Ex-Scientologist story #281, Mission slaves: greed & abuse.

The Dearings, Suzette and Michael, were two very committed Scientologists.  However, Scientology thrives on people with good intention.   The Dearings  were treated like miserable peons living in near poverty while enduring sleep deprivation and overwork.  This is par for the course in Scientology.    The cult has grown rich exploiting people like this.

“My name is Suzette M. Dearing. I live in Citrus Heights, CA and am a Technical Writer. . .

From January 1975 to July 1983 I was a staff member at the  Church of Scientology, Mission of Davis (COSMOD) at  Sacramento.  At Ms. Wakefield’s request, I am writing down  what I know of  the Church’s illegal and bizarre activities.

The thing that stands out most about my first years on staff  is the sheer lack of sleep. We had staff meetings every  Wednesday night that lasted from midnight until 3:00 – 4:00 in  the morning. We were all required to work six to seven days a  week from 9:00 AM until 11:30 PM (or later), in violation of  local and state labor laws. However, the party line was that we  were “volunteers” who were paid a “parsonage allowance”, as  opposed to salaried employees. (The “parsonage allowance”  ranged, on average, from $0 on bad weeks to $100 on good weeks.)  On Thursdays, then, we were forced to perform our duties on as  little as three hours of sleep.

During these staff meetings, the ED of the Mission, Reggie Caldwell, would alternately chain smoke and yell profanities at  us, telling us we were non-productive, that we had “evil  intentions”, etc.

After a few months of this, I became quite ill and decided to  quit. Staff members who wished to quit were seen by a person  called an “Ethics Officer”, whose job, in retrospect, was to  brainwash us until we “saw the light” and decided to stay. I was  told to remain in a small room, about 8′ by 8′ and write up my “O/W”,  a list of everything bad I had ever done in my entire life. When  I thought I was complete, the Ethics Officer would  look over what I had written, and if I still felt I wanted to  quit he would send me back to the small room to continue  writing. I did this for a couple of days until I “decided” to  remain on staff. Note that this was standard handling for anyone  who wanted to quit staff. I tried to quit staff several times  over the years, and was always forced into a small room to  “confront my O/Ws”.

In the first years I was on staff (1975-1979) we were  actively discouraged from seeking medical help if we were sick.  It was felt that all illnesses were “spiritual” in nature. I  remember one man named Tom Stevens, who had appendicitis that  went untreated for a couple of days until he finally had  emergency surgery. He was forced back on the job by the Church  after only two days of recovery and performed his duties in  considerable pain. On another occasion my supervisor, Cathy  Moore, suffered a miscarriage and called me to her house to  counsel her to make the miscarriage stop. Needless to say, it  didn’t and she eventually was hospitalized.

I remember when I was pregnant with my second child in 1983,  I asked the director of the Church, Jeff Cota, if I could cut  back my hours. I was very ill (during my fifth month I lost five  pounds) and my physician was concerned about me. His response  was that he was convinced that my difficulties were “spiritual”  in origin and that he wanted me to receive counselling rather  than go home and rest. I couldn’t convince him otherwise.”

For the rest of Suzette’s story go here;  http://www.xenu-directory.net/documents/dearing19890810.html

Here is Michael’s story:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/48287109/Scientology-Memoirs-Miscellaneous-Affidavits

Things never get any better inside Scientology; the abuse continues.  Here the former head of Scientology, Clearwater, FL,