Power Trips

Scientology Gets Away With A Lot

This post is in response to the April 3, 2025 poll results. Be sure to get your votes in on this week’s poll.

As I get older, I realize that youth has both advantages and disadvantages. Youth makes a person resilient. They can bounce back from things they wouldn’t be able to do these days. Youth also allows people who have lived longer get away with things by treating youth poorly. They are able to play power trips on unsuspecting youth simply by gaining their trust. Scientology banks on this.

As a very naive person from a small town, I was incredibly intimidated by anyone in authority. I had also been trained all my life to respect my elders. These two things worked against me in Scientology. If someone even a few years older than me told me that I had to do something, I instantly obeyed. They had to be right, my mind said, they were older than me.

In the 1970s, Scientology had a much younger demographic than it does these days. Those people who were in the positions of power had usually been there some time, even if it was only months. They were usually at least in their 30s. The younger ones, like me, learned to obey them.

For example, Irene Howey (now Irene Dirmann) was the Commanding Officer of the Saint Hill Org Day. Under her in the hierarchy was Jack Dirmann, her Hubbard’s Communication Officer Area Secretary. His basic job was to recruit staff. He was the person who talked me into joining Sea Org. They were both 10 years older than me. Therefore, I was beholden, in my mind, to do what they said.

Once again, this was the 1970’s, and although Hubbard had the same rules about sex outside of marriage that exist these days in Scientology, Jack and Irene lived together “in sin.” Yes, the person in charge of the organization where I worked every day was living in sin.

We were required to have impeccable ethics presence. We were required to do what we did to show the students that those of us who in charge of them were supposed to do everything by the book. Yet, these two lived together. They did get married in 1976. They are still married. But at the time, they were not married.

This really upsets me for a very valid reason.

I worked very hard to be the best possible person I could while I was at ASHO Day. I came to work hungry, tired, sick, etc. Yet I didn’t once complain. I was being assaulted by a person who was also 10 years older than me, yet I didn’t complain. I kept the facade up. I can’t imagine what I would do these days, but I probably wouldn’t have stuck around long enough to have gotten in that position in the first place.

Yet, when push came to shove, the person who got in trouble for what was done to me was me. The person who was assaulting me was not punished. But let’s rub salt into the wound a little deeper.

I had missed breakfast that day because my ride hadn’t come through and I had to walk to work. I didn’t get to eat lunch because the person who was molesting me managed to trap me and had his way with me during lunch hour. I dutifully went to muster after I finished supervising the course for the day. I was tired. I was beyond tired. There was nothing left of me.

After muster, Irene Howey, the adulteress, (yes, she was married when she and Jack started living together) called me into her office. I was not able to get dinner. I had to go before her and she belittled me. She told me what a horrible person I was for having an Out 2D (not being compliant with Hubbard’s Second Dynamic rules – those about sex and family.) That’s correct, I was having an out 2D because I was being assaulted by another staff member.

He did not get in trouble. I did. The person who told me how horrible I was was, in fact, having what Hubbard would describe as an Out 2D. Then I was told I couldn’t go to my berthing for then night because I wasn’t allowed to associate with other Sea Org members. Jack Dirmann, who was standing behind her at her desk, grinning like a jackal, escorted me out. I was told I could come back the next day after no one was in berthing to get my stuff.

I was lucky enough that another student took pity on me or I would have spent a long, cold, hungry night on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. The person who did that to me did not care. She did her job. This is what the people in charge in Scientology do. They pull power trips on those below them.

It is different these days, but only because the tables have turned and the people pulling the power trips are the youngsters ordering the old people around. It is still wrong and it is still ugly. There is nothing right about treating a person the way Scientology says they should be treated. Period.