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Why Kathy won't come home

The Independent, 31 March 1995

Why Kathy won't come home: Two weeks ago, a man was cleared
of trying to abduct Kathleen Wilson after he said he was saving her from a
cult that had brainwashed her. Kathy doesn't see it that way.

By TIM KELSEY

At the garage on the road into East Grinstead, the cashier smiles.

'Scientologists?' he says. 'You'll find them on the way into Turner's Hill.
Just follow the road round.

'It's a religious sect,' he adds, politely.

'Ah, yes,' I say.

'I'm afraid so,' he replies.

It isn't far. Past a nursing home and some palatial private homes screened
from the road by banks of flourishing rhododendrons, to the castle.
Saint Hill castle is the European headquarters of the Church of Scientology.

The church or cult, or sect - depending on your point of view - is American
but it has a large following both here and on the Continent. Among non-
Scientologists, the group is routinely demonised. Ten years ago, a British
judge described it as 'immoral, socially obnoxious, corrupt sinister, and
dangerous'. Two weeks ago, a jury at Lewes Crown Court acquitted a man of
trying to abduct one of its members. The man said he was trying to rescue
his friend, Kathleen Wilson, 23. He said she had been brainwashed and would
have left if she had had any free will. The jury agreed; she had been
brainwashed. The Scientologists have never suffered such a setback.

The castle is in the traditional English style, turreted, with crenellated
walls. It was finished only five years ago. Walking towards the reception
you pass a bronze statue o~ a man holding an eternal flame and a shield. On
the pedestal, there is a short epigram: 'The Price of Freedom. Constant
Alertness. Constant Willingness to Fight Back. There is no other price.'
This is attributed to L Ron Hubbard, the church's founder. The statue is
dated 7 October, AD44. AD, in this context, stands for After Dianetics
Dianetics, the name coined when Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern
Science of Mental Health in 1950, and which formed the basis of his homespun
'religion'

At reception, there is a young woman in uniform: blue blazer and trousers
with navy-style trimmings. (Mr Hubbard was once in the American navy. Much
of his church is navally themed.) The receptionist wears a badge on her
chest: 'What Are You Doing For the Next Billion Years?'

Soon after my arrival, Peter Mansell, the public relations officer, takes me
into a conference room. We sit drinking coffee, with his colleague Margaret.
Seventeen years after coming across one of Mr Hubbard's books in a vegetable
market, Mr Mansell is 'clear' - which, in the language of the church means
that he is some way along the path to eternal life. But there is still a
long way to go. The ultimate achievement in Mr Hubbard's church is to become
an 'operating thetan'. Mr Mansell has not started that journey.

Mr Mansell says he recalls some of his past lives - an important precursor
to eternal self-knowledge for a Scientologist.

'Yeah, I remembered a moment from the Spanish Inquisition,' he says. 'I was
being tortured, basically. I thought I must have seen this on a movie. But
by the time I had finished describing it, I knew that it was real. It was
enjoyable. I was laughing all the time I was talking about it.'

'But who were you?'

'I was the person accused of being heretic. You know,' he says thoughtfully,
'I don't remember the language they were speaking I was describing it in
English. He died in the end.'

'Who died? You died?'

'I guess I was exhausted. I don't know what the autopsy was. Torture, being
beaten, exhausted.'

Kathleen Wilson then enters. She is quite unlike the others, much less
comfortable in her uniform. She speaks with a broad accent. She was brought
up in Cleveland. Was she brainwashed? 'The verdict?' she says. 'I was
outraged. I just listened to it, cringing. It was false information. I'm not
brainwashed.'

Her main anger is reserved for her mother, who appeared at the trial much
to Kathleen's annoyance. She seems to have played a role in Kathleen s
journey into the church. 'I tried to get along with her - but everything I
did she would criticise. We had this big piano. I tried to learn. All she
said was: 'You're doing it all wrong.' ' Her father, a bricklayer, had left
home when she was 11. 'She used to control everything - the clothes,
everything. Even my money. But everybody has to have something.
'I didn't want to argue I told her I would move. I went when I was 19. I
went with my friend, Lorna. I packed a suitcase and went to Bognor Regis. We
rented a room in a house.'

It was Lorna's boyfriend, Stephen, who later tried to remove her. Briefly,
the three of them had shared a house. The friends eventually went their
different ways and Kathleen went to Chichester, where she found work as a
sales assistant in a shoe shop.

'In the shoe shop, I was doing the same thing - day in, day out,' Kathleen
says. 'I wasn't happy with the job. I wanted to do more in life.' She came
across Scientology by accident. 'There used to be somebody giving out
leaflets on the street and I saw one of them and it said: 'We only use 10
per cent of our mental potential ' They were Scientologists I sent it off
and I got the book. I then went in to the office for a personality test.
There's a graph and it tells you parts you need to improve It said I was
shy.'

A year later, she moved to Saint Hill to work full time for the cult. She
had finally found a place in which she seemed to fit. 'They were helping
people. I wanted to take the challenge on and lots of opportunities. There
were chances to travel and they told me I could study art and design - which
is always what I wanted to do. She pauses. 'I mean I haven't actually done
art and design yet, and I haven't travelled but you could do it.'

Like the 250 others who work here, she receives GBP 33 per week. Food and
uniforms are free.

Kathleen is always smiling. She has shining eyes. She seems happy, if a
little withdrawn when it comes to talking about herself. There is an
unnerving breezy, cheery evenness about the way she talks, even about the
visit from Stephen three years ago. That was the last time she saw anyone
from her old life, until the trial

'It's horrible not having your family,' she says, still smiling. 'I just
want them to accept what I'm doing.' Her mother visited the castle one
Christmas. The visit was not a success. 'She said she thought it was all
right but she was still acting strange and wanted me to go home,' Kathleen
recalls.

This was the real surprise of the trial for Kathleen. After years of
silence, her mother travelled unexpectedly to the courtroom to follow the
proceedings. 'I was shocked,' Kathleen says. 'I looked twice. I just wanted
to talk to her. She said: 'Why haven't you come home?' I kept saying you'll
put me in an institution. She kept denying it.'

Her mother says that when she arrived at the court, her daughter was
surrounded by members of the sect. 'They said she didn't dare come home
because she was frightened she would be put in an institution - as if I
would do such ~ thing to my only child. Besides, she is already in an
institution, as far as I'm concerned - being brainwashed.'
I am taken on a tour of the site, to the Great Hall adorned with its
life-size portrait of Mr Hubbard, in a tuxedo, standing with his palm spread
on a waist-high globe of the world.

On the other side of the castle are two long corridors which house the
'audit' rooms - small cubicles in which Scientologists make their equivalent
of confession. In each room is a small machine which looks like a video
games console, except that it has a dial instead of a TV screen. This is the
'E-meter'. It is supposed to measure emotions. The subject holds a metal
cylinder in each hand that is wired to the machine.

Hubbard borrowed the idea from the old lie detectors. Science suggests that
the machine measures moisture levels on the palms - the idea being that you
sweat when you lie. They say it measures tiny electrical charges generated
by thoughts themselves.

After a trip around the nearby Hubbard Mansion, where the great founder
lived, I ask Kathy if she will ever go home. 'My mother won't accept what
I'm doing,' she replies. 'She thinks I'm being kept prisoner. I miss her. I
don't like not being able to speak to her or see her.'

Then I ask how she is getting on in Scientology. She says she is a slow
learner. She has been here three years and should have been some way along
the route to eternal life. But she is not. Margaret says she has not yet
been allowed to take part in what they call the 'Purification Rundown',
during which the student eats vast quantities of vitamins and spends long
periods in a sauna. Margaret says it cleanses the body so that the mind can
study.

'I take a little longer than the others,' says Kathleen.

'What does Scientology mean for you?' I ask.

'It means knowing how to know, and you learn different things in life. There
are courses for artists and business people and students. It improves
different parts of your life.'

'Have you remembered any of your past lives?' I ask.

'No,' she says. 'Not yet.'

The Independent
Features 26

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