I , Tory Bezazian, declare as follows: 1. My name is Tory Christman Bezazian. 2. I am over 18 years of age. 3. I am writing this of my own free will. The statements herein are of my own personal knowledge and if called up as a witness, I can testify competently thereto. 4. I got into Scientology in 1969 and left in July of 2000. I went there a young woman, hoping to handle things that bothered me, and learn how to help others. Shortly after getting into Scientology I was recruited to join what is known as The Sea Organization. I was asked to sign a billion year contract, agreeing I would do whatever was needed to help Ron Hubbard and The Sea Org (from here on known as the S.O) Clear the Planet. 5. I was routed to the Bolivar (which was an old tanker ship) located out in LA harbor, where we were supposed to do ship's training. This lasted a few weeks, and then we were brought back on land. While in the SO, one is given a place to sleep and food to eat. Since I had quit college to get into Scientology, writing my father I had finally found what I wanted to do in life, I felt I had found my new career. 6. A few months after joining the Sea Organization I realized I needed to re-order the medication I was on for Epilepsy. I was routed to a person they called the Medical Liaison Officer, or the MLO. This was a young man I was told was studying nutrition. He had no actual medical training that I knew of. He informed me that I needed to get off of my medication, and that he would write out a program to get off of it. In Scientology if you have ANY illness it is considered there is something wrong with you, not just physically, but that this is a very bad thing, caused by you being connected to someone who is suppressive to you. At least that was the beginning pitch I heard. 7. Being young and totally believing these people, I was ordered onto a "leave of absence" to get off of my medication. I found a place to live, and began my program. It consisted of cutting down one table by ¼ th. I never succeeded farther than that. I began having Grand Mal Seizures at home in the morning, out on the street by myself, and in the Scientology organizations. This was living Hell for me. 8. This went on for I think 3 months. I was losing my memory due to all of the seizures. I would wake up in the morning and try to dash into the refrigerator. Daily I would have a petit mal (small seizure), and come to with all of the vitamins spread out all over the kitchen floor. The lady I was renting a room from had two children. Constantly they would come in and find me on the floor, and yell "Mommy, Tory dropped her vitamins again". This woman was one of the kindest people to me, and I will never forget her. Her name is Mary Jessup, and she was married previously to Nate Jessup. All during this time the Scientologists were very evaluative to me, and many treated me like a leper, but not Mary. She was always very compassionate. She had left Scientology some time earlier. 9. Finally one morning in the shower I knocked my front teeth out during a Grand Mal seizure. All during this time my mother was begging me to go back on all of my medication. Being new in Scientology, I assured her Dianetics and Scientology would handle this. Finally, after so many seizures and so much trauma, I realized no matter what these people thought, I wasn't going to live if I kept doing this. At that point I decided to go back on my medication in full, no matter what. 10. I went over to
the MLO and told him my decision. Now remember I really had my heart set
on being a Sea Org member. This was what I wanted to do with my life.
He assured me in no uncertain terms that now I was not fit for the Sea
Org, if I needed to take this medication. 11. After much arguing, I finally told them I wanted a pen and paper as I was writing Hubbard. He wrote me back and informed me I was not a Freeloader and that was incorrect. I needed to pay for the 2 courses I had then taken and "continue getting auditing in the HGC and we will see you up the line". It was because of this that I so rigorously tried for another 26 years to handle or get rid of Epilepsy. Of course never did! 12. Once out of the Sea Org, I decided I needed to get trained to figure out why these people were so weird and insisting I needed to do something so stupid. I figured if I was trained I could then understand. I trained up to Grad 4 auditor, interned at Celebrity Center in LA. It was during this time that I met my husband, and in 1974 we were married. 13. I joined staff at Celebrity Center as an auditor. I loved auditing, and this was probably my happiest time in Scientology. I felt I was finally doing what I had come into Scientology for: helping other people. But typical of Scientology, they are always changing things. I was what was called a non-sea org staff member. After about 6 months someone cancelled all NSO (non-sea org) contracts, and once again I was let go. 14. As bad as this was, AOLA was hiring NSO staff, so I went over there. I audited there until I was about 8 months pregnant, at which point I left staff to have our son. 15. I attest to what at that time had come out as "natural Clear". Now Clear is supposedly where you have perfect memory, no somatics, and etc etc. I had a horrible memory, and of course still had Epilepsy, but somehow it was indicated I was natural Clear, and I attested. This later came to haunt me, as I never really felt like I had achieved the state of Clear. Later, after I left, I found out this is common amongst many people who had attested to Clear. There really are not any Clears, per the definition. But Scientologists get around this with ...that was only on your FIRST dynamic (related to self). DUH~ errrrr, are there pains I have that aren't connected to me??? Well, Hubbard covered that too. 16. OK....I did up through OT 3 and I will say I had huge wins on this level. I will explain how this worked FOR ME. I think it is very different for each person, but this is how it worked for me. In my teens as I have posted, I was looking for truth. While looking, one day I started having "Petit Mals" (or tiny seizures), and later a Grand Mal Seizure. Now doctors to this day don't really know what causes seizures, and certainly not me. However, I did know for me a Grand Mal seizure felt like I had died. When I would return, I would have absolutely no memory of anything, and I had often wondered if I had sort of died, and then returned. Now I am reading the OT 3 info, and Hubbard mentioned while getting close to these incidents, HE NEARLY DIED!!! 17. To the average person this may seem like a huge leap, but in Scientology you are sort of taught or brought along early on to make these leaps. So with that in mind, suddenly I realized why I had this horrible thing called Epilepsy! It wasn't just some physical condition as the doctors had tried to tell me early on. It was due to theses things called Body Thetans or Clusters (groups of Body Thetans or 'BT's who were stuck to me). This was an amazing revelation for me and excited me greatly. If you have ever seen a Grand Mal Seizure you are familiar with their overwhelming power and uncontrollability. The force was amazing to me and I used to wonder all the time, what could POSSILBY have caused all of this? Suddenly I had what I thought was the true answer! Before I continue, Please let me say that this was one of the worst things for me in Scientology. People were ALWAYS asking me if I had gotten rid of Epilepsy? It was horrible, as it is assumed it is not physical, or even if it is, Hubbard says all physical problems are caused by the spirit... thus assuming one SHOULD be able to "fix" it. Finally, at last I had found out why. So even though OT 3 is completely weird and a space opera story...I was so ready for ANYTHING, that this filled the bill. If it nearly killed Hubbard, the master of all everything, why not give me Epilepsy? See? 18. Actually on OT 3 I had great wins, or successes. Each session I felt like I was getting rid of the cause of this thing that had stopped me from doing my life's work (Clearing the planet in the Sea Org). Also, I was now finally going OT I thought. OT is a state where you are supposed to be Cause over Matter, Energy, Space and Time. That is what the original definition stated. So if I were to achieve OT, I would be done with Seizures, one would think. 19. After attesting to OT 3, I once again tried to get off of my medication, only to end up in a hospital with status epileptus, or many seizures. I finally went back on all medication, and have stayed on it, and have never had a seizure since. 20. During this time, 1979, when I was doing my OT levels, we had moved to the Clearwater area. I was asked by Milt Wolfe, an executive in OSA (the Office of Special Affairs who handles legal and PR) to help them. A man named Richard Tenny was the City Commissioner of Clearwater and was trying to run for Mayor. He had a full program called "Save Sparkling Clearwater, Stamp out Scientology". Milt explained to me that they (Hubbard and Scientology) had come there on a lie, saying they were a different religion than they were. He told me Hubbard was going to land in the south, but found out the FBI were there to plant drugs on his ship and arrest him, so they came to Clearwater in hiding. It sounded real to me, as I had been filled with storied of how the FBI were always trying to catch Hubbard. (The justification for this was the AMA. See, Hubbard discovered a way to cure people for free: Dianetics. Since the AMA were just money making, horrible Doctors, they were always spreading lies about Hubbard to squash him. Thus the FBI was after him. This never rang totally true to me, because not only was my Grandfather a doctor who I loved dearly, but also Doctors had saved my life). 21. But wanting to help, I was right there to do whatever. This was the beginning really of a 20 years career with OSA as a volunteer. 22. It was my "hat" or duty to go around and talk to people, go to meetings and try to get the attention off of Scientology, and try to get rid of Tenny. 23. I spent months talking to people, promoting Tenny was just anti-religion, and going to meetings asking him "why does Clearwater only have one fire station,etc etc" Anything to get the crowd off of Scientology. 24. The end was he was voted out of office in a landslide, and we all celebrated. I didn't feel I had hurt him, as I honestly felt he was a person who was doing something very bad, trying to get rid of my church. At the time I had fully bought Scientology was a "real" religion. Most people I knew were anti-God, but I secretly always talked with God, and secretly felt I had some angles who helped me. I had been there after the FBI raids when we turned into Ministers over night. But somehow it always makes sense. 25. I continued to
assist OSA in many different projects, including getting rid of CAN, or
the Cult Awareness Network. Once again I had been thoroughly indoctrinated
at how bad these anit-cult people were. Never did I even consider Scientology
to be a cult. This was pure propaganda they had created. |