Addition to Chapter 21

Celebrity Auditor Chris Silcock

From print pg. 193

MY ISOLATION CHANGED the day Christopher Silcock walked into the OGH kitchen. Chris had been John Travolta’s personal auditor, one of the special auditors on the RTC celebrity recovery project at CC while I was the Commanding Officer. He wore clean jeans and a clean polo shirt, unlike me. I didn’t know prior to this that Chris had been in the process of routing out for months, had nearly finished the interrogations, and would return to South Africa soon. For the first time in weeks, I had a congenial conversation with another person, swapping stories. Mostly, he told of his disillusionment with Scientology while auditing A-listers, and that he had felt like he was cracking up. He told me details about auditing John Travolta and other celebrities that I would not have known unless I had read the contents of their confidential auditing files.

While Chris audited celebrities, I had little awareness of the experiences he poured out before me that day. I knew that the celebrity auditors had been under intense pressure from RTC leaders, and sometimes received direct orders from Int execs who told them what to do with specific celebrities—in the same way I received similar orders under threatening conditions to recruit celebrities. Chris told me of times that he received phone calls ordering him to fly to the locations where JT was filming his movies, and take him into auditing sessions from the set. Chris said it was ridiculous sometimes showing up at film sets and waiting in the wings feeling like a leech, to gently but assertively tell John Travolta that he was going into session that day.

Chris’s demeanor showed that he carried a heavy burden about spending years in the Sea Org in such humiliating and compromising circumstances, which also involved his wife, Stephanie Silcock. Some of the details Chris shared with me about auditing John Travolta were shocking, even for me as a troubled Sea Org member, but it seemed to make him feel better to talk about it. As the CO CCNW and then when I arrived at the Int base, I had signed a statement of confidentiality to never reveal information from celebrity auditing folders, so I knew I would forever keep my mouth shut about that. After I left that kitchen that day, I never saw Chris again.