Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [108]
As the former Scientology official Jesse Prince, who examined Lisa's auditing records in 1998, points out, telling your auditor you don't want auditing or that it is not working is a crime in Scientology. Once a person makes these assertions, the director of processing, who manages all auditing for the church, "retrieves" the person from his or her usual auditor and places the person in an "auditing repair program." This program, says Prince, "is designed to repair past auditing mistakes. Lisa McPherson had several of these programs, yet they did not work."
Instead, the new program drove Lisa deeper into despair. Over and over, she spoke of leaving Scientology—"blowing," in the group's parlance; she also told her auditor that she'd been contemplating suicide. Scientologists believe very strongly that a person is fully responsible for their own condition in life, good or bad. Lisa repeatedly searched for reasons she had failed to get better. She saw herself as a "potential trouble source" to Bennetta, unhappy at work, wanting to leave. But she felt incapable of walking away. Her anger turned to despondency and finally to helplessness. "Nothing matters anymore," she told her auditor. "I just want to be left alone."
Depressed and exhausted, Lisa took a leave of absence from AMC and in late June 1995 checked into the Fort Harrison to begin an intensive auditing program known as the Introspection Rundown, which Hubbard designed to help members who were having emotional difficulties. If done correctly, the person should ultimately readjust his or her mentality and "extrovert," or focus attention less on the self and more on others, and the goals of the larger group. "The rundown is very simple and its results are magical in effectiveness," Hubbard had maintained.
At the hotel, Lisa was assigned a roommate named Susan Schnurrenberger, a Sea Org member who worked in the base's medical office. Schnurrenberger, who had a nursing background, was charged with watching over Lisa to make sure she ate, slept, and was "sessionable"—able to receive auditing. Schnurrenberger was also supposed to prevent Lisa from hurting herself, as she had repeatedly threatened suicide. During the first few weeks, Lisa's moods roller-coastered from upbeat and "gleaming bright," as one staff member wrote in a memo, to dark and depressive. She felt as if she had an "enemy" inside of her. "Susan," she told Schnurrenberger one night, "I think I'm going crazy."
Late that summer, however, she seemed to emerge from her confusion. The past few months had been a "blank," she wrote to Robin Rhyne on September 2, 1995, adding that she was finally out of the woods and feeling more hopeful. She was still at the Fort Harrison and being audited every day. "You will never believe the level of care and service I've received at Flag. I'm ready to go on tour and tell the world how anything CAN BE HANDLED!" she wrote.
Finally, on September 7, 1995, Lisa achieved her longtime goal and went Clear. The struggle, as she later described it, had been like "a gopher being pulled through a garden hose," but she attributed her success to the support of her friends "and of course LRH." "It has been ... worth every single thing I've had to go through ... I am so full of life I am overwhelmed at the joy of it all!" she wrote. "Now, I understand!" she added, underlining the word understand five times. "WOW!"
That evening, Lisa stood in front of an audience of fellow Scientologists at the Fort Harrison, where, framed certificate in hand, she announced her achievement. She looked thin; her short-sleeved black-and-white-striped dress hung loose on her frame. Her face, now framed by a short haircut, looked drawn. Yet her voice was strong. "Being Clear," she said, "is more exciting than anything I've ever experienced."
But Lisa's glow wore off quickly. She returned to AMC but found it hard to regain her momentum, and by October, her statistics