Blown for Good by Marc Headley

Blown for Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology, by Marc Headley.  Self-published, BFG Books Inc., at Smashwords, 823 pps. on e-reader.

 It is because of this book that I recently refused to attend a talk by an inspirational speaker that some of my TOPS [Take Off Pounds Sensibly] pals were waxing enthusiastly over.  I looked up the speaker's name on the Internet.  When I found that he listed himself as having worked "in the film industry in Hollywood" for some years, I became suspicious.  The clincher was the overflowing with happiness tone to his writing on his website.  Is he a Scientology?  I don't know.  Blown for Good informed me that Scientologists who worked for the Headquarters were told to say they worked in film if asked by outsiders what they did for a living.  I wasn't willing to take a chance that the speaker might be a sneaker stumper for Scientology who just might have worked at Golden Era Productions just as Marc Headley had.

Marc Headley grew up in a Scientology family.  His parents got divorced and remained Scientologists.  His mother's steady stream of new boyfriends were Scientologists.  Marc attended Scientology schools as a kid-- with an occasional break of public school or no school at all if his mother couldn't afford the tuition at times-- and hung out with other kids also growing up in Scientology.  After his living arrangements repeatedly fell apart, Headley signed up to work for Sea Org.  He was sixteen years old.  There were kids in Sea Org who were even younger than he was.

During his initial training in Sea Org, Headley first ran into a crew of folks who were being punished and were doing indeterminate stints on the Rehabilitation Project Force (R.P.F.).  The folks assigned to R.P.F. got the nastiest foulest jobs, went everywhere at a run, slept in separate R.P.F. "dorms," and were threatened with being assigned to the R.P.F.'s R.P.F. which was even worse.

Headley passed his training and then spent fifteen years working at Scientology Headquarters in Gilman Hot Springs, California-- also called Gold, for Golden Era Productions.  He had enough contact with Scientology's leader David Miscavige to recognize that Miscavige seemed to get pleasure out of humiliating and punishing people.  Headley even had a punching session with Miscavige in which Headley's face served as Miscavige's punching bag.

Headley had worked for Headquarters for fifteen years when he was falsely accused of embezzlement.  He was sentenced to go to R.P.F.  He decided to blow [leave].  Some folks tried to get him back and even ran his motorcycle off the road in the process.  The upshot was when Headley began to make a scene in the road, they backed off and left.  He was escorted to the town and made his break.  His wife blew shortly thereafter.

sapphoq reviews says: Blown for Good is an excellent book for anyone interested in this subject matter.  Most highly recommended.  I wish Marc Headley, his wife Claire, and his children much happiness as they walk in true freedom.