Scientology

From: pignotti@worldnet.att.net (Monica Pignotti)
Subject: Bob and Stacy: Lessons to be Learned
Date: 23 May 2002 08:27:14 -0700
Message-ID: <53183a73.0205230727.191a91e4@posting.google.com>


Michael Pattison did a post here asking if Bob and Stacy were brainwashed or hypnosized into betrayal. I don't buy that explanation. It's not that simple. I've never seen someone be out of a cult for 13 years and then go back. Theoretically, it could be possible but that's not my take on this situation at all. If we just chalk this up to brainwashing, I think we miss the chance to understand a number of things that I believe are going on here.

FWIW, this is my take on things. This is complicated, so please bear with me in reading my explanation. Stacy was in a very high position of leadership in Scientology/the SO/OSA for many years. I don't believe that people who are able to put up with everything that goes on in Scientology, the SO, and OSA and rise that high, do so by chance or random selection; they have to have pre-existing personality traits that made them vulnerable. Most people, in spite of mind control, would never make it that high and would either reach a point where they couldn't tolerate it any longer and leave, get thrown out, or stay in a low level position, where they didn't have to know all that was going on. Stacy was in a position where she was knowingly writing spin pieces and lying to people. Most people in Scientology are not knowingly lying to people and really believe that they are doing good and saving the world.

Do I believe that people who rise to very high positions are "evil"? No, not necessarily, but I do believe that they are very different from most people. What I keep flashing back on is a very moving speech Stacy made at the 1994 Cleveland CAN conference. Stacy can turn on tears in a very phoney seeming way, but I felt that the tears she shed during this speech were very real and authentic. One of the most poignant moments was when she said that after she left Scientology, she tried to go back to her parents and they wouldn't accept her back. They tossed her out and left her to fend for herself. I just have to wonder what kind of parents would do that to a child of any age? I have to wonder if she ever had a bond with parents she felt loved by. I'm not pointing this out as an excuse for what she's done, but I do think that this contributes to our understanding of her current behavior and constant need for approval. I'm not saying that a lack of parental bonds is the sole cause, but I do think we need to consider this as one possible factor for what makes people vulnerable and able to rise so high in an organization that most people would walk out of before things got that far.

So Stacy rose to a very high position in the cult and stayed through situations where the vast majority of leadership walked out or were thrown out. She has said in describing her experience, that she reached a point where knew she was lying and yet continued to churn out spin pieces for DM. This is very different from most rank and file cult members who truly believe in what they're doing. Finally, when the situation became untolerable and her husband got physically beat up, they left the cult. From her account of things, she and her Vaughn drifted around in confusion for around 3-4 years, not even discussing Scientology, just trying to get through life. They did not get the help they needed. Then, in 1993, they were discovered and hired to be expert witnesses. How healthy could this have been for them? What I've observed is that by and large, Stacy was immediately put into a position where she was an activist and helping others and I believe that this was to her own detriment, because she had never really taken time to recover herself. She did spend a few weeks at Wellspring years later, but as great a place Wellspring is, it wasn't enough for her. She was in a high pressure position at the LMT and I don't believe that she had adequately dealt with her own issues. Instead, she continued to act out her cultic patterns with Bob Minton.

People were shocked at what Bob and Stacy have done and I was too, to a certain degree, but it is really not all that unbelievable that she was still very easy prey for OSA manipulation. I wouldn't call it brainwashing or hypnotism, though. Given her vulnerability, those kind of drastic measures were not needed. I believe that it took only a few simple, carefully worded conversations to put her over the edge into betraying what was formerly her cause.

What's bothered me about the LMT all along is that I saw unrecovered ex-members acting out with cultic behavior, with Bob as their guru. A number of people who went down there and spent time with the LMT made this observation. Whenever anyone tried to point this out to them, that person was instantly "handled" or attacked and ostracized. This was a group of people who were fighting a cult, but behaving in a very cultic manner themselves. Once, when I compared Bob to a cult leader, Stacy became very irate with me saying, in effect, how dare I? Bob wasn't doing the kinds of horrible things Scn did. Well no, he wasn't nearly as bad as that, but the cultic behavior patterns were in place and instead of trying to examine this, they blew off anyone who tried to point this out.

When people don't deal with their cult issues and the earlier things in their lives that made them vulnerable to rising to the top echelon of a destructive cult, they will continue to act it out. It didn't take hypnosis or brainwashing to get Stacy back into fighting on the cult's side; in her mind, she never left the cult. She was just playing a different role on a different side. She was already there.

I really feel that we need to pay attention to what has happened here and learn from this that ex-cult members need to take care of themselves and give their own recovery top priority -- and that can't be done in two weeks; Wellspring wouldn't even claim to do this and I think the people there would be the first to agree with me. It is an excellent starting place for recovery from a cultic experience, but a person needs to take much more time than that, before being put into a high pressure position as an activist against the cult. This is why I really cringed when I read Graham Berry's earlier post. While I'm sure he had good intentions in writing it, pushing former members, especially ones who were in high level positions, into activism without taking extensive steps to recover first, would be a prescription for disaster.

Monica