Inside Scientology (29 page)

Lisa had remarried; her husband, Gene Skonetski, was a Scientologist she'd met at the mission. Now they began to acquire the trappings of wealth: a new condo, new furniture, new clothes, a diamond necklace, a new Porsche, a $700 vacuum cleaner. Virtually everything was bought with Lisa's salary, as Gene worked full-time at the Mission of the Southwest as a registrar. "You make almost nothing" in such a job, said Greg Barnes.

By 1986, this arrangement was beginning to cause problems. Gene appeared disinclined to earn a living, yet he was in charge of the couple's finances. Then, at the end of 1987, the Dallas real estate market collapsed because of the savings and loan crisis, and the Slaughters, looking for new opportunity, decided to relocate to the San Francisco Bay area, where real estate values had skyrocketed. Left without a job when the Slaughters departed, Lisa was also $40,000 in debt, having "squandered a lot of my earnings," as she confessed in a church report, while borrowing substantial amounts of money to pay for her auditing.

Usually registrars would pitch a new product to people almost immediately after they'd finished a course or an auditing process; at this point they were usually in a state of euphoria and eager to do more. The registrar's next task was to help them figure out how to pay for it. If a Scientologist didn't have enough in her checking account or available credit on a credit card, the registrar might offer to help the member secure a loan from a fellow Scientologist. Or the member might be encouraged to borrow money from friends or family, or to borrow against a home or other property. Sandra Mercer,
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a former Scientologist who worked as a registrar for many years, often rationalized this pressure by explaining to her clients—and to herself—that they would become more empowered in the end. As she explained it, "When you sit somebody down and you convince them to give over their entire life savings for the cause, you look at it this way: sometimes you have to go into debt to make money."

But some people simply couldn't handle the financial pressure. For them, there was another option, which was joining the church staff. Even though it meant one less paying client, Scientology encouraged its members to work at the orgs, since they were so often understaffed. Virtually everyone that Mercer knew in Scientology who became a staff member had signed up at least in part for financial reasons. Lisa McPherson was no different. In February 1988, Lisa told Gene her "life's purpose" was to work for the org full-time (the Mission of the Southwest had by this time been absorbed into the official Church of Scientology and was now called the Dallas Celebrity Centre, an org focused on the upscale and more prominent Scientologists in the area), if only to force him to take more responsibility for their bills.

But by this point, their debt to the church was so high that the church would not allow Lisa to be employed there full-time without paying at least some of it off. So Lisa agreed to work for a local dentist, also a member of the Dallas Scientology community. After finishing that job each day, she went straight to the org and labored until midnight. Lisa's job entailed handling communications, interacting with members, and helping keep tabs on the number of paying Scientologists currently taking courses or being audited—"bodies in the shop," as they were known. She also reached out to "recover" those who, for one reason or another, may have stopped attending the church.

No one could have been more determined, said Greg Barnes. Hers was among the loudest voices at daily musters, or roll calls, which always ended with a salute to the portrait of L. Ron Hubbard and a group cheer of "Hip, hip hooray!" She was so enthusiastic that she convinced many lapsed members to resume auditing. "Lisa was a seductress," said Barnes. "She had a very pleasant smile, she could engage people in conversation, she was no dummy. And she was also very attractive—and she used that. I remember people at the org talking about her, saying, 'God, what a fox.'"

But working for the org meant abiding by a disciplinary system not wholly unlike that of the Sea Organization. When Lisa did well, she was given commendations for her diligence and enthusiasm. When there were errors—if she showed up late for a study session or had to miss a few evenings at the org because she had to work late at the dentist's office—she was reported. Though Scientologists are not supposed to evaluate one another's thoughts or motivations, something that they believe would invalidate each individual's "truth," they are encouraged to take responsibility for one another's moral failings. Every Scientologist, whether public or staff member, is expected to report any "out-ethics" or "off-policy" behavior in others as a security measure; "to show up bad apples," as Steve Hall put it. All Scientology entities, from the smallest mission to the most advanced of the organizations, keep "ethics files" on every member, which includes every "chit," or rules violation, that he or she has ever committed.

At the Dallas church, as at all Scientology churches, staff members were reported for any drop-off or action that got in the way of an "up" statistic—a decrease in the number of people enrolled in Scientology courses or in the number of books sold. During Lisa's tenure at the Dallas org, she was given chits for lateness, or "job endangerment"; for mistakes that resulted in more work for her colleagues, such as using the wrong-size envelope or folder, or failing to get a FedEx package out on time; for missing her targets by not placing enough radio and newspaper ads for the ongoing Dianetics campaign and failing to write follow-up letters to members—the latter being matters of "non-compliance," a Scientology crime. She was also the subject of several lengthy "Knowledge Reports" about her shaky finances and the tensions in her marriage. On one occasion, she was reported for having left a hot plate on overnight—a "Thing That Shouldn't Be."

By the summer of 1988, overworked between the demands of her day job and her long shifts at the org, Lisa was exhausted. She suffered another blow when Gene, having repeatedly ignored his wife's entreaties to help out financially, left Dallas in October and flew to Los Angeles, where he signed a billion-year contract and was absorbed into Scientology's inner sanctum, the Sea Organization. Lisa, who was not consulted about Gene's decision, was now saddled with the couple's entire debt. Furious, she resolved to join the Sea Org too. But once in California, Lisa found the regimentation and strict discipline overwhelming and, desperately homesick for Dallas, soon returned home.

Leaving the Sea Organization, or any staff position, is called "blowing."
It came with its own cost, an onerous one: "blown" staff members receive a "freeloader's bill," charging them the full price for all the courses or auditing services they had taken, for free, while in the church's employ.
Therefore when Lisa returned to Dallas in the spring of 1989, she found herself $45,000 in debt, and, in accordance with church policy, she was barred from receiving any Scientology services until the money was repaid and she had gone through the appropriate "amends" process to show that she could once again be trusted.

It was a dark time, said Carol Hawk, who reconnected with Lisa during this period. Excluded from auditing, she divorced Gene and declared bankruptcy. Then, over the next six months, Lisa struggled to make reparations, working three jobs, including one at a Domino's pizza shop. Isolated and removed from the structure of the org, she relapsed into long-discarded habits, dancing up a storm at country-western bars and even dating wogs.

But though Lisa was cut off from the services the church provided, she was not cut off from Scientology entirely. She shared an apartment with Brenda Hubert, an active member of the Dallas org, and remained in contact with several other friends and former colleagues from the church. Mixing praise with pressure, they reminded her that she was "loved" within Scientology and urged her to straighten out her finances, "get back in session," and move up the Bridge. "I am looking forward to getting your regular flows"—communications—"and seeing you have your debt fully paid off," the director of registration, Annie Morlin, wrote Lisa in June 1990. "I'll send you a few BREs [business reply envelopes] to make it even easier."

In the summer of 1990, David and Bennetta Slaughter returned to Dallas. Looking for a new venture, they joined forces with their friend and fellow Scientologist Jeffrey Schaffner, hammering out a deal for a three-way partnership in Schaffner's company, AMC Publishing, which would publish advertising packets and sell leads to the insurance industry.

As is typical with many Scientologist-owned companies, AMC used the management and administrative principles of L. Ron Hubbard, licensed to it by the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises (WISE), the organization through which the Church of Scientology has, for more than thirty years, reached out directly to the high-earning professionals who fund most of its work. The stated purpose of WISE is to introduce Hubbard management theory into the non-Scientology world, though WISE often acts more as an intermediary between the church and the Scientology business community, licensing Hubbard's "admin tech" to secular, Scientologist-owned companies for a fee—usually 10 or 15 percent of the gross revenue or money made from courses and consulting. These companies are then charged with instilling their work with key Scientology principles: using an "org board" to delegate responsibilities, managing employees by statistical analyses of their individual productivity, and, crucially, assigning them various "conditions of existence" to improve output.

All of this is standard Scientology fare, promoted at every church and mission of Scientology in the world—and indeed, there is almost no practical difference between the technology licensed to WISE for business and that which is licensed to individual churches of Scientology to promote religion. It would be unthinkable for a Scientologist to
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use Hubbard's technology in business, just as it would be unthinkable for WISE businesses to not employ fellow Scientologists, for a key function of any WISE company is to make money: for itself and also, through donations, for the church.

With that in mind, Schaffner and the Slaughters set out to hire fellow Scientologists. Lisa McPherson, whom everyone knew to be a particularly dedicated and talented telemarketer, was an obvious and early choice. Every morning, Lisa arrived at work at 8
A
.
M
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her hair in a ponytail, and immediately started making phone calls. Salespeople endure tremendous rejection—hang-ups, insults, even threats—but Lisa took everything in stride. She never used a script but instead chatted extemporaneously with her prospects, talking about the weather, cracking jokes, often for nearly an hour. She was astonishingly good at her job—so good, her former sales supervisor, Shirley Cage, would later reflect, that she soon began setting increasingly high targets for herself, trying to best her own quotas, which would ultimately average up to $20,000 per week.

Within a year, Lisa had righted her finances and repaid her debts to the church. Now that she was eligible to receive auditing, encouraging letters from the Dallas Org once again began to flow her way. "VWD [Very well done] on getting that debt paid off!" one staffer enthused. "Now, get into session, gal!" And Lisa did, donating $12,000 to the Dallas Organization in 1991 and then, redoubling her efforts, giving close to $22,000 to Scientology in 1992 and $27,000 in 1993.

Still, she would have had little choice in the matter. She was now one of more than a dozen Scientologist employees at AMC, where staffers cited Hubbard's thinking on business practices such as interoffice communication and upheld his ethics code by writing up employees' "overts" and "withholds," usually at the request of a company ethics officer. Working for a WISE company can be a singularly insular experience, due to the daily indoctrination of Scientology principles; this sense of isolation is intensified by the presence of church salespeople. "When you work for one of these companies, there is constant pressure to forward Scientology's agenda," said Sandra Mercer, who was once employed by WISE and also worked for a number of WISE-affiliated businesses. In many Scientologist companies it is not unusual to find registrars from the local organization making weekly visits to sell Scientology services to workers. Business owners see this practice as "totally acceptable," said Mercer; it provides evidence of commitment to the faith.
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And it is even more "acceptable" for both business owners and their employees to become field staff members (FSMs): off-site recruiters who select services for employees, colleagues, clients, or friends, earning a commission of 10 or 15 percent. In the fractured, franchise-like structure of Scientology, the FSM is a crucial component of any operation; it is the conduit by which many new members are brought into the church and the vehicle by which existing members are kept "on course" and "in session."

Sandi Sampson, who worked with Lisa at the Southwestern Bell phone company, was acting as an FSM when she first "selected" and then "disseminated" to Lisa in 1982. For years after, Sampson was paid a commission on every course or auditing procedure she'd suggested to Lisa. By the early 1990s, Bennetta Slaughter was serving as Lisa's FSM as well as her boss. Slaughter was also, by both women's account, Lisa's best friend. If this posed any conflict of interest, Lisa never let on. "I know that she felt like these people were her family," said Hawk.

By 1993, AMC Publishing had become a highly profitable company, employing more than twenty people. Almost all of them were Scientologists who had come up together in the Dallas church. They were ambitious, expansion-oriented, and eager to advance on the Bridge. That spring, Bennetta and David Slaughter floated the idea of relocating AMC from Dallas to Clearwater, Florida, Scientology's spiritual mecca. The Tampa Bay area was booming. And "Flag," as Scientology's operation in Clearwater was called, offered the most sophisticated spiritual counseling on earth.

With the Slaughters leading the way, AMC closed the operation in Dallas just before Christmas of 1993 and moved, with all twenty employees, to Florida. Tremendous fanfare accompanied their arrival. Bennetta and David Slaughter were known within the international Scientology world as important and rich OTs. At the Fort Harrison Hotel, Scientology's central base of operations in Clearwater, a steak dinner was prepared for the Slaughters and their staff at the elegant Hibiscus restaurant. The group was photographed for
Source,
the magazine of the Flag Land Base. "This ends the most exciting month I can ever recall," Lisa McPherson wrote to her friend Robin Rhyne, a Dallas Scientologist, on January 31, 1994. "I glow constantly."