« This new image of David Miscavige makes years of Scientology Watching all worth it
Is Scientology's notorious prison detail — the 'RPF' — a thing of the past? »
Never before seen: Video of a woman moments after achieving superhuman Scientology powers
By Tony Ortega | October 5, 2017
Today's story, Bunker readers, is going to test you. On Saturday, we debuted some fascinating and rare footage from home video of a Scientology event — the 1989 L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Celebration aboard Scientology's private cruise ship, the Freewinds.
The footage was shot by a group of Florida Scientologists who had gone to the ship to complete "OT 8" — the highest auditing level on the "Bridge to Total Freedom." It takes huge donations of money over many years to reach the top of Scientology's Bridge. Marc Headley has estimated that to go from the most basic introductory course to OT 8 will cost anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million. And as for how long it may take, Vicki Marshall revealed recently on an episode of Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath that it took her 18 years just to complete OT 7.
So this is a big deal for Scientologists, and this group wanted to document it on video. They taped, for example, several graduation speeches given by mighty thetans who had completed OT 8.
Put yourselves in their place to understand what they must be experiencing at this moment. They may have spent 20 years and a fortune to get there, and after all that, they have been ushered into the holy of holies — the ultimate secrets of the Bridge. At this point, they are "operating thetans" and should have power over "matter, energy, space, and time." They should be able to leave their bodies at will and with total sense perception, and they should be able to affect matter with their minds.
Finally, after so many years and so much effort and such a cost, they are superhumans with superpowers.
At least, that's what they've been told for years and years, and it's what they chase as they put up with Scientology's high-pressure fundraising. Finally, they are "OT."
But as we learned on a recent episode of Aftermath, what is actually revealed on OT 8 is that the past-life memories church members have been recovering during years of auditing turn out not to be their own. The identities they've been building up with those "Whole Track" memories are suddenly erased. They are literally back to square one, where they were when they first walked into a Scientology center.
Imagine the devastation. And yet, they are being celebrated as the elite of the elite. And in that moment, they are asked to speak.
What would a superhuman, power-over-matter OT 8 Scientologist, with powers of total recall and supreme physical control, be capable of in such a moment?
Well, it's pretty easy to make fun of the speech you're going to see. It's the OT 8 graduation address of a woman, Margie Zacks, who was among those Florida friends videotaping their trip. And sure, she says some pretty mockable things.
It's fun, for example, that her first encounter with Scientology was L. Ron Hubbard's 1952 book A History of Man, which Hubbard's biographer, Russell Miller, described as "possibly the most absurd book ever written." (And it was a great treat for us when biologist and blogger PZ Myers agreed to read it with us.)
Seriously? Someone was sucked in by the utter inanities of 'History of Man'?
Well, before we turn you loose on Margie's speech (the transcript of which is directly below the video), we wanted you to hear something about her from the person who sent us the video, and who asked not to be named.
Here's what they sent us…
Margie Zacks was well known as a top Field Staff Member (FSM) for the Flag Land Base, for the base in Los Angeles, and for the Freewinds. [FSMs traditionally recruit people to take Scientology courses and get a 10 percent commission. Scientology leader David Miscavige has decimated the ranks of FSMs in recent years — Ed.] She made big bucks for Flag and the International Association of Scientologists.
Her husband Ed Zacks died after doing OT 5 and contracting leukemia. He was mostly treated with alternative therapies, which the church usually likes better. After some wacko treatments in Mexico, he died. Maybe he could have lived, without the view that medical treatment is bad. Who really knows.
After this trip to the Freewinds to do OT 8, Margie came back to Clearwater. Over several years, she started to exhibit strange behavior, such as bouncing checks all over town. She became forgetful and distant. Because she was acting strangely, people in the church backed off, including two of her family members, who were in the Sea Org. Friends also distanced themselves.
After she had gone to several Scientologist chiropractors in Clearwater, her problems worsened, and she was in the end diagnosed with MS. She continue to deteriorate, with no support of any kind from the church.
Margie lived for a time at a rehab on Myrtle. I went to see her a few times and discovered many Sea Org members I had known from Flag. But even though the facility was not affiliated with or owned by the church, Margie was kicked out over a weekend — she was a public, and not Sea Org, and it was "out-PR" for her or her visitors to see Sea Org members who were ill. One of her longtime friends helped to get her moved.
Margie continued to deteriorate, and she died in her 50s. The church had abandoned her totally. It sickens me to see how many friends I have lost who were on the so-called "Bridge to Total Freedom."
With that as prologue, here is Margie's speech from March 1989.
Hi. I had one hidden standard. Not one, more than one. But the one that I surely thought I wouldn't have, a sensation that I wouldn't have, was that I wouldn't be nervous when I was coming up here, wow. Well, I'm nervous. I comped tonight. I attested quite late, and I'm quite unprepared for this. In fact I told Lucia, I can't go up there, I'm not ready! The reason I thought I wasn't ready was because I had so many things I wanted to tell you, and prepare it — none of which I've done. I scribbled down a few notes, so my talk to you might be a little scattered, so bear with me. The first thing I want to do, it's a little different, it's a little different than most everyone else and that is I want to thank LRH right now before I forget everything that I want to tell him. And I wrote a success story to him, which was a different success story than I've ever done before — it was just a letter to him. And, it kind of went like this. Thank you for caring about me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for — darnit, I wasn't going to do this — thank you for believing in me. And thank you for believing in all of us. And thank you for being so patient. To put up with us. To bring us the Truth Revealed. So I want to give him a short thanks now and then a big thanks at the end, OK? Now, since it's a tradition to tell how you got in Scientology, I'll tell you my story quite quickly. Just prior to Scientology, I'd been involved in a meditation group. And I was living down in South America, quite close to here, and I was meditating — I thought. And, one day I decided that this is not what I wanted and I returned to the States. And a friend of mine was in Scientology. And I thought, my God, I've got to get him out of Scientology. Now, I was still meditating, although I didn't want to live in South America. So my girlfriend and I drove cross-country to California. And when we arrived in California, one of the things I was going to do was get my friend out of Scientology. So I listened. And I looked at all these books that he had on the shelf. And I had just newly come out of college, and I thought, 'My God, you have to read all those books?' I'm not interested. And then I looked for the skinniest book that I could find on the shelf. And that book, oddly enough, was 'History of Man.' And I pulled the book out, and my friend said 'No, no, no, don't read that book. That book is a bit out-gradient.' And I said, well, what is 'out-gradient?' And he said, 'Oh, it's just, it's a bit heavy.' And I went, oh, heavy. So, that night when everyone went to sleep, I snuck out into the living room and I pulled the book out of the shelf. And I stayed up all night reading that book. And I discovered Scientology, and I went, 'My God, this is it, this is for me. And the next day, I routed onto the Comm Course. Now, when I first, when I first started the Comm Course, I was still meditating. And my girlfriend and I were doing TRs and she was having difficulty with her TRs and I said oh it's easy, I just meditate. So, consequently I told someone else and I ended up in Cramming, where I quickly discovered that it was not the thing to do, and 'mixing practices' was just not going to work. So, I put down the meditation — which didn't work anyway — and did TRs, where I promptly went exterior, and knew then that was it. From there I moved up the Bridge with a lot of help from the people at LA Org, and at the time I began to FSM and I have never stopped FSMing. In fact, I'm very proud of the fact that I have paid for my entire Bridge, all the way, including the cabin on the ship, my L's, all my training, and everything, with FSM commissions. And I really consider that it's been part of my Bridge, FSMing. Now I don't know, I have to look at my notes for a minute, OK? Oh, I have to tell you something that I think is very funny. Now, when I went to Flag, to do OT 7, I postulated that I would finish OT 7 in one year or less. After the year was up, I kept going back to Flag, with a dress to comp with. And I went back quite many times, and that dress became wrinkled and dragged around for a while. And when I went to Flag this time to complete OT 7, I left the dress at home. And it's kind of been funny with me because when I got married I got married in a rush, and I didn't have a dress. When I went to Flag to finish OT 7, I didn't have a dress. So in Aruba yesterday, Mick McCoy and I, and another friend Brenda, went shopping and I found this dress. I'm blank again, hold on. Oh, this is another cute little thing and one I wanted to say, which was, when I was a kid — I'm left-handed, and when I was a kid my Dad gave me a lot of false data. And one of the things he kept on trying to do was to change the use of my hand. I'm left-handed, and he wanted me to be right-handed. Now he told me that left-handed people are unlucky. And he also told me that, never wear a red dress, because floozies wear red dresses. So here I stand, left-handed, in a red dress, OT 8. I'm sorry, Dad, you were wrong. Now, there's something very important to me, that I got from this level that I wanted to talk to you about. You know, I've heard so many comps before me, and each person's, each person's wins are so unique and so different. And my wins came in a very different way. For a few days I've been like covering, and I kept waiting for the big blast. And yesterday, before 2, the ship was like revving. And then at about 1:30, all my friends — and you're all my friends — just went into gear, as an OT team. And I experienced the most incredible expansion, and safety and comfort and excitement and enthusiasm and exhilaration that I have ever experienced that I can ever remember, revving up to push through for all Saint Hill Size, because I know, and I knew, that this would mean OT 9 in just a short amount of time. Because I could see groups of us gathering around the planet, coming together to pull off miracles, which is what OT is. And it was one of the most exciting things that I have ever, ever, ever done. And I want to thank everyone here for participating, because you gave me the opportunity to see LRH's dream, totally real, happening very, very soon, and I want to thank all of you, because it gave me something that I still didn't have, that I got yesterday. And it brought back to me the win that I was looking for, along the Track, and that had to do with camaraderie, and purpose, and friendship. And there are several of you in here that are my very, very closest friends. There are others that I have admired from a distance, and wanted to be your friend. And there are others that I'll meet and I hope that we're friends. I want to thank all of you for being here. And you've really all touched my heart. I'm going to cry again. So, my wins really do have to do with friendship and comm, and knowing who I am, and knowing who you are. So now I'm ready to give you and LRH a real big, big, big hand. Please join me. Hip, hip (Hooray!) Hip, hip (Hooray!) Hip, hip (Hooray!). Thank you.
Marjorie Sablic Zacks, Scientology Clear #7,202, died in October 2005 at the age of 56.
Twenty-eight years after she made this speech, OT 9 has still not been released.
Chris Shelton on Un-declaring yourself!
Says Chris: "I've been asked by a few people to talk about what Scientology says a suppressive person has to do to "un-declare" themselves. While no one I know is particularly interested in doing these steps, it does reveal another aspect of Scientology's authoritarian control system to talk about this, so here you go. Enjoy!"
Brian Sheen has not seen his grandson Leo in 39 days.
Clarissa Adams has not seen her parents Walter and Irmin Huber in 1,102 days.
Carol Nyburg has not seen her daughter Nancy in 1,876 days.
Lori Hodgson has not seen her son Jeremy and daughter Jessica in 1,242 days.
Mike Rinder has not seen his son Benjamin and daughter Taryn in 4,950 days.
Brian Sheen has not seen his daughter Spring in 1,056 days.
Phil and Willie Jones have not seen their son Mike and daughter Emily in 1,418 days.
Posted by Tony Ortega on October 5, 2017 at 07:00
Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We've posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book's dedicated page.
October 5th, 2017 | Category: Scientology Studies