Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

by Leah Remini

Scientology offers a clearly laid out scientific process that helps you to overcome your limitations and realize your full potential for greatness. It is presented as a well-defined path to achieving total spiritual freedom and enlightenment and a full understanding of yourself and others.

as a Scientologist you are expected to spend a minimum of two and a half hours a day, every day, seven days a week, at church, studying and/or in counseling.

A member should not read or watch anything generated by someone whom the church has declared a Suppressive Person, or SP, someone who in the church’s eyes and by LRH’s policy is found to be a threat to Scientology. Once the church has labeled you an SP, you are “Declared,” and as a result, you are cut off from all practicing Scientologists.

Ironically, for me and for most other people who have left the church and spoken out against it, the very qualities that we’ve been penalized for—defying, questioning, thinking independently—are the same qualities that made us prime candidates for Scientology in the first place.

Clear is the state on “the Bridge” that you achieve through Scientology auditing when you no longer have a reactive mind, which is defined as the “hidden source of irrational behavior, unreasonable fears, upsets and insecurities.”

The Ethics review of all my folders was part of the standard pre-check to be invited to do OT I, the first of Scientology’s eight Operating Thetan upper levels. But before you can start in on this long and costly process, you have to undergo extreme scrutiny when an Ethics Officer reviews all your church files that hold every one of your transgressions.

You are allowed to be friends with non- or ex-Scientologists, as long as they aren’t antagonistic toward Scientology. If they are, you are expected to disconnect or break off all ties with that member, who is considered a Suppressive Person. A person is declared by the church to be an SP for a variety of reasons, which may include going to the authorities about the church or making any kind of

negative comment about it publicly or in the press. Both are considered suppressive acts that can have devastating consequences for relationships. And furthermore, if the church were to find out that you remained in contact with an

I didn’t even try to explain to him that the church teaches you that drugs will make the baby susceptible to what is said during labor so that it gets recorded in your child’s reactive mind, the place where pain is stored. So if I said to a nurse, “You are a horrible person,” my daughter might go through life acting out the role of a horrible person, thinking I was talking to her.

Similarly, that’s the reason Scientologists espouse the concept of “silent birth,” which LRH described in Dianetics as providing an environment

where no one—not even the doctors or nurses in the room—talks during the delivery. Again, it’s because in times of pain, loss, or unconsciousness, “words, in particular, spoken during these moments, can have an adverse effect on one later in life.” Women can ...

I gave speeches and seminars for those stalled on the Bridge, meaning people who after becoming Clear—achieving a state of total clarity and control over your thoughts and emotions—stay there and don’t move on to their OT levels (like I did). I pushed by reminding them, “If you signed up for this, then you need to get on with it.”

Many people were under the same impression that there are tons of Scientologists in the film and television business and that we all help each other out. The real truth is that while the church would like you to believe it wields a tremendous amount of influence in Hollywood, that is simply not the case. Throughout my career I knew of one minor casting director who was a Scientologist, but other than that, no real movers and shakers.

As the dinners continued and we spent more time with Tom, I came to think of him as a big kid with his loud laugh, high energy, and goofy ideas of fun. Like when he invited some Scientologists and a few other celebrities like Will Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, to his house and announced he wanted to play hide-and-seek. At first I thought he was joking, but no, he literally wanted to play hide-and-seek with a bunch of grown-ups in what was probably close to a 7,000-square-foot house on almost three full acres of secluded land.

Tom and Katie wed in a Scientology ceremony, where they vowed “to never close their eyes in sleep on a disagreement or an upset.”

Scientologists are often prepared to respond with what’s called dead agenting—a method of shutting down any criticism of the church by disproving the veracity of the source of information. A common dead agenting strategy is to sidestep any questions from outsiders that could hurt the church, and focus instead on exposing supposed lies the source told or attempt to undermine his or her credibility with ad hominem attacks.

Even though Scientology sees itself as the authority on ethics and responsibility, obscuring the truth is built into its core.

I was more than aware of the Fair Game policy, which stipulates that anyone against Scientology “may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.” This policy essentially allows Scientologists to punish and harass “enemies” using any and all means necessary. The church has stated that this policy was canceled, but there is an exception: “If the person is an SP, this applies.”

There is no “right” way to be. I am flawed and imperfect, but am uniquely me. I don’t fit in and probably never will. And I don’t have to try to anymore. That other person was a lie. And let’s face it, normal is boring. We all have something to offer the world in some way, but by not being our authentic selves, we are robbing the world of something different, something special.

They were $250,000 in debt at this point. The fact that people making average salaries of $50,000 a year somehow find a way to pay the $500,000 necessary to get on their OT levels—frankly, it’s a superhuman task. The level of dedication is astonishing and admirable, but over the long term it means financial destruction for a lot of people and families.

There were seemingly some secret flag orders and dispatches that Mike said he had seen that permit hitting and abusing people if it is in the course of getting someone to comply with policy, which would make it acceptable. According to several eyewitness accounts, in the Hole—a set of trailers on Gold Base (International Base), a remote 500-acre compound in Southern California—fallen executives are kept separated, humiliated, and often beaten. Mike said that at the direction of and by the hand of David Miscavige, leaders of my church, including Mike, were subjected to punishments like being made to lick bathroom floors or being doused in cold water, punishments that were so bad they felt they had no other choice but to flee. Mike decided enough was enough, choosing to leave the church and speak out; as a result he lost contact with his son, his daughter, and his wife of thirty-plus years, his mother and brother and sister and everyone else in his family.

The reason for their blind faith lies in their core belief that they alone have the answers to eradicate the ills of humanity. You run back to the safety of the group that shares your mentality, and in this way your world becomes very insular.

Squirrel groups are those who collectively practice Scientology beliefs and techniques independently of the Church of Scientology.

As much as I tried to shield Sofia from what was happening to me, one day she saw me crying. “Mommy, I know you’re done with psychology”—ironically she confused the word “Scientology” with “psychology”—“in here,” she said, pointing to my head. “But you have to be over psychology in here.” And then she touched my heart with her finger.

You are a better example of a scientologist than they ever were, because you truly applied your code of honor, and the danger formula, both of which they are afraid to do honestly.

Now that I had left the church, Jason was trying to show me what he had already experienced. His comment about it being like Christmas reminded me of the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, where everyone lives in Halloween Town, and all they know from is a world related to Halloween. One day the main character Jack Skellington wanders into the forest and finds seven holiday doors and opens a portal to Christmas Town. Here, for the first time, he finds that there is a world outside of Halloween. He begins to question all he sees when he continually asks “What’s this?” It was the same thing for me and I imagine for anyone else who has left a cult-like community. Worlds open up to you that you were previously cut off from. I now realize that there are plenty of people in the universe doing good things. Not just Scientologists, as I was falsely led to believe.

Belief and faith are great, but very few people have been led astray by thinking for themselves.

I am a combative, inquisitive, argumentative person, and I will never allow anyone to change that. I still have anger, but I’m okay with that because it fuels me to continue to right any wrongs I may see. And it’s because of that and the support of my true friends and family that I was able to fight my way out of Scientology and see the world for the first time. Without judgment or pressure not to think the way I do or to have a different faith. Our lives have begun. Lessons are being learned, and we are healing. It’s never too late to begin again. Better, stronger, more evolved.

And to all my fellow troublemakers, I say, “Carry on.”