Bill and Barbara Zizic Interview, Transcript of Part One

Voice-Over: Recently I (Mark Bunker) traveled to Chicago to interview two dentists who were defrauded by Scientology after signing up for management training courses. I spoke with Bill Zizic at their office and Barbara Zizic at their home. 

Barbara: Well, my first exposure to L. Ron Hubbard-I never even knew who he was-was at a free seminar by the Sterling Management Group. We went and I saw classmates there and we were laughing, "Ha Ha," you know, "this is kind of weird." You know, it's kind of weird but it makes sense because it stresses organization. And dentists have so much going on; we always want to be more organized. We have a lot of things to oversee: staff, tons of equipment, the public, you know, our patients, all kinds of licensing agencies. I mean, we're always trying to be better organized to deliver better so this was really appealing. But, the first group we went to-we went to the free seminar for a couple hours-and they wanted to have Bill sign up for $15,000 worth of courses that he had to go out west for. And that was for him! Probably they would charge me $15,000 as well! So, I said, "Forget it! We're not going to do that!" I said no, you know? And so, right away they kept calling him and kept calling him and he said, "Well, my wife says no." And so, they said, "Well, you should really just get rid of your wife because she's stopping you in your progress. So just get rid of her." So, they kept sending him material and calling him and I would say, "Just hang up." They were very persistent! I had never encountered a group of persistent people like these before, believe me! And so, they kept sending literature, L. Ron Hubbard stuff and I'd just throw it away. I'd throw it away. I thought, "This is devil stuff." I saw the commercials with the volcano. It looked like the devil himself coming out. And I thought, "What is this? It looks sinister or evil." I just always had a feeling I didn't like it. So, Bill went to another management seminar a few years later, maybe five years later... a free seminar that he had gotten a flyer in the mail about how to get more patients and stuff like that. Every dentist is interested in that. And he went and he came back and he said, "Boy, I met the nicest dentist. He used to be in Plymouth, Indiana and he's one of the head partners of this group. He made so much money in Indiana. He tripled his practice. He was very successful. He's a nice guy." You know, he's, like, from the middle USA and we have a place in Indiana and I thought this is cool. You know, I'd like to meet this guy. Bill seemed really happy about them meeting and so he took me to their offices. And, as I'm sitting in the waiting room, I looked around and I saw books by L. Ron Hubbard. And I'll tell you, a fear just gripped my heart. It was like somebody threw a cold bucket of water on me. I felt like I was being duped, you know? I thought, "What is Bill doing?" You know, "Where is he taking me? This is not business! This is, like, L. Ron Hubbard!" And I remember looking at the bookcase and they had, like, a little, black velvet cloth. And I thought, "Oh, this is spooky," you know? Who puts a black velvet cloth on a bookcase except a church or some cult or something? It was black, you know? So, I was, like, ready to bolt right then! And then I saw these two little old ladies, you know, with glasses, bifocals. And I thought, "Well, they look kind of normal. Maybe... " You know, and Bill is saying, "Oh, come on! You've got to just take the personality test. Just hear what they have to say! And then if you don't like it, we'll leave." I thought, "Okay. You know, I'm not going to start a big fight about it. I'll just see what it's about." And so we met Louie Cologne, one of the head guys. And they had kept us waiting and I was kind of upset because we had rushed to get there. And he goes, "Well, you know how things happen." And he calms you down right away. And he takes you in the office and he kept us in his office for, like, the whole day. I don't know if it was because he was rocking in his chair just kind of, like, going, "You know you have problems. You know you need to improve yourself." And on and on and on and on and on. But the thing is he knew which buttons to push. He knew exactly the areas that we needed improved. And I thought, "Wow! You know, here is somebody that will speak frankly to you, 'You need to this. You need to do that.'" and it seemed very appealing. And so we signed up for, like, the program, which was maybe $18,000 worth. And I said, you know, "We can't pay for this now. There's no way we have $18,000 to just pay for all the courses." He said, "Don't worry. Just give me all your credit card numbers and then we'll just take, you know, we'll just take a portion here and there, you know, until it's paid off." And Bill said, "No. No. I will give a check out of the business. I'm not going to do that." And he says, "Well, you have to do it today. If you don't do it today, forget it. It's not going to happen. You're not going to get started. If you want to get started, you've got to do it today." Maybe he gave us something free if we did it today or something, an enticement. So, we went ahead and signed up and they took our charge cards and ran each one through and tried to see, you know, how much they could take off of each one. And that was the beginning of it. 

Bill: This happens to be a summary of the tone scale made over by Marcus Group that they used to show us what suppressive people were and what the different tone levels were so that we could deal with people more efficiently. They were training us in the tech of L. Ron Hubbard under the guise of doing dental seminars in order to improve your business. What they were really doing was setting us up and conditioning us for acceptance of LRH technology. 

Barbara: You know, we went to the first seminar and, when I first went to the seminars, I could see what they were doing! I thought, "Gosh! They're just trying sucker everybody in!" You know, they're having you take out your charge card and... well, at first, they were talking about the charge cards. They said, "If your wife is upset about the interest or if you're worried about charging things and getting interest, don't be that way. If you're that way, your patients are going to be that way. So, don't be like that!" They said, you know, "You have to get comfortable using credit and you should get more charge cards. Really, open up more so that you have more credit limit," you know, "available to you for expansion and for what you need." 

Bill: So, this is one of our first seminars. It was on selling. It was given by Greg Winnereg, Revane Marcus and Louie Cologne. And they would give you the definitions for overt of commission and overt of omission. And then they tell you once you have too many overts and too many withholds, it ruins your control. You're not able to control your practice, your patients, your marriage, your business. And they use this to have you go to the Church of Scientology to get rid of these overts and withholds and these things that are holding you back. And then, what they don't tell you though, is that they're using mind control. They're getting a commission for referring you to the Church. And they are a feeder group to send dentists and chiropractors and veterinarians and optometrists who have businesses that have money, that they can tap into this resource and feed this money into the Church of Scientology. 

Barbara: You would hear them talk about charge cards, charging. They would be very chauvinistic about women, you know, would always be putting them down. And I would always raise my hand and go, "Hey! What do you think you're doing?" You know, "You could use a man for that example!" Or, "Why are you picking on women?" And I remember I met one of the wives of one of the Jewish dentists in the washroom and she goes, "Honey, you're new, aren't you?" I said, "Yeah." She said, "Well, honey, after a while, you don't even ask questions anymore." She says, "But at first all the new ones ask questions." And that's the way it goes. Because, as I went on, I never asked any more questions. It started to make sense. But he would say the same things over and over and then you got familiar with the thinking and that's their theory. If you say it over and over many times, people start to believe it. And that's what happened. And so, we started with the courses. We tripled our business. We were doing real well. But there was always the stress of having staff come and go. I mean, the girls were literally jumping out of their shoes because they would tell you that your staff has to go along with these ideas, that they have to be part of the team. They have to understand what you're doing. But a lot of what they were bringing in wasn't really management. It had a religious slant. They always put down psychiatrists, drug companies, drugs, you know, I mean, it just didn't make sense to the average person, let's put it that way, you know, that wasn't indoctrinated. And the staff were just shocked, you know? They just wouldn't perform like that. They didn't want to believe what was being said. And if they sense any doubt in anyone, they will all gang up on you to change your mind. That's their whole thing. No one can think for themselves. They're all like a bunch of little ants, a bunch of little bees following one person. You know, there's no individual thinking, really, about things like religion or beliefs. It's all like that. 

Bill: I just feel as though I've been wronged. And in if there any other professionals, if I can help anybody to prevent this from happening to them and their family, I'm going to see to it that they have the knowledge that I have from first hand experience, and how they affected my life and my credit and my business. They infiltrated our business by getting Scientologists to work in my office. They would recommend that these employees be hired because they were so clean and good and ethical and honest. Because they've got all their overts and withholds off and they were clear, quote clear, whatever that means. And then, they would get into your office and they would run your office and create havoc in the office! I had 80 employees in one year because nobody would stay in the business once they heard it was L. Ron Hubbard or they heard it was Scientology. The persons that were running our office were Scientologists. And as soon as the employees would find that out, they would leave or be fired. I had 80 W2's one year. It cost me $4,000 for W2's during 1995 or 1996. I could be more specific on that if I looked up my records. In fact, I did see them the other day. I think it's '96. But I feel as though they wronged me. They'll do whatever they can do to get your money. They'll chew you up and spit you out and forget about you! I know of other cases where some of the dentists have committed fraud with the banks to get money, to borrow money. And I mean, 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars at a crack!! I know of instances where they have imitated people in order to get loans... pretend they're somebody else on the phone to get loans and then, because you are unable to do it or unwilling to do it on your own, they would do it for you. They would tell you what to do, who to talk to, how to talk to them, how to get the money. They would have you take your hard assets and make them into liquid assets by refinancing your business or refinancing your houses or refinancing or selling your investments in order to make your cash liquid. And then they would try to split up a marriage, get patients or personnel, the clients to divorce so that they could divide and conquer. They could isolate you. They isolate you from your family! Everybody is an SP (suppressive person) to you. There's nobody in your family that you can trust any longer. I mean, it's just a windmill. It's just devastating to you and to life and to your family. I just feel so upset about it and I want everybody to know that this needs to be exposed to protect the other dentists in the country.