Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [101]
By the summer of 1988, overworked between the demands of her day job and her long shifts at the org, Lisa was exhausted. She suffered another blow when Gene, having repeatedly ignored his wife's entreaties to help out financially, left Dallas in October and flew to Los Angeles, where he signed a billion-year contract and was absorbed into Scientology's inner sanctum, the Sea Organization. Lisa, who was not consulted about Gene's decision, was now saddled with the couple's entire debt. Furious, she resolved to join the Sea Org too. But once in California, Lisa found the regimentation and strict discipline overwhelming and, desperately homesick for Dallas, soon returned home.
Leaving the Sea Organization, or any staff position, is called "blowing." It came with its own cost, an onerous one: "blown" staff members receive a "freeloader's bill," charging them the full price for all the courses or auditing services they had taken, for free, while in the church's employ. Therefore when Lisa returned to Dallas in the spring of 1989, she found herself $45,000 in debt, and, in accordance with church policy, she was barred from receiving any Scientology services until the money was repaid and she had gone through the appropriate "amends" process to show that she could once again be trusted.
It was a dark time, said Carol Hawk, who reconnected with Lisa during this period. Excluded from auditing, she divorced Gene and declared bankruptcy. Then, over the next six months, Lisa struggled to make reparations, working three jobs, including one at a Domino's pizza shop. Isolated and removed from the structure of the org, she relapsed into long-discarded habits, dancing up a storm at country-western bars and even dating wogs.
But though Lisa was cut off from the services the church provided, she was not cut off from Scientology entirely. She shared an apartment with Brenda Hubert, an active member of the Dallas org, and remained in contact with several other friends and former colleagues from the church. Mixing praise with pressure, they reminded her that she was "loved" within Scientology and urged her to straighten out her finances, "get back in session," and move up the Bridge. "I am looking forward to getting your regular flows"—communications—"and seeing you have your debt fully paid off," the director of registration, Annie Morlin, wrote Lisa in June 1990. "I'll send you a few BREs [business reply envelopes] to make it even easier."
In the summer of 1990, David and Bennetta Slaughter returned to Dallas. Looking for a new venture, they joined forces with their friend and fellow Scientologist Jeffrey Schaffner, hammering out a deal for a three-way partnership in Schaffner's company, AMC Publishing, which would publish advertising packets and sell leads to the insurance industry.
As is typical with many Scientologist-owned companies, AMC used the management and administrative principles of L. Ron Hubbard, licensed to it by the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE), the organization through which the Church of Scientology has, for more than thirty years, reached out directly to the high-earning professionals who fund most of its work. The