Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [164]
At home, Kendra's parents, with whom she'd always been close, believed their daughter's rejection of Scientology was a phase. When Kendra insisted it wasn't, they quoted Hubbard's sayings related to sin: one single wrong act—an overt—could result in a series of events that would make a person want to leave a group. What was it? What was her sin? Kendra countered by citing L. Ron Hubbard's most famous statement: "What's true for you is true." She'd done nothing wrong, she said. Scientology just wasn't true for her any longer.
Fearful that Kendra was losing her chance at eternity, her parents turned to the church itself, which dispatched members of the Sea Organization to their home to handle the problem. Kendra hid in her room. "They'd cluster in little groups around the coffee table, discussing my case, while I made my point by blasting Rage Against the Machine at full volume from behind the closed door," she said. The church officials came day after day. Kendra's parents begged her to talk to them. Finally, she agreed.
"I was so angry, I just wanted these people to drop dead and leave me alone," she recalled. "But on the other hand I was really scared." For weeks, she said, one Sea Org official after another would take her aside and "use Scientology on me," as she put it. When Kendra didn't answer their questions, they'd ask them again, just as they'd been trained to do in their TR drills. If she was sulky or defiant, her interlocutor, following Scientology teachings, would try to "raise her tone" by hitting a note just above hers—"antagonism," one tone higher than hostility, was the most common note they struck.
"After a while I'd want it to end so much, I'd end up crying and agreeing to whatever"—which was usually to talk to yet another Sea Org member, Kendra said. "But I knew what I wanted, and I so didn't want to have that conversation, because all they did was break me down. They'd throw things back at me until I felt like I was the guilty one for not wanting to stay in Scientology. Every conversation I'd had with the Sea Org for years had been like that."
The Sea Org had, in fact, once targeted Kendra for recruitment. The same held true for virtually every one of her friends. Scientology children are raised to not only respect and defer to Sea Org officials, but to envision themselves in a Sea Org uniform. Since David Miscavige became the leader of the church, the Sea Org ranks had swelled with the children of church members. Recruiters patrol the orgs and also show up at schools like Delphi, looking for possible candidates. Once they've isolated a target, who can be as young as eight years old, they may make frequent visits to the child's home, sometimes, as Kendra witnessed, almost forcing their way in to talk to the kid. They present an image of the Sea Org as one part humanitarian mission and one part "cool, space-age army," in the words of one young Scientologist from Los Angeles, who recalled Sea Org promotional materials filled with military imagery like swords and shiny uniforms, as well as pictures of spaceships. It is a powerful pitch for kids raised in the insular bubble of the church.
If that angle doesn't work, there are other lures. Some kids are assured that they will still be able to become an archaeologist, or a ballet dancer, if they join the Sea Org. Others are encouraged to think about the independence they'll have, living away from parents. One of Kendra's friends, who swore for years that he would never join, changed his mind after he was presented with an offer he simply couldn't refuse. "You're not supposed to have sex unless you're married," said Kendra.