want to go out because they didn't want to get sick. And there's all these protocols you had to follow if you're going to be out, and you had to come back and take a shower and clean your clothes with with Decon seven and all this crap you had to do if you were out of the order.
Speaker 1:Scientology had that Decon, seven sprayers and then like space suits and all kinds of craziness.
Speaker 3:We need to do one just on that. We do the whole thing.
Speaker 2:We do.
Speaker 3:Well, you won't leave it there's anyway, so then. So then I finally was just like, okay, I'm going to go by myself. But I told my senior, there's no one to go with me, and just take me to OSU, I'll do a whole bunch by myself. She's like, okay, you're not really supposed to go by yourself. And then it became a thing where I would just go.
Speaker 1:All these other times you were going with multiple, I was going. I was usually with people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was usually with at least one other person because for, like, security and whatever, then I didn't want people going around by themselves.
Speaker 3:Plus it's like it's easier to blow, so yeah, Part of it was like we don't want you going around by yourself and part of it was like we don't want it opens up the door to just walking away. So because I was trusted in whatever and I didn't have any history with ever blowing or doing anything weird or having any doubts, they would just let me go and kind of look the other way. And so I was out a lot by myself and I would make sure that I was at OSU like several days a week, all day by myself. So while I was there I was either talking to my friend or I was watching a lot of things on the internet.
Speaker 3:And that's what I found. Mark and Claire Headley.
Speaker 1:Now, what did you watch, like what? That's an interesting thing. What like what? If there was one thing that you remembered? Well, first of all, to be clear, I worked at a totally different place than you Most of our careers, when I was in the C organization for 16 years or so, but sometimes we would go to Los Angeles and where you worked and where you would serve the film crew. If we were there, they would get food from the, from your department, so you knew who I was.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I knew who you were and also knew who Chris Shelton was and he had a lot of interesting stuff and a lot of interesting stories. And I particularly liked hearing stories and hearing what was really going on at the end base, because when you're in middle management, which is like right under in management yeah, at the time when there wasn't it management, there's no management anymore but you're like right under that, that organizationally, you're right under that.
Speaker 1:So those are the people, those are the first batch of people that are subjected to non sense from David Biscavich, because he tells all the people in management oh, everybody has to do this in all of the Scientology organizations all over the world. And then in middle management that comes crashing down.
Speaker 2:And you're just like, why did?
Speaker 1:this happen, and so a lot of the times we're telling stories about what was happening at the base. The people in all the other organizations are going. Oh, that's why that happens.
Speaker 3:And there's and yeah and there's, so there were. There was so much mystery for me connected with with certain things that happened over the years where I'm like I just what happened with it. So I just started looking things up, specific things that I wanted to know about, and then I just started listening to more and more and more stories, more like escape type stories or like just horror stories from various people that you know. Chris did a ton of interviews and I listened to a lot of those.
Speaker 1:So you knew that there was people who had escaped, and they were. They were living life again.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, I knew there was people, but you somehow justify it in your mind of like, okay, well, they must be really unhappy or you know they'll never go up the bridge and never. She voted blah, blah, blah. But one of the things I found out early on is I found out there was no ochinand and 10. So when I found that out and when I actually believed it because I heard, because I heard it from somebody who heard it, from the guy who was working with that type of material, dan Coon, and I was like I know who Dan Coon is. What happened to Dan Coon? And I actually I knew that Dan Coon had blown because the one of the films that he was in had to be redone, and I knew why because I happened to hear it through the grapevine or whatever, that he was gone. And I was like what happened to Dan? Okay, if Dan Coon says there's no ochinand and 10, I believe it. So, okay, cool. So what does that mean?
Speaker 3:So then that got me thinking about just the whole, you know, going up the bridge. Do I want to continue doing this? And then I saw a couple of videos on the truth run down, and when I saw that and saw and found out what that really was, I was like I am never going to do that and for someone who's been, you know, in Scientology and the Seorg for that many years, to say there is auditing that I will never agree to do is pretty major. It is yeah, so, and there's no ochinand and 10, I'm never going to do the truth run down because I'll never have anyone tell me that what I saw is not what I saw, right, yeah, and so all these things that you're hearing about in the Seorg.
Speaker 1:You hear about them or you know somebody who knew somebody, or somebody that used to be an international management just shows up and they're the canteen I see or the dishwasher in Los Angeles. So you see all kinds of things happen, but no one's allowed to talk about it inside the Seorg.
Speaker 3:If you gossip, you're not allowed to ask any staff why they're, like you know, in charge of the canteen now or something.
Speaker 1:Right, it's basically like if you do that you're just inviting trouble, so nobody talks about that stuff. Yeah, you hear little things, or maybe somebody says something and then somebody tells them hey, shut up, don't say you can't talk about that. It's very hush hush. So you were finding out things that you kind of maybe suspected or knew.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or little pieces of, or you just know that somebody disappeared and you're like where did that person go? You look them up and you see how their whole story. You're like oh my God, okay, where did this person go? What happened to this person? Why is Chris Shelton such an SP? You know what I mean, like stuff like that. So I just started doing more and more of that and actually I watched the two hour Jason Begay interview, which was great. That was so good, oh, my God.
Speaker 1:You know who shot that so?
Speaker 3:good, didn't Mark Bunker do that?
Speaker 1:Mark Bunker shot that video. That video got thousands of scientists.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic, it's just his whole story and the way he tells it and everything.
Speaker 3:It's just fantastic, like if that doesn't get somebody to start asking questions or to leave, like yeah.
Speaker 1:There's two videos that Jason did that I think were really amazing. He did the video with Mark Bunker and then when we went to Germany he did a speech. He basically told a lot of other stuff in a different way and I'll put links to those two videos.
Speaker 3:I need to see that one too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're both really good.
Speaker 3:I mean he really he needs to come on one of these channels. I know.
Speaker 1:I talked to him like a week or two ago and we were chatting about something else and I asked him hey, when are you coming on?
Speaker 2:And he never answered I was like oh, come on yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure NBC does not. He doesn't. He's got a good thing going. He doesn't need the Scientology trying to jack it up again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you were watching stuff, you were, so why didn't you leave? You were still there. What was the thing? That was like I was trying to.
Speaker 3:I was trying to resolve in my own mind what I wanted to do, because first it was like, okay, I'm going to leave the Seorig. Okay, how am I going to leave the Seorig? But I still want to be a Scientologist. That's what I started with. I'm going to leave because I'm not happy. I want to do something that makes me happy. So then I went from that to like I don't know if I want to do Scientology anymore this is especially the truth rundown thing in the 1910 and I'm okay, maybe I don't want to do it anymore. Okay, but if I go, where am I going to go? Have a couple of thousand dollars in the bank, not a lot. I have a family up in Minnesota that I haven't really talked to, except my 91-year-old grandmother, who I didn't want to burden with like, oh, can I come up and stay with you? And I hadn't reconnected to my mom and my sister yet, and that was a whole other.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We'll put a link to the other video that Claire did with you and you guys can hear that whole story, but essentially just in a nutshell. Your mom and your sister, who had also been in Scientology, left, and when they left they tried to get you out and you didn't want to leave and it caused you a lot of internal problems.
Speaker 1:When, If you have somebody outside of Scientology showing up to your building and protesting and going to the media and doing stuff like that, if you're a Seawork member and that's happening, it could be very traumatic because you're going to get interrogated and you're going to get possibly beat up and you're going to be abused because you're connected to these people that are suppressives and it could really you could lose status, you could lose your job. There's all sorts of nonsense that can happen and so that happened to you and so you hadn't talked to, and that's why I was never allowed to go to Int or do anything like that.
Speaker 1:Because you were connected to people who were hostile towards Scientology.
Speaker 3:Which was a good thing in the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it didn't feel good in the moment, I'm sure yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then I didn't know what to do or where to go. You basically had nowhere to go, yeah.
Speaker 3:And my friend wanted to help me, but it wasn't really in the position to be like okay, I'm not sure how to help you. I'm going to see if I can work something out or something. Maybe you can stay with my sister, or we were tossing around different ideas and I was just like I don't know how I'm going to do this. I don't even know how I'm going to just leave. I don't want to just leave without any of my belongings. Really, I have things I want to keep on. I don't know how to do this type thing. So then he found the aftermath foundation online and actually I'd seen the website before and I was just kind of like no. And then he found it separately and was like I don't think you should ask them if maybe they can help you. I'm like no, that's a bunch of disaffected, suppressive people. I don't want to talk to them. They're scary. No, it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 2:I'm glad to hear what your thoughts were, and I'm also actually, by the way, really glad to hear that you had seen the website on your own before he mentioned it to you. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:I don't remember how I found it, but I definitely remember seeing it. But I was just like no. And then I just want to see who is on the board and stuff. I'm like, okay, yeah, I know who Mark is, I know almost all these people, but no, no. No not going to do it.
Speaker 2:And so what happened? That you changed your mind?
Speaker 3:Well, my very good friend talked me into it, basically.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 3:And at first I was like, okay, why don't know? Actually, I think maybe you should ask them and don't say anything about me. I don't want them to know where I am, okay, who I am, or anything. Because my I was kind of thinking, oh, they just try to get people out of Scientology and you know, I don't know, I didn't know what the plan was. So then he sent an email. He sent an email which sounded very suspicious at the time and it went to Aaron, and Aaron is like this sounds really fishy. So you're saying that your friend, who's a Seerg member, who's out in org, is talking to you and telling you all this stuff, but you're not a Scientologist, you've never been in Scientology, you don't have anything to do with Scientology, and she's telling all this. Yeah, really it sounded very fishy.
Speaker 3:So then, finally, he convinced me to send an email. So I sent like a two sentence email. Nobody answered me, because I'm sure it was like okay, they probably think this is bogus. So then I sent a more complete email and I got an answer. And then I was like okay, I want to talk to Mark Hedley. So then I was given Mark's number and I started texting Mark this is the best, has she I?
Speaker 3:started texting him.
Speaker 1:I wish I was. I'm debating, pulling up the conversation.
Speaker 2:No doubt it's okay.
Speaker 1:No, no, no just because, oh, you didn't have it.
Speaker 3:You should put it in an document and send it to me, because I don't have it anymore. I had to delete everything.
Speaker 1:Oh well, either way, essentially we were chatting back and forth and she was just telling me a little bit about herself, without telling me anything identifying, but she sent it. However, she was chatting on her iPod. When you chat on, or whatever device it was it has, if you click on the number, it'll just tell you who that is, and it said Kay. It said Kay Olson at Scientologynet or whatever it was, and so I thought it was really funny. But then I was like who do? I don't ever remember a Kay Olson. And then I just thought to myself wow, that's weird. And we were still talking back and forth. And I just went Kay Olson, scientology and a video of me came up. I thought that's the craziest thing ever. And then I watched the video and in the video it was a press conference that we had done at someplace in Los Angeles years and years ago.
Speaker 3:The really funny thing is that you were doing all this while we were texting.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh yeah. So I'm doing all this while we're chatting back and forth and then it finally comes. Mark Bunker comes up, Mark Bunker again. I got to tell you guys, Mark Bunker, that's just how long Mark Bunker's been around. This was like 15 years ago when this video was yeah, it was 2010. That video was from 2010. So Mark Bunker read a letter from Catherine's mom in the press conference because she had tried to go and get Catherine out and it was. I think the thing was.
Speaker 3:the video might even be, I'll put a link to it, but it's like a letter to Catherine is what he did or there's other forms of it Either way, I actually saw that when I was still in LA, because I would go and anytime I got access to to a non org internet, I would go and I would search for myself because I wanted to know if anything, if anything was happening with me that nobody was telling me about. So I actually saw that, that video.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So then I said okay, that's the only K Olson that I can I know of in Scientology, and so, and I don't know why, I don't know why I thought you would be. I thought Cincinnati was an org that got a bunch of C org members.
Speaker 3:They got a few. Yeah, they got a command.
Speaker 1:Okay. So when you explained your whole situation without giving me a location, then I just thought to myself let's do this, because she's not telling me who she is, she's not telling me anything. So part of this is we're trying to, we're trying to help this person, but we're also trying to vet this person. Like is this a real thing or is this some nonsense? Is this a setup? Because we've had tons of those as well, so we have to be very careful. So I just said, hey, we're chatting back and forth and I said do you don't happen to be in Ohio, do you? And she was like what the hell? And so then I thought, okay, I've got one more. And I said your mom's not BloddyBla, is she?
Speaker 3:And so she's been chatting with me this whole time.
Speaker 1:And she's not said one thing about who or where she is. And then I just said you happen to be, are you in Ohio and is your mom this person? And then so, within I'm going to say 10 minutes, I knew exactly who she was, even though she hadn't told me anything, and I've done this to other people as well. So, don't think that you're being singled out.
Speaker 2:And Catherine, what was your reaction to this from Mark? I was freaked out.
Speaker 3:I was like where does he know that? I'm like okay, this is weird. How does it okay this? This is really weird, because I was already like all scared about talking to you guys and I was just it's been right after that.
Speaker 1:We just started chatting.
Speaker 3:I was like you want to give, you want to get on the phone or what's over this, you know like yeah, after that we got on that point I was just like, because that's funny because that's one of those days that I walked from down High Street all the way to the university because I talked to you once I got to the university.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you told me the whole thing and but it was so funny because you were like being very cagey and very careful and everything. And then as soon as I knew who you were, you were like I was like you can call me if you want. This is you know, it's the, this is we. We let's just talk, let's just have a conversation, and and so then, how long was it? I mean, I want to say I want to say we talked a lot back and forth and there was a whole bunch of back and forth and then we got Claire involved.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did. So what happened was so that was on, that was on Sunday. Yeah, that was on. That was on Sunday, because then I had some. I had some email, a little bit of email back and forth about the application stuff with Aaron. But but then, yeah, we were, we were still, we were still texting, like I was I was texting you back and forth and I was I was texting with Aaron, cause he's, cause you were both asking me when do you want to go? And I'm like I don't know, maybe in a month. I was like I don't know a month, maybe I'll be ready in a month.
Speaker 3:But then part of it was was you were, you were telling when you told me, like, like, whatever you need, if you need a phone, we can get you a phone. If you need a plane ticket, we can get you a plane ticket. If you need me to picked up, you can be picked up. I'm like, okay, so this is totally, I can decide how this is going to go. Okay, that makes me feel a little bit better. Oh, so what we're going to do is we're going to come and pick you up and you're going to go here and then you're going to go there. And then this was going.
Speaker 3:I didn't want that. I was like, but there was none of that. It was like what do you need, type thing. So I was like, okay, this is cool. So then I didn't know where I wanted to go, I didn't know what I wanted to do, so then. So then I think Aaron suggested well, why don't we get you some place where you can just chill out for a little while and then decide where you want to go from there? I'm like, okay, that sounds cool. I'm like do you like the beach or do you like the mountains? I like mountains.
Speaker 1:So that's how I ended up, very convenient that you ended up here in the mountains. We have the mountains all over the place here.
Speaker 2:We got all the mountains.
Speaker 3:So then it was like, okay, so when do you want to go? And I was like first I said a month. Then I was like, well, maybe I can go next week, because then I could go to OSU and so we could pick me up. I'm kind of thinking to myself. And then a bunch of people who were kind of instrumental in maybe being able to stop me and figure out what was going on all went to quarantine and so you had a window.
Speaker 1:You basically had a two week window.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the DSA, the both people in the ethics department and then the person who was over HCO HR was on leave in the UK and, like all these people were gone like at the same time and I was like basically there were no Scientology police presence there that could really stop you or even foil an escape, because they were just not out of commission or gone.
Speaker 2:Or there would be most likely to find out that you had something in the works. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And I know the person that would be most likely to find that out and she was in the UK at the time, which was great, and I didn't know when she was going to be back. So I'm like I should go before she's back, yep. And so I was like, okay, so I can leave on a, I can leave on Friday. So I talked to you on Sunday and then we had some more texts with you and with Erin and stuff and then on, and then I was like, okay, so I can go on Friday. So then I had to arrange to go to the university on Friday, like without fail, because I was going to have a plane ticket and I didn't whatever.
Speaker 3:I just once I decided to go. I just wanted to go. I didn't want a bunch of like, because I was already having. When you're like, having to like, conceal like so much from people around every single day, like every minute of your life, practically, you're with somebody in your and you know you have friends and and people can be like, oh, are you upset about something or whatever?
Speaker 1:Right, so having to like, and that's the other reason we were worried when you said a month, because we know once someone's speaking with us and we're basically trying to help them. That is going to in Scientology, they teach you you're indoctrinated to believe that there's tells. If you have, if you're hiding a secret, then you have tells and and because you think that you will have those tells and then somebody will say hey, what's going on? So you know you're going to be caught if you do something.
Speaker 3:It's a, it's a kind of crazy brainwashing thing that happens and the funny thing is is that during this whole time I was getting, I was getting particular auditing in Scientology on on over some with holes.
Speaker 1:So that's another thing. If you're going in session and you're doing things that Scientology considers nonsense, before every session they ask you if there's any of that going on, and in order to continue the session you have to tell them what's going on, otherwise they will spend the entire. If you're going to be there for two hours, they'll spend the entire two hours interrogating you about what you're up to, and then then you get like kind of red flagged, like this person's up to nonsense.
Speaker 3:So you know, you know how I got around it. In my own mind, I was like this is not an overt. I'm actually doing something that I want to do that's going to be beneficial to me and my dynamics which is completely true, by the way. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:This is not an overt and.
Speaker 3:I was fine. I was like my, my auditing was going fine. I went in, you know, right before. Oh, that was the other thing that was going on. Is that because I was getting a student auditing and so the the supervisor went to quarantine during that that week he went to quarantine. So I'm like this is so perfect.
Speaker 1:It was like I'm not going to go in session for at
Speaker 3:least a week. Like it's going to be even easier, like I need to do it now.
Speaker 1:Quarantine ferry was, was, was on your side.
Speaker 3:That's right, but then? But then what happened was the day before, okay, so after. So Claire sent me the boarding pass on Thursday.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:And then and then, I was told that evening that I was going to go in session the next day. Oh so oh my gosh, we've got to do this.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 3:So then when I had to do okay, I'll just tell them I'm not sessionable, right and I ended up like being awake until like 4am anyway, so it was very valid.
Speaker 1:I didn't get enough sleep to go in session to be clear If you're, if you are supposed to get a counseling session or or an interrogation, scientology, they want you to be well fed and well rested, because the interrogation is not very effective if you're tired or hungry. So, so to be clear we got you a boarding pass. We have volunteer in the area so I want to remit. I want to say her name was Ashley.
Speaker 3:Ashley.
Speaker 1:We won't say her last name, but she was a volunteer for the foundation who signed up on the aftermath foundation dot org website and said if anybody needs a ride to the airport, I'm there, I'm the one to do it, and so when we went into our database. We went Ohio and it was like Ashley airport ride was like we're good to go, that's what we need. So so you got a volunteer to agree to pick you up.
Speaker 3:So I went in like so I went into the org the next day and I was like I'm sorry, I'm not sessionable, I couldn't. I couldn't sleep last night for a while and it almost turned into like sort of like an ethics thing, like oh hey, you sessionable. But then I smoothed it over and got out of it and whatever. I got out of it and I was like OK, I'm going to go to us. You know, can you give me a ride to my senior, right? She's like yeah, ok, I'll go. So then she drops me off and as soon as I get there, your boss is the one who dropped you off to block me off.
Speaker 1:That was the last time I saw her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's awesome. I felt I felt really bad about her. Actually, I know she got in so much trouble and she was actually. She's actually my favorite boss I've ever had in this York. She was a really cool chick, anyway, so she watches this and we'll, we'll get it, we'll get it.
Speaker 2:We can get her out too, that would be, perfect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wish she's, she's, I really wish she would. She's very cool, anyway. So so, yeah. So then she dropped me off and I immediately went in just a random building because it's it's so easy just to disappear on that campus. You can go into any building and you can just walk around and no one's going to find you, like no one's going to find you if they want to be found on that campus. So I went in a building. I had a. I had a. I had activated the SIM card on my, on my phone, because I got my phone back by that time, but it wasn't activated. So I got the SIM card activated and, for whatever reason, I couldn't use the phone. So I still use my iPod.
Speaker 2:So I just use the hotspot, whatever, use my iPod and then I said where I was, and sorry, by the way, I just want to interject because you were. You were dark for like three or four hours. Oh yeah, that morning.
Speaker 3:What happened was I got to the org and then I was on my my iPod for a second in my office and the ED walked by and saw me and then I was like oh shit, I shouldn't be on this and I put it away. I took the SIM card out of my phone. I hit everything in different places. I'm just like I cannot blow this. And I just didn't talk to anybody the entire time I was in the org. I'm like nope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and meanwhile, meanwhile, we're sitting here in Colorado, knowing that you're arriving this day. And all of a sudden it hit me like oh my gosh, if something happens and for any reason, you don't make it, what on earth do we do Like? Who do we know in law enforcement that can help us, Like right now, today? Anyway, thank goodness we heard from you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. So then. So, yeah, so then I just gave the address where I was and she came and picked me up Terrific lady, by the way and she took me to the apartments. Do you want to show, like where on the map, where I went?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, oh yeah, here we're going to put it up Poof. There you go, so you went. So here let's do you.
Speaker 2:So from.
Speaker 3:OSU.
Speaker 1:So you were over here in your flyer, your flyer land, where you normally go. So it was totally normal for you to go there, yep, so it was a perfect cover. So then, what time is it when Ashley picks you up?
Speaker 3:She picked me up at like I see like 12 or something.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're, it's lunch.
Speaker 3:It was like between 12 and one.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then you go from there, you go over to the apartments and then you go to get your stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'd been packing a little bit every day because when I was out for the day you had to come back to the apartment before I went to the Oregon. So I would have a little bit of time. So I started packing.
Speaker 1:Nice, so you had basically had go backs, you had some some bags, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I I ripped off a suitcase from my, from my roommate, which I sent her money I zelder money for Afterwards. I was like here's the money for your suitcase.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you go to the apartment, you get your stuff and then you go to the airport.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I go to my apartment, I pack my stuff. Ashley helps me load the like. She comes and get stuff as I'm packing it and puts it in the car. So I so I'm not putting stuff in the car, right, she's?
Speaker 1:been also so if somebody shows up, you've got somebody there with you, like, oh, this is my aunt's Ashley and she's just helping me, we're going to go, so, or you know whatever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So all I had to do was go from the apartment to the car with my purse, and that's all I had to do.
Speaker 2:And didn't you say, you almost ran into some other Seagrombers?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I got in the car. I got in the car and we, we were pulling away from, as we're pulling away from the curb, there's two people coming down the sidewalk in front of us from the org to see what. I remember that I knew because they were in quarantine, yeah, and they're walking out the sidewalk and I'm like, but they didn't see me, it was just a random car, it's not like Wow.
Speaker 1:So you just saw them walking and you're like that's it.
Speaker 3:Well, last time I had actually actually one of them was was had been my auditor many, many, many times, wow so crazy, he missed it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then you went to the airport, and then how long were you at the airport?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so then we went to the airport and I was at the airport. I think the flight was like for something.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it was pretty quick. You weren't working around the airport when you were in the terminal?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was coming before I got through security. I was. I was all freaked out and wondering if anyone's going to come, but at the same time I wasn't, because the thing is is the way I set it up is I was supposed to be at OSU for the entire day.
Speaker 1:Oh, so they wouldn't even have known you were gone until you were already on the flight. Yeah, so so.
Speaker 3:So first they would try to text me and be like, oh hey, we need to pick you up for this or that, and then, if they don't get an answer, or try to call, keep trying to text, keep trying to text, and I and I could have always just said, oh, I didn't see it, or it was turned off, or I'm really sorry, I didn't see the text, like I could answer like an hour, sorry, I didn't see the text, or whatever. So then when I got on the plane, I actually texted the guy who is supposed to know I got on the plane and as soon as I got on the plane, the guy who was supposed to pick me up was calling me because he wanted to find out where to pick me up from in OSU. And I didn't answer him because I'm like I'm not talking to anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I texted him and I said because because, at the same time, okay, yeah, I'm, I'm leaving, I'm escaping, but at the same time I had friends there, had people who cared about me, I'm not going to get kidnapped and dead or something.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. I don't need to do that to people. So I'm like I need to tell somebody where I am. So I just told him I'm. You know I'm, I'm leaving. This is my own decision. Please tell Angela. That was my senior. Tell Angela I'm really sorry and she's been great and I love her and and and I'm sorry for everything.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's wild. And so then when you went, and then I guess the next place you went was here- Denver Denver, colorado. Okay, good, so then, yeah, that was wild.
Speaker 2:And then did I pick you up.
Speaker 1:Who picked you up? Did Claire pick you up?
Speaker 2:That was me. Yep, I was. I was scoping out the tram exit to make sure there were no strange people and kind of like making sure. And then I remember you walked out and and we were both kind of like, huh, I'm like here, come on, let's hug it out. Hug it out. Welcome to Colorado.
Speaker 3:And I think, either when the I think when the plane landed or right before I took off, I texted you, mark, and I said okay, I'm coming, I hope you like me. And he answers me back and says yeah, I hope you don't suck.
Speaker 2:Can always count on Mark for a good laugh.
Speaker 1:To be fair we had talked a lot over the week up until then.
Speaker 3:He was trying to lighten the mood.
Speaker 1:Okay, so. So what was that like when you got?
Speaker 3:because basically, you got real.
Speaker 1:It was like I'm done, I'm out.
Speaker 3:It was totally surreal, like I remember the car ride back from there, from the airport, to to the, to the hotel in California, and it was just, it was so surreal Like I felt, like I was in shock. I was like this is so weird. So I'm in a car with a notorious to me.
Speaker 1:A suppressive person.
Speaker 3:And she's really nice and deep down I knew she probably be really nice and I've seen her videos. I feel like I kind of know her and it just it. I just felt so weird. I mean, I still feel weird. I feel less weird now, but I felt really weird for a while, like you can.
Speaker 1:You're like an alien.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You don't know the outside world, and all these people that you were told are horrible evil people are the people that are helping you to not have to be at the crazy evil place.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of like a weird.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's a really weird thing, and you also, you don't know who you can trust because you've been told so many things over so many decades that you, you don't know what's reality and what's the truth and you kind of have to find out and ask a bunch of dumb questions in order to find out what the score is.
Speaker 3:Plus, you don't know if anyone's going to come after you and try to talk to you and I'm like I don't want to talk to anybody and I know and I know that they would know the exact person to send or to talk to me to be like you know you really need.
Speaker 3:you need to come back, we'll sort everything out. We'll get you in a session, blah blah. We'll give you a CSR factor and, like the case supervisor will tell you what's wrong with what's wrong with you and whatever. And so I'm like I don't want to talk to anybody, at least of all anyone I've been friends with, and I know they would know exactly who to send. You know so.
Speaker 2:And that's, and that's why we ended up. I remember I think you spent the first one or two nights in the hotel and then, and then I, you commented she was staying at the hotel at night and then she would just hang out at our house all day long.
Speaker 1:Right, and after two days I was like this is ridiculous. Why isn't she just staying the guest room, if she's?
Speaker 2:here all day.
Speaker 3:I'm staying the guest room anyway, so.
Speaker 1:But we didn't want to, we didn't want to assume that. So that's why we had to get the hotel. But yeah, I remember I couldn't hang out all day long. And you're like and you're asking like, what's this down here? Oh, that's just a guest room, you know.
Speaker 3:I couldn't find my contact and solution the first night and Claire had to bring me some.
Speaker 2:So, Mark's like you want to just stay with us so that you know, and you and you commented that you yeah, and you commented that you didn't want to be alone.
Speaker 2:You didn't really feel comfortable with that and we were like okay, you know what, let's just just come, come, stay with us, let's just, you know, and whatever you need, we're here. And and I remember to you commenting that, something along the lines of that you knew that we were big, bad SPS, but you didn't buy into that and you and you were like, and I'm like, oh good, I mean I hope I'm not coming off as a big big, because I don't think I want.
Speaker 3:You know one thing, it's really funny, one thing I used to wonder about. I used to wonder I'm like okay, so there's people out there who are declared and then they have kids. It's like what are their kids? Think of them? Are their kids like traumatized because they're SPS, or? I used to kind of wonder about that. I was being like what those poor kids they must be. You know what I mean. And then, and then you meet your three boys and it's like like wonderful people, you know, it's just like no, this is, this is just another, just more proof that it's just utter BS what they say about people.
Speaker 2:Yep, and the best, the best thing always is to live a happy, successful life outside of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the other thing, the other, the other reason I wanted I don't know if I mentioned this there's a. There's a few reasons I wanted to talk to Mark because I saw a lot of videos that Mark did when he was talking about the in base and all this stuff right, and plus he was on a shoot crew and I always wanted to go to the shoot crew. So I'm like, okay, that's cool. And then when I heard this story of like what, what he got in trouble for, and this whole finance and finance irregularities and stuff, I was just like, okay, that's probably bullshit, that's probably utter bullshit. Okay, yeah, because they tell all these.
Speaker 1:They tell all these stories on hate sites about us. Yeah, all these things we've done and everything, and so it's funny that you said that, because a lot of times those are that's how people know to talk to us is because they go.
Speaker 1:I saw this thing that Scientology put out about you and I want to ask you about it, and then you tell them and they're like yeah totally, that's how the truth rundown thing that happened in Clearwater and all these different articles that in Freedom Magazine that we were in, that they passed out to all of Clearwater and gave every single Seward member. Those Seward members were like, oh I know, Mark, that's. This is craziness, this is the silliest thing I've ever heard. So it's kind of funny how that backfires on them like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted to ask too, though so now you're out, you're in Colorado what were some of the things that were most helpful to you in reacclimating to the outside world and kind of?
Speaker 3:explaining things like I'm like 15 years old. This is how you get a driver's license. This is okay. This is what we need to do next. This is this is what we do next. Okay, so we need to do this with your, with your ID and I think I got a passport at the time too so it's like, okay, we need to do this next and this next, and and you know, when you find an apartment or when you look for an apartment, do this, or let's check out these places. It's just like literally talking to someone, like like they're, they're, they're at the, they're at the level they were when they joined. Like, yeah, like a 15 year old kid, 16 year old kid, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you've never done any of those things, so and there's no kind of like that's a good idea that we should make like a how to start believing the C organization.
Speaker 3:And then there's things that you don't even know, that you don't know. You're like, oh, I didn't even know this, this thing existed. Or I can't, God, I can't think of an example right now, but but there's. There's still things like that where I'm like, oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:And I didn't even know that I didn't know to even ask the question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even when you went to we got. You know, claire helped you get a job and you have to fill out paperwork.
Speaker 3:and there was, you know you had to do things just to get for the application, just to be able to get a job and or like you get paid like every other week and I'm like when he could pay once week and this year you get paid, you get an allowance once a week, your whole like $46.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, really, you get paid every other week. That's weird. I had a budget. You want to take time off work? You know, my first job was was was at UPS and I would just, I would just tell the manager like, hey, I need to take these, I'm not going to be here on these days, and it's like he didn't even he didn't need to know why I wasn't going to be, like, oh, okay, cool, thanks for letting me know, type thing. And the same thing. I work for Amazon for a little while and and I would try to like over explain things to the managers, it's like it's, it's fine, I don't, I don't need to know, just putting your, putting your request, and it's fine. It's like nobody cares what you do with your time.
Speaker 1:In this organization, if you want to do something besides work, you have to write a proposal. Like Ben heard, the proposal. It has to be the most excruciating detailed justification. I'm not going to be working for two hours on Tuesday Exactly.
Speaker 2:I will say, I will say, one of my most memorable moments was teaching you to drive. At the same time, I was teaching my 16 year old to drive. That was, that was unique.
Speaker 3:I might as well just say you're teaching to 16 year olds to drive.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't say that. No, you were an excellent learner, but it was. It was definitely unique.
Speaker 3:I had to drive in a Colorado winter after that, so that was exciting yeah that's right, because it was literally was snowing and the roads were icy. Actually, the first time I drove to work was the first snow in Colorado for the year. I had to drive I couldn't, I couldn't ride my bike, I was forced to drive.
Speaker 2:Yep, I remember. Oh my gosh, well amazing.
Speaker 1:So you got it. So you ended up getting a job, you ended up getting a car and you ended up getting your driver's license a passport, an apartment.
Speaker 3:An apartment. An apartment was awesome, all to myself, and it was such a great location it was. It was the best place I've ever lived, literally Wow.
Speaker 1:And the kind of wild thing was is that we the couple that owned that we had known for many, many years and they also ran a nonprofit, that we participated in fundraisers and stuff with them, and so I think we were I don't remember where it was or how we came across them but then when we asked, they you know through the connections we had they said, oh, they have this apartment available. And so it was like, oh, they could, they could say, and then they didn't really understand the whole. You know the broader picture of this thing. It was just somebody that we needed to get an apartment for, and so then when we explained to them the whole thing, they were like, oh, my gosh, that's so amazing. They were like even more willing to, you know, do anything and everything they could so that you would be in a safe space and you'd you had kind of like a base of operations. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It just had a place where you could be, where you didn't have to worry about anything.
Speaker 3:So and it was right on the other side of the hill from you guys.
Speaker 1:So yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before you were comfortable driving, we got you that electric bike and you could zip through and we'd take you to work or whatever.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, it's so nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 1:Could you ever imagine? So now you. Well, let's fast forward. So is there anything else that we didn't talk about, or anything else that you did, or well? So I want to say, for somebody that is thinking of leaving the Seaworth, what would you tell them? Like, what, what, like, why did you end up going helping, how did the aftermath end up helping you and how did it work out for you?
Speaker 3:Well, the aftermath helped me with everything. I mean helped me actually leave, like physically leave, because, okay and I've told this to people now that I talked to you to help with these sort of things, or people that have family who they're trying to get out, or whatever. Excuse me. So if you, if, if, if you can say like you know, I'll be on blah blah street corner at 4pm and I need someone to pick me up and they have to pick me up at 4pm, you can totally make that happen. You can walk out and be picked up, for example, or you can get a plane ticket or bus ticket or a phone, phone whatever, a SIM card, a phone, whatever. Whatever you need to be able to get out is what the aftermath foundation can help with. And if you need I don't know a family member to come pick you up and they and and and they can't afford to fly over there, you can like fly them over there and pick them up, or whatever it's like. Whatever you need the aftermath can do.
Speaker 3:Basically, and then and then, because, like I was in a unique situation because I came straight to you guys and not everybody does that, so if someone goes to like some other place and they don't have any connections. It's like there's volunteers all over the place. They'll be like oh yeah, I want to help and you know someone can help you learn how to drive or in an apartment, or maybe you need some places to stay for a little while. It's like people, you know people volunteer and say you know, I have this space or I have this Airbnb that I can donate for a couple days or something Like. It's like practically anything can be done. It's just amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is amazing, it's it's, it's, it's absolutely, and it's all over the world too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to say we've done this for people in different, many different countries. We've gotten people from one country to another country. We've, you know, we, we've worked and in some cases we can even work with law enforcement. Where you're at, if you're worried that something's going to happen, we have contacts and law enforcement where we can actually even help. You get maybe a little bit of air cover, like they will be ready if anything happens to rescue you or help you or you can go to them.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever it is, it's different, for every single person is different. Nobody's exactly the same. But no matter what, we're trying to think of all the things that when we were there, we knew we couldn't leave because we didn't have a place to land or we didn't have a place, somebody to help us, or how am I going to get a job? How am I going to get a place to live, all of the things that the reasons why you don't leave, you don't want to. Almost in all of these cases, the person doesn't want to be there anymore, but they have no way to not be there anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you're also thinking like you know, 10 steps ahead, like, yeah, I want to leave, but I don't know where to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that kind of acts, as like it kind of like stops you from planning on how to leave. It's like I don't know where to go, I don't know how I'm going to leave. It's like all that can be taken care of, all you have to do, and I really hope. Ah, I'm going to get emotional now.
Speaker 3:I really hope that there's people like I have a lot of friends in LA. I have friends in Columbus who I would love to see leave, and I really hope that any of them see this or see any of my videos and just evaluate whether or not like the like the simple question of are you happy doing what you're doing? Okay, if you're not, leave, go do something that you love doing. Like like I'm in a, like I'm I'm. I'm back in in Oregon, which is where I started. I went full circle. It's kind of a longer story, but I'm back where you know. I'm near family, I have pets. I'm I'm. I'm with a wonderful person. I'm I'm going to start my own photography business. I'm like you know, I'm like everything I'm doing I love doing and I'm like just dreamed of being able to do and I was just like stuck for so many years.
Speaker 3:And I know that there's people like that and I have friends that probably feel the same way and but they're like okay, so I don't know how to do that, I don't know where I'm going to go, but some problems like that. But that can all be taken care of by the foundation. So I hope that somebody sees this and that.
Speaker 2:Me too, me too, and I'm just so, so grateful that you trusted us to be your first landing pad in here in Colorado, and anyway, we're and we're super grateful and we're super grateful too for your, your invaluable work for the foundation as well, by the way- yeah, and that's that's the other thing.
Speaker 3:that's it's, it's really. It's really fulfilling for me because now I can, I'll say it, you know, publicly, I'm working for the foundation, so now I get to help people that are in similar situation to me or help their families or give their families direction or, you know, help people get a grant who are like, you know, I'm really fucked up right now and I need help. And it's just great because it's like, it's like, it's like a whole circle.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know it's amazing. It's amazing the way life works out.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine now being where you are? Can you imagine that this happened in such a short period of time?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Compared to where you were, you know, just two years ago. Basically you were doing your thing, and and then now it's like it's a whole new life.
Speaker 3:It's, it's, it's totally amazing. And it's it's. It's even more amazing when I like, when someone asked me like people ask me all the time, when, when did you come out? And I'm like, oh, 2021. They're like, really, that's just like, that was just like a couple of years ago I'm like, yeah, yeah. But when I look at it, I think about it, I'm like, wow, lots happened in that time.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you have real life markers now. I'm sure you don't have any trouble remembering dates and times for that period. Exactly.
Speaker 3:Like, like. This is when I work this job, and this is this is where I was living. Cause now I live on both the East Coast and the West Coast. East Coast, West Coast, in the middle. I've like been back on the West Coast.
Speaker 1:Yes, you have actually done a lot of road trips since you left as well, so you've driven all over the United States and you've seen a ton of things.
Speaker 3:I got to take a vacation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We drove from the Grand Canyon from Colorado to the Grand Canyon, which is fabulous.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. That's a fun trip.
Speaker 3:And then from the East Coast to the West Coast, we moved over here.
Speaker 2:And you have absolutely amazing photos, amazing.
Speaker 3:Oh, you should put. Hey, can you put a link to my portfolio?
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yes. So if you're ready for this everybody watching please check out Catherine's amazing photography portfolio. We will include the link in the description.
Speaker 1:Yay, so is there anything else that you wanted to cover, catherine, that we didn't talk about? Any other thing you want to?
Speaker 3:say that's it. I mean I'm sure we can, just that I want to do more videos and talk about more stuff.
Speaker 2:Yes, let's definitely do that. That would be amazing. I think we can do that live Q and A for this one too. Just see, we had so much story to cover that this was easier this way. But we can do that as well, Cause I know you were eager to answer any questions. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a great idea. Well, just once this one comes out, then we'll post a thing on the community tab or wherever, when Catherine and Claire or myself will do a live Q and A.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then that would be. That's to be all three of us, yes of course. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3:Well, this was a bit of a longer video that we did today, but we wanted to tell all of Catherine's story and how excuse me, how she was able to escape from Scientology and the C organization.
Speaker 1:And we want to make sure that anybody watching this if you've got a family member or you've got a relative or a friend or an old acquaintance that you know is in the C organization and you end up doing that and you end up talking with them, if they express that they are not happy or things are going sideways or whatever, if you let them know of another C org member that we helped get out or, if you want, if they can get onto the internet and you can send them a video. This, these stories and these videos affect different people in different ways and, like Catherine was saying earlier, we're telling stupid stories about the base, but to a C org member, that video is answering all these questions.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's very, very important yeah.
Speaker 1:And it puts the pieces together that allows them to go like oh yeah, that was a bunch of nonsense. Oh yeah, this was a bunch. They knew it, but they didn't know why. So now, when you, when we're telling these stories, it hits different people different ways, so that's why we do this.
Speaker 3:One other thing I wanted to say is is is that if you are, if, like like Mark said, if you have a family member or friend or whatever who's been in and and and say they've been in for 20 years, it doesn't, don't, don't, don't, give up on them. Yes and in fact.
Speaker 2:In fact, if you, if you've lost touch with them, you don't know where they are, we have a missing person directory now on the aftermath foundation website so you can post there and we can keep an eye on and get new information so that we can eventually, hopefully, abolish disconnection altogether.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're keeping track of the people that are asking about Seaworth members or Scientologists, and then we're also connecting different people with other family members. So sometimes we say, hey, I want to know what happened to Joe Blow, and that we might. There's so many ex Seaworth members that we talk to now that we can send them and say, hey, does anybody know where this person is? And in most cases we can track somebody down in the Seaworth Scientology organizations. We can track them down within a few hours or days and get an answer to a family member of where this person ended up because they've lost touch with their person. Great, awesome guys. Well, this was great, catherine. Thank you very much for doing that.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Catherine.
Speaker 1:We will definitely do this again. Okay, guys, thanks for tuning in and till next time.
Speaker 2:Bye.
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