When Scientology Fails

Nancy Many sits comfortably curled up on her couch. A cool wind blows outside her Los Angeles home hitting the windows and splashing against the dead leaves in her yard. Her two Siberian Huskies lie on the floor, drifting in and out of sleep. The lights inside the house are yellow and dim giving an aura of firelight. A tranquil warmth fills the living room.

The serenity that Many now enjoys is a testament to her victory, something hard fought and won, for her life used to be chaotic and uncertain.

Many once stared down the abyss of insanity, a psychotic break that she believes was brought about by the heavy interrogation methods used on her by the Church of Scientology. She had undergone several days of “confessional auditing” at Scientology’s headquarters in Hollywood. Many, a former Scientologist, details this experience in her book, My Billion Year Contract, released in October, 2009.

When one hears the word “confessional,” images of a compassionate priest listening to one’s sins comes to mind. But Scientology confessionals are a mixture of part confessional and part interrogation. The church often uses their confessional procedures as a tool for investigating its parishioners.

In her book, Many describes intense interrogation scenes that are closer to an episode of Twenty-four than the benign relationship of priest and penitent. In one session, Many writes she was questioned in a stifling room, “sobbing and doubled over a trashcan with dry heaves” while being demanded information. Her only crime was communicating her doubts about Scientology to apostates who were considered enemies of the church.

And the grilling continued. “It was 10 days of five to eight hours a day in those interrogations,” Many said.

On February 11, 1996, her mind had enough. A deep resonant fracture in the structural steel of her sanity had occurred. “I just know the sound of the cracking of my mind,” she said as she detailed the exact moment when her troubles started. “It was so loud. And I was instantly in another place.”

Many’s descent into psychosis culminated into her believing aliens were after her youngest son. Her mindset led her to a series of conspicuous acts performed on the streets of Burbank in an attempt to distract the aliens from getting her child. Many was taken to a hospital by the authorities and shortly released into the care of her family. What followed was a long road to recovery.

Many argues that, in the Scientology world, she is not alone in this phenomenon. She says she has found Scientology confessionals to be a common denominator with others who have been in a similar state as hers. Frighteningly, these episodes are “more common than you would think,” Many said.

Aida Thomas, a Scientology counselor in Los Angeles, had a similar experience to Many’s. Thomas underwent intense interrogations after raising questions regarding alterations made in church practices in 1996. Thomas likens her experience to police interrogation.

“It is the same thing. How many times do they have innocent people, but the police interrogate and badger them so much that they say whatever the police want to hear,” she said.

According to Thomas, she was interrogated with several people in the room, one of them standing in front of the door in uniform with a swagger stick. She was asked over and over what she “had done” to the Religious Technology Center, Scientology’s head corporation. She describes searching and searching for answers, but unable to find any. “I thought I was going crazy. I came home shaking,” she said.

Thomas became suicidal after her troubles with the church. “I was obsessed with killing myself,” she said. “I didn’t even drive for a year because when I was driving on the freeway I just wanted to let go of the steering wheel and see what would happen.” It took several years for Thomas to recover from her experience to a point where she could function fully. In many ways, she said, she is still recovering.

Both Many and Thomas describe scenarios where Scientologists asserted there was something wrong with them mentally and spiritually. Many was told by a therapist, who specializes in treating psychosis, that the “Scientologists had pushed [me] to psychosis through a series of missteps and introversions during their various handlings,” she wrote in her book.

After undergoing intense confessionals, both Many and Thomas found themselves to be extremely introverted with fatigued minds. “It’s all about why you are so evil. I got stripped of thinking I was a good person,” Many said.

Fortunately for Many and Thomas, they were both able to recover and move on with their lives. Others have not been so fortunate. In fact, there is an entire Web site called Why Are They Dead, dedicated to Scientology-related deaths. The most recent example of this is the story of Australian Scientologist Edward McBride who committed suicide in 2007. His death played a significant role last year in galvanizing support for a parliamentary inquiry into the practices of Scientology.

The coroner’s investigation found the Church of Scientology contacted McBride 19 times prior to his death demanding that he complete his Scientology counseling. He paid $25,000 for these church services. The church rushed McBride’s counseling files to the U.S. where they could not be reviewed by the coroner.

And in May, 2009, Los Angeles-area Scientologist Steve Brackett, a multi-million dollar contributor to the church, killed himself by jumping off a bridge in Big Sur, California. Brackett had been on a spiritual level that required him to receive confessionals every six months. He was on this spiritual regimen for several years.

Not feeling any loyalty to the church’s public image, Scientologists outside the church admit it is possible for Scientology’s counseling techniques to produce harmful psychological results. Greg Barnes, who spent over 20 years in the church, admitted this in an interview with the Chicago Reader in 2002. “If you misapply this technology you can drive someone insane. You can cause someone to become psychotic,” Barnes said.

Dave ThomasDave Thomas, a Scientology counselor and husband to Aida Thomas, mirrored Barnes’ statement. “When all the principles are applied...you are not going to get any negative results,” he said.

Dave argues that the prime cause for these harmful effects are Scientologist’s failure to follow their own codes of conduct in counseling. He lists such violations as not ensuring the parishioner is well-rested, invalidating and evaluating their thoughts or reality and not allowing the parishioner to be the individual they are. He says such errors can be found in just about any one of these interrogations.

“That’s when you’re going to get psychotic breaks,” Dave said. “Not necessarily the process itself, but the arbitrary additives that destabilize the case.”

The Church of Scientology did not respond to several requests for an interview. However, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard did acknowledge the potential harm violations in his counseling techniques could cause. According to Hubbard, not ensuring a parishioner was rested, properly fed or experiencing a frequent change in counselors could induce insanity.

“In every case where a psychosis or neurosis was restimulated,” violations were present, Hubbard wrote as early as 1954.

Many spent 20 years in the church. She details in her book how she worked directly under Hubbard and with Scientology celebrities. She even spied for the organization, first in the church’s Guardian’s Office and then later for the Office of Special Affairs.

But for Many, whose Scientology experience began in the early 1970s, the church and its practices are a thing of the past. “I will never again give my mind over to [a Scientology counselor]. I can’t, because I could lose it again,” she said. “I never knew you could lose your mind. I didn’t know that was something to be worried about.”

The free manner with which Many speaks says she has come to terms with these experiences. Like the lashing winds that are kept outside, away from the warmth of her home, her present is protected from the horrible memories of her past.

When asked if there was anything she would like to say to Scientologists who are still in the church, Many replies as though it was the question she had been waiting to be asked. “Take a vacation,” she said without pause. “Go back to your families, even for just two weeks, and see what the world is like...and read [about Scientology] on the Internet.”