Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is September 11, 2025, and I want to begin by offering a heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot yesterday while we were recording yesterday's episode. We condemn all violence, and we also express our support for open dialogue and respectful dialogue, you know, in the sense that we, you know, we understand Charlie Kirk's long history of engaging in dialogue with people, and that's what Mormon Stories is all about. And we condemn all violence, and we also just. Again, our heart goes out not just to the family and friends of Charlie Kirk, but also to people who respected and loved him.

John Dehlin [00:00:57] We need less polarization, in my opinion. We need less echo chambers. We need more conversations and more respectful dialogue. And so it's a sad, dark day, and especially that it happened In Utah, just 30 minutes away from where we were recording yesterday.

John Dehlin [00:01:16] So, anyway, just wanted to say that before we begin. Welcome back to part two of our interview with Mark and Claire Headley. For those of you who did not hear our previous episode, you may want to pause it, go back to yesterday's episode, watch it, and then come back for today. Claire and Mark Headley were effectively born into Scientology, and yesterday's episode was about their experience as children in Scientology, the conditional love offered by their parents as it related to their allegiance to Scientology.

Recapping Part One and Guest Resources

John Dehlin [00:01:52] I talked about their respective recruitments into the Sea Org, which is the most elite, and I would say culty and or abusive part of Scientology, which is saying a lot. And it talked about their experiences as teens in seaorg, and then eventually their recruitment to work at church headquarters, one of the church headquarters, in this case the one in California, and eventually their meeting.

John Dehlin [00:02:18] We talked about Claire's forced abortions after she married Mark. We talked about what it was like to work with David Miscavige, the successor to L. Ron Hubbard. We gave a history, a brief history of Scientology that included, you know, the work and life of L. Ron Hubbard. We also talked about Shelley Miscavige and lots of cool things. So yesterday was a one. One of the longer episodes that we tend to do these days. I think it exceeded five hours.

John Dehlin [00:02:49] In my opinion, it was worth every minute. So check it out. Even though it's a long episode, it's great stuff. Where we left off was the meeting, being married, but we spent a lot of time on their reflections on how Scientology worked at the top leadership level. So we talked about Tom Cruise and his celebrity.

John Dehlin [00:03:12] We talked about John Travolta. We talked about ways that David Miscavige spoke ill and violated the confidentiality of not just the celebrities, but other members. We talked about David Miscavige's violence, physical violence and psychological violence. So many important and interesting things.

John Dehlin [00:03:32] And we talked about, I guess, Claire's opinion that she tended to believe that at best, David Miscavige was, was hypocritical and at worst wasn't even necessarily a true believer in the teachings or the beliefs of Scientology. And I think Mark probably shares that. They also speculated that by the end of L. Ron Hubbard's life, unlike just David Miscavige, that L. Ron Hubbard was a true believer, even though you could argue that Scientology began as a fraud. So we also, to, to finish my summation of yesterday, we found lots of parallels between the life of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and the lives of L. Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige and between behaviors and practices in the respective churches.

John Dehlin [00:04:27] Although I to this day am willing to concede that if we're talking about the spectrum of, of harmful organizations and or high demand religions and or cults, I can say with a lot of confidence that Scientology out cults the Mormon Church maybe by a long shot, but maybe by the end of today we'll talk about why that might be smart or savvy on the part of the Mormon Church to be less like Scientology. We also talked about how David Miscavige loved the Mormon approach to business and PR and corporate management and how they were often directed to figure out what the Mormons were doing and to do more of that.

John Dehlin [00:05:16] So that was a, you know, we may get more into that in today's episode, but that's a long intro. But it's to say, please go back and watch that last episode. It's absolutely worth it. And it gets better and better with each hour.

John Dehlin [00:05:30] Believe it or not, Margi can't join us today. She sends her love and respect. And so today's all going to be about the unraveling of Claire and Mark's belief in Scientology, how they escaped, how they rebuilt their lives after escaping, how they've been attacked and pursued by the church, and also their advocacy that culminates in, you know, them running a nonprofit or helping run a nonprofit that helps others escape from Scientology.

John Dehlin [00:06:03] So really quickly, we mentioned at the beginning of last episode that you all have a YouTube channel and a book and the nonprofit. What do you all want to sort of say to our returning audience in case there's people who missed yesterday's? Plugs.

Claire Headley [00:06:20] Yes, absolutely. Our YouTube channel is blown for Good, Scientology Exposed, and. And the Michael J. Render Aftermath Foundation. The website for that is theaftermathfoundation.org and we also now have a newer YouTube channel that's the Aftermath foundation, where we cover stories, successes programs, and current endeavors that we're working on there. I'll let you cover the book.

Marc Headley [00:06:46] Yeah, the book is Blown for Good behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology. And we also. On the Aftermath YouTube channel, we have interviews with people that. Who have. We've helped get out. And then after a bit, they wanted to tell their stories on how they were helped by the Aftermath foundation, which are. There's a. There's a particular, very cool one called the Story of Serge Obolinsky, which is the individual we helped many years ago. And it's a. It's a great documentary if you want to watch that.

John Dehlin [00:07:15] And yesterday we talked about, you know, Shelly Miscavige, the wife of David Miscavige, going missing for, what, 20 years. And you have a series on Blown for Good about where is Shelley?

Marc Headley [00:07:30] That's right.

John Dehlin [00:07:30] Where you talk to various people about their theories on whether Shelley's still alive and if so, what happened to her. And.

Claire Headley [00:07:37] And yeah, yeah, that was inspired because, particularly in my case, I worked so closely with Shelley for the eight years that I was in Religious Technology center, and. And Shelley's fate could have been any one of our fates. Had I not escaped, I. I would never have seen Mark again. So Shelley is a real person. She's not. She's not. She's a. A prisoner. And she has been removed from her position completely. And so I don't want that to be forgotten about, nor do I want. It seemed like the perfect example of how to expose what Scientology is capable of behind the scenes.

John Dehlin [00:08:20] And unlike your opinions about David Miscavige, you believe Shelley was a true believer.

Claire Headley [00:08:25] I definitely know Shelley was a true believer 100. She is, I'm sure, waiting for the day that L. Ron Hubbard will return in.

John Dehlin [00:08:34] Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

Claire Headley [00:08:36] Yes, exactly. So. And hoping that he will free her and banish David Miscavige. Probably by now.

John Dehlin [00:08:42] That's another thing we talked about yesterday, is the. The prophesied return of L. Ron Hubbard.

Claire Headley [00:08:49] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:08:49] And the mansion that's been built to await his return. So you'll have to go back and watch to hear about all that stuff, but it's just gripping. So thanks for rejoining us today and giving two full days to Mormon Stories podcast.

Claire Headley [00:09:02] Yes, thank you so Much for having us. Absolutely. Our pleasure.

The Beginning of Doubt Inside Scientology

John Dehlin [00:09:06] Okay, well, so yesterday we ended with, you know, lots of controversy and insider tea and descriptions of the inner workings. And we can do much more of that if you want any tea that we. We had dinner last night. Net that we want to also add in addition to what we talked about yesterday. But what I want to start by focusing on is just when the cracks started developing for each of you and then how you dealt with the. When I say cracks, that's a Mormon. I don't know if it's.

Marc Headley [00:09:47] But 100%.

John Dehlin [00:09:48] Okay.

Claire Headley [00:09:48] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:09:48] When the crack started developing in your faith or commitment to the movement, and then how each of you, respectively, and how you together did or didn't deal with the cracks. So where should we begin?

Marc Headley [00:10:00] I think I'll start because I'm the one who cracked first.

John Dehlin [00:10:03] Okay. So you were always a bit of a skeptic.

Marc Headley [00:10:08] I wasn't.

John Dehlin [00:10:08] And reluctant. Were you reluctant or not?

Marc Headley [00:10:10] I was more. I was more working and trying to get stuff done and being a good worker, a doer. A doer. I'm sort of. If you're not producing, you're just consuming. And I'd rather produce and do just a little bit of consuming.

John Dehlin [00:10:28] Yeah.

Marc Headley [00:10:28] And so. And for the most part, the entire time, the entire 15 years that I was in this organization, I was making things. I was producing cassettes or producing DVDs or laser discs or whatever, or films or videos. And so at the very end of my 15 years there, I was put in charge of the audio visual systems manufacturing department. And so I was responsible for all of the audio visual systems for Scientology worldwide.

John Dehlin [00:11:03] It's a big deal.

Marc Headley [00:11:04] It was a lot. It was millions and millions of dollars worth of installations and equipment that needed to go to all of their facilities all around the world. And not only was I responsible for designing them, programming them, producing them, and then in making sure they got installed correctly in all those locations.

Marc Headley [00:11:25] So it was a lot of work. And. And Scientology doesn't like to put more resources on something than are needed. So in. In most of the instances of this, if. If something would take 15 people to do comfortably or capably, then three people would be assigned to it. And that is exactly what we had. We had three people responsible for producing, installing, and getting all this work done for, let's say, 150 organizations worldwide. So it was. We were wholly unprepared and unmanned to be able to do that successfully. So it was always last minute, two minute, you know, too little, too late, just always scrambling.

Marc Headley [00:12:20] But. But as part of that, in late 2004, there were several. There was a new campaign that David Miscavige had launched, essentially based on Tom Cruise shooting films in certain locations. And Tom Cruise, now an avid, avid Scientologist. Between 2000 and 2004, him and David Miscavige became very, very close.

John Dehlin [00:12:49] When was his jumping on Oprah's sofa moment about.

Marc Headley [00:12:52] Do you remember 2005?

John Dehlin [00:12:55] Okay, so this is leading up to his marriage of Katie Holmes and that whole public sort of re. Rebirth or rebranding of Scientology.

Claire Headley [00:13:05] Yes, yes. It was from the time period of Tom Cruise being brought back into Scientology, separating from Nicole, and now becoming extremely fanatical about wanting to spread the word and get as many people, as many high profile people into Scientology as he could, and then complaining to David Miscavige, hey, the New York organization is terrible. Like, it's not. It's not worthy of me bringing Steven Spielberg, who I'm working with on War of the Worlds, into that organization. You need to fix this.

John Dehlin [00:13:39] Yeah.

Marc Headley [00:13:39] So based on this sort of dialogue that's happening with Tom Cruise, David Miscavige created a new type of Scientology organization. And he deemed it the ideal organization. And this would became to be known as the ideal Org program. And so any Scientology facility that was in a strip mall that next to the dog groomer or had a rundown building that they bought in 1972 or anything like that, was now deemed unacceptable. And they would need to purchase or obtain or move into, ideally a historic building or something that's classified as sort of a landmark in their city. And that is many, many tens of thousands of square feet and in a major city and all of these things. And as part of that, they would get these new systems that I had designed for all of the different divisions of the organization.

John Dehlin [00:14:47] So they're zhuzhing up now that they have more and more money, more and more celebrity, they want to upgrade their class.

Marc Headley [00:14:54] Let's get like the Mormons.

Claire Headley [00:14:55] Yes, let's get it going. And two things to add to that. Number one, Hubbard had a policy in which he said, quote, they will know you by your messed, unquote matter, energy, space and time. In other words, the. The general population will know you by the quality of your presentation of physical buildings and so on and so forth. That's what was used as the explanation to the existing Scientologists as to why this was needed. And not only that, David Miscavige's vision was, you know what you are? You're incapable of bringing people into Scientology. Properly. So we're going to do this by audio visual, and the audio visual systems will do the work of recruiting people because you're failing.

Marc Headley [00:15:41] That's exactly what it was. He, David Miscavige believed the only way to get new people into Scientology is if he was personally getting them into Scientology. And the only way that he could do that was to create video programs and presentations and to create those. Like, he's the one who said this is what this needs to be and this will bring people in. And because. And his, his explanation to us was we need to bypass the failure of Scientologists and go directly to new people.

John Dehlin [00:16:19] That's fascinating. It's not the Mormon way. The Mormon way is to not rely too much on the cult of personality of any one leader. Now that's post Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. But I think over time the church has learned that if you rely too much on any one personality, that person could get shot. That person can fall out of fashion or be controversial. Better to have 80,000 missionaries spanning the globe being your personal representatives and connecting with hearts and minds. So I do think the Mormon Church's missionary program is brilliant and one of the big secrets to its success.

Claire Headley [00:16:58] Yes. Scientology has not learned that lesson yet, but it is. Hopefully they don't either.

John Dehlin [00:17:03] We talk about the difference between a 3 billion church and a 300 billion dollar church.

Claire Headley [00:17:07] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:17:08] I think that might be one of the differences.

Marc Headley [00:17:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:10] Now we do love our multimedia. So in that. In that we agree.

Marc Headley [00:17:14] Yes. Well, so as part of that program, I was responsible for going to these new organizations that had just been renovated or just been updated with these new systems and going and making sure that their systems were installed and operated as David Miscavige intended. And one of the carrots. There used to be a. There used to. There's been other programs throughout the years, and when those milestones or objectives were completed is when the upper OT levels 9 and 10. So they've only released up to operating level fate, operating thetan level eight. And. And. But it has on the bridge to total freedom in Scientology. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. So as a carrot, David Miscavige basically mandated, once every single one of our organizations has been upgraded to an ideal organization, OT levels 9 and 10 will then be released.

Claire Headley [00:18:23] Though. Though, as we talked about yesterday, there are no. They were OT 9 and 10. No, but that was. So it was like a, you know, the presentation of. Well, you. You haven't met the target. So that's why it's not being released as the explanation. Because of course, it wouldn't. Wouldn't fly with the civilian Scientologist to be like, sorry, he went off to target too, before that was completed.

John Dehlin [00:18:48] And when she says off to target, she means died. But. Yes, but. But. But also, I'm guessing Scientology followers wouldn't have been okay with David Miscavige authoring those highest levels.

Claire Headley [00:19:02] Absolutely not.

John Dehlin [00:19:03] And also, what you told us yesterday was L. Ron Hubbard did have a lot of spare time in his final five or 10 years, but he spent it writing space porn instead of actually completing the levels. Am I right?

Claire Headley [00:19:16] Completely. Absolutely. No, because in Scientology, Hubbard is source. He is the only person that can originate anything, which is where Scientology has an incapacity to change.

John Dehlin [00:19:28] I love this so much, I should be laughing at darkness. This is fascinating.

Marc Headley [00:19:34] It is kind of wild to think about it all and that there are people that don't know any of this information, and they're just operating on the information they're getting through David Miscavige from Scientology. And if they knew a quarter of what we're talking about, that it would be a deal breaker for them.

John Dehlin [00:19:53] It would certainly be, oh, the general membership. Oh, 100 not knowing very basic things about 100.

Marc Headley [00:19:59] About David Miscavige and about L. Ron Hubbard. Yeah, they were both. Well, I think the only thing that David Miscavige hasn't kind of matched L. Ron Hubbard on is the number of wives Tom has. And LRH both had three wives, at least that we know of, and. And David Miscavige only had the one. But when the. The FBI raided Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard's wife went to prison, he never, ever saw her ever again. He basically banished her after she got out of prison. She was banished? Oh, yes.

John Dehlin [00:20:36] Wow.

Claire Headley [00:20:36] She was put in a. In a separate location. So we're referring to Mary Sue Hubbard, who she was, went to prison and served time for her involvement as the head of the Guardian's office, which they were protecting L. Ron Hubbard, and she was his wife, but she fell on her sword for him. And yes, she was banished. She was literally written out of Scientology's history, removed from all the photos, never spoken about until the day she died. So we're talking the late 70s. And so for 20 plus years, she was in a remote location that nobody knew about with Scientology handlers. Exactly. Like Shelly Miscavige.

John Dehlin [00:21:22] I'm going to keep drawing parallels. Joseph Smith's first wife, Emma, was written out of Mormon history because she refused to follow Brigham Young to Utah. And Brigham Young hated Emma. And Emma hated Brigham Young because Emma hated polygamy. And so we also, for many, many generations, wrote out the founding wife of our founding prophet.

Claire Headley [00:21:42] Wow.

John Dehlin [00:21:43] The other thing is that most Mormons today don't know the very basic truths about their history, more so now than ever because of the Internet. But when I 30. Just 20 years ago. 20, 30 years ago, I learned for the first time that Joseph Smith had 30 to 40 wives. And to this day, most Mormons don't know that. Wow.

Marc Headley [00:22:05] So, I mean, wild.

John Dehlin [00:22:07] Yeah. I think y' all have withheld more from your members than we have withheld from ours, mostly because y' all just have so much more to know and learn. Your. Your sacred language goes so deep. You know what I mean?

Claire Headley [00:22:21] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:22] And your history, your intricate history goes so deep. But what we share is a generally ignorant membership in terms of the truth about the Church, just at different levels.

Claire Headley [00:22:34] Right. And it's. It's fascinating to just reflect on that. I think there's two key factors. Number one, the Internet has changed everything in terms of availability of actual factual information. But in retrospect, it's. It's alarming and shocking. And concerning that in human nature, you. You would go. Like my parents or my family or anybody would go into a belief system not even knowing the basic facts of who it is they're following and believing and what their actual history is.

John Dehlin [00:23:08] Yeah. That's why our main theme is informed consent. Like, I don't care if people are Mormon. I just want them to know what they're joining that or be a part of.

Marc Headley [00:23:17] Yeah, that's exactly. Kind of the message we try to push is that we're not really attacking the beliefs of it. We're attacking the fraud and the criminal activities and the. You know, there's been a long history of defrauding elderly members and running up credit cards in elderly people's accounts and then just saying, well, they're going to pass away and the credit card debt's just going to get forgiven. So there's no. It's an innocent. It's a victimless crime that we're basically stealing money from credit card companies.

Claire Headley [00:23:52] And I would claim we're not attacking anybody. We're just exposing what we know to be true. It's. You know, Scientology calls us attackers, but, no, we're just whistleblowers sharing our experiences and our truth so that other unsuspecting people don't get lured in by their facade.

John Dehlin [00:24:10] Yeah. Makes total sense.

Claire Headley [00:24:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:12] Okay, so you're. You're judging up all the. You Know all the buildings with the latest tech.

Marc Headley [00:24:18] Yeah. So.

John Dehlin [00:24:19] And. And there's a promise for the highest levels of curriculum to be released so that people can reach their Scientology equivalent of exaltation or enlightenment.

Claire Headley [00:24:31] Exactly, exactly.

Marc Headley [00:24:33] And throughout my entire career within the Sea Organization, I was involved with audio visual systems, and I did travel to many organizations all over the world over those years. And this was the first time that I was going to these new organizations, these new ideal organizations that David Miscavige had been building.

Marc Headley [00:24:58] And I went to the New York Ideal. Org, and I went to several Ideal, or Scientology Ideal organizations in California. And every single time that I had gone to one of these places, they were bare. There was no one there. I went to San Francisco. I went to New York. I went to cities where Scientology organizations traditionally had hundreds of people in them each day for decades. And now I'm going, and they have this new organization that's the Bee's Knees. It's the old San Francisco. They have the old transamerican building, Transamerica building on the corner, and it's right across the street from the new Trans America building.

Marc Headley [00:25:46] And there's not one single person in there, a paying member of Scientology on a weekday, in the afternoon, when that's sort of the afternoon and night are sort of the busy times for people get off work, and then they go and do their Scientology technology study at after work. No one there and no one coming. No one been there for the last few days. No one coming for the next few days.

Claire Headley [00:26:09] And on the flip side of that, you're seeing the empty organizations, and I remember very well. Meanwhile, you're attending meetings with David Miscavige where things are just falling down. Like the whole musical chairs incident, which I don't know if you want to cover that or not, but that was. That was absolutely a part of the. The cracks forming. I remember because it was.

Marc Headley [00:26:34] That was an entire chapter of my book. So I don't know if we want to cover. That's gonna.

Claire Headley [00:26:39] We're gonna.

Marc Headley [00:26:40] We're gonna outdo.

Claire Headley [00:26:40] Yesterday. We covered it with David Miscavige's violence. But I'm just saying that was on the flip side of empty organizations. Meanwhile, the leader is degenerating into physical and just crazy psychological abuse like we had not seen at that level before.

Marc Headley [00:26:57] Yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot. And.

John Dehlin [00:27:01] And that's. That's just real quickly. That's how I remember going. Clear ending is that Scientology is becoming fabulously wealthy and empty in terms of actual people.

Marc Headley [00:27:12] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:27:12] It's going to be a super wealthy church with few to no members. And weirdly, the Mormon Church is also potentially on a similar trajectory in the United States because our growth is almost slowed to a decline in the United States. And so we're about to start declining in the US in membership, and we're having massive defections and we're building a gazillion $50 million temples all across the United States and the world. And everyone's asking who's going to be showing up in these temples once the membership is in total freefall. So, I mean, again, yes, interesting similarities.

Claire Headley [00:27:52] Yes. The way I put it is Scientology is currently rich in dollars and real estate and poor. And people. Yeah, their people are. Because of the. Many people have spoken out, more and more people are leaving Scientology by the day at this point. So they are definitely shrinking.

Marc Headley [00:28:10] Yeah. The other. The other thing that was happening was he is pushing that we're going to have to open eight or 10 of these new organizations every year. And here I am when I went to New York and it was empty. I was. That was a. That was. That was kind of a shocker. The. The new. The New York Scientology ideal organization is right around the corner from Times Square. So there's sort of no good reason in the world that there would be no people there because there's more people just their period than anywhere.

John Dehlin [00:28:45] Yeah.

Marc Headley [00:28:46] And you can't even get a handful to come over there.

John Dehlin [00:28:49] Interesting.

Claire Headley [00:28:49] And we're not even just talking about people actively doing courses or training. They would. In a location like that. They're supposed to quote body route is what Hubbard calls it. People in to do the personality test and all this like, simple things that with a huge amount of humanity right there should. Technically, that building should be busier than any location.

Marc Headley [00:29:14] Exactly. There's also there traditionally they have maybe 100 to 150 organizations worldwide in the entire world that are Scientology organizations. And all of those organizations make money and then they send that money to the Mother Church. There's one organization in Clearwater called the Flag Land Base or the Fort Harrison or. It's a collection of many properties, millions and millions of dollars of the propert. But in that one location, they make a million dollars a week delivering Scientology and doing counseling and training. That one organization sends or makes a million dollars a week, and then that million dollars supports all of Scientology's management facilities. The Sea Organization is basically funded by that one single organization.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] Can I take issue with that? I don't. Let me tell you what I mean. Yeah, When a church is small and growing, it relies on revenue generated by its branches. Once you amass a billion bucks at central headquarters and then you get the best Wall street investors to invest that money, you just grow on the law of 7, 6 or 7% a year.

John Dehlin [00:30:40] And like the Mormon Church now, it was 30 or 40 or 50 years ago that they had that billion dollars. But once they started Ensign Peak and started investing it, well, now we're a 300 billion dollar church and the church literally doesn't need the tithing of its members anymore to continue growing at the rate where it will be a trillion dollar church in 30, 40 years. So there's a point, there's a long period where it relies on the tithing or the revenue of the branches. But you know, the Mormon Church doesn't need the tithing of its members literally anymore to become a trillion dollar organization.

Marc Headley [00:31:18] Just, just money making money.

John Dehlin [00:31:20] At this point, it's the law of 7%. How long does it take a billion dollars to double if you get 7% a year? So I'm not arguing with you.

Marc Headley [00:31:28] No.

John Dehlin [00:31:28] But I'm just, you know, this is a conversation.

Claire Headley [00:31:30] Yeah, for sure.

Marc Headley [00:31:31] And this is, this is where this is sort of going, that this information to Scientologists would, would be a mind blower.

John Dehlin [00:31:38] Yeah.

Marc Headley [00:31:39] All of those other organizations all around the world do not make as much money as the one in Clearwater, Florida. And that is mainly why David Miscavige spends most, if not all of his time concentrating on the Clearwater facility and building new facilities and buying up more property and. Because that's where they're making the bulk of their income.

Claire Headley [00:32:05] Yeah, yeah. And sorry not to go too far off into the weeds, but the other, the flip side of this whole Ideal Org program was that these, these, the existing organizations were small and failing and very often were getting evicted and couldn't pay their utilities and everything else. So then the structure that David Miscavige envisioned was international Landlord will buy all the buildings and then they'll pay rent to, to the management landlord office and then we won't have any more evictions and we'll own all the buildings and so forth.

John Dehlin [00:32:39] It's like McDonald's. McDonald's is a real estate company. Yes, first and foremost.

Claire Headley [00:32:45] Yes.

Marc Headley [00:32:45] And that is what science, when this Ideal Org program switched over the way David Miscavige is doing it, is if Buffalo needs a new Ideal organization, then hit up all those folks in Buffalo, get 5 million bucks together and then give us the 5 million, we buy the building and now we rent it to Buffalo.

John Dehlin [00:33:08] Yeah, totally. That is literally McDonald's.

Marc Headley [00:33:10] Yes. So Scientology is a franchise operation at this point.

John Dehlin [00:33:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marc Headley [00:33:15] And, and, and, and similarly, they're licensing the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to that organization. So not only are they paying a royalty, they're paying a licensing fee, they're paying a, a starter package sort of fee to buy all their new audio, visual systems and all these things. The money is coming to Scientology. But that local Scientology organization, they have no say in anything that happens there. They are the workers that work for David Miscavige.

John Dehlin [00:33:49] Yeah, as I'm just. I hope. Hey, David, I hope you're watching and listening or I don't. I think that's a short sighted business model to have your revenue tied to training. What you want to do is hook the hearts and minds. Well, of the people.

Marc Headley [00:34:04] Yeah, that's what we're going to get to.

John Dehlin [00:34:05] And then you get there and you get their lifelong tithing and their inheritance.

Marc Headley [00:34:09] Well, that is.

John Dehlin [00:34:10] Right.

Marc Headley [00:34:10] It's.

Claire Headley [00:34:10] Yes.

Marc Headley [00:34:10] It's funny that you say that because since the Ideal Org program, they have Scientology when we left in 2005, they have a statistic that they keep, which is called advanced payments. And that is where somebody paid for counseling or somebody paid for training. But you have not yet delivered those products to them. So you have. You're in the red on everything that you haven't delivered that you still owe.

Claire Headley [00:34:38] It's the liability on the balance sheet situation.

Marc Headley [00:34:42] And David Miscavige told us that in 2005, 2000, at 2004, 2005 era, that Scientology had over $1 billion in advance payments. And if they had, tomorrow, every single Scientologist in the world said, I'm not paying you any more money until I get everything that I've paid for delivered to me and do the courses, do the training. It would take 100 years for Scientology to deliver that billion dollars. And that entire time they would be getting no income because that people had already paid for everything. And so he switched. From that point forward, he basically switched to this is not a good business model. We just need to get them to give us their money. We don't need to give. We don't want to have to give them anything.

John Dehlin [00:35:40] To quote Tom Cruise, show me the money.

Claire Headley [00:35:44] Right, exactly. However, Hubbard had specifically said to not do that. Do not fundraise, do not ask.

John Dehlin [00:35:50] Yeah, well, past leaders, wisdom is expendable.

Claire Headley [00:35:54] Right.

Marc Headley [00:35:54] And that. And that is exactly what it's switched over to. Now they have one individual, his name is Bob Duggan. And he had a pharmaceutical company. He sold it. He was actually a very successful engineer, inventor. He had made a chocolate chip recipe that sold to chain. He was. He had many different ventures over the course of his life, but he had amassed billions and billions of dollars. He personally is. Has admitted to giving over $360 million himself to Scientology. One guy. And so when David Miscavige started getting these guys to start, hey, give me 10 million, give me 20 million, give me 50 million, give me another 10 million, what sort of happened is he created an entire network of rich Scientologists that in order to be in this little network, you have to give a $10 million donation.

Marc Headley [00:36:55] And once you do that, you are now in a club with all these other guys that you're only a multimillionaire now. You're in the club with a bunch of billionaires, and now they're going to help you become even more wealthy.

Marc Headley [00:37:11] And so now he's got, let's just say it's 100, 200 guys that are. They're not all billionaires, but they have enough to give Scientology a couple million, maybe 10 million. And the more of those guys he got, then it was sort of like, who cares about the Scientology training and the counseling? And that's. That's basically not even a deal anymore. But meanwhile, the Seaworg members are still making $46 a week. Yeah, the. The people that are in the Scientology organizations, they're not even making $20 a week. And so now you've got this disparity where David Miscavige is hanging out with the millionaires and the billionaires, and he's living like a billionaire, and the Scientology is paying all of his expenses, and he has a salary of a couple hundred thousand.

Marc Headley [00:38:05] The last thing, the last time it was reported, I think he had, in the 90s, he had a salary of $300,000 a year. He is the captain of the sea organization. He's making several hundred thousand dollars a year, which for a major corporation or a major nonprofit or any of these things, it's not really that much money. But when your counterparts are being paid maybe 2,500 a year, if they get paid every week, maybe a little bit more.

Marc Headley [00:38:36] It's kind of like, hey, what kind of game are we playing here? Like, they could increase the sea or pay to $250 a week, and it wouldn't even phase anybody. They basically have a 5,000 man workforce that they're paying peanuts. They're not even paying their members what Somebody would get as a meal per diem payment for a single day. They're not paying that in a week.

Claire Headley [00:39:01] Which, by the way, during the time that I was in Religious Technology center, it was very carefully structured so that David Miscavige was the top paid person. Obviously Shelley was his number two, but she had to be number three on the pay structure. Larry Stuckenbrock was number two because having a Mr. And Mrs. As the number one and number two was not a good look for the IRS. So it was carefully fabricated to not do that

Marc Headley [00:39:31] anyway.

John Dehlin [00:39:31] Interesting.

Marc Headley [00:39:32] So all of these things are sort of coming around and I'm seeing them. So for most of those years I was working at the international headquarters, but I would travel to the organizations if we did a video for them or an event or we had to do the audio visual systems. And over the years they were getting. There was less and less and less and less people in these organizations. And now we have the ideal organization program.

Marc Headley [00:40:01] These places have been built and occupied for months, if not years by the time I'm traveling to them. And they're the emptiest they've ever, ever been. And we're doing event videos, pumping them up and showing them full of people and all these things. And even I, who know there's a bit of movie magic involved, I'm like this, we're way past movie magic now. This is just outright lies and propaganda. Nothing that he's saying is happening is actually happening.

Realizing Scientology Was a Scam

Marc Headley [00:40:34] And that is when I'm sort of like, I'm. I've dedicated 15 years to this. And I'm seeing in real time this is basically a scam. We are scamming people. And I know, and I also am at the other end of the money. So I'm seeing the struggle of the people on the ground and how they're not getting paid. I know I'm not getting paid. I know David Miscavige is living high on the hog. And we have, we've. At the international base, they were wasting millions and millions of dollars on building projects. And oh, this building has to be completely redone. They'll rip everything out and redo it.

Marc Headley [00:41:16] And that's $2 million. And then. And I'm seeing, I'm basically just seeing that this is being run insane. And not only are. Is there. Are there millions of dollars being wasted on nonsense. And David Miscavige is living high on the hog, but the people are struggling in these places. The, the people that are sacrificing are sacrificing everything. And the People running the place are not. Aren't sacrificing a single thing, really. They're living it.

Pressure to Divorce and the Threat of the Hole

Claire Headley [00:41:45] And meanwhile, Mark found out from Shelly Miscavige directly that I was under incredible pressure to divorce Mark and that I was going to be put in the hole because of my refusal to divorce Mark.

John Dehlin [00:42:00] Why were they pressuring you to divorce Mark?

Claire Headley [00:42:02] Because David Miscavige had decided on a new personnel policy that in Religious Technology center, you could only be married to someone else also in that organization. So even though we worked on the same property and had both been in the SEA Organization for many years.

John Dehlin [00:42:19] And were married.

Claire Headley [00:42:20] Yes, and married. Exactly. Now he was implementing this person personnel policy knowing full well, okay, he actually get divorced or you're out.

Marc Headley [00:42:31] Yeah. He actually called it sleeping with the enemy. He considered anyone not in his organization, even though they were seared members in Scientology organizations, that they were the enemy of his organization.

Claire Headley [00:42:44] And that's. And that's the paranoia that we're talking about, because he was worried that if I attended a. And saw David Miscavige punch Norman Starkey in the face, that I'm going to go home and tell Mark about that.

John Dehlin [00:42:57] And that he might not be as compelled to be supportive as you might feel, being a part. Being an insider.

Claire Headley [00:43:07] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:43:07] Yeah.

Marc Headley [00:43:08] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:43:09] Yeah.

Claire Headley [00:43:09] Yeah.

Marc Headley [00:43:10] Anyway, coupled with the fact that I'd already myself been attending meetings where this has happened, it used to be that I think he kept the violence and sort of the bad behavior in the inner circle. And pretty much Starting in the 2000s, 1999 forward, he just let it all hang out. He literally had no.

Marc Headley [00:43:33] He had no filter, and he would lose his temper and physically abuse or punch people or scream and yell or throw shit at us or whatever, to a point where if you were going to a meeting with him, probably a 95% chance someone's getting beat up in this meeting. And that was in the late 2000, like 2004, 2003 period, where it was pretty much you could go to a meeting with him and either get beat up or get assigned to the RPF or get taken off your position. Any of those things were not a sure thing, but it's going to happen to somebody in the meeting.

Claire Headley [00:44:12] Yeah. So it had gotten to the point where Shelly Miscavige told me that her. One of her co workers that was a friend of hers who had escaped. Shelly said she was the smart one. Like, she got out of there and. And. And that was shocking to me. Like, wow. She's telling me that somebody who escaped was the smart one. Clearly, everything was not going well.

John Dehlin [00:44:39] Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, I'm thinking your. Your church is kind of where our church was at the end of Brigham Young's era. Right.

Marc Headley [00:44:50] That sounds about right. It seems like even with the successor and then. And that is actually kind of. It's a kind of weird thing that David Miscavige is almost exactly following L. Ron Hubbard's trajectory. The FBI have been investigating Scientology for many years now. There's lawsuits cropping up everywhere. There's fraud, credit card fraud, wrongdoings. They just had one of their major celebrities arrested for sexual assault, Danny Masterson.

John Dehlin [00:45:24] Right, we'll talk about that.

Marc Headley [00:45:25] And so all these things are sort of happening, and they are. It is at a point where it's about to boil over for David Miscavige. He. He's been avoiding process servers for going on probably six or seven years now, where if there's a lawsuit, they cannot serve him. He literally makes it impossible. And they'll drag out the lawsuit for an extra year or two, arguing that he hasn't even been served yet. So how can this be going forward?

John Dehlin [00:45:54] It's weird. They can't serve the corporation, you know.

Marc Headley [00:45:58] Well, the lawyers can argue endlessly on the semantics of how the service was conducted. And you literally. The guy. Guy has. He has homes in UK, LA, Clearwater, Gilman Hot Springs, all of these different locations. So they. No one can say, oh, he's not there right now, because he's over here right now. And then he's at an event in Florida, and they say, we're going to serve you here. Oh, no, he's back in California now. And. Well, his driver's license has a Florida address. Well, his corporate address is in California. Well, it's just endless on the law fair that they just drag it out

Claire Headley [00:46:32] and then literally just degenerated into cat and mouse games to avoid accountability.

John Dehlin [00:46:39] And that's the thing is, you know, he'll die at some point, probably, but, you know, as long as you have enough money and enough lawyers and enough religious protection, there's nothing to stop Scientology from, in 150 years, becoming a trillion dollar organization.

Marc Headley [00:46:58] Yeah. If there's nobody that says this has got to stop, then it'll just keep going because they. It is like you said, and that is a policy. I don't know that it's all of Scientology, but they have a trust called the International association of Scientologists, the ias.

Marc Headley [00:47:16] And. And I think it might have been Hubbard that dictated they can only spend the interest that They've made on their principal. They can never spend the print the principal. They can only spend interest amounts that have been earned. So they have a very similar 7%, sort of. We're gonna. This is how much our budget is, but that's only for that one organization. I don't think that applies to a lot of the other Scientology organizations. But, okay, so I'm traveling to all these places, I'm seeing all this. I'm back at the property, and this is go. I go into excruciating detail in my book about this whole thing.

Inside Work Life at Golden Era Productions

Marc Headley [00:47:57] But essentially, in the 1980s, we started out with projectors in all these organizations. And L. Ron Hubbard said we should use this exact projector. And we have this many organizations. So they bought 500 of these projectors so that each organization could have two or three different film rooms, and they'd all have this projector in it. Anyway, Fast forward to 2004. I get word that they're cleaning up the AV systems warehouse in Los Angeles, and they're getting rid of a bunch of old stuff. And I say, well, tell me what you're getting rid of, and if I can use any of it or do anything with it, let me know.

Marc Headley [00:48:36] And they said, well, we already threw out the projectors, but we've got some other stuff. I said, wait, wait, what projectors? They said, we had like 20 or 30 of these IKE 16 millimeter projectors. Obviously, we don't use those anymore, so we were just going to throw them away. I said, oh, no, don't throw those away.

Marc Headley [00:48:53] Send those to. Well, they're like, we already put them in a roll off. They might already be gone. I said, get the pallet out of the roll off and ship it up to me. And if they're useful, I may be able to sell them and make some money to again, billion dollar organization. I can't get purchase order approved for computers to send to the organizations that need. I have to build systems for. So.

Claire Headley [00:49:16] And which David Miscavige had ordered Mark to build and was holding like, waiting for his submission. And Mark couldn't get the money approved to. To put everything together to send to David Miscavige.

Marc Headley [00:49:30] So they send me these projectors. They're still in the box from 1980. They've never been open and for 20 years old for right or wrong. At that time, there was a resurgence of collectors and hobbyists that are buying 16 millimeter films and doing little film showings. And these projectors had sound as well. They had a mag stripe sound strip so if you had an old movie that had sound on it, you can actually play it with these special projectors from the 1980s. And I was. I think I may have bought them for a few hundred dollars back in the 80s. I was selling them for two, $3,000 in 2004 anyway, so I ended up doing a whole.

Claire Headley [00:50:20] Because you were able to salvage them from the dumpster?

Marc Headley [00:50:22] Yeah, I had literally taken them from the garbage to then say, hey, I've got a bunch of this old equipment. I'd like to sell it. Yeah, I did a whole proposal. In Scientology, you can't act as a Treasury if you don't actually work in the Treasury Department. So I actually had advisory council and executive council and the financial bank to get approval to be able to do this. I get approval, and I sell 15 to 30 thousand dollars worth of stuff over a period of several months. And then I'm. I now have all the things I need to. To give this proposal to David Miscavige.

Marc Headley [00:51:00] I've purchased all the equipment to be able to does design and sample the system so that he can come and look at them. And I've sent this to him. And then it has to go through several channels of people before it gets to him. It has to go to my executive director and then the executive director of the management organization before it can go to Religious Technology center and get approved by David Miscavige. And David Miscavige has to approve. Within the Scientology organization, he has to personally approve maybe three. Three to 400 things that happen in Scientology when they change the carpet in the mess hall. He has to say, that's the right.

John Dehlin [00:51:39] He's a micromanager.

Marc Headley [00:51:41] The micromanager of the universe and in the Scientology world. So because it's taking days to get to him, he writes a dispatch to the police department of Golden Era Productions and says, hey, I was supposed to get a submission from Mark, and I haven't got it. Maybe you guys could find out what he is doing. Oh, and that's basically like a free for all on me. That's basically a target on me. Like, go get him.

John Dehlin [00:52:12] Okay. This reminds me of one of the conversations we had last night.

Marc Headley [00:52:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:17] When you talked about potentially judges and attorneys being in the pocket of science and police officers.

Marc Headley [00:52:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:25] Being in the pocket of Scientologists. Is that relevant here to give a little context for his involvement in police?

Claire Headley [00:52:32] No, no, we're talking about the internal police of within the organization.

John Dehlin [00:52:37] Yeah, that's me remembering. One of the things I want to

Claire Headley [00:52:39] make sure but so when David Miscavige writes a. Writes a. A dispatch like that, it's. It's not a. Oh, let's see if he's up to no good. It's a declaration that Mark is up to no good. Tell me what he's up to, because he hasn't given me the submission I asked for.

Marc Headley [00:52:59] He.

Claire Headley [00:52:59] Even though.

Marc Headley [00:53:00] Yeah, it was with somebody on the way there.

John Dehlin [00:53:03] But. But you said. Did you use the word police?

Marc Headley [00:53:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] So is there a term in Scientology for internal.

Marc Headley [00:53:08] The. It's called the. The director of inspection and reports and the division is. The department is called the inspections and reports department.

John Dehlin [00:53:18] Okay.

Marc Headley [00:53:19] And they are. They're basically the security. The security forces in that department.

John Dehlin [00:53:25] Got it?

Marc Headley [00:53:26] They are the internal.

Claire Headley [00:53:27] The. It's the ethics department in Scientology that makes, you know, they're responsible that you're on your job, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing when you're, you know, at all times of the day.

Marc Headley [00:53:37] And if you get in trouble, they're the ones that are supposed to get you out of trouble.

Claire Headley [00:53:42] Yeah.

Marc Headley [00:53:42] And so he basically sends a dispatch to. Directly to that guy, the guy that's in charge of that department, saying, hey, find out what he's up to. And this guy, right or wrong, I had a history with. Because he was also in Los Angeles when I was posted in Los Angeles, and he had the exact same job in Los Angeles of that whole building. And so he. I had been a frequent flyer with him for many years. Over my 15 years, we had a long term relationship of him kind of being up my ass.

Marc Headley [00:54:19] And so he was very happy to oblige. David Miscavige direct order to go find out what I was up to. Anyway, they're. They literally went. They tossed my office, they went through all my files, just whatever we can find to light this guy up. While I'm there working, they're just digging through my stuff and they find a receipt for a lens that I had sold.

Marc Headley [00:54:45] And he goes, what's this? I go, that's a. I sold some old lenses. And he goes, wait a minute, you're selling Org equipment? And I'm like, yeah, I got a whole. I've had a whole thing approved. It's. It's all above boards. I. I'm there. I'm. I've been selling. I've been selling for months. And he's like, it says here you sold seven a 700 lens. And I kind of laughed like, that's nothing. Yeah, you have no clue, dude.

Marc Headley [00:55:12] Anyway, so they Go to town on the over the seven hollow $700 lens. And then they actually confiscated my PayPal card, and I had to give them all my PayPal info. I was selling all this stuff on ebay.

Marc Headley [00:55:27] Another interesting fact about this is there was maybe a handful, maybe 10 or 15 people on that entire property of 800 people that had access to the Internet. And I just happened to be one of them because over the years, I needed it for professional reasons and contact vendors and do research.

Marc Headley [00:55:44] And so the fact that I was on the Internet, which is kind of a taboo thing for most people. And. And I would say out of the 10 or 15 or 20 people on that property that could get on the Internet, about half of them had done things that there's a filter, a Scientology program. So when you go to an anti Scientology site or a site that's not Scientology friendly, a porn site, and they had many, many problems with anyone who had access, that if. When. When they do try to do that, it alerts.

Marc Headley [00:56:23] And so somebody comes and says, hey, what are you doing? And. And. And I had mentioned before, there were many foreign nationals on that property for many years, they would just search terms in another language, and the filter didn't even know what they were searching.

Marc Headley [00:56:36] And then they got wise to that, and they put all of the Hungarian words and the Russian words and all the other languages for those same search terms. But it's also interesting that you cannot look up Scientology within a Scientology facility on the Internet. The word Scientology is blocked in the filter so that you're not able to access any information about Scientology.

Claire Headley [00:57:01] You also can't Google Hubbard, David Miscavige, and if you do, then you.

Marc Headley [00:57:06] It'll hit the filter, and then you'll get. Because I was aware of all these things, I never would ever search any of those terms because I knew one of the admins actually knew three of the admins for the filter. So I knew what not to do when I was on the Internet. But regardless, they really latched on to this idea that this was gonna be the silver bullet that was gonna take me out, that I was selling this equipment. And after a whole bunch of back and forth and accounting and how much did he make? How much is in his account? How much was the equipment?

Marc Headley [00:57:41] They basically said that there was a $250 discrepancy, and that $250 was mainly comprised of the fees that eBay charges you. And they very carefully picked everything apart and said, we saw your proposal, which was approved, but nowhere in there does it say, that there's a 2% fee that has to go to ebay or pay.

Marc Headley [00:58:06] So basically, they lit me up for the ebay or the PayPal fee or whatever the discrepancy was. And I was sort of like, are you kidding me?

Claire Headley [00:58:14] And specifically, there's a Hubbard policy called financial irregularities, where Hubbard says if somebody is found guilty of a financial irregularity, they should join the walking dead or something like that.

Marc Headley [00:58:27] That's exactly what it says.

Claire Headley [00:58:28] Yes. And so because Mark hadn't specified that there was an ebay fee and accounted for that, that was ruled as a financial irregularity.

Marc Headley [00:58:40] Yeah. So that was basically. That was the end of the line for me, because now I'm like, well, this is sort of ridiculous. I. I made $30,000 selling garbage, and you're gonna light me up for 250 bucks in fees? Come on. Now we're. Now we're just. Now we're just being silly. Like, this is ridiculous.

John Dehlin [00:59:02] So I have two questions.

Marc Headley [00:59:03] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:59:03] Question number one is, you know, it's their. I was excommunicated, and they. They didn't like my framing of why. Why I was excommunicated based on the evidence. And so they had to come up with their own framing, which was ridiculous, but it spoke to a larger truth for me, which is their club, their rules. They can kick out whoever they want. Totally. So. So why did they feel like they had to? Even if they didn't like you for whatever reason, why did they even feel like they needed to justify why they wanted to get rid of you? Which speaks to a more of a core issue. Why did they want to get rid of you if you were doing great work for them?

Claire Headley [00:59:47] So my answer to that is, it's not that they wanted to get rid of Mark, is that they needed to give an answer back to David Miscavige that was adequate and answered the question of what has Mark been up to? What is Mark guilty of that he hasn't completed this submission? So it was.

John Dehlin [01:00:03] So if dear leader has paranoia.

Claire Headley [01:00:05] Yes, exactly.

Marc Headley [01:00:07] It doesn't matter what the facts are.

Claire Headley [01:00:09] Yeah. The answer to David Miscavige's letter saying, what is Mark up to? What is he guilty of? Cannot be. Oh, sir, no, he did your submission, and it's just with one of the other people. That is not an acceptable answer. The answer has to be, oh, we found it, and here it is. A big, juicy financial irregularity. Sir, you were right.

John Dehlin [01:00:30] Oh, yeah, That's. That's dark. Yeah. Anyway, people are giving their lives to you.

Marc Headley [01:00:35] I know. And also that's what, that's sort of my thing. I'm like, you know, 250 bucks, come on, this is ridiculous.

John Dehlin [01:00:45] Well, when you made more revenue from what you grabbed out of the dumpster.

Marc Headley [01:00:49] So that's, and that's sort of my argument. I'm like, so let me get this straight. I give you 30k and 250 of that went, went to making that 30k and I took garbage and made that. And now that's the. And they basically said I embezzled $250.

Claire Headley [01:01:08] And so, and, but to add to that too, first of all, financial irregularities is an offense for which you can be assigned to the rehabilitation project force. Second of all, Mark hadn't been paid and went to try and collect his pay to say, okay, there's a $250 fee I didn't account for from EB here, let me give it to you. And what did they say to you to that?

Marc Headley [01:01:31] They said, now that it's done, you did it, it's done. Join the walking dead. And that's literally what they told me. You're joining the walking dead. That 250 bucks. And, and in the course of trying to get my back pay that I hadn't collected, I actually went to L. Ron Hubbard's granddaughter who worked at the property. Her name was Roanne, and we were very good friends. And I went to Roanne and I said, hey Roanne, there's a giant frickin mess cluster that's happened. I basically got to come up with 250 bucks like right now. And I couldn't get my back pay. But I was wondering if you could spot me, you know, 250 bucks, or maybe it was 200 bucks or whatever it was.

Marc Headley [01:02:14] And, and she wrote me a check on the spot. She was L. Ron Hubbard's granddaughter. So she had a couple of bucks. And, and so, and she was, she was just a few years younger than I was and we had been friends through the entire 15 years that I was at the property. And, and I went back to the ethics department and I said, here, I've got the money. And they said, no, it's done.

Marc Headley [01:02:41] And I was like, okay. And so then I thought, well, I've got 250 bucks. I did end up getting to the treasury guys, I went in there, they said, what do you need? I'm like, I can't wait till Friday. You can only get paid on one. You can only go get your pay on a certain day of the week. And I said, listen, there's a Whole mess happening. I need all my back pay right now.

Marc Headley [01:03:01] So I was able to get a couple hundred bucks from them. I had the 250 bucks from Roanne, and they were like, we don't want your money. It's done. The ship has sailed. We're writing up a whole report to David Miscavige on all the nonsense you've been up to. My division head.

Marc Headley [01:03:17] I was the head of the department. My division head had gotten my submission back from the person that it was with. They took my name off the submission. They put her name on it. They wrote a whole preamble. Mark's a criminal. He stole $250. He's going to the RPF. He's done for. So I went to my office and I started getting all my stuff ready.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] To what?

Marc Headley [01:03:43] To get the hell out of there.

John Dehlin [01:03:44] Okay. And what, for those who didn't listen to yesterday or to the extent that we didn't describe it, describe in a minute what your life would have been like in the rpf.

The Rehabilitation Project Force as Punishment

Marc Headley [01:03:56] If I went to the rpf, I would basically be working in Los Angeles or in Clearwater in a completely separate location from Claire. I would most likely never return to the property ever again for the rest of my sea or career. If I did graduate the rehabilitation project force, which includes at least five hours of interrogations a day, and then the rest of that, you know, whatever it is, 16 hour day is spent doing hard manual labor, scrubbing dumpsters with toothbrushes or cleaning dishes in the galley or swabbing the decks or whatever the worst possible thing is that they have to

John Dehlin [01:04:35] do horrific manual labor.

Marc Headley [01:04:37] Yeah. For up to 10 years.

Claire Headley [01:04:40] Yeah. And forbidden from even originating communication to anyone outside of that program. So during the entire time he would be on that program, setting aside that he would never be working where I was again, he would also just be forbidden from having any communication with me

Marc Headley [01:04:58] until I was done with the program, had graduated the program, and then was reposted in a new organization if I made it that long. So essentially, the whole 15 years, it's gone. I don't have a wife. I don't have a family. I'm now going to be in this. Basically, it's like a prison. It's a. It's a Temu prison camp. It's Scientology's version of prison.

Marc Headley [01:05:23] And so. So I'm basically like, okay, I've got 500 bucks that I got. I've got a check. I gotta get to a bank to cash this. Got about 200 bucks in cash here. I'VE got a motorcycle that I haven't been riding because I haven't been allowed to ride a motorcycle because I was an ethics particle, they call it.

Marc Headley [01:05:51] But my house was on the outside of the property, right outside the fence of the property. So they have ultra barrier razor wire around the entire perimeter of the property. They have ground microphones in the ground that can detect anything bigger than a rabbit or a fox. So if you. If you jump over the fence, they have fence shakers that have a little mercury tube that when you shake the fence.

John Dehlin [01:06:15] And did you help install.

Marc Headley [01:06:17] I installed microphones, fence shakers. I never installed any ultra barrier, but I have been sliced up by it when climbing up and over the fence while we install the other things you mentioned.

John Dehlin [01:06:27] This all was put to keep people in.

Marc Headley [01:06:29] Yeah, the ultra barrier in the beginning was on the inside.

John Dehlin [01:06:33] Yeah.

Marc Headley [01:06:33] Which raised a few eyebrows here and there when people took pictures of that. So they added it to the outside as well.

Claire Headley [01:06:42] Yeah, we. We talked about that in our deposition, and then the lawyer's response was, oh, well, we're preventing people from stealing equipment. And we're like, oh, what, because somebody's going to toss hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment over a fence?

Marc Headley [01:06:57] Yeah. Anyway, so. So getting out of the property is the biggest barrier, because you can't freely come and go without checking with security. They have gates that have to be opened by them. They have to unlock the gate, and they have to close the gate. And so when you go out any of the roads that have vehicle entrances, you pull up to the gate and they say, where are you going? And if they don't like where you're going, you ain't going.

Claire Headley [01:07:25] And. And very often, if someone's in trouble or under interrogation or anything else, they will be restricted to the property. So they're not allowed to go home even for the few hours of sleep. They have to stay at the property.

John Dehlin [01:07:39] And if you said to the security guards, I, I'm leaving. I'm leaving Scientology.

Marc Headley [01:07:44] No, you're not.

Claire Headley [01:07:45] That people have done that. I mean, it's gotten so bad that at one point, there was a guy by the name of Fred who was one of the few people that had a car, and he was literally ramming the security gate to try and get. Get out, and they would not let him go. If somebody. There's been many times somebody would just walk down the highway, and security will pull up in a vehicle and just toss the person in the back of the van.

John Dehlin [01:08:09] Yeah, that's should be. That's illegal. It's got to be illegal.

Marc Headley [01:08:12] 100.

Claire Headley [01:08:12] Absolutely.

Marc Headley [01:08:13] There's one girl who escaped, and when they. When they pulled up to her and they threw her back in the vehicle, I think she either broke her wrist or her ankle or she got injured when they threw her back into the vehicle to bring her back. And there's. In my book, there's. When you. When you escape from Scientology, it is called a blow.

Marc Headley [01:08:34] And. And blowing means that you have. You have. You have an unauthorized departure. So even if you're on a course in Scientology and you stop doing the course, it's considered a blown student. So any authorized departure from anything in Scientology is called a blow. And people that have blown are considered escaped or they need to be recovered and got back onto the thing. So in Scientology, at the international headquarters, whenever somebody escapes, they call a blow drill. And there's about 20 to 30 people that are activated. And those people have a specific task to recover someone who's blown, whether it's going to the bus stations, whether it's calling the taxi companies, going to the nearby hotels, contacting their relatives, staking out their relatives houses.

Claire Headley [01:09:29] Yes.

Marc Headley [01:09:29] And if they come there. So if you escape from the international headquarters and you have three siblings that live in Los Angeles, there will be an int. Base Sea Org member parked outside of all three of those locations waiting in case you may show up there to get them to help you to wherever you're trying to get to. So I know all of this because I've been there for 15 years, and I've seen hundreds and hundreds of blow drills where you know, somebody's escaped. They say at the muster, everyone accounted for except for Jimmy, we don't know where he's at. And then you don't see Jimmy for a week. And then the next thing you know, Jimmy's washing dishes a week later in the galley, and he has been recovered and brought back. He's no longer the division head of the film department. He's a dishwasher for the next eight years.

Planning and Executing an Escape

Claire Headley [01:10:16] Yeah, it bears mentioning that any member of the SEA Organization is required to complete a very extensive life history. So they have all the information on every member of your family where they live, and every friend you've ever had where they live. So they have carefully collected all that information. So if you ever do try to escape, they have a very good chance of knowing exactly one of the people that you would be heading to.

Marc Headley [01:10:43] And one of the craziest things that never made sense to me is in the life history form, you have to list your mother's maiden name. Like, who needs that? You also have to list any pets that you had over the years. You have to, like, random facts that make no sense to a Sea Org member, especially a child that's joining the Sea Organization. Then when you go to recover your bank account and they ask you what's your mother's maiden name and what's the name of your first pet? All those security questions on bank websites, those are in the Sea Org member life history. So when somebody escapes, they just long.

Marc Headley [01:11:24] If you do have a savings account or a checking account that in many years, no Sea Org members didn't have that. And then some Sea Org member was at a Walmart or something and didn't have the right amount of money. And because they couldn't pay, because they didn't have even a bank card that they could put in, it was like, this is getting weird. We got to at least get these guys bank cards so they're not living in the stone ages. So I knew that they could track my bank. I knew that they could track the airlines. They have a travel agent in the Sea Organization that has access to every single major airline, and he can actually purchase and print airline tickets and.

Marc Headley [01:12:10] And. And see if the plane is full. He can't see what the names are, but he can see the first initial and the last few letters of the last name. So if they're trying to find out where Mark Headley's flying, they can literally log into United is either going to Kansas City or is going to Denver. That's where he has family. And they can just go through the flights and see if I'm on any of those flights. And they can bump me if they want to. They can say, oh, we're his agent. We're gonna move his flight to a different flight.

John Dehlin [01:12:44] That's wild.

Claire Headley [01:12:45] And they've done that before.

Marc Headley [01:12:47] We've witnessed it in real time when someone was. We were helping somebody escape, and their flight was delayed unexplicably. The flight left, but they got bumped off of it. And their Sea Org mother showed up in an airport where she didn't work in the. The later in that day to intercept

Claire Headley [01:13:08] him, to stop him from stopping.

Marc Headley [01:13:10] And this was in the late 2000s, so we know they're still able to do it somewhat.

John Dehlin [01:13:15] Anyway, we're going to say this information together helps them figure out people's passwords to break into their computer systems.

Marc Headley [01:13:22] Oh, 100%. Any. Any of those things, Whether it's their bank account or their credit card or whatever they even have. They Even had for many years. They had an issue of how to find out where. They would say, here are all the frequent flyer numbers for all these airlines. You just call, say you lost your card and you want to make sure you are accredited for your last booking. What's the last flight I booked? I want to make sure it shows up. And then you go up, he's going to Denver. He's on the 3:30 flight today. They have a whole system for this. It's documented.

John Dehlin [01:14:00] Dang.

Claire Headley [01:14:01] Anyway, they've also used that same information to obtain phone records. They've done it to us a number of times. We finally had to. We explored going into the witness protection to avoid this, but then we would have lost everything we built up in, in just three years. But whatever, it's. It's crazy.

Marc Headley [01:14:22] Anyway, so I know my house, the house that we live in because she was in Religious Technology Center. There is a golf course that they own that is adjacent to the international headquarters. And along the road that goes along the golf course, there was maybe 10 or 15 different houses. And over the years, Scientology purchased. Anytime somebody moved out of one of these houses that was not. Had nothing to do with Scientology, they were just by the house. And so we lived in one of those houses that was maybe a few hundred yards outside of the property.

Claire Headley [01:14:57] We. And we, we had a room in that house, just to be clear, like there were other staff that lived in the house. We didn't have a house. We had a room.

Marc Headley [01:15:06] I want to say it was a three bedroom and there was six people living, living there. So we hadn't shared a bedroom. There was another couple in another bedroom and there was two girls that lived in one of the other bedrooms. And all of those people were either in Religious Technology center or they. There was a couple where one of them was and the other one wasn't. So I'm.

Claire Headley [01:15:26] I'm still surprised that they actually let you go home that well.

Marc Headley [01:15:29] And that was actually the biggest surprise to me too is usually I had been restricted to the property over the 15 years, maybe two or three years I had been restricted to the property. So there might have been a six month period where I couldn't go home and I just slept under my desk or found a closet somewhere and rolled up a sweater and slept on that. But. So this was the most trouble I think I'd ever been in. And, and I think like around one or two in the morning I'm like, I gotta go and sleep and be sessionable so I can get interrogated tomorrow. I'M going and they let me go. And so. But I don't think they realized that I did have a motorcycle under a tarp in the garage of that house, charged and gassed and ready to go.

Claire Headley [01:16:16] Hadn't you specifically moved the motorcycle there so that they couldn't take it from you?

Marc Headley [01:16:21] I did. They had locked up the motorcycle many times when I was. When it was on the property and I would use it to drive around the. The property is 500 acres, so if you're an executive that has to travel to multiple. If you don't have a motorcycle, you're spending four hours a day just walking around.

Claire Headley [01:16:38] Yeah. So we, we both had motorcycles for to. Well, yeah, if you. If it's going to take you 30 minutes to get to a meeting with David Miscavige, that's not going to fly.

Marc Headley [01:16:47] Yeah, you need to be there within a minute or two because he's going to be waiting and you don't want to keep him waiting. That's not going to be a good meeting for you. If you're the last person to show up to one of those meetings. You're the one getting the beating that meeting.

Marc Headley [01:17:00] Anyway, so the motorcycle was parked there. I left around. I want to say it was maybe 1 o', clock, 2 o'. Clock. I was sort of hanging out waiting for them to tell me what was going to happen. And then somebody came to me and said, the submission's now gone up. Oh, they needed me to hang around in case there were questions on this submission that was now being submitted by somebody else and they'd taken my name off it and basically said, he's a shit stain. He's not even doing anything. Meanwhile, I'm hanging out. So if they have any questions on the submission, I can answer them for them.

John Dehlin [01:17:33] Waiting for your own execution because they

Marc Headley [01:17:35] have no idea what this thing is about.

Claire Headley [01:17:38] And also during that time. So we had Next. The organization had Nextel phone radios, so they own them. We didn't, but I had one and Mark had one.

Marc Headley [01:17:49] But the one I had was given to me as a present. David Miscavige for my birthday.

Claire Headley [01:17:55] Yes, that's right. So he was an exception where he owned his. The point being that during that time Mark radios me and he doesn't tell me what's going on, but he just asks, are you going to come home? And I said, I'm going to try. I don't think so, but I'll at least try and come home to get a shower. I'll let you know. So he didn't tell me anything that was going on. I didn't know what was going on. But I knew that he had asked me to come home. I didn't make it home, but either

Marc Headley [01:18:23] way, and I didn't do that a lot because I knew she's either coming home or she's not coming home. If I make a request, it's not going to happen. Weigh in on the facts of what happens. So I go home before I go home. I must say this because it's one of the shoulda woulda, coulda's I had because I had set up the entire computer network for the international base. I was one of the few people who knew how to do fiber and cat 5 and do terminations and network switches and all that, starting from when they had 10 base T switches for all you geeks out there.

Marc Headley [01:18:57] And. And so I had basically until I networked the entire property. You have a 500 acre property with 3040 buildings spread out all over those acres. They used sneaker net up until I networked it. They used sneak, which is I've got a file. I'm going to walk a half an hour across the property and give it to this guy on a USB or a floppy disk or even the. What are they called, compact flashcards. Whatever it was, zip drives over the years there was a lot of people walking around and I basically said, you guys are wasting all the time in the world. You could just move the folder to his office in one click.

Marc Headley [01:19:40] And so I had access to most of the computer systems on the entire property as an administrator, including David Miscavige's personal photo server, which I went and got the biggest USB stick I could and filled it up with pictures of him and Tom Cruise at David, David Beckham Games for Real Madrid and them snowmobiling and sailing and scuba diving. And I just filled that thing until I couldn't take one more file.

Marc Headley [01:20:09] I took that, put that in my pocket. I went to the house that we lived in. I checked on the bike, it was ready to go, it was gassed up, it had charge. And I basically got all my stuff together and I waited for Claire to see if she would come home. And I wanted to stay awake as long as I could so that I could have a conversation with her and debated whether or not I would say I'm out, I'm doing it and if you want to come, you got to come.

Marc Headley [01:20:45] She never came home. I fell asleep waiting for her. And normally I would have to be at the 8:30 muster in the morning. So I'd have to get up 7:30ish, get ready, go maybe have a coffee or some breakfast or whatever, and then go to muster. I got a bang on the door at 9 o'.

John Dehlin [01:21:05] Clock.

Marc Headley [01:21:05] I overslept. I missed muster. And it's a security guard banging on the door. And he goes, hey, where are you? And I said, oh, I was. I'm. I'm still dressed from the night before. I haven't even changed. And I go like, oh, I overslept. I'm supposed to blow today. I'm supposed to be escaping right now. I missed my window anyway.

John Dehlin [01:21:31] So creepy. They had a security guard banging on your door?

Marc Headley [01:21:33] Yes.

Claire Headley [01:21:35] Not only that, we had a security. There were security cameras all down that road. So there was security cameras on top of our house that fed into the main security booth feed.

Marc Headley [01:21:45] Yeah, they could. That was the reason why I kind of rationalized why they let me go home is because they could see me walk all the way down. And I did notice that there was a car parked outside. The house. Next to us was also a Scientology owned house. And there was a gentleman that lived in that house who was always in trouble. He was in trouble. Six out of seven days of the week he was in trouble. His name was Rick Cruzan.

Claire Headley [01:22:12] And he also had a history of escaping blows of unauthorized departures. And I think he'd successfully escaped and then been brought back five or six times.

Marc Headley [01:22:22] At least five times where he has escaped and he'd been brought back. He went to the RPF two or three times. He was on the radar of the security force, and their car was there when I went home that night, outside of his house, which was kind of weird. Anyway, so then the security guard says, hey, you got to come in. I said I was. I thought I was supposed to be. In order to get interrogated properly. You're supposed to have slept so they can get the most juice out of you as possible.

Claire Headley [01:22:55] To be on the. For an interrogation on the E meter, you have to have had adequate food and sleep.

Marc Headley [01:23:01] Yeah. Anyway, he said, nobody cares about that. You're supposed to come in. So I said, okay, no problem. And I had known this guy. This is actually the. He's kind of the. The tech support for security that installs the cameras and the fence shakers. And so I'd worked with him for many years. So I say, no problem, Karsten, Was it Carsten, the tall German guy? Carson. No problem, Carsten. I'll be. I'm gonna. I got a shower, shave, and then I'll be right in. And so he leaves. So I go, okay, well, he's gone. I better get my together Left that thumb drive on the ironing board with all those photos in it. So those photos never left their property. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. They probably could have complained.

John Dehlin [01:23:50] I might.

Marc Headley [01:23:50] Might not. Should have had access and maybe should not have taken those. So maybe a blessing in disguise. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:56] I could have gotten sued.

Marc Headley [01:23:57] Yeah. Anyway, so didn't end up getting those. And basically had a bag with some clothes on it and it was like a really old shitty suitcase. And I just bungeed it to the back of the motorcycle and I was like, okay, I'm doing it. I'm. This is it. I gotta go turn my phone off. That's done. Take the battery out. I know they can track a phone. I know they can see where the GPS is of it. So got to get that out of there. And this is like Breaking Bad stuff, man.

John Dehlin [01:24:30] It literally get rid of the burner phone. Like, literally.

Marc Headley [01:24:34] I knew.

John Dehlin [01:24:35] It's like Gustavo Fring's got the whole neighborhood.

Marc Headley [01:24:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:38] You know, cameraed up.

Marc Headley [01:24:40] And my plan was basically, I've got to get into town. I gotta cash. I gotta get to a Wells Fargo and cash this check from L. Ron Hubbard's granddaughter so I can get some cash and I'll figure it out from there. I'm thinking I'm gonna call my dad, who lives in Kansas City.

Claire Headley [01:24:59] And it bears mentioning that Mark's dad, who we've mentioned was never in Scientology for all these years, had maintained a toll free number so that if Mark or his sister or I ever needed to call him, we could do that.

Marc Headley [01:25:16] That's for free.

John Dehlin [01:25:16] Awesome. That's freaking awesome.

Marc Headley [01:25:18] Yeah. And I never really thought.

John Dehlin [01:25:20] Wild.

Marc Headley [01:25:21] I never really thought anything of it, but he wasn't in Scientology and he. He knew what was up, but he was playing along to get along because he knew if he caused any problems or said anything sp, we're never going to talk to him ever again. So he played the game my entire life with Scientology. And he was the one who was like, how's it going? And wish you'd write more, I wish you'd visit more. But the normal stuff never really went too far.

John Dehlin [01:25:51] So that's a great lesson.

Marc Headley [01:25:53] Yeah.

Claire Headley [01:25:53] That toll free line is some of the inspiration for the crisis line that Michael J. Render Aftermath foundation now maintains.

John Dehlin [01:26:00] Yeah. Makes sense.

Marc Headley [01:26:02] So I've got a plan. I'm getting on the bike. I'm going to drive from the property into the town of San Jacinto which is just kind of three or four miles down the road. And that's where I'm going to go. I'm going to get to that Wells Fargo. And at the Wells Fargo, there's a payphone, and I'm going to call my dad.

Marc Headley [01:26:22] So I get the. I open the garage. It's a. I want to say it's an old timey garage, so I actually have to manually open this garage. I'd pull my bike out. I've got my bag bungee corded to the back of it. I close the garage and I put. I have a helmet. My bike is street legal, it's got a license plate, it's good to go.

Marc Headley [01:26:47] I pull out of the driveway and I turn onto the road, and the security truck is parked there because they're watching the other guy next door to me. He's hasn't gotten up yet. He was up all night mixing or doing whatever he did, and they're waiting for him to get up before they leave. And so the second I pull onto the road, I've got a suitcase on the back of my motorcycle. They know my bike, they know my helmet, they know I live there, and they know I ain't showed up yet. And in retrospect, they could have been waiting for me. I never really thought about that.

Marc Headley [01:27:26] They could have just been waiting for me to come in and not even waiting for the other guy. I had assumed until this exact second they were waiting for him. They could have just been waiting for me.

Claire Headley [01:27:35] That's a good point, anyway, because they probably were just like, keep an eye.

Marc Headley [01:27:40] Keep an eye.

John Dehlin [01:27:40] Yeah, or both.

Claire Headley [01:27:42] Or both. Exactly.

Marc Headley [01:27:44] Anyway, I. Soon as I pull onto the road, they're following me. The car's already been running. They just put it into gear and were following me. And so I'm. I'm basically like, wow, 10 seconds in and it's already a chase. So I drove down the highway. It's Highway 79, that's right up. That runs through the middle of the Scientology property, and then that leads into the street. That goes all the way. It's the main drag all the way down into San Jacinto. And I take that road, goes all the way to the. To the Wells Fargo. So all I have to do is drive down the highway, get on that road, and drive the whole way.

Marc Headley [01:28:23] I see them behind me, and I'm just like, whatever, what are they gonna do? I'm on a motorcycle, they're in a car until I stop. There's nothing they can do. I found out that wasn't the case. About a few hundred roads. Once we got onto that main drag, they. I can see them. They pull right up next to me and they're like, you gotta. You gotta come back. You. You can't do this. And they're motioning to me and the road, there's kind of like a little shoulder there and there's farms. It's really farmlands. There's a giant dairy cow. Dairy. Milk. Milk farm there. And I'm driving, and they basically are driving next to me and they just sort of move until I'm now in the shoulder and there's no more road left and I crash.

Marc Headley [01:29:08] So they just run me basically slowly off the road. And I may be going 25, 30 miles an hour. It's a. It's a dual sport 200cc motorbike. It's got no balls. It's going max speed, 60 miles an hour on a good day. So I get. I crash my suitcases in the road. The bike is damaged there. The handle, the. I want to say the clutch, the clutch levers broken off.

Marc Headley [01:29:41] And the security guard, his name is Danny Dunnigan, he jumps out of the security suv. It's like a black Nissan Pathfinder. He jumps out of that and he takes the key out of the motorcycle. So now I'm. That's it. It's. It's done. And I'm like, give me the key. He's like, no, you got to come back. I'm like, dude, I'm never coming back. Give me the key.

Marc Headley [01:30:06] I'm. I'm out. I'm done. And he's like, you can't leave. You're coming with us. We're going to get back in the car. We're taking the key. And right as that conversation is taking place, they have a police scanner in the security vehicle and they hear there's been an incident on the side of the road. And somebody's the dis. They can hear dispatch saying there's units on the way.

Marc Headley [01:30:28] Somebody call. Somebody driving by called 911 and said there's a car that just drove a motorcycle off the road and they're fighting in the middle of the road. And so thank goodness for that.

Claire Headley [01:30:39] Thank goodness for that, seriously.

Marc Headley [01:30:42] Anyway, good. As soon as that call comes out, one of the other security guards or Danny or. I don't remember exactly how it went down, and I'm. I've just crashed on a motorcycle and I'm worried about getting my key back. And as soon as that call went out, he took the key Threw it to me, got back in the suv and they hightailed it out of there. They pulled a UE.

John Dehlin [01:31:03] Boom.

Marc Headley [01:31:04] And I'd say 30 seconds after they were out of view, here comes a cruiser, and I'm getting the bike going. I'm getting everything. My bungee and the suitcase back on, getting everything set up. And I'm like, oh, I have no clutch. So I'm trying to bump start a motorcycle on the side of a highway road. And the cop just pulls right up behind me. He pulls the U turn. He pulls up and he says, what's going on? And I say, oh, I'm just going into town. Just my bike's having a little bit of problems. He goes, we got a call. There was an altercation here on the road. And where are those guys?

Claire Headley [01:31:43] Yeah. You know, it's funny, it bears mentioning, because it's relevant in both of our escapes, that we never would have considered calling 911 and asking for help because it was so forbidden and ingrained to not do that because it would be considered an attack on Scientology in retrospect.

Marc Headley [01:32:00] Well, yeah. And even at this point, I'm trying to protect them.

John Dehlin [01:32:05] Yeah.

The Motorcycle Escape from the Base

Marc Headley [01:32:06] I'm playing it cool. Like, I don't want to get. Because I know if I say I'm trying to escape, then that the ship has sailed. I've now I'm basically a full blown enemy. I'm not just trying to escape. I'm now getting law enforcement involved and making a giant mess. So I'm like, oh, I'm just trying to get to the place. He goes, okay, well, let me grab your license. And I give him my license, and he sees the addresses. Golden. Golden Air Productions. And the local law enforcement knows what's up. People have been escaping this place for 15 years.

John Dehlin [01:32:37] Wow.

Marc Headley [01:32:38] That I know of.

John Dehlin [01:32:39] Wow.

Marc Headley [01:32:39] So they know what's up. They know what the. They know what time it is.

John Dehlin [01:32:43] Wow.

Marc Headley [01:32:44] So he looks at that, and he sees that I'm from Golden Era. And right while he's kind of going like, hey, what's going on? Somebody pulls up in a car. It's the public relations officer for Golden Era Productions. The interface between the Sea Org base there and the police and the mayor and the town council and all that stuff. So they all know who she is, and they know she's from the property. So now he sees her and she says, what's wrong with Mark?

Marc Headley [01:33:15] And the cop looks at her clocks that she's from Golden Era and says, nothing, ma'. Am. Just we're doing a routine police Stop. And she goes, oh. He goes, oh, you're fine. Move along. You're good. And then he looks back at me, goes, where are you trying to get to? I said, I'm trying to get to the. Just into town. I got to get to U Haul or Wells Fargo something. My bike's broken now, so I can't get. I'm. It's no longer a viable escape option because the. It's flooded, the carb is messed up or whatever. In the accident, I don't have a clutch cable and a carburetor.

Marc Headley [01:33:51] And so he's like, you think you could get it there? And I said, I'm. I can try. I'm going to try to bump started or something. He goes, we'll get you there. And I said, okay. He goes, you try to get it started. I'm going to get another unit here and we're going to escort you to where you're trying to get to.

Marc Headley [01:34:07] And I'm literally like. I'm basically like, these guys are going to help me. This is the only way I'm gonna get out. I'm sorry, I haven't. I haven't really talked about this in a long time. Anyway, another cop comes within a few minutes. I bump start the bike, and one car is in front of me and one car is behind me. Rivers, I want to say Riverside Sheriff's Department. So not San Jacinto, not Hemet, but the county sheriffs are the ones basically escorting me.

Marc Headley [01:34:45] And. And while they're escorting me, I can only go like 10 miles an hour maximum. The. The bike is, like, in first gear. I'm basically idling in first gear to. If I give it any gas, it just dies.

John Dehlin [01:35:00] Yeah.

Marc Headley [01:35:01] So I'm driving and. Sorry, I apologize. I'm driving and I can see them motioning to each other, the cops. And there's a vehicle that's following us, and it's Muriel, the public relations person. And so the. The back cop pulls her over while the front cop keeps escorting me, right? And then I see this and I'm like, oh, my God, they're not even gonna.

Marc Headley [01:35:32] They're not even going to let me go with the police. They're trying to follow me and the police to where we're going. And so then they pull over another car, and it's the legal affairs director who works under Muriel in the public relations department, and they pull him over.

Marc Headley [01:35:51] And so then finally the rear cop rejoins us and we go all the. Sorry. We go all the way to. We. I think we ended up going to U Haul because the bike is dead to me, basically, and I've got to get it into a vehicle. So I go to U Haul, and while we're in the U Haul, I call my dad from the U Haul because I don't have money to rent a U Haul. I've got a few hundred dollars maybe, and a check that I need to still cash.

Marc Headley [01:36:24] And so I call my dad, and I use the 1-800-number that I'd always remembered for all the years what it. What the number was. Because he would always say, if you ever need to call me, it don't cost anything. You just dial this number. It goes right to me. And I go, okay. So I go. And I go, hey, can I make a phone call? And they're like, okay, yeah, sure. I use the U Haul. While they're trying to figure out if I can rent a vehicle to go from there to Kansas City. I'm thinking I'm gonna put my bike in a U Haul and drive it all the way to Kansas City.

Marc Headley [01:36:55] And I'm talking to my dad, and I said, hey, Dad, I just left. And he's like, I've been waiting 15 years for this phone call. And this whole time, I was worried that he was gonna let me go to where he was.

Marc Headley [01:37:12] It wasn't even. It wasn't even an idea that it would be a sure thing. I was, like, hoping that he would let me come to where he was. And he was like, 100. Absolutely, you can come to where I am.

Marc Headley [01:37:27] And I said, well, you know, Stephanie, my sister, and possibly Claire are going to be calling you to see if I'm coming to where you are. He goes, don't worry about any of that. As far as I know, I haven't spoken to you. And so I go, okay.

Claire Headley [01:37:43] And yet Scientology claims members of the Sea Organization can leave at any time, and they're free to do so.

Marc Headley [01:37:50] Yes.

Claire Headley [01:37:51] Anyway.

Marc Headley [01:37:52] Anyway, so he basically tells me driving a U Haul with a motorcycle on the back of it is the. Maybe one of my worst ideas besides joining the Sea Org, and. And that I should. They. He says, we know somebody in Los Angeles that you can park the bike with, and then we will book a ticket for you to fly to Kansas City from Los Angeles International Airport.

Marc Headley [01:38:18] And she lives out near the airport. So instead of now driving all the way to Kansas City on a motorcycle, I'm now just gonna move the motorcycle to la, dump it at their friend's house, and then she's gonna take me to the airport and I. That's my new escape plan.

Marc Headley [01:38:35] So we. We sort all that out on the phone, and then I tell the U Haul guy, guess what? I'm not going to Kansas City. I just need to go to LA. So, two hours. I need this truck. He's like, oh, that's $20, or, you know, whatever the fee is for just a few hours. And so I'm like, okay, cool. And I look at the cops and I'm like, okay, I'm all set. They're like, no, we're gonna wait till the bike and you are in the truck on the highway before we leave you. He's like, they're like, two people have already tried to intercept you after you guys had the fight on the highway.

Marc Headley [01:39:10] We're not leaving until you're. We know there's no way they can get you again. And I'm like, okay. So they literally are just hanging out with me while I get the keys, and the guy shows me the truck and I put the bike in the back, and I. They. They lend me some straps or something to lock the bike down, and I get in the U Haul. I'm like, thank you, guys. I appreciate it. I'm sorry to cause any trouble.

Marc Headley [01:39:37] And I head over to the Wells Fargo. I go do the whole thing with the check. I cash the check. Thanks, Roanne. And I go to their friend's house in Los Angeles. So I'm on the road for two. Two hours, two and a half hours, and literally just checking my mirrors every second of every minute to make sure no one's following me.

Marc Headley [01:40:05] And I meet up with this woman who lives maybe 45 minutes from the airport that. That my dad's wife knows, who used to be a high school friend. Dump the bike, get. Return the U Haul. She takes me to the airport. And when I walk into the airport, they have. Scientology has a system where the international headquarters and the Los Angeles facilities send packages of mail through the airlines. They don't send it through the postal system.

John Dehlin [01:40:36] The Mormon Church does that for missionaries. It's called the pouch system.

Marc Headley [01:40:40] They call it the mail pack. They say, we got to send this on the mail pack, and it goes to any organization anywhere goes on the mail pack, mainly between Los Angeles and Clearwater, because those are the two major hubs. But as I'm walking.

Claire Headley [01:40:55] Okay, sorry, sorry. I. I just have to ask this question. So do the missionaries do. Do they do the pouch for security reasons so that it can't be infiltrated, or. Why is. Why is that? I'm just curious.

John Dehlin [01:41:07] I Don't know. And I haven't thought about that in. Since my mission, which was, like, 35 years ago.

Claire Headley [01:41:12] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:41:12] Because I just know they had their own weird mail system called the Pouch.

Marc Headley [01:41:17] Yeah. In Scientology, it's called the Mail Pack, and it's counter to counter. So there's no vias, there's no sorting center. There's no this.

Claire Headley [01:41:26] So it can't be copied and stolen as they. As Scientology has done to government. Government documents. You know? Anyway. Sorry. That was. That was a.

John Dehlin [01:41:35] And so they can monitor everything coming and going.

Marc Headley [01:41:38] Yes, everything.

Claire Headley [01:41:39] Yeah.

Marc Headley [01:41:40] And he said. So as I arrive to the airport, the. The Mail Pack van. The Sea Org Mail Pack van is right there, and the Mail Pack Sea Org member is walking in the terminal right with. I'm there.

Claire Headley [01:41:56] Like. Like.

Marc Headley [01:41:58] And they don't know.

John Dehlin [01:41:59] Yeah.

Marc Headley [01:41:59] They don't know me from Adam. So, anyway, I. I can't get on the flight. The flight's canceled. There's a major snowstorm in Kansas City, so I can't fly. They tell me, you got to go tomorrow. And so now I'm. Now I'm kind of like, oh, now this is where they're gonna. This is how they're gonna get me. And I don't. And I'm even half thinking, did they mess with the flight? Is that why my flight. I can't get a. I'm very, very past him.

Claire Headley [01:42:31] Nope.

Marc Headley [01:42:32] Anyway, so I end up having to call my dad and saying, hey, evidently there's a storm where you're at. He's like, yep, it's one of the biggest storms we've had. Whatever. Look up January 2025, 2005. There was a storm.

Marc Headley [01:42:50] Excuse me. Anyway, so I end up having to stay at the hotel at the airport, and I don't remember if my dad booked it or. I just blew every last cent I had to get the hotel room. But I'm busted at this point. I'm. I've got just a little bit of cash left. By the time all these U Hauls and all this other stuff has happened, I'm running low, and I get a hotel room, and I'm sort of amazed that there are beds as comfortable as a bed that the. I have not slept in a bed like this in 15 years.

Marc Headley [01:43:24] And I basically get a room. I say, might as well get some food. I go down to the restaurant. I only want to tell this one part because it was sort of demonstrative of how a Sea Org member lives. I'm used to eating a meal in about two minutes because I've only got a certain amount of meal break, and half of that's me walking there and eating and getting out of there. So the woman brings me. I order a burger or something like that and a drink, and she brings me the drink. I take a little sip, she brings me the burger. And the next time she comes back to check if I want to refill, the burger is completely, entirely gone.

Marc Headley [01:44:06] And she's literally like, you okay? And I'm like, yeah, yeah. And she's like, you want to refill? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I've literally eaten an entire plate of food in about two minutes. And I realized, oh, wait a minute. I'm in the real world right now. I can't be, like, a barbarian. I've got a slow roll to eat in here.

Marc Headley [01:44:24] Anyway, I end up getting. I sleep. Great night's sleep. I get on the plane the next day. There's no issues at the airport. I keep an eye out. I don't see nobody anywhere. I'm gone. I'm in the wind. I'm. I get to Kansas City. My dad picks me up at the Kansas City airport.

John Dehlin [01:44:39] You're blown.

Marc Headley [01:44:40] I'm blown. And. And a lot of people are like, why is your book called Blown for Good? Well, I mentioned that recovery effort, the blow drill. Most of the time, I'd say 75% of the time, they get them back. And I wanted to make sure that they knew that I was blown for good. I'm never coming back. I'm gone forever. You never get me back. So that's why it's called blown for Good.

John Dehlin [01:45:08] I bet that they have kidnapped people. Like, I bet they have traveled to a different state, waited with a van, waited with people inside the van, followed somebody, and then, like, pulled up, abducted them, thrown them in the van.

Marc Headley [01:45:23] That'd be a safe bet. They once. I'll tell you, two instances. They once found a woman who escaped. They tracked her down in South Africa. There was another gentleman who escaped. They found him in Candlestick park at a baseball game. That's the level of insanity. Can you imagine finding anyone at a birth. At a baseball game, at a. At a ballpark? That is, to me. Or even in South Africa. You find somebody and you travel to South Africa to get them back.

Claire Headley [01:45:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:45:58] Abducted. It's he said, she said about what really happened. If you're alone, yes, they can abduct you, and then it's their word against yours as to whether you were really abducted or not.

Claire Headley [01:46:10] Mark Yeager was what have for years has been one of their top executives. He escaped in the dead of night into San Jacinto and tried to make it to a payphone. And they intercepted him with a van and just threw him in the van and took him back.

John Dehlin [01:46:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marc Headley [01:46:29] It's not. It's not unusual for them to go to great lengths to track you down. So it wasn't a matter of. Of if they were going to track me down. It was how long that it would take them to catch up to me and if it would be worth it for them to do anything. And I realized now that the police had gotten involved, that greatly complicated matters because now it becomes there's a record. He's on law enforcement's radar, and we don't know what conversations and who he's talking with. If we make another attempt and there's somebody that's paying attention, then this could be a very big problem.

John Dehlin [01:47:09] Your dad could call the police and say they've. My. My son escaped. They abducted him.

Marc Headley [01:47:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:14] And then all of a sudden, police are showing up.

Marc Headley [01:47:16] They've already got. It's already on record.

John Dehlin [01:47:18] Yeah.

Marc Headley [01:47:18] This guy was. There was an altercation. He was leaving. There was an altercation. And the only way he got away was because we had two dep. Escort him. And even then, they made two attempts to sort of intervene or. So I met my dad's place. It's snowing, which is amazing. It's Kansas City.

Marc Headley [01:47:40] I'm sleeping, I'm eating, I'm sleeping, doing some more sleeping. And my dad's sort of like, so now what. What happened with Claire? And I'm like, I couldn't. We couldn't meet up before I left. And so he's like, so what's going to happen? I go, I don't know. I don't know how. I don't know how this is going to work. I said, if she comes, then she's going to lose her entire family.

Marc Headley [01:48:05] And I said, stephanie and her. And I don't know who else is going to call, but people are going to start calling and they're going to want to. They're going to know I'm here no matter what. They're going to know, and they're going to try to get me back. And so they do end up calling. My sister calls, Claire calls, and they basically tell me, David Miscavige is livid that they treated this. They messed this up so badly.

Aftermath of Mark's Escape and Contact With Family

Claire Headley [01:48:30] But you were never. Yeah. To clarify, David Miscavige was not mad at Mark. They're like, you. You Blew him off. You like that. That the people involved had mishandled the situation. He's like, David Miscavige was saying, mark was the only person getting my orders done. And now you've gone and blown it, and he's escaped.

Marc Headley [01:48:53] And also, they were telling me, you're not even going to get in any trouble. When David Miscavige found out that you had sold all of this old equipment that had been sitting around for years, he was sort of like, why are you guys on him for this stupid thing? When he got. He sold the garbage, and basically, they were telling me what I wanted to hear and what I had been arguing before I had left. And so. And I. And I. Now I'm sleeping and I'm eating, and my faculties are pretty, like, now tuned in. Like, you guys ran me off the road a few days ago.

Marc Headley [01:49:33] Okay? You ain't. You're not on my team. I know that for sure. So now when you start playing nice, and I'm basically like, I know how this is. I know how you guys roll. You tell me everything I want to hear. I come back, and then I'm on the RPF the next day. It's.

John Dehlin [01:49:50] It's.

Marc Headley [01:49:50] Who cares? This is ridiculous. And so this goes on for a few days where they're calling me and they're trying to convince me. And I know when my sister calls, there's people listening in on the call. It's not just my sister. So everything I'm saying, they know. Everything she's saying, they're watching. They're there. If they're not even there, right? With her on another muted handset, they're listening.

Marc Headley [01:50:13] And they have. In the ethics department. That's a good point. They have in the ethics department these little interview rooms, and they have multiple phones in there. One of the phones has the handset, the microphone of the handset not installed. So they can hear everything that's happening, but their phone doesn't click when they hang up or join the call. And the other person's phone is just a regular phone. So I've. No. I'm the tech guy. I've built the systems that do all this. I know how this all works. So I'm basically, like, playing along.

Marc Headley [01:50:48] Nah, I'm not coming back, you guys. It's done. It's. This ship has sailed. If David Miscavige says it's this way, it could change tomorrow. I don't believe anything you're telling me. You guys mishandled it. You guys figure it out. If the world's gonna end because I'm gone. Good luck. You guys mess this up. I've given 15 years. Blah, blah, blah, who cares? I'm done. And then my phone, because I had one of these special Nextel phones, which not everybody had. Religious technology center had them, and key executives have them. But I've got David Miscavige's phone number in my phone. I've got every single executive Scientology phone number, direct line.

Marc Headley [01:51:30] The phone next to his bed is in my Nextel. I could give this phone to anybody, and they've got all that stuff. And I don't want to use this phone anymore because they can track it. It's on their account, but it's my property. So I fire up another ebay account. And the first thing I did was sell that phone. And I sold it to a guy who was giving it to his 12 year old for his birthday.

Marc Headley [01:51:55] And so some 12 year old out there got a phone with David Miscavige's phone number on it. Might have called him once or twice. They've changed all their phone numbers since then. But during this time, I do talk to Claire, but she is. It's an arranged call from them, and the phone number that I did have for her no longer works.

Claire Headley [01:52:18] Yeah. So on my end, what happened is the morning he escaped, I hadn't made it home. I was dozing at my desk, and all of a sudden I get called in to see Jenny Linson. She tells me, Mark is escaping down the highway. He's blowing. You gotta go get him back.

Claire's Decision to Leave Scientology

John Dehlin [01:52:37] Were you surprised? Did you see this coming at all?

Claire Headley [01:52:40] No. We had never once talked about escaping. Never. We'd never had, because again, that would have been a suppressive act. So it completely rocked my world, like, shook me to the very core. Rug pulled out from under me. Like, what?

John Dehlin [01:52:56] And. And were your emotions. How dare he? Or like, whoa, this might be our chance. Like, do you know, like, were you mad at him? Angry, sad.

Claire Headley [01:53:06] I was shocked more than anything else. Shocked. Like, what the heck? Like, he's escaping, he's doing this completely forbidden thing. And then secondary to that, like, wait, what? He left me behind, you know, Like, I didn't ever dare to. To say I. I more than anything, want to get the heck out of here. Because that was, you know, taboo. Couldn't even be considered. But at the same time, I'm like, dude, you left me behind.

John Dehlin [01:53:38] You would have remembered. You would have remembered that he asked you if you were coming home completely.

Claire Headley [01:53:43] I was like, now it was a whole different. You Know, ball of wax. Like, wait a minute, this is why he was asking me if I was going to come home and shower. Like, oh my God, my gosh. And, and again, I, as I've said before, you know, I, I honestly, had I gone home, I don't know that I would have. Wouldn't have ratted him out because it was terrifying. The thought of trying to do what he was doing was not considerable, you know, not, not. You couldn't even think about it.

Marc Headley [01:54:15] It's basically like you're. You're ending your. You're ending your life.

John Dehlin [01:54:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Claire Headley [01:54:21] It's. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm all of a sudden like, oh my gosh, I'm going to go get him back and we're going to fix this and we're going to stop this and oh my God, he can't do this. But then within the first 20 minutes, all of a sudden, the tone dramatically shifted and security and one of the top executives who was going to go with me to bring him back says, sits me down and says, oh no, Mark is now he's gone to the dark side. Like, what do you mean? And they're like, he called the police. So as Mark said, that's not what happened. But they're telling me, oh, he committed the criminal act of calling 911 and contacting the police. And I again, I was just like, wait, what?

John Dehlin [01:55:08] And let's say in the Mormon Church there are strong efforts to make sure bishops never call police. Just had to throw that in. Keep going.

Claire Headley [01:55:17] Yeah, same. It's actually, it's policy in Scientology that you're not allowed to involve. Scientology has to deal with stuff in within that world. You cannot involve any authorities. But either way. So now my entire world is been tossed upside down and, and instantly it shifts to Mark's now an enemy.

Claire Headley [01:55:46] I'm now, you know, as his wife under a huge magnifying glass because surely I probably knew that he was planning to do this. Meanwhile, I hadn't talked to Mark in days. I think the, the last time before that conversation was he had radioed me a few. Two days before that on my birthday and said, hey, that's right at 3 o' clock in the morning. Should we go have a, a birthday burger at Jack in the Box or something? Because you know, which even that was strictly forbidden, but technically it was breaking the rules anyway. And I did. I couldn't even go to that. I was like, no, I'm sorry, I'm working and blah, blah, blah.

Claire Headley [01:56:28] Anyhow, that. So I immediately Start messaging my Mark and trying to get through on his phone and, like, try to talk to him. Even if I'm not supposed to talk to him, I don't. You know, I'm instantly thrown into this, like, well, what do you mean? I've been married to Mark for 13 years, and now all of a sudden, he's a bad guy and he's an enemy. This doesn't make any sense. So I'm trying to reach him to. To sort out what happened and find out what's going on. Like, oh, did you. Is this your way of saying we're over?

Claire Headley [01:57:02] Anyhow, I'm not getting through. He sends Mark, sends me a text message somewhere in that. That first day and says, I'm done. I'm not coming back. You know, I. I can't do this anymore. And he included an email address that I had. I didn't know he had.

Claire Headley [01:57:26] So it was a hotmail email. So I. I wrote that down just like, okay, worst case scenario, I have a way to reach him if I can't get through on the phone. Not that I have email access, but I'll note that. Doubt that'll come in. Coming useful. Some. Somehow. Some way.

Marc Headley [01:57:41] She has no access to the Internet at this point. She can't get on the Internet.

John Dehlin [01:57:45] What year is this?

Marc Headley [01:57:46] 2005.

Claire Headley [01:57:46] 2005.

John Dehlin [01:57:48] Yeah. So the Internet's email is in full force by 2005?

Marc Headley [01:57:51] Oh, 100.

John Dehlin [01:57:52] Yeah. Okay.

Marc Headley [01:57:52] And so.

Claire Headley [01:57:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So I had no email access, but I knew that that was an important piece of information because it was a way to connect him that wasn't associated with the organization. Not that I had a way to use it, but, you know, even. Even at that moment, I was like, I've heard there's these things called Internet cafes. If I can get to one of those, I can send him an email.

Claire Headley [01:58:17] And hopefully, somehow, anyway, anyhow, I knew that, you know, all the efforts immediately shifted to breaking us up, like, even that very first day, because I know very well how they work. I took my ring, my two rings off, and I put them on my necklace, under my shirt so that. Because I knew what was coming. So I was playing along to avoid the immediate pressure of, like, sign these divorce papers right now. I. I just was trying to play along.

Claire Headley [01:58:50] That night I was allowed to go home, and I packed a bag and hid it under my bed. That was the last time I was allowed to go home from that moment forward, even to the. To the house we just talked about that was adjacent to the property I was restricted. And from that moment forward, I had to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor of my office.

John Dehlin [01:59:11] They keep people prisoners. They literally imprison people.

Marc Headley [01:59:14] It's called. They have a name for it. It's called being restricted to the property. That's if you're on the restricted list, which during the 15 hours, 15 years I was there, there could be 20 people that could be 100 people on that list.

Claire Headley [01:59:26] Yeah. And so, honestly, in addition to losing my husband, now they're treating me like I instantly, just by connect, by proximity, am now being treated like a criminal. And that was really. Really made me mad. I was like, this is. I'm sorry. But just because this happened, and. And then I started to find out what. What had been going on with Mark and that they were doing this investigation. I didn't know the. The facts of it, but I knew that they were trying to make him what they call a head on a pike, like, you know, make an example of him.

Claire Headley [02:00:05] Anyhow, that same night, that one night that I was allowed to go home, Jenny Linson, a top executive, radioed me, radios me at 4:00 clock in the morning, and she says, David Miscavige has ordered that Mark be brought back. So while my bag is packed under the bed, I'm being told David Miscavige, the leader of Scientology, is bringing Mark back. So in my mind, I have.

Claire Headley [02:00:31] First of all, I don't have the logistics figured out of how I'm going to escape, but second of all, if I do escape and meanwhile Mark is being brought back, the end result will still be the same. I'll never see Mark again.

Claire Headley [02:00:45] So I realized I kind of have to bide my time and figure things out and figure out a way to break out of there anyway. So it takes me 20 days. Cutting to the. To the literal chase, it takes 20 days for me to figure out the logistics. And meanwhile, it's

Marc Headley [02:01:08] tell about your sister.

Claire Headley [02:01:10] Yeah. So I come up with a way. Because I cannot send an email, I try to figure out a way to bypass the filters. And I realize I've never sent an email in my life. I'm not technically proficient to be able to bypass their filters. So I do still have the organization phone Nextel, though.

Claire Headley [02:01:31] I managed to. Oh, so they had changed. Originally, security changed my number because they saw that I was trying to call Mark Mark, but then they said, oh, no, we should use Claire to catch Mark and bring him back. So they change the number again and let me text it to Mark, so he has my Number. But then if he calls, I'm supposed to immediately alert security.

Claire Headley [02:01:58] So he does call. He does call, but I don't immediately alert security. And I just. I ask him a few questions, like, where are you? What happened? And he tells me I was going to be sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force, and it's all bogus, and.

Claire Headley [02:02:16] But I'm doing really well now. I'm sleeping. But he wouldn't tell me where he was. But he told me enough information. And then with. And then I. I let security know. So then security come on the phone and are listening to the rest of the conversation.

John Dehlin [02:02:33] Why didn't you want her to know where you were?

Marc Headley [02:02:36] Because then they'll just come get me.

John Dehlin [02:02:37] But you. They. You were talking to them on the phone.

Marc Headley [02:02:40] I was talking to her.

John Dehlin [02:02:41] No, no, before.

Marc Headley [02:02:42] You said they were trying to time when she got. When they.

John Dehlin [02:02:45] Okay, got it. Okay, I get it. I get it.

Marc Headley [02:02:47] I got rid of that old phone.

John Dehlin [02:02:48] Okay.

Marc Headley [02:02:49] I got a new phone.

John Dehlin [02:02:50] Okay. But they knew. Okay. They didn't yet know where you were.

Marc Headley [02:02:54] They played like they. They were trying to find out where I was.

John Dehlin [02:02:59] Okay, got it. Okay. Okay.

Claire Headley [02:03:01] Yeah. Then they. At least at that point, they didn't know where he was. Like, Stephanie and I, Mark, sister Stephanie and I did both call Mark's dad and demand to know, have you seen Mark? Have you heard from him? Blah, blah, blah. And Bernie sure enough was like, no, haven't heard anything. But just.

John Dehlin [02:03:20] I have to keep making parallels. If you move to a different congregation in the Mormon Church and you don't want to be contacted, you don't tell them where you're moving to, they will ask your friends and family and neighbors if anybody has your address so that they can continue pursuing you. It's not in an abduction, kidnapping sort of way, but it's just so they

Marc Headley [02:03:43] can keep their tabs.

John Dehlin [02:03:44] Keeping tabs. Soft tracking. And so it's. Everything in Mormonism is like a soft version of Scientology.

Claire Headley [02:03:52] Scientology is not. Not soft at all. It's very hard.

Marc Headley [02:03:55] They're going hard.

John Dehlin [02:03:57] Principles are often still applicable.

Marc Headley [02:04:00] 100%.

John Dehlin [02:04:01] Yeah, yeah.

Claire Headley [02:04:02] The tracking, the controlling, the leveraging. 100%, yes.

John Dehlin [02:04:06] Soft control instead of hard control.

Claire Headley [02:04:08] Yes, exactly. Okay. So. So, yeah. So security comes on the line, so. And they tell Mark, oh, you got to come back. It's all a mistake ever. We're going to get you the people that you need, blah, blah, blah. And I. I told Mark the same things, too, because as much as I would have loved to entertain the thought of possible freedom, it was still not an unreality to me that, that I could actually succeed and get out. And, and also the threat of losing my family was significant.

Claire Headley [02:04:44] But at the same token, and the moment Mark escaped, the house of cards kind of tumbled around me. And you know, as I mentioned that night, I went home, turned on some music. It was Depeche Mode. I was like, I can't live without Mark. It's not going to work. It's not.

Claire Headley [02:05:01] You know, we've been married for 13 years. I love him. Now they're telling me he's an evil person. You know, it. That's what dramatically accelerated the cracks in. From my perspective of this is just all wrong. Meanwhile, without Mark, my life is complete misery. He. He at least helps me to find humor and laugh about things and not take, take things so seriously. Now all of a sudden, without him, I'm like, if I stay here, I'm gonna literally die. It's just not gonna. I had suffered extreme weight loss, wasn't sleeping. Psychologically and emotionally, I was a complete train wreck. I had no relationship with my family, couldn't even talk to them without somebody listening in on the phone conversation.

Claire Headley [02:05:53] So I'm like, who's kidding who? This is not, this is not a good scenario. So I start to plan out how to get a message to Mark. I was also very, very aware of all the many different attempts. And given the fact that I'm a.

Claire Headley [02:06:10] And you know, at, at that point, weighed less than £100, at 5 7, was completely malnourished and could easily be overcome. I knew I had to come up with a way to escape that didn't involve physical confrontation because they could toss me in a van no problem.

Claire Headley [02:06:30] So I, I figure out that I, I can't call Mark. I can't. All I have is this email address. And so I come up with a way that I call my sister, who is a civilian Scientologist. She's in college in Los Angeles. And because I was not allowed to tell my family that Mark had escaped, she didn't know anything that was going on. So I tell her, hey, how's it going? Can you help me out? Mark's on a special project and I haven't been able to see him for a while. Can you send him a message and ask him to call me at six o' clock tomorrow morning, please, at this number?

Claire Headley [02:07:11] And she was like, oh, sure, no problem. Because ironically, that had been the case many times that Mark was off on a project and I hadn't seen him for a month. So it didn't really raise any red flags. So she did it and sends Mark this email to this address that he had texted me to this hotmail, and he gets this message. And I think you knew right away that I was breaking the rules.

Marc Headley [02:07:35] I knew because it was from her sister, and it was from her sister's email. And it was to this email that I'm the only one who knew I had this email. I've never, ever used this. I think when hotmail, when I first got on the Internet, I saw, oh, this is like an independent way I could send emails. That is. No, there's no filter. It's not. Not in. Within their system. So I was like, I'll save this for a rainy day. And I've. And I. I still have that to count to that day. Scientology stopped sending me spam anyway.

Claire's Time in the Hole

Marc Headley [02:08:08] But so when I got the email from her sister, I was like, ooh, clever girl. I knew she was going outside of their system, so. And it was basically, call me at 6 o' clock in the morning. So then I'm like, okay. And it was a different number. So I go, okay, they've changed her phone and she's giving me her new phone that they don't know I have. And I know that they're going to check the phone records, but it takes several hours for the call log to update to the Internet.

John Dehlin [02:08:42] This is like mission Impossible, right?

Marc Headley [02:08:46] So.

John Dehlin [02:08:47] Oh, wait, that's a bad. That's a tough.

Marc Headley [02:08:49] I was gonna bring it up Sherlock Holmes.

John Dehlin [02:08:57] That's funny. Okay.

Claire Headley [02:08:59] Anyway, but yes, so, so. And six o' clock in the morning also, Mark knows there's nobody around, especially not at. By this time, I'm. I'm in the hole because I refuse to divorce Mark. So I'm.

John Dehlin [02:09:12] The hole is like, what, in the

Claire Headley [02:09:14] double wide trailers where the people are monitored, not allowed to leave punishments, you name it. And I had been in. In there by this time for four months. And I mentioned yesterday when I was talking about Shelly Miscavige, that Shelly had told me that because I was in Religious Technology Center, I had forgone the right to leave. That was. Those were her exact words. So now here I am. I've been kicked out of Religious Technology Center. I'm in the hole. My husband has escaped. I'm like, well, guess what? Good thing I'm not in Religious Technology center anymore. So I'm gonna break. Make a break for it.

John Dehlin [02:09:51] Okay, wait.

Claire Headley [02:09:52] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:09:53] Did they put you in the hole before he escaped?

Claire Headley [02:09:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:09:56] Did we talk about that?

Marc Headley [02:09:58] Yes, we did.

Claire Headley [02:09:59] A little bit Yesterday or today. We. We didn't go into the. Into the gory details, but In September of 2000, yeah, we did talk about it. In September 2004, David Miscavige made this new personnel policy and implemented it, saying that anyone in Religious Technology center not married to someone outside of Religious Technology center has to either divorce their partner or they're out.

John Dehlin [02:10:25] This is part of him being the enemy, because he was in sleeping with the enemy part of the organization.

Claire Headley [02:10:29] He literally came through our offices in September. And not to be, you know, rude or inappropriate, but his direct words to me was, get out, you thed weedy cunt. Meaning that thed weedy is a word that means that you have an incapacity to confront evil. And you're basically like, it's a Pollyanna type of. That's what he was accusing me of, which I. I'm many things, but I'm. I wouldn't consider myself a Pollyanna type person. Quite the opposite, actually. Anyhow, that would. That's what he said to my face. That then resulted in me being put into the hole.

John Dehlin [02:11:11] And you were. So you lost your. Your job at that point?

Claire Headley [02:11:14] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:11:14] Okay.

Claire Headley [02:11:15] Yes. Not before I had to choose Chelsea, Chelsea Graves or Laura Dolan from Religious Technology center to go and do interrogations on Tom Cruise's staff. Shelley asked me to pick which one of those would be better. And I said Chelsea Graves. And that's who we talked about yesterday, was at Tom Cruise's house around the time Surrey was born.

John Dehlin [02:11:41] So what did they. What did they have you doing work wise, while you were in the hole?

Claire Headley [02:11:45] Oh, my goodness. Mainly working on reorganizing the. The executive assignments, the postings that Shelly misgavigated. But also during that same time was when that famous Tom Cruise video was being done, where he talks about that. You know, he's the only. He's the only in the black polo. It's quite famous.

Marc Headley [02:12:09] Turtleneck.

Claire Headley [02:12:10] Yeah, sorry, the. In the black turtleneck, where he says Scientologists are the only people that could help at an accident and, you know, keeping Scientology working. Anyway, that whole video, I. We were all working on that video. So I was doing video editing, administration, like literally tracking footage and everything to help get that video put together. Even though I know nothing about video editing, still, it was all hands. We all had to work on this to get it done. I was working on that during that period anyway.

John Dehlin [02:12:45] So you were still working for them. Maybe you had lost some privileges. You were in a degrading living situation. You knew you were being punished but they were still exploiting you. You.

Claire Headley [02:12:57] Correct. Yes, they were exploiting me. I wasn't allowed to go home and I was expected to. But yes. Attend meetings with David Miscavige and all that kind of stuff was still going on even though I was in the hole.

John Dehlin [02:13:11] Okay. Even though you were the weedy C word.

Claire Headley [02:13:14] Yes, that's right.

John Dehlin [02:13:15] Okay.

Claire Headley [02:13:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:16] Okay. Thank you.

Claire Headley [02:13:17] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:13:17] So you'd been the whole four or five months.

Claire Headley [02:13:19] Yes. And so again, circling back, get the call. Now Mark's gone. And I'm like. Similar to his reaction, I'm like, I've been living through hell all these years, really have no relationship with my family, so why am I putting my family over Mark, who I love and is my husband, when I can't even tell my. For example, I couldn't. Was not even allowed to tell my. My family that I'd broken my leg and almost wasn't able to walk again by a motorcycle accident I'd had. I couldn't even tell them that. I couldn't tell them anything. I was. I couldn't tell them. I was forced to have abortions. I had. They literally knew nothing about my life. They did not even know physically where I worked. They were not even allowed to know

John Dehlin [02:14:06] that, even though they were Scientologists.

Claire Headley [02:14:08] That's right.

John Dehlin [02:14:09] Yes. Believing Scientologists.

Claire Headley [02:14:11] Yes. They were believing, cooperating Scientologists who were not allowed to know the physical location of where their daughter worked.

John Dehlin [02:14:19] Wild.

Claire Headley [02:14:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:14:20] Lived and worked.

Claire Headley [02:14:21] Yes. So I. I come up with the. I come up with this idea to get a message to Mark. And so I get up early off my office floor out of my sleeping bag, and I go to another building where I won't be overheard and.

John Dehlin [02:14:40] Is there a mattress? Were you sleeping on a mattress? No, there's a sleeping bag on the floor.

Claire Headley [02:14:46] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:14:46] For months and months,

Claire Headley [02:14:50] when you get that tired, you're less discerning on what you're sleeping on. You know, it. I mean, four hours is four hours. It's just like it is. And I do think that the sleep deprivation and the food deprivation are a huge part of what prevents you from having the mental capacity to even get out of the situation you're in or see out of it. Because when you're literally just struggling to stay awake and in a complete fog of exhaustion, your problem solving skills are, I think, the first thing to go.

John Dehlin [02:15:23] Yeah.

Claire's Escape Plan Takes Shape

Claire Headley [02:15:24] Anyway, so I. I managed to talk to Mark, and of course, he's. He's always the. You know, so what's going on? I'm like, I cannot Stay here. I'm not going to make it. He's like, but what, what about your family? I'm like, I, let's just call a spade a spade. That ship sailed a long time ago.

John Dehlin [02:15:42] Because you weren't allowed to see him.

Claire Headley [02:15:44] No, no, exactly. And, and I tell him, no, I cannot stay here. I need your help. And he said, oh, well, next time you go home to do your laundry, just call a cab. And I'm like, yeah, about that. I'm not allowed to go home. And he, and he, of course, says, wow. Yeah, things are really, really gotten better, haven't they?

Marc Headley [02:16:05] Well, to put it in. To put it in. Persp of her and my sister, just a week or so earlier are telling me how everything's gonna get better and everything's changing, and I'm just like, huh, yeah, sure. Like 15 years to get here. Sure. One week to turn it all around. Makes a lot of sense. And so then now she can't go home. She's sleeping under her desk.

Claire Headley [02:16:30] I'm like, now I'm asking for his help to get out of there. And he's like, oh, yeah, that's so much better, because, you know, he's just calling, like, he loves to do. Anyway, so I say, no, I can't do that because I'm not allowed to go home. And he's like, so what's the plan then? I'm like, well, best I've been able to come up with is I've made up a story that I need contact lenses, which I did wear contact lenses. I still do, but I hadn't run out of them, so. But the, the only. I knew that some way I had to get a head start off the property, because otherwise I was going to fail.

John Dehlin [02:17:08] This is like East Berlin or like North Korea.

Marc Headley [02:17:12] That's why my book is called behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology, because that is literally once I escaped. That's the only thing I've ever found that's, that's similar to this situation, Eastern West Berlin.

Claire Headley [02:17:24] Yeah, it's. It's not easy. I mean, I, I, I have nightmares to this day. They're. They've lessened. But, you know, even a lot of therapy later, it's. It's tough to live through something like this. And it's, you know. Anyway, thank goodness I succeeded, though, because otherwise, God only has. Huh.

Marc Headley [02:17:43] But how.

Claire Headley [02:17:46] So what happened? Back to the story. Okay, so I tell Mark I have a contact lens appointment. It's going to be Monday morning, 10:15. So I. Generally speaking, a medical driver would drop Staff off at appointments around town and then circle back around to pick them up. So I thought, if that happens, then I've got an hour head start and I can get away from them. Okay. So I tell him, well, I have this appointment. This is like three or four days before that. And he said, okay, good. So. So get there.

Claire Headley [02:18:24] And I also knew because of the lag in phone records that I would be able to call a cab early that morning to schedule to be there at the time of my appointment. So that was kind of my rough plan. So he said, okay, great. So do that. Call me when you're in the cab at 10:15. Or I'll call you when. I'll call you at 10:15 on Monday morning, by which time you should be in the cab and I'll tell you what to do from there.

Marc Headley [02:18:52] Because he.

Claire Headley [02:18:53] You still didn't. I didn't completely trust.

Marc Headley [02:18:55] Yeah, I did. I. I knew that this could. I. We could. I could still be being played.

John Dehlin [02:18:59] Yeah, you could get abducted.

Marc Headley [02:19:01] So I was like, why don't you get free? And then once you're free, then I will tell you what the next step of the plan is, but I'm not going to tell you the plan until you're free.

Claire Headley [02:19:12] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:19:13] So if they. If they see. Because she has three days, basically, in Scientology, they're very key on behavioral. Behavioral cues.

Claire Headley [02:19:23] So some indicators, they call it.

Marc Headley [02:19:25] Yeah.

Claire Headley [02:19:25] Bad indicators and good indicators. So if I show any sign of what's actually going on, they could smoke. Smoke it out and interrogate me. And which they did actually try anyway. So. Yeah. And meanwhile, he. He's not trusting me. I'm like. Like, dude, I'm. I'm trying to escape. I need your help. Come on. But I. I understood. I. I wasn't. I. I did get it. I was like, hey, I read it him out a few times in my.

Marc Headley [02:19:55] She did. There was many times. If I did something that was off the boards or many.

Claire Headley [02:19:59] Just a few.

Marc Headley [02:20:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:20:04] No judgment.

Claire Headley [02:20:04] Anyhow. Okay, wait.

John Dehlin [02:20:06] How did you not get in trouble for receiving that one. One phone call that one morning at 6am when you were in the hole?

Claire Headley [02:20:14] Because they weren't. They. They overlooked checking my phone records. They didn't. They didn't realize that they did. At some point, they asked you call me on it.

Marc Headley [02:20:24] And you had asked if Mark had gone, if they'd heard from me or something like that, when they'd ask you, hey, why didn't you. Why'd you end up calling your sister?

Claire Headley [02:20:30] Yeah. And I said, well, you guys were Trying to get me to get Mark back. So I just called her to ask if she'd heard from Mark. It was. I. You know, we'd been there long enough that even though we were under close scrutiny, you could.

John Dehlin [02:20:46] Anyway, you had some credibility.

Claire Headley [02:20:48] Yeah, I did. Like, and in fact, in fact, the. Because I'd been in religious technology center and. And I had the Nextel radio, it was a fact that Shelly and Larice would both still call me because I had worked close to them. And so, for example, one time I went to. Went out to call Mark and to tell him something or other to like one of these conversations that we had, these illicit conversations. I came back in and they said, oh, who were you on the phone with? I was like, oh, that was. That was Shelly. That was cob assistant. You know, that's what I would refer to her as. And they bought it. So, you know, this needs to be

John Dehlin [02:21:32] a screenplay for a Hollywood. I'm serious.

Marc Headley [02:21:35] There was a young filmmaker in Los Angeles and an ex Scientology actress that we know really well, and they actually made a short of the story and they mainly condensed it just to the. To Claire's escape.

Claire Headley [02:21:50] Yeah, but I do have to tell this one. This one piece leading up to this because now. So now I'm. I've talked to Mark. I have a plan. I have my. My eye doctor's appointment on Monday, so I just have to make it through the weekend. Well, on Saturday, I get a dispatch addressed to me from David Miscavige, which automatically puts a big old magnifying glass on me because it's also the. The communication is about how management is not performing and they're out ethics and we got to do something about this. So at lunchtime on Saturday, I have to get up in front of these 150 people in the hole and read them the riot act basically, and tell them you need.

Claire Headley [02:22:36] You're off purpose and you got to get your act together and blah, blah, blah. And meanwhile I'm. I'm about to escape, but also I have to. I have to provide a credible response to this dispatch. Otherwise I for sure am going to be. Get being interrogated. If I don't respond and act appropriately, it's going to blow the whole thing.

Claire Headley [02:23:01] So, yeah, so that happens. Oh, and also it's worth mentioning too, that I coincided my eye doctor appointment with a time that I knew David Miscavige was not going to be at the property. He was going to be in Clearwater, Florida at the annual Fort Harrison gala event, because I knew that they would be. My chances of escaping were better if he was not at that property.

Marc Headley [02:23:29] Also, he has a security detail. And most at that time, some of the security guards at the international property were part of that busy. So when he leaves the property, the security of the property is now lowered because he's not there. And he's the main reason for the property to have to be secured.

John Dehlin [02:23:49] Yeah.

Claire Headley [02:23:50] So Sunday rolls along and now I have to get my completed staff work approved to even go to the eye doctor appointment. And I have to get that approved by four people. So I write up my little presentation situation. I need new contact lenses data. I have an appointment on Monday at 10:15. I cannot do. I cannot work without contact lenses. So I have to go do this appointment. I'll be. I'll be. I'll make it quick. Solution. Approve that I go to said appointment.

Claire Headley [02:24:22] So when this goes to Jenny Linson, who's the final person to approve me going with the medical staff, she's not having it. She says, no, you can only go if you have a dedicated security escort who's going to stay with you during the appointment. And I. And literally I'm sitting there going, really?

Claire Headley [02:24:42] Like that was the only time, only way I was even going to get an hour head start. But I also know if I react and throw a fit or be like, how dare you? How Then that's a bad indicator that they're gonna. That's called an animal reaction. That means I have things, I'm hiding from them, so I can't even react. So I'm like, okay, all right, I'll go with a dedicated security escort. No problem.

John Dehlin [02:25:08] Because you had to have been identified as a place risk for sure.

Claire Headley [02:25:12] 100. I mean, yeah. Yeah. No. And in fact, yeah, I thought there's

John Dehlin [02:25:16] no way they're gonna let her go alone.

Claire Headley [02:25:18] No. At one point, Even during this 20 days, between Mark escaping and me escaping, I. I mentioned I had lost extreme weight. Well, I. It got even worse. I just had no appetite. I was nauseated 24 7. They assigned a buddy just to make me go to meals and eat and then bring me back to my office. So yes, I was absolutely a flight risk. It's in their golden rule book of how. How to stop people from escaping, that when one partner escapes, there's a really good percentage of chance the other one will try to escape too. Anyhow, so Monday morning rolls around.

Claire Headley [02:26:00] Now I have a person whose sole job is to drive me to the appointment, sit with me during the appointment and bring me back. And even then I'm still not certain that security is going to let me off the property. Even with the security escort, like, it's still. If I, it's up to them. If I blink wrong. Yeah, yeah. If they, if, if I blink wrong or somebody else, somebody changes their mind about me going to this eye doctor appointment, it still can get shut down for sure.

Claire Headley [02:26:28] And meanwhile, it's January in, In San. In Riverside county, so it's a little chilly. So I'm wearing my uniform. I have a. A duffel coat on, and I've stuffed like, a few little belongings into my pockets, like the few little things that I can take with me, like, you know,

John Dehlin [02:26:48] change of underwear.

Claire Headley [02:26:49] Yeah, change of underwear. My one necklace that I really don't want to part with, and a few other things, and that's it. Everything else I'm leaving behind, including our dog, which was really, really sad. We managed to get him back months later. But that's a story for another day. We get to the gate, make it out. So we're driving to Walmart, which is where my appointment is. And like I said, this staff member, Christy, her, she's twice the size of me. Her sold job is to stay with me during this appointment. I did, I had that morning.

Marc Headley [02:27:23] But you were also her boss.

Claire Headley [02:27:25] I was, yeah. So that's, that's where it's like weird, you know, weird world that we lived in. Anyhow, that morning I'd gone to the same closet and hid in the closet and called a cab, which, yeah, even that I had copied the last time I'd been to my home, like weeks before that, I had tore out a little piece of paper with a cab company number just in case, because, you know, so cinematic.

John Dehlin [02:27:56] I'm just imagining the actors getting in

Marc Headley [02:27:58] the closet, whispering, yeah, is this Yellow Cab? Tell them the name that you use because that's part of it.

Claire Headley [02:28:08] Yes, yes. So I'm like, yes, I need to order a cab from Walmart to Riverside bus station. But then I'm like, but how much is that? Because I only have $180 cash. That's it. I have no credit card, no debit card. So I'm like, but tell me how much it is. And they say, $90. And they're like, what's the name? I said, barbara Smith. It's the best. I know, it's terrible. It's very uncreative, but it was the best I could come up with in the moment because I, I couldn't give him my name.

Claire Headley [02:28:42] Anyway, so then, so this, that's 6:00am So I scheduled the cab. They're like, okay, Walmart will be there. It's $90. So I'm gonna. I. Great. I'm not even going to be out of Riverside county, and I'm going to be down to $90 left to go somehow. And I had figured out that Mark was in Kansas City by then.

Claire Headley [02:29:03] I had even tested the waters, by the way. And I called Warren McShane in religious technology center, their big legal executive, who to this day is still there. And I said, warren, I heard that David Miscavige ordered Mark be brought back. I figured out he's with his dad in Kansas City, so is somebody going to get him? And he said, well, we're figuring it out. And that's all the answer I needed. I'm like, they're not going to go get him. It's. That's done. Anyhow.

Claire Headley [02:29:33] So now I'm. I. We pull up at the Walmart, and it's right on the dot of 1015. There's the entrance. I look over there. There's the cab. And as it happened, the parking lot was full. So I said, oh, Christy, just let me off right up front. I'm. It's my appointment right now. I'll run it. Running ahead to the appointment. I'm playing my cool. She's like, okay. I'm like.

Claire Headley [02:30:00] Because I didn't know. Was I literally gonna have to 5k try and beat her to the cab and, like, you know, like, tussle, like, what was gonna happen? I didn't know. So she lets me out of the car right at the first entrance. So I walk in.

Claire Headley [02:30:14] Coolest cucumber. Trying to be. Anyway, walk, because I didn't want to run because already in my mind, the private investigators, you know, like you see in the movies. Have you seen this woman? Oh, she just ran that way. You know, that's what's going through my head. I was like, just walk. Walk as fast as you can. So I walk, climb into the cab. Cab, look. Driver slowly looks over. Barbara Smith. Yep. I'm like, okay. Starts driving.

John Dehlin [02:30:43] So the guard didn't see you?

Claire Headley [02:30:45] No, she was parking the car. Okay, so.

John Dehlin [02:30:48] Okay, got it.

Claire Headley [02:30:49] Yeah. So I'm. I'm at my appointment.

John Dehlin [02:30:51] Yeah.

Claire Headley [02:30:52] While she's parking. So we're not. But we're not even out of the parking lot yet. And she's buzzing me on the next tail. Where are you? And so I'm like, well, I had to go to the bathroom. I'll be right there.

Marc Headley [02:31:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:31:05] Yes.

Claire Headley [02:31:06] By myself.

Marc Headley [02:31:07] Even two minutes you know, she's in the cab when this guy and the cab driver's like, what the hell?

Claire Headley [02:31:13] I know. I'm like, this cab driver must think I am literally loony. He's just like, don't pay attention. It's all good. I'll hold it anyway. And now. So now it's 10, 15. I'm in the cab. They're already on to me. I'm like, mark, please, please, please call. Like, I need you now more than ever. He calls and he said, okay, look, are you in the cab? I'm like, yes, I'm in the cab. Okay, so. And he's like, so you're heading to Riverside bus station? Yes. Okay. As soon as we're done talking, turn off your phone and do not, under any circumstances, turn it back on. Like, okay, got it. It's like, when you get to the bus station, call me from the pay phone. Said, okay, great. Got it, got it.

The Greyhound Bus Journey to Freedom

John Dehlin [02:32:14] Because, Mark, you were afraid they would follow her to the bus station.

Marc Headley [02:32:18] I knew that as soon as they could find out out that she. Because they're going to see that she called a cab. They're going to figure out where she can get to with the cab. With a certain amount of money, it's too far to go all the way to lax. That's hundreds of dollars. So it's going to be somewhere nearby. And they always, always, always, I know from the blow drills over the years, they always go to the airport, they always go to the motels, hotels, and they go to the bus station. Because the bus station, even to this day, is relatively the cheapest way that you can get a good distance for not a lot of money.

Claire Headley [02:32:55] Yeah. I had even honestly envisioned just hiding in some random person's backyard in Hemet until they stopped looking for me. Another thought, I was going to ride my motorcycle through the Rockies to Kansas City and just sleep in the back of movie theaters during the day.

Claire Headley [02:33:13] And then I was like, but would they kick me out of movies. Movie theater because I was sleeping on the floor? Anyway, I. I got very creative. And that's when I finally was like, I cannot do this without Mark's help anyhow. So that's so wild. Yeah. So we get to the bus station. I get to the bus station. Cab driver drops me off. First thing I do is I go into the bathroom, take off my uniform pants, unroll my pair of spare pants that I had in my pocket, throw my uniform in the trash, and I go and buy a ticket it from. Oh, no. I call Mark. I call Mark.

John Dehlin [02:33:44] Wait, uniform?

Claire Headley [02:33:45] Yeah, I was. I was still wearing uniform. My navy. My navy pants and. Okay, yeah. And the belt buckle with the Sea Org symbol on it. I threw all of that in the garbage. Wow. So I go to a pay phone and I call Mark.

Marc Headley [02:34:01] No, you could not figure out how to.

Claire Headley [02:34:03] No, no, we're not to that part yet. Oh, yeah. From there, I did call the pay fund, because here's what happened. So I called. I call him on the pay phone. He says, okay, listen, just this one time, you're going to turn on your phone and I want you to call this number. It's an AV company in Times Square, and ask them how. Or, no, it's close to Times Square. Ask them for directions of how to get from Times Square to that company. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, whatever. I'll just do it. And he's like, okay, and then buy a bus ticket.

Marc Headley [02:34:37] No, I bought the bus ticket.

Claire Headley [02:34:38] No, not that one. I bought this one.

Marc Headley [02:34:40] Okay, you're right.

Claire Headley [02:34:40] You're jumping ahead.

Marc Headley [02:34:41] Sorry.

Claire Headley [02:34:42] He's like, buy a bus ticket from Riverside county to Barstow, which is like a 20 bus ticket.

Marc Headley [02:34:49] And it's the opposite direction of Kansas City.

Claire Headley [02:34:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:34:52] So trying to throw them off on the trail or something.

Marc Headley [02:34:55] I'm trying to make it so they can see in her phone that she called an AV company in New York. Because I had recently spent time in New York York doing AV work at the Scientology facility there. So they would go, oh, he knows somebody there, and he's going to get a job at this AV company in New York.

John Dehlin [02:35:14] You're throwing them off the trail trying to. But her using the phone be a way for them to figure out where she is.

Claire Headley [02:35:20] Yes, yes.

Marc Headley [02:35:21] But also the fact that she's getting on a bus going a different direction, maybe closer to the airport or to another place where she can then get a plane. So I'm trying to make it. It she's going the wrong way to go to Kansas City. And why is she calling New York an AV company in New York?

John Dehlin [02:35:39] Okay.

Claire Headley [02:35:39] Yeah. So again, I was just like, okay, whatever. I'll just do what he says, and hopefully it all works out. So I got on the bus, and this time I. As I remember, I couldn't put it under a false name because I had to show them my driver's license. So.

Claire Headley [02:35:56] So I buy that ticket, get on the bus, go to Barstow. Barstow is where I started panicking because I get off and I go to every pay phone, and none of them accept coins. They all only accept calling cards. And I've never heard of a calling card. I have no idea what it is. And I think that if I ask somebody for a calling, like, what's a calling card? I think I'm going to be like Starman, you know, like, how do you not know what a calling card is? So I didn't want to do that. Anyway, I panicked. I turn my phone back on and I call Mark because Mark had told me, you're going to have a short window, so just make sure you call me right when you get there.

Claire Headley [02:36:38] So I, I panicked, turn my phone on, call him. The first thing he says is, what are you doing? Why'd you turn your phone on? I'm like, I told him what happened. He's like, okay, hopefully nothing goes sideways, but you know, here's your ticket, you're coming to Kansas City. It's leaving in 20 minutes.

Claire Headley [02:36:59] Just go to the counter and they'll print it off for you. I'm like, okay, so, so we finished that call. But he's like, seriously, do not turn that phone on again. So I turn the phone off, go to the counter to get the ticket. And of course, right at the counter it's like we sell calling cards. I'm like, anyway, wait, what does that mean, calling card? Like, it's, it's just a loaded card that makes a payphone work with something other than coins. It's, it's a silly detail, but you'll understand why it's significant shortly.

Claire Headley [02:37:36] So I get on the next bus. It leaves at like 1:30 in the afternoon approximately. So now I, I've been in the wind since 10:15. Now it's 1:30 and I've made it, haven't even made it out of Riverside county yet. Anyway, this next bus is like a five hour stretch to Las Vegas. And in Las Vegas I have a bus change, a 40 minute, you know, layover and then heading out to Kansas City.

Claire Headley [02:38:04] So by the time we pull into Vegas, it's dark and I'm like, oh my goodness, there's a McDonald's there. Guess what? My $20. I could buy a cheeseburger. I haven't eaten in days. I'm like, that's where my mind is at.

Claire Headley [02:38:20] So I wait for everybody to get off the bus just because again, I'm afraid I'm being pursued and everything else. I climb off the bus, I go to put my hand on the, the door to open, to go into the station, to go out to the McDonald's. Before I even walk in the door. Boom. There's three staff members there.

John Dehlin [02:38:40] No. In Vegas.

Marc Headley [02:38:43] In Vegas, crossing state lines. We're now, we've left California. We're now in Nevada.

John Dehlin [02:38:49] Yeah. This is the trafficking.

Marc Headley [02:38:50] And they have now crossed a state border to intercept and recover her. Back to the.

John Dehlin [02:38:57] And was it, was it the GPS of the phone that. They knew you were at a bus.

Marc Headley [02:39:03] They knew she went to Barstow and the only bus leaving out of there was going to Vegas.

John Dehlin [02:39:09] Wild.

Claire Headley [02:39:10] Okay, so Greg Wilher, David Miscavige's henchmen, six foot tall, much bigger than I am, Boom. He's standing right in front of me and he Sundays, and there's two other staff as well. Yeah. And come to find out there's even more staff outside waiting in a vehicle.

Claire Headley [02:39:30] So Greg says, you're not doing this. You're coming with us. And I'm like, no, I'm not. And he's like, so I just walked into the station, I just pushed in because I'm like, I don't, I don't know. There's every chance that they can physically overcome me and get me into a vehicle. Remember I said I needed to find a way to escape that didn't involve physical confrontation because I knew I was in no condition to overcome such a situation. Not only that, my entire life had been indoctrination leading up to me failing in this moment really.

Claire Headley [02:40:07] So I walked into the bus station. I literally just put my purse on the floor and sat down and, and in my mind I was thinking to myself, well, if they physically try to grab me, I'll just scream and maybe some nice person will take pity on me and call 91 1. I don't know. I don't really know how the real world works, but that was my hope.

Claire Headley [02:40:26] And then so, so the next 30, 40 minutes was literally just non stop them going at me. You're destroying your family, you're destroying everything there. And they're like, we know you've been in talking to Mark. We know it. So give us his phone number. And I'm like, no, I'm pretty sure you already have his phone number. I'm not giving it to you. And because I'm like, why would I help them stop me from escaping? Like why they call Mark that.

Marc Headley [02:41:00] Well, so this is the other thing. So when she got to Vegas, I know she has a bus change and she's going to be there for a little bit. So she's supposed to call me. Now that she knows how freaking call calling cards work, she's supposed to Use a pay phone and call me. She never calls. And the phone. I'm. I'm literally pacing on the sidewalk outside my dad's house in the snow, losing my mind because she's been. I have the bus timetable and I know she's been there for 15 minutes and she's not calling me, and I'm losing my mind. And the phone rings and it says Greg Wilher.

Marc Headley [02:41:40] And I'm like, I literally am screaming out on the sidewalk in the middle of the. Just nowhere going anyway. I'm like, yeah. And he's like, we've got Claire. We're taking her back to the property. Just wanted to make sure, you know, she's not coming. We've got her and we're. We're heading back there now.

Marc Headley [02:42:03] And I was like, okay. And he was like, you. You should come back. You need to come back. And I'm like, no, I'm not ever coming back. I'm like, dude, I've slept for like two weeks. You guys are insane. That place is insane. You're all insane. I'm never ever coming back. You got Claire. You got Claire. I'm. You're not getting me. I'm never coming back. Forget it.

John Dehlin [02:42:29] It.

Marc Headley [02:42:29] Don't ever call me ever again.

Claire Headley [02:42:32] Luckily, they didn't got Claire.

Marc Headley [02:42:34] Yeah, but. So they're. So now I hang up with Greg

John Dehlin [02:42:37] and I could have still come after you.

Claire Headley [02:42:39] Oh, for sure. Well, no, we're still in the bus station.

John Dehlin [02:42:42] I know, I know.

Claire Headley [02:42:42] Yeah. While Greg is having this conversation, there's three. Another staff member came in. I'm surrounded by staff. I'm just sitting on the. In the middle of the bus station. In the back of my mind, this little voice is like, I wonder what people think is going on here. But you know, I. I literally just had to kind of. Of figuratively plug my ears to get through and. But Greg comes back from that and tells me, we told Mark that we caught you. You're not. You're not coming. He's coming back to the property. They told me he's coming back.

Marc Headley [02:43:16] So dark.

John Dehlin [02:43:16] They're lying to you both independently to try and influence your decisions.

Claire Headley [02:43:22] That's right.

Marc Headley [02:43:22] We have to both trust that the plan is still going ahead according. Because I'm not not. I can't talk to her and she can't talk to me. And they're being the go between telling us that the wrong information to both of us. So she's going back is what they tell me, and that I'm going back is what they're Telling her in order.

Claire Headley [02:43:47] And none of it is true. None of it.

Marc Headley [02:43:48] None of it is true.

Claire Headley [02:43:49] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:43:50] Anyway, so I'm losing my mind on the sidewalk.

Claire Headley [02:43:54] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:43:55] And I think it's night time by this time.

Claire Headley [02:43:57] Yeah, it is. Because you're. Yeah, it's like six, seven o' clock at night in Vegas and you were in Kansas City two hours ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like 8 o' clock at night anyhow. So, you know, again, they tell me my entire family is going to be destroyed. That. And, and at one point Greg Wilher says to me, well, what if David Miscavige were here right now? And I'm thinking to myself, well, yeah, duh, he's not. So I exactly planned this so he wouldn't be able to be here to intercept me. Not that he would. I didn't think he would ever go to a bus station. He doesn't do the dirty work himself. He has other people like the Greg Wilhairs of the world do it for him. But I was just like, that's irrelevant anyway, so I appeal.

John Dehlin [02:44:42] It's appeal to authority.

Claire Headley [02:44:44] Right, exactly. Yeah. And, and actually they have, have put David Miscavige on the phone with people.

Marc Headley [02:44:51] Yes.

Claire Headley [02:44:52] To stop them from escaping in the past. And I, I was aware of that. Either way, he threatens to follow me on the bus. But again, I knew that already. Like, even though I wasn't aware of the illegality of crossing state lines in pursuit of somebody in that aspect of human trafficking at that time, I was aware that, that they wouldn't be allowed to just pursue me endlessly without David Miscavage approving it. And again, he was in Clearwater, Florida, less accessible, it's three hours ahead, yada.

Claire Headley [02:45:29] So he threatens to follow me on the bus that I'm just like biting my time to get on the next bus. And so the people start lining up. I'm like, thank God. So I get in line, surrounded by now four people, people all just going at me, telling me I can't do this, I have to come back, blah, blah, blah, my family, that, this and this and this. I get on the bus and huge relief just to have even that little bit of distance between them. Of course the first thing I do is turn on my phone and call Mark because, well, obviously they, they know where I am.

Claire Headley [02:46:07] So that ship has sailed. So let me at least talk to Mark and make sure he's not coming to me or going back to them or whatever.

Marc Headley [02:46:15] So I'm liter pacing up and down the sidewalk in this Suburb of Lee Summit, Missouri, outside of Kansas City. And it. It's her. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? She's like, they tried to intercept me. It was Greg Wilher and Sharon and whoever the group of people was, all top executives in Scientology. And. And so I'm like, where are you? And she's like, I'm on the bus. And I'm like, are they on the bus? She's like, no.

John Dehlin [02:46:45] And I'm like, I'm surprised they didn't buy p. Tickets and travel with you on the bus.

Claire Headley [02:46:50] They. They threatened. They threatened that they were going to. But like I said, I knew that they couldn't do that on their own without David Miscavige's approval. And anyway, they. They. But they did. They absolutely threatened to. And yes, they have done that before, so.

Marc Headley [02:47:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the only reason that some people are like, why don't you just get on a Southwest flighter? They have. They have a internal ticket agency within Scientology so they can access United, Delta, American. They can access all major airlines to book tickets because they fly so many people all over the world that they are a major account with it. Like, they're a. Scientology has a Sea Org travel agent. He's a Sea Org member that has access to all major ticketing systems.

Claire Headley [02:47:42] Not. Not to mention we had no money. I mean, that was. That was the other piece of it.

John Dehlin [02:47:47] They can book and cancel.

Marc Headley [02:47:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:47:50] So if. If Claire had booked on an airline, it. They could have used their Scientology book agent, flight agent, to actually cancel her flight.

Marc Headley [02:47:58] Yeah. Or at least delay it or muck. Muck around. Yeah, I know that. We know for a fact that I suspected they could do that. We found out they could do that a few years later when we were helping somebody else escape. So either way, the. But I knew it was much harder for them to do that within the Greyhound system because it's a much, much lower tech, pedestrian setup.

John Dehlin [02:48:23] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:48:23] For it. Compared. Anyway. So.

Claire Headley [02:48:27] So, yeah. So she's not going on the bus. I call Mark and I tell her.

Marc Headley [02:48:31] I tell her they told me you were going back. And she's like, they told me you were going back. And I'm like, those. I was like. I was like. I was so mad that I almost destroyed my phone.

John Dehlin [02:48:42] That's how. Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:48:43] Just.

John Dehlin [02:48:44] Oh, yeah.

Marc Headley [02:48:45] Angry. Physically angry. I was. I was just like. I was. I almost threw my phone against the concrete that I was so upset that they intercepted you. We were this close.

John Dehlin [02:48:55] Yeah. Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:48:56] Anyway, so she's like, I'm fine. I'm good. I'm gonna stay on the bus. They can't get me. I will just stay. She's like, I'll stay on the bus for all the rest of the stops. If I see them, I'm even getting off the bus. Like, I'm just gonna get there.

John Dehlin [02:49:09] Wow.

Claire Headley [02:49:09] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:49:09] And then.

John Dehlin [02:49:10] Did you ever get your McDonald's?

Claire Headley [02:49:12] No, I did not. No cheeseburger for me.

John Dehlin [02:49:17] Gosh.

Claire Headley [02:49:18] It's all right. I would. I had already been starving for months at that point. What was a few more hours, Right?

Marc Headley [02:49:24] So at that point, we know that they know where she's going. They know where I am. They have my phone number. They basically know the whole plan. But they. They didn't follow her in Vegas. Basically, like, we're good, because they're not gonna come.

Claire Headley [02:49:40] But your question about the cheeseburger reminded me that was another thing that they tried. They're like, okay, well, let's just talk about this. Let's go get a meal and realize I'm literally starving. And. And I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm good. I don't want to talk about it. I'm just gonna sit right here in the bus station.

John Dehlin [02:50:01] Yeah, but, you know, withholding food and sleep and water is a interrogation technique.

Marc Headley [02:50:07] It's another lever they can always pull if they need it.

Claire Headley [02:50:10] Yeah. Anyway, so we finally make it on the bus. Mark and I talk, and I. I tell them they threatened. They did threaten to follow me on the bus, but I don't think they're actually. It doesn't look like they're coming on the bus, but obviously I didn't know that for sure until we pulled out of the station. And so we agree, okay. Every single station from the rest of the distance, I'll just make sure there's nobody there. If there's nobody there, then I'll get off and call. But now, for sure, no more calls. Turn off the phone. It's done. You know, obviously, they know where I'm going. So there is, of course, already the chance that they'll try something more, but hopefully not. Anyway, a day and a half later, I think. So this was.

Marc Headley [02:50:59] Don't ever try to escape anywhere on a Greyhound. It's like. It's like a slow burn. I was literally. I had the timetables, and so for every few hours for the next day and a half, I would be, like, setting alarms so that I would be like, oh, she's about to get to the next place. Let's make sure she got to the next place. And it would literally, like, I want to say like every two or three hours it was a new place, a new place, a new place, a new place, a new place. From Vegas all the way to the downtown Kansas City bus station. And so a day and a half later, I. And this whole time.

Claire Headley [02:51:39] Oh yeah. So. So Monday, Monday afternoon, early afternoon is when I left Barstow. And I think I got there Tuesday night.

Marc Headley [02:51:45] That's right, yeah.

Claire Headley [02:51:46] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:51:47] So. But I tell my dad, my dad's there in Kansas City. He worked for IBM as a technician traveling, doing up Walmart upgrades and bank upgrades and just would replace all their computer systems. And I tell him, Claire's coming. And so he's like, really? And I'm like, yeah. Is that okay if she comes and stays here as well until we kind of figure out what? He's like, absolutely, no problem. And so I'm like, okay. And then in the. When the whole Greg Wilher thing came happened, I basically came storming in the house.

Marc Headley [02:52:19] And he's like, what happened? And I'm like, they got her. And he's like, what? And I'm like, they got her in Las Vegas. She got caught. And he's like, they tracked her all the way to Vegas. And they said yes. They just told me that she's on the way back.

Marc Headley [02:52:36] And I'm just like, oh my God. Anyway, so we. Then she calls and then I come back in and I'm like, she's on the bus. And so he's like, now what? I'm like, she's gonna get here tomorrow night. I gotta go pick. Can I borrow your car and go pick her up tomorrow night? He's like, absolutely.

Claire Headley [02:52:55] And I will. I will comment that it will was so. Everything about this situation was something I never imagined would ever be possible. And it was kind of funny because the stark difference of, you know, just interacting with people in the real world on a Greyhound bus was so starkly different from the life I had just escaped from. You know, the single mom with her little baby and this girl and d. And it's like. And I just. Just kept my head down, you know, like, I'm going to get there. And. Yeah. So the next. By the next night, I didn't sleep at all. I was just way too wired and didn't ever get my McDonald's cheeseburger, but still made it, made it through to that bus station. And there was Mark waiting for me.

John Dehlin [02:53:48] I want to see that hug.

Marc Headley [02:53:49] Oh my gosh. It was literally like. Like, it was. It was. I want to say One of the most, like, exhilarating moments of my life that it's been. I finally got out of there, and I've now. I've been sleeping, I've been eating, I've been working. I'm now fixing computers. I'm making $50 an hour just fixing people's personal computers. I'm making more in an hour than I was making in a week if we got paid. And people are nice and in the sea. Organization, they're. They indoctrinate you. That everybody in the outside world, they're drug addicts, they're criminals, they're prostitutes, they're degenerates.

Claire Headley [02:54:31] And not only that, but if we were to ever leave, we would completely fail and would be flipping burgers for the rest of our life. And the sad part is it got to the point where, first of all, I love making burgers. Second of all, fault, you know what? If I flip burgers for the rest of my life, that's gonna beat this mess completely. This is utter misery. But it's. It's funny because, yes, that was the best hug ever. But then it was like, okay, let's go to Denny's. I'm like, yeah, we need to talk. Like, what. What's up with leaving me behind? Like, I gotta clear the air on this for real.

Marc Headley [02:55:11] And I was sort of like, you're here, ain't you? Like, it all worked out perfectly.

Claire Headley [02:55:19] I was like, dude, but what, man? You couldn't even tell me? He's like, well, I. I tried, you know. I was like, yes, you did call me and ask me to come home. And, you know, and again, I. I have to be realistic that it was such a terrifying prospect that I don't know that I wouldn't have ratted him out about in that moment.

John Dehlin [02:55:39] Can I tell you just to kind of draw a parallel? I've met many, many, many Mormon couples who were married who both lost their faith but didn't tell the other and went years not believing, afraid to tell their spouse that they no longer believed.

Claire Headley [02:56:01] Yes, 100%. We've had families. These. We've had. We've had many people tell us they've done that exact same thing.

Marc Headley [02:56:08] We had a family that. The mother had read my book on Kindle. The father had bought the book and kept it a secret. And they. One of them found the Kindle and saw that they'd bought the book, and they were like, what the hell? And the wife was like, I read this book and that we got to get out. This place is crazy. And he was like. Like, I'm glad you told me. I read the book three months ago, and I'm trying to figure out how you told it. And then they were like, what are we going to do about the kids? They had teenagers and they.

Marc Headley [02:56:42] They told the kids, hey, listen, we're thinking about leaving Scientology. And the kids are like, we've been reading stuff on the Internet for years. We've been waiting for you guys to finally figure it out. And the whole family had decided that they didn't want to be in Scientology, but none of them could tell each other because they would think they would rat each other out.

John Dehlin [02:57:02] And it does. I'm just saying it doesn't have to be as severe as your situation. I'm reminded of this concept that I learned from. I think his name is Marty Seligman, but it's called learned helplessness. If you put a dog, and I'm going to get this wrong, but you put a dog and surround it with, like, an electric fence or whatever, you know, tries to leave, gets shocked, tries to leave, he gets shocked. Eventually you could take off the, you know, the collar and take the fence away and the dog stays there.

Claire Headley [02:57:32] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:57:32] So you don't have to ha. You don't have to put someone in prison to put shackles on their brain so they feel like they can't leave.

Claire Headley [02:57:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:57:43] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:57:43] And that is exactly. And that was one of the most interesting things to me when Lawrence wrote. Lawrence Wright wrote Going Clear.

John Dehlin [02:57:49] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:57:50] Because it's called Going Clear here. The Prison of Belief.

John Dehlin [02:57:53] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:57:54] That is the. The tagline for the book title. So that is a very, very apt description of Scientology.

John Dehlin [02:58:02] So what a gripping story. I was. Brooklyn and I were on our edge of our seats the whole time, so thank you for sharing. Have you ever told that story that fully and completely?

Marc Headley [02:58:14] No, we were.

Claire Headley [02:58:14] We were just talking about that. We've, you know, because as we've mentioned, we've done a lot of things, but we've never, like, sat down blow by blow, you know, and of course, there's a lot more details which I'm covering in my book, but we went into it in enough detail, and it's.

Marc Headley [02:58:31] It is legitimately covered in excruciating detail in my book. Pretty much everything.

John Dehlin [02:58:35] Yeah.

Marc Headley [02:58:36] We went to. And a little bit more, you know, but.

John Dehlin [02:58:39] Well, thank you for the honor of allowing us to make a audio visual record of that story. We're both vocal, could contribute, so that was powerful. Thank you.

Claire Headley [02:58:51] Yes.

High-Level Defections and Internal Consequences

John Dehlin [02:58:51] Okay, I want to pause on your story for just a second because were There any I want to ask about. I want to kind of go back in time to while you were still at Scientology, you know, headquarters. Do you remember any defections of high level. High level members and. Or celebrities while you were working at the headquarters? And do you want to talk about how the organization thought about or talked about or dealt with defectors who successfully made it out and then were starting to speak openly or had none of that happened yet, or do you not have any stories?

Claire Headley [02:59:36] Yeah, no, we do. I certainly do. Like, there had been a number of people. So Jan Sims is somebody who comes to mind. That's the lady who was very close friends with Shelly Miscavige. Jesse Prince is another person who had worked with Hubbard and had been in Religious Technology center in the 80s. But the story that was presented to us, first of all, there was very limited information and we would only ever be told, oh, this person's now an enemy. Never told what they're saying specifically. Never allowed access to see what they're saying. Just that they're suppressive now and therefore they're bad people. And, you know, it was very much information control of their. They've. They've escaped and their enemies and never to be seen or spoken of again type of approach. That's my answer.

Marc Headley [03:00:32] Yeah. And there were many times. There was one individual that I remember in particular. His name was Jeff Walker. Walker. And he was a very, very high level, technical trained Scientology executive who had actually worked with L. Ron Hubbard. And he had captain rank. And he. They have another thing that's called right arm rank, which means that he. Not only was he a captain, but he actually had right arm rank, which means he is a. A captain that can. That can captain an actual sea vessel.

John Dehlin [03:01:05] Vessel.

Marc Headley [03:01:05] And that he was trained on the Apollo by L. Ron Hubbard and he was what was called the senior case supervisor international. So he was in charge of all Scientology technology and training internationally. And he escaped and he was brought back. They did track him down and brought him back and he became the deputy deputy de Weeding. I see.

Marc Headley [03:01:33] So he was one of the top executives in Scientology. After escaping and brought back. He was in the grounds department of Golden Era Production Productions and his job was to pull weeds. But he. But David Miscavige wouldn't let it be at that. He was the deputy of a deputy of the D Weeders. So he wasn't even the top de Weider. He was the third string Dweeder.

Marc Headley [03:01:59] And that's the sort of thing that would happen if you did escape and you were Brought back. It was never, oh, you just go back to work. So when they were singing that song to me, I was like, oh, I was there for 15 years. There's. This has never happened in the history of the international headquarters where somebody escapes and then they just go back to work when they get back.

John Dehlin [03:02:21] And do you think he was abducted, or do you think he, like, believed them, that they were going to maybe treat him better when he decided to come back, or did he just miss it and, like, came back thinking he would be, you know, forgiven?

Marc Headley [03:02:36] I don't know the circum. Circumstances of his recovery, but he was a disgruntled person the entire time. When he. When he. Before he left, he wasn't the nicest guy in the world, but he was. He had status when he came back. He was just an angry. That had no status.

John Dehlin [03:02:56] I guess I'm wondering why he came back.

Marc Headley [03:02:58] I don't know.

Claire Headley [03:02:58] I think it had to do with his wife and family.

Marc Headley [03:03:01] That is true. He did have a wife named sue that worked at the property and when. Even when he was in grounds.

Claire Headley [03:03:08] And a daughter.

Marc Headley [03:03:10] Oh, I didn't know about the daughter.

Claire Headley [03:03:11] Sherry.

Marc Headley [03:03:12] Sherry who? Morehead is Jeff Walker's daughter.

Claire Headley [03:03:16] Well, Sue's daughter. I don't know for sure that they're the same parents, but I do not know this.

Marc Headley [03:03:20] It.

Claire Headley [03:03:21] That. That's why I'm saying it's. It's control and leverage. Like, you know, even Mike Rinder has talked about that he stayed years beyond or several years beyond what he would have otherwise done in hopes of saving his wife and his daughter. You know, you. I mean, you talked about that too, that you stayed.

Marc Headley [03:03:40] Well, yeah, I stayed because of you. And. But either way, I don't know, I

John Dehlin [03:03:44] just say a parallel, like. Yeah, so many Mormons stay because they don't want to leave their spouse or children behind and hide or lie. We call it pmo. Physically and mentally out.

Marc Headley [03:03:55] Yeah. In Scientology, they call that under the radar. So you're not in Scientology, but you fly below the radar if you're doing anything that's not supposed to be done so that you don't pop up and they've. They know about it and then.

Claire Headley [03:04:09] And then cut you off from your family. There. There are so many people that reach out to our US that are like that. They're like, you know, this is happening, this is happening, this is happening. But I'm under the radar because I don't want to lose my children, which, of course, who wants to lose their children, you know?

John Dehlin [03:04:25] Yeah. And you Know again, that sort of dynamic still exists even when people aren't in prison, you know what I mean? Because they, sure, there's physically, you know, incarcerating you or your family and then there's mentally mental chains incarcerating you or your family.

Marc Headley [03:04:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:04:43] And if you can, you want to escape with your family, sometimes you, you stay in.

Marc Headley [03:04:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:04:49] Awesome. Yes. Often.

Claire Headley [03:04:50] Yes.

Marc Headley [03:04:51] And, and I want to say for the 15 years that I worked at the headquarters, I would say at least 100 people escaped. And there was a large percentage of those people that you wouldn't see them for a while and then even sometimes they'd get brought back, but they'd be segregated. There was an area of the property called, called Old Gilman House. The, the man who used to run Old Gilman, who used to run the hot springs of Gilman Hot Springs, he had a house on the property and they turned that house into what was called isolation. So if you were sick or if you were under security watch, you would stay there because that's where all of the security force lived.

Marc Headley [03:05:30] So you would basically be in a room with all of the off duty security guards sleeping in their room with them. Them. So if you get up, they're going to be like, hey, where you going?

John Dehlin [03:05:40] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:05:41] And I slept in that room with them many a time.

Claire Headley [03:05:44] In some cases, if they had a high value target who was trying to escape, like an executive or someone who knew had information, they would even put them in a room and have a security guard sleep right outside the room so they couldn't even physically get out if they tried.

John Dehlin [03:05:59] Yeah, yeah, okay. And that's fascinating and dark and terrible. It should be illegal. This organization should be defunct. But anyway, yes, I digress.

Marc Headley [03:06:14] So we're with you on that.

John Dehlin [03:06:16] Okay.

Marc Headley [03:06:16] We share your sentiment now.

John Dehlin [03:06:18] This is beyond anything this is, this should invalidate this behavior and this history should invalidate. In a sane world, this organization is extinguished.

Claire Headley [03:06:30] Yeah, exactly.

Marc Headley [03:06:31] It's. To me, when I got it out into the real world and I started telling my story, that was the general response. Every time I would say something like, wait a minute, they opened your mail. Oh yeah, wait a minute, you had to call your family with someone on the, on the phone. Every single thing is like, that's so super illegal.

John Dehlin [03:06:51] But instead they're given tax breaks which allows them to grow at a faster rate than a normal business and they're given religious protections where they don't have to be transparent in their finances. And they are basically above the, the reach of law enforcement, judges or police that's right.

Marc Headley [03:07:09] The people outside of Scientology are subsidizing Scientology. Your tax.

John Dehlin [03:07:15] Yes.

Marc Headley [03:07:15] You're paying for this.

John Dehlin [03:07:16] You're welcome. You're welcome.

Claire Headley [03:07:19] Okay, so.

John Dehlin [03:07:21] So trying to dig a little deeper with the original question. Like, there's Leah Remini, there's Mike Rinder, you know, Chris Shelton, well known oppositional apostates, subversive people that have left. Did all them leave after y' all left?

Marc Headley [03:07:39] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:07:40] So none of the really high profile. Go on, go on. TV junkets, publish a memoir. When did going clear. Lawrence Wright's going clear. Come on out.

Claire Headley [03:07:50] Approximately 2014, I want to say.

John Dehlin [03:07:53] Oh, so that's 10 years after. Yeah, tennis. Years after y' all left. Okay.

Claire Headley [03:07:57] Marty Rathbin had got out somewhere around when we got out.

Marc Headley [03:08:02] He got out a few months. He got out. I think you want to say he left in September, but I've never heard of him.

John Dehlin [03:08:06] So if I've never heard of him. I mean, I don't remember.

Claire Headley [03:08:08] He was on. He was ongoing clear. He's. He's. Was a top executive who was in speaking out. But then they. They got him back in.

John Dehlin [03:08:17] But I, you know, I didn't read the book. I saw the documentary.

Claire Headley [03:08:19] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [03:08:20] Which comes out years after the book.

Marc Headley [03:08:22] Right. And that was nearly a decade after we had escaped. So up until we escaped, as far as I know, up until we escaped and I wrote my book in 2009, there had never been another person. There had been other Scientologists who'd written books, but there had never been a Sea Org member, and especially from the international headquarters that had left and written about it and released this information into the wild. The only person that ever did who really did sort of inspire me to speak out was the gentleman that she mentioned earlier, Jesse Prince. When he left, he joined forces with some very influential and wealthy suppressives who were suing Scientology and Clearwater, and he joined their ranks.

Marc Headley [03:09:12] But before that, he had even posted on the Internet. It is impossible for them to fine you for violating your NDA on telling anything that was illegal that happened. An NDA can't. An NDA cannot protect them from you going to law enforcement about illegal activities. The end. That's a loophole in the NDA. So I knew as long as I was talking about and telling about the illegal things that happened and the human trafficking and the abuse, there's nothing they can do. They can't. We signed NDAs when we were there that said any confidential information or operational information, $50,000 for every instance. Well, we've given about A thousand instances, and nothing has ever happened.

John Dehlin [03:10:01] And that's all the Mormon Church now does make its employees sign NDAs, and. Or it holds their pensions in the minds of the employees or retirees holds pensions hostage, where people who leave the church's employee and are retired are worried that if they speak up, their. Their retirements will be taken away.

Marc Headley [03:10:24] Possibly illegal.

John Dehlin [03:10:25] Right. Oh, no, I know. And also. And. Or they're what, did I sign an NDA? What could the church come after me for? So this is relevant in a Mormon

Claire Headley [03:10:33] context as well, for sure.

Marc Headley [03:10:34] And also in the Scientology context. We never get copies of any agreements or paperwork we signed. We're never. We don't have a lawyer to review it. We. And all of the time, it's just everybody has to sign this, and you just go to the legal office, and they say, where's my thing? And they go, oh, it's already ready for you. That you sign your name and you walk out. You don't even read this.

Scientology's Influence on Law Enforcement and Politics

John Dehlin [03:10:54] Okay, so y' all weren't able to really see the Leah Remini, Mike Rinder going clear, kind of in real time. Like, I'm just imagining the room when Lawrence Wright publishes going clear. And you would have been in the room, Claire, with. With David and Shelley Miscavige, maybe when the book comes out, and what. What bricks he might have passed, so to speak.

Claire Headley [03:11:20] Right. Completely.

Marc Headley [03:11:22] The only thing that we knew was that there was a big legal case in Florida, legal stuff, for this woman, Lisa McPherson, who died in their Clearwater facility. And then they brought her to a hospital, and instead of.

Claire Headley [03:11:35] After she'd been held there for 17 days and deprived of food and nutrition and.

Marc Headley [03:11:41] And she wasn't a Sea Org member. She was a paying Scientologist who went psychotic. And then she became a liability, and so they locked her up, and they did this program, which is called the Introspection Rundown, which doesn't allow anybody to speak with her or for her to have any physical contact or verbal contact with anybody until she unwinds from the state that she's in. And she eventually fell ill, and she passed away. And instead of taking to the hospital when she was almost dead, that was right next to where they were. They drove her to a further away hospital where a Scientology doctor worked.

Marc Headley [03:12:21] And by the time she got there, she had. She had passed. So there was a lawsuit involving that. And. And David Miscavige was embroiled in that for many, many years. And he let everybody know. Know that this was our fault. And the whole reason this is Happening is because people are doing stupid. Even though behind the scenes, he was the one who was personally recommending what this individual woman was doing, and his actions were essentially what. What did her in.

John Dehlin [03:12:51] So I have bad news for you guys.

Claire Headley [03:12:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:12:54] Like, I'm thinking about Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which was where, you know, a bunch of Mormons in southern Utah massacred over 100 men, women and children who were just pioneers traveling through to go to California from Arkansas. Right. Big scandal. Brigham Young, I'm sure it was a huge headache. Their investigations.

John Dehlin [03:13:15] Once an organization becomes rich and powerful enough, they become number one, more and more able to escape any liability. Because by the time you have good enough lawyers and enough money, anytime you're sued, you either win or you just settle. Pay them off and silence them. So the legal channels have less and less of a. Of a potential to really impact you. And then once you get in enough trouble, you start cleaning up your act. Like Mormons, getting rid of their polygamy over time took them a long time, took them decades or half a century, depending on how you're counting. But eventually the Mormons got rid of the polygamy, didn't commit any more massacres that we know of.

John Dehlin [03:14:04] Right. And slowly assimilated and became, you know, Mormons are now the Osmonds and Steve Young and David Archuleta, you know, like secret lies, whatever. And all of a sudden the image gets better, the behavior cleans up. Up. And the, the sleight of hand the church does is it gets fabulously wealthy in the meantime, and then you just add $3 billion growing at 7% a year, and, you know, in a hundred years, Scientology is a trillion dollar church with very few members.

Claire Headley [03:14:38] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:14:38] And.

John Dehlin [03:14:39] Right. So I don't mean to be sad, but that's. No, that's how these things are working.

Claire Headley [03:14:43] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:14:43] That's how we've.

Claire Headley [03:14:44] The issue is that Scientology is not cleaning up their actual act. They're still pursuing critics or anyone exposing their abuses. Whistleblowers like us using their tax exempt dollars with hate websites. Their practice of fair game is alive and well. So they're not cleaning up their.

John Dehlin [03:15:04] But remember, and I, this is just two, three nerds. Sherry. Yes. Like the Mormon Church denounced polygamy in 1890, said, we're not doing it anymore. Federal government, world, all the membership, no more polygamy. We want to become a state and we want you to stop putting us in jail. Guess what? Can you guess?

Claire Headley [03:15:25] They kept doing it for another 30 years.

John Dehlin [03:15:27] They were secretly practicing polygamy, getting Caught getting their hands slapped. They issued two manifestos and there was actually almost like a third quasi manifesto. And it took 30 years, but eventually. Two steps forward, one step back, two step forwards, one step back. They just realized we can make all this money and we can have way better PR if we just stop doing stupid shit.

Marc Headley [03:15:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:15:54] And just quietly invest that money and grow. Grow the money.

Claire Headley [03:15:58] And that's a fair point. Except that their practice of get fair game, though, they canceled it in I think the 70s.

Marc Headley [03:16:03] Well, they canceled the issue.

Claire Headley [03:16:05] The one issue.

Marc Headley [03:16:06] Yes, says we do fair game. This is said the issue has been canceled. But within the thing that canceled it, they say this does not change the way we treat suppressive persons. We're just canceling the issue because it's bad PR to have an issue.

Claire Headley [03:16:24] The practice of fair game is a whole body of work.

John Dehlin [03:16:28] And guess what? Several Mormons, prophet seers and revelators, five, six, seven of them all said said polygamy is eternal doctrine. It will never be taken from the earth and you can't even be exalted without it. So just trust me. Things that are written as scripture, known by the entire membership, is like unchangeable. Guess what?

Claire Headley [03:16:50] It changed.

John Dehlin [03:16:50] They can change. You know, once. Maybe not. Maybe David Miscavige will. Will totally run the whole organization into the ground.

Claire Headley [03:16:59] Yeah. Hopefully he does. Does.

John Dehlin [03:17:02] I know. I don't mean to take your hope away.

Marc Headley [03:17:03] We're bank. We're banking on that. He's already on the rocks and we're just waiting for everybody to get.

John Dehlin [03:17:08] We'll see.

Claire Headley [03:17:09] We'll see.

John Dehlin [03:17:09] Life is long. Okay, let me. Let me go kind of in a. In a slightly different direction. So. Okay. You told a really fascinating story yesterday at dinner about how Scientology keeps judges and policemen in their pockets.

Marc Headley [03:17:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:17:32] And. And the whole. It's almost like the California legal system in 2025 has been bent to protect Scientology.

Marc Headley [03:17:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:17:42] Do you guys care that? Because that is a mind blowing.

Claire Headley [03:17:45] Yeah, it's absolutely should be talked about because it's. It is a pattern. We discussed that. So our lawsuit we filed in 2009 and it included labor law violations, forced abortion, human trafficking, etc. The big law firm that was representing Scientology in that lawsuit was Proscour Rose, I think it was called. And Mark Marmaro specifically was Religious Technology Center's attorney. He did my depositions. And. Representing Scientology, representing Scientology.

Marc Headley [03:18:24] And David Miscavige, representing Religious Technology Center. Scientology is made up of multiple corporations. So I worked for csi, Church of Scientology International and the. The DBA as Golden era. Production.

John Dehlin [03:18:39] And that's all liability management. Risk management.

Claire Headley [03:18:42] Exactly, yeah. Very complex cutouts. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so the attorney that did my deposition, within months after that, he became a Supreme Court judge for the state of California. And recently Leah Remini put out an article on her sub stack outlining that. Another attorney, more recently, I can't remember his name, William Foreman. Yeah, William Foreman, who was involved in multiple Scientology cases, is now a judge as well.

John Dehlin [03:19:17] And so there's, you know, correlation is not always causation. It could be that they're moving for Scientology, help them become Supreme Court justices. It could be Scientology pays for the best possible lawyers who inevitably are going to become Supreme Court justices.

Marc Headley [03:19:31] Exactly.

John Dehlin [03:19:32] So I don't know if you're trying to suggest one or the other, but it kind of. Maybe it doesn't matter because they get a Scientology friendly justice at some point in the Supreme Court of California.

Claire Headley [03:19:42] It really just illustrates their. Their intent and strategy to have connections and influential people. Of course, technically that that judge then can't rule in any Scientology case. So I don't. It's. Whatever the. The outcome is, it's more than just a coincidence, is really the sole sum up of the point.

Marc Headley [03:20:08] And in terms of the Clearwater Police Department and the Los Angeles Police Department, we had mentioned in the. The last video that they hold these conventions every year. They have seven of these. Many of them take place in Los Angeles or Clearwater, and whenever they do that, they close off all the streets around their events. So protesters are not allowed to get close to the event. And in order to enforce that, they hire off duty police officers in uniform. And in Los Angeles, they bring their motorcycles and they're in uniform, but they're there as security for Scientology. Even though they're in uniform, LAPD uniform, they're not on the clock. They're doing security.

John Dehlin [03:20:53] How can they wear their official uniform while they're getting privately paid?

Marc Headley [03:20:57] Because the way it works is in Los Angeles, when you have a film shoot, if you have. If you have a non profit corporation, you can pull a permit, permit for a sidewalk walk and talk, or shut down a lane or any of this, the only fee is to. If you shut down a lane, you have to just pay a cone company to drop off some barricades and some cones. But if you're just closing off all the sidewalks, all you need is a police officer. And so as part of the permit process, you can say how many police officers you want as part of your filming permit.

Marc Headley [03:21:32] So whenever they have one of these events. Events, they Pull a filming permit. They block off all the streets and the intersections so protesters can't get in. But you're talking about. For a Los Angeles event, you could have anywhere from 15 to 25 LAPD officers that are getting paid 75 an hour. That's just right to them. It's not going through anybody. It's going straight into their pocket. And they're there for two days, all day.

Claire Headley [03:21:58] Yeah. Shifts.

Marc Headley [03:21:59] They're running. They keep. They're running them in shifts.

John Dehlin [03:22:01] That's a grand, let's just say.

Marc Headley [03:22:03] And let's say you network and let's say you have seven of those a year. That's a sizable amount of seven grand.

Claire Headley [03:22:09] Yeah. But concurrent to that, they're also Scientology making significant donations to LAPD, associated foundations for $25,000 here and $50,000 here. And so. And even we. We know somebody who even raised objection to one of their foundations accepting a $25,000 donation. And that was overruled. The objection was overruled. So, you know, they use their money to influence people. However that pans out and comes to. To be. That is what's going on. And it's a very intentional strategy.

John Dehlin [03:22:51] No, seriously going clear. I'm sorry. I just watched Breaking Bad, and the gangster warlord Gustavo Fring was best friends, you know, donating all the time to the police department, to the Federation of police Officers, whatever.

Marc Headley [03:23:06] They're his chicken restaurant.

John Dehlin [03:23:08] Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Marc Headley [03:23:12] Yeah. No, it's not. It's not far from the truth of. It's not far from reality, what actually goes on behind the scenes.

John Dehlin [03:23:20] And. And so. So then, you know, connect the dots for us. So then, you know, someone's trying to escape, they call the police, the police show up. How does potentially that money, those donations, those security, you know, how does that affect law enforcement?

Marc Headley [03:23:40] Yeah, well, you know, there was one other thing that I just remembered when you were saying that, which is when I was on the night shift for many years at the ant base, or if I just happened to be there in the middle of the night or very, very early in the morning, warning, many times the chp, California Highway Patrol, or local PD would be parked in front of the int base in front of the security booth, and the security guards had bought dozens of donuts, and they would. When they would come by, they would see. They would stop there, and the security guards and the police would hang out and eat donuts right in front of the base.

Marc Headley [03:24:17] So you also don't know. Know if you try to escape and the police get called if it's that guy, if it's Donut Dave who shows up to the call, you don't know that he's going to be like, let me give you a ride into town. And he's just going to take you right back to the property. You don't know, because mobs.

John Dehlin [03:24:34] This is like Godfather, New York Police Department mob stuff.

Marc Headley [03:24:37] Yeah. And also Golden Era Productions, they had a golf course, which is called the Golden Era Golf Course, right next to the property. And every year, several times a year, they do fundraisers for San Jacinto or Hemet or the police department. And they would. They would basically donate the golf course for their event. And then they'd invite any celebrities that Scientology could throw in. They'd throw them some money. So it's called in Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard calls it safe, pointing to basically lock up all of your local politicians and city council. The other thing, which is kind of crazy, which is whenever there was a local election, we would.

Marc Headley [03:25:19] There's 800 people there. There are foreign nationals, but there's several hundred voters on that one single property, one address that has several hundred voters. If you're talking about a Hemet election or a Riverside county election or a San Jacinto election, and you've got 100 votes or 300 votes. Votes, that's a win or lose on a town council pres. Member or whatever, the Riverside County Commissioner office or whatever is happening. Police chief.

Marc Headley [03:25:54] So they. We would get printed list and it would say, this candidate is for psychiatry. So that means that's code for you ain't voting for him. And they'd have a whole list of all the candidates. And you get basically a voter cheat sheet. And it would say, this guy's for Scientology. This guy's for Scientology or psychiatry. This guy likes Scientology education programs. So then you go, that's my guy. So you. And we were all. This is the. This is the crazy.

Claire Headley [03:26:27] I was. I was still a foreign national, so I didn't get to vote, but that's how I personally know they hold foreign nationals passports. Because they had mine in Locker Europe.

Marc Headley [03:26:38] Yeah, but. But when they would have the elections.

John Dehlin [03:26:41] And Mormon mission presidents hold the passports of the missionaries when they're in foreign countries.

Marc Headley [03:26:47] Wow.

Claire Headley [03:26:48] So it's a very. That's the same. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:26:51] They're not for missionary.

Claire Headley [03:26:52] For a missionary. Yeah. No, I get it.

Marc Headley [03:26:54] All Sea Org members that travel, that have passports, the legal director has everyone's passports. Unless you're getting on a plane, going to another country, you don't have your Their passport.

John Dehlin [03:27:04] And the church would say they do it because missionaries might. They might get stolen, they might get lost.

Marc Headley [03:27:08] Same exact thing.

John Dehlin [03:27:09] But also, if they want to leave, it just.

Claire Headley [03:27:13] Yeah, they do the same thing in Scientology. It's a legal rudiment that they need to have all the. Every. All the documents in the files. But yet, fact is, if said person needs their passport to get out of there, they're not going to be able to get. Get it.

John Dehlin [03:27:29] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:27:29] Yeah. The last thing I wanted to say about the voter thing is that the voting booth for the town was in the lobby of Golden Era Productions. They set it up so people would drive onto the property that lived in the zip code or whatever and vote there.

John Dehlin [03:27:48] Wow.

Marc Headley [03:27:49] But then that guaranteed that all of the voters on that property would be able to vote in that election. And the city council or whoever knows, oh, if I get these guys, I just locked up all those votes because it's on their property. They're going to make their people vote there. So.

Claire Headley [03:28:06] And, of course, if the voting booth is not on that property, there's no way those 400 staff who don't have cars or any other means of voting are going to be voting.

John Dehlin [03:28:16] So, yeah, two things. In 2025, I mean, all of that is the way Scientology got around the prior law that religions couldn't tell their members how to vote. In 2025, that's been lifted.

Marc Headley [03:28:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:28:32] And in 2025, it's now permissible for religions to tell their members how to vote.

Marc Headley [03:28:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:28:38] So they don't even have to.

Marc Headley [03:28:41] They don't have to play around. They just do whatever they want.

John Dehlin [03:28:44] Welcome to 2025.

Claire Headley [03:28:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:28:47] Okay. The other thing I was going to say is, again, parallel. Joseph Smith got into huge trouble in both Missouri and Illinois because he was using the large concentration of Mormons to negotiate with different political parties to try and extort them, basically, to give his people favors and benefits. And he crossed too many politicians and too many parties too many times. And they say that was part of what contributed to his ultimate death. Death was he just played that card once too often and pissed off. Ended up pissing off both sides.

Claire Headley [03:29:24] Makes sense. Scientology absolutely does the same thing. They were using David Miscavige, was using Tom Cruise to wield influence with the Department of Education to allow L. Ron Hubbard's study technology into multiple schools.

Marc Headley [03:29:39] The other thing I want to say is that When Scientology gained IRS tax exemption in 1993, Bill Clinton wrote a letter of support, and it was displayed on all of the screens at the event. It was at The Los Angeles Sports Arena. Rest in peace sports arena that played on all the screens. And it was like, well, thank. Thank you for all your contributions to helping society. We're so proud that you finally have your exemption. And da, da, da, da. Bill Clinton. And you're just like, wow. And they. They play. They play. It doesn't matter if you're blue or red. If you can help Scientology, we'll figure out how to. To put you to use.

Claire Headley [03:30:23] So I will say, I love you, David.

Marc Headley [03:30:25] Yeah, I love you, David, but I have to. Let me tell the other Bill Clinton story.

Claire Headley [03:30:29] Oh, okay. Then don't let me forget to.

John Dehlin [03:30:30] No, go ahead. We'll go back and forth.

Claire Headley [03:30:32] Yeah. So. So relevant though, because just because Bill Clinton gave that letter does not mean he knows of. Knows that it was in support of Scientology. For example, earlier this year, there was a situation where a. A city in Colorado had declared May 9 as Dianetics Day, which is a Scientology day. And we were alerted to this by some friends of ours. So we scheduled a meeting with the mayor of that city to educate him on this abusive organization known as Scientology. And he. And he was very willing to sit down with us and explain to us that the way the information was presented, he had no idea that this was in support of Scientology. And they. They immediately revoked it.

John Dehlin [03:31:18] So Clinton could have been fooled, you're saying?

Claire Headley [03:31:20] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:31:21] Or it could have been lower level staff that.

Marc Headley [03:31:23] Yeah. Or however that came about. The only reason I told that was so I could tell this other thing, which was Oprah had a birthday party. Oprah Winfrey had a birthday party. Well, everybody knows she is a. A big lover of a John Travolta and a Tom Cruise couch jump. And so.

John Dehlin [03:31:40] And Elvis Presley, you know.

Marc Headley [03:31:42] Yeah, yeah. But David Miscavige got to go to her birthday party because of the connection through Dave and through John Travolta and Tom Cruise, who. I don't know if Tom was there, but I do know that John Travolta was there, but Missy Elliott. There was a laundry list of celebrities that were at this thing, one of which was Bill Clinton. He went to this birthday party, and it was widely kind of going around the Sea Org whisper web that David Miscavige met Bill Clinton at this birthday party.

Claire Headley [03:32:13] And this was like 2004, right?

Marc Headley [03:32:15] 2003.

Claire Headley [03:32:16] 2004. Just for context.

Marc Headley [03:32:19] Anyway, a Sea Org member was in an elevator with David Miscavige, and he's. And this is David Miscavige telling this story. Story goes. Yeah. This guy asked me, is it True. You met Bill Clinton. And David Miscavige goes, no, that's not what happened. Bill Clinton met me. That's David Miscavige in a nutshell.

John Dehlin [03:32:42] Yeah. And another. And just because it's fun. Another reason why the Mormon Church is 100x, you know, Scientology is because we're not just dealing in county or city or state elections. Like, we own a state.

Marc Headley [03:32:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:33:00] We have a theocracy in Utah.

Marc Headley [03:33:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:33:03] And we also have heavy, heavy control and influence over Arizona and Idaho. And we have a pretty significant influence over California, believe it or not. A lot of wealthy donors and members, but also influential attorneys and judges, movers and shakers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And it's. It's a different thing. You know how, like, this is going to be a terrible analogy. People are going to get really mad at me. But you know how, like, Al Qaeda was able to do a lot more once they had Afghanistan kind of under their control.

John Dehlin [03:33:35] If you have an entire US State under your control, which means you have two senators completely under your thumb, four US Congressmen completely under your thumb. They even had the Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid, you know, from Nevada, was the Senate majority leader for what, a decade? I don't know. Like, that's one big difference between why the Mormon Church out in some ways out Colts Scientology. I mean, there's so many ways where y' all out cult us, and I'll admit that. But we out cool you because. Because we're a nicer organization.

John Dehlin [03:34:16] You said it, not me. Because we're a nicer cult. We can have Mitt Romney as the nominee for the Republican Party for president. We can have Harry Reid as a Senate Majority leader for the United States Senate. We can have entire senators and congressmen who, because we're a little bit nicer, we. They'll get voted into office.

Claire Headley [03:34:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:34:39] And we control the state. State. And have heavy influence in several other states.

Marc Headley [03:34:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:34:43] And that's something Miscavige hasn't figured out how to do. Well.

Claire Headley [03:34:47] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:34:47] I'm gonna. I'm gonna break your heart a little. Now, they have just recently, within the past decade that I told you about Bob Duggan, this billionaire guy. Well, he divorced his wife, and I suspect that he may be sort of straying from Scientology. That kind of is the impression that I get. But his wife is all in, and she's on the board of the new JFK Center. She is one of the biggest donors to.

John Dehlin [03:35:18] What's the JFK Center?

Marc Headley [03:35:19] It's the.

Claire Headley [03:35:20] The Place Center.

Marc Headley [03:35:22] No, no. And it's in Washington, D.C. yeah.

Claire Headley [03:35:25] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:35:26] The Kennedy Center.

John Dehlin [03:35:27] Oh, the entertainment.

Marc Headley [03:35:28] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:35:28] Okay.

Marc Headley [03:35:29] She's on the new board of the new Kennedy center that's been appointed by the new president.

John Dehlin [03:35:33] Okay.

Marc Headley [03:35:33] And she is also one. One of the largest donors to the current sitting president's campaign. So. And he's. And he acknowledged her on stage at. At major events, and maybe even when he won, he acknowledged her life.

John Dehlin [03:35:49] Yeah. And let's be clear. We're not saying, because we mentioned Bill Clinton, that Democrats and Scientology are in bed, and we're not saying, because we just kind of indirectly mentioned Trump, that Republicans in Scientology are bad.

Marc Headley [03:36:01] That's right.

John Dehlin [03:36:02] Right. What you learn. What I learned from Enron, is that wealthy corporations donate to both parties.

Marc Headley [03:36:08] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:36:09] And they gain influence and control over both. Both parties.

Claire Headley [03:36:12] And it's about influence and control, not about one party or the other.

John Dehlin [03:36:18] No.

Marc Headley [03:36:19] Yeah, exactly.

Claire Headley [03:36:19] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:36:20] The other thing is that Pam Bondi has done events at Scientology's facility in Clearwater.

John Dehlin [03:36:27] Wow.

Marc Headley [03:36:28] That's the current Attorney General.

Claire Headley [03:36:30] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:36:31] Okay.

Claire Headley [03:36:31] Attorney General.

Marc Headley [03:36:32] So she's done. She has done events with them when she was the. I think I want to say she was the AG for Florida, and she. She. They became very cozy with her over the past decade. And so they have people.

John Dehlin [03:36:47] Where.

Marc Headley [03:36:47] They have people. They're. They're working it. They. Like I said.

John Dehlin [03:36:50] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:36:51] David Miscavige is fascinated with how the Mormons are doing it. So everything they're doing, he's trying to do.

John Dehlin [03:36:57] He's just, like, a hundred years behind.

Marc Headley [03:36:59] Yeah, basically.

Claire Headley [03:37:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:37:01] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:37:01] Anyway, they. They're working it, and they. They are a bipartisan cult. They don't care who's doing what. They're gonna try to. And. And also, David Miscavige is also trying to play the long game more and more. So this Pam Bondi thing, it really worked out for them because they brought her in years and years ago, and it just so happened that everything lined up, and now she's basically the main cop that's gonna. If they're gonna get lit up, she's gonna have to sign off on it. And they got her where they might have helped her to get to where she's at along the way.

John Dehlin [03:37:37] And if there are FBI investigations or, you know, DOJ or IRS investigations, once you're in the Cabinet, you might have influence.

Marc Headley [03:37:47] Yeah. Which we should mention that for many years, from 2010, for a few years, we were both. Claire and I, we were confidential informants for the FBI, and we saw drone footage of Scientology properties. We had multiple. Multiple hours and hours and Hours of meeting with agents. And even those agents told us, do not call our office. Do not talk to anybody else. Do not speak to anyone in the FBI besides us.

John Dehlin [03:38:23] Meaning maybe they had been infiltrated.

Marc Headley [03:38:26] They knew they had people they told.

Claire Headley [03:38:29] They were absolutely worried that the word was going to get out on that investigation.

Marc Headley [03:38:35] And it did.

Claire Headley [03:38:35] It did.

John Dehlin [03:38:37] And can I blow your mind one more time?

Claire Headley [03:38:38] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:38:39] The Mormon Church doesn't have to infiltrate the CIA or the State Department or the FBI, because this is what Mormons tell each other. Because Mormon missionaries learn to obey, learn discipline, don't drink, don't smoke, don't sleep around. They're heavily recruited into the CIA, the FBI.

Claire Headley [03:39:01] Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [03:39:02] And the State Department. Mormon.

Claire Headley [03:39:03] Wow.

John Dehlin [03:39:03] So they don't have to, like, proactively plan to infiltrate.

Claire Headley [03:39:07] They just do.

John Dehlin [03:39:08] They are recruited because they're Mormon.

Claire Headley [03:39:11] That's mind boggling.

John Dehlin [03:39:12] Wild. That's true.

Claire Headley [03:39:13] Yeah. See, Scientology's missionaries are recruited into the SEA Organization, not into the FBI or the CIA, because. And again, goes back to L. Ron Hubbard's paranoia, actually. If you've worked for. If you've had high security clearance or worked for a government organization, it's a disqualification for the SEA Organization.

John Dehlin [03:39:34] Yeah, yeah. No.

Marc Headley [03:39:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's wild. I mean, we could. I don't even know how much we have left. But.

John Dehlin [03:39:42] No, I. I've got questions.

Marc Headley [03:39:43] Okay, good.

Claire Headley [03:39:44] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:39:44] Go for it. If y' all are all right.

Claire Headley [03:39:47] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:39:48] Okay. Okay.

Claire Headley [03:39:48] Of course.

John Dehlin [03:39:49] So y' all both leave. You both get out. Congratulations. It sounds like that wasn't the. Yeah. Fist bump. Sounds like that wasn't the end. Do you want to talk briefly about the extent to which they tracked. You mentioned this at dinner yesterday. Is that. I mean, we. Here are the things we can talk about. There's the lawsuit you guys sued them about. There's the. The one where you sued them. There's the. The abuser guy lawsuit that y' all were involved with as witnesses.

Claire Headley [03:40:19] Oh, Danny Masterson.

John Dehlin [03:40:21] That's something we could talk about.

Marc Headley [03:40:22] Yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [03:40:23] Also the harassment that you received, the surveillance and the harassment after you left. I. I totally want to talk about that.

Marc Headley [03:40:30] Okay.

John Dehlin [03:40:31] And then also there's the. The foundation.

Claire Headley [03:40:34] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:40:34] And the work you're doing to help other people. So we've got. I mean, you'll have to go to the airport. We've got about 45 minutes total.

Claire Headley [03:40:40] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:40:41] Help me manage the time so we cover at least all that and anything else y' all want to cover.

Claire Headley [03:40:45] Yes, absolutely. Well, I. So let's start on speaking out and the. The fair game and attacks.

Speaking Out and Facing Fair Game Harassment

John Dehlin [03:40:53] Fair gaming.

Claire Headley [03:40:53] Yeah, fair game.

John Dehlin [03:40:54] Okay.

Claire Headley [03:40:55] Mark started posting on the Internet within a year. Yeah, within a year of our escape. And. And factor in, you know, of course, yes, we made it out. That was the first day of the rest of our lives. The first day. Our first days of freedom and everything else. Our focus was on getting on our feet, getting a place to live, getting clothes, getting all those things, Getting a job. So, yeah, jobs.

John Dehlin [03:41:18] Eating a cheeseburger.

Marc Headley [03:41:21] Those cheeseburgers.

Claire Headley [03:41:23] In fact, the first job I got was three days after that escape. And we. We always tell this very quickly, but I went in for the job interview. Mark was waiting outside. It was as a waitress at a pizza restaurant. Like, whatever. I'll do anything. And so I go in, they interview me. They say, great, you can start on Monday. I go back out to the car. I'm like, I got the job. And Mark says, amazing. That's great. How much are they going to pay you? And I'm like, I forgot to ask.

John Dehlin [03:41:53] It didn't matter.

Claire Headley [03:41:54] It did not matter at all. It did not matter. Anyhow, so Mark starts posting on the Internet. I was trepidatious. I didn't even know in the beginning. But I quickly, you know, we. He was like. And I said, well, you know, we each have to do our. Have our path to recovery in this, so if you feel you need to do that, it's okay. I was terrified, having grown up in

Marc Headley [03:42:18] it, posting on the Internet Internet under a pseudonym. So I wasn't using my real name. I was going to try to kind of keep. Keep it going as long as I could before they knew who it was. And so I posted under the name Blown for good.

John Dehlin [03:42:33] Okay.

Marc Headley [03:42:34] And that is where that came from. That was just my handle on the ex. Scientology forum.

John Dehlin [03:42:39] Nice.

Claire Headley [03:42:40] Blown for good. AKA bfg.

John Dehlin [03:42:42] Yes.

Claire Headley [03:42:42] Not to be confused with Big Friendly Giant.

John Dehlin [03:42:45] Yeah, freaking giant. That's a rolled doll book, right?

Claire Headley [03:42:48] Yes.

Marc Headley [03:42:49] It's also a gun in the game Doom. And it is a big effing gun.

Claire Headley [03:42:55] Yes. So. So originally, we were in Kansas City, and. But very quickly, within. Within four or five months. You should tell this part.

Marc Headley [03:43:08] Yeah. Within a few months of leaving, I started to look up other members that I knew on the Internet who had left. And I reached out to one or two different people, and I didn't hear anything. And then after maybe a month or so, I got an email from somebody, and they basically said, hey, you're out. And I was like, yeah. And they had told me that this individual had Left and he went to visit his family in Las Vegas and He gained like 400 pounds and he was doing drugs and hiring hookers and all these things.

Claire Headley [03:43:47] So just like they would tell us of any members who got out and were able to escape.

John Dehlin [03:43:53] It's the abuse. It's the abuser's technique of saying, you're nothing without me. You won't survive without me.

Claire Headley [03:43:58] Yes.

Marc Headley [03:43:59] So the only stories we would hear of people that did escape is how they basically failed in a miserable and they're degenerate criminal.

John Dehlin [03:44:05] Because there's no way to leave a cult with your dignity intact.

Claire Headley [03:44:08] Yep, exactly. And nothing good happens from abandoning your belief and your loyalty to the cult.

John Dehlin [03:44:15] Mormon's called the Covenant Path. You made a covenant. So you've abandoned your free agency at that point.

Claire Headley [03:44:21] Yeah, yeah.

Marc Headley [03:44:22] So anyway, he tells me, we get to speaking and he says he's out, he works in Los Angeles now and he could get me a job at a company that he's basically consulting for and that I could make like 2,500 bucks a week. And I'm like, wow, I'm doing pretty good on the computer repair. But that is a considerable bump, monthly bump to be making. You know, this is six months after I've. I escaped. Maybe April. No, even. Yeah, Aprilish. We left in January. This is about April because you were

Claire Headley [03:44:56] there for your birthday. So yeah, April. So not even four months. Like I'd been out just three months by then. We hadn't even. We had just managed to get our belongings back from Scientology by this point.

John Dehlin [03:45:09] Point.

Claire Headley [03:45:09] Like just which. Anyway, they gave us a 60 page inventory of all of our belongings. Like no joke, half a bottle of shampoo. Anyway, so he gets. Yeah, Mark gets.

Marc Headley [03:45:22] I get this job, I moved a lot, move back to la and I'm go. We're going to basically see if this works out and if it does, then we're going to set up in la. Like if it pans out and it's a real thing, I'm going to go for a few months.

John Dehlin [03:45:36] Months.

Marc Headley [03:45:36] See if I can do the job, see how it works. And so it does end up working out. I do end up doing this job, getting paid very, very well. And so we decide we're going to move back to Los Angeles to the belly of the beast, because the money is too. It's sort of like, I don't know that we can pass this up even though we're doing good. It's just we know la, we know know we have some connections. We have. That's where her family lives.

Claire Headley [03:46:06] Yeah. And we're. We're still in the process of building our life from absolutely nothing. Like, we didn't have a car. We didn't have. We'd never. You know, we. Mark's dad had to co. Sign with us to even be able to rent an apartment because we had no credit. Which we thought, well, what's wrong with that? At least we don't have bad credit. No, no, no. No credit is worse than bad credit.

Marc Headley [03:46:30] Basically, every time we tried to buy a car or we tried to get an apart, give them our info, and they would be like, that's weird. You don't have any credit. You're. There's no record of you as a person existing in the credit system because we'd never had credit cards. We'd never had. We never bought anything on credit, so.

Claire Headley [03:46:51] And we even asked a. A. A car salesman at one point. We're like, so, no credit, that's not a problem, right? He's like, no, that sense makes. Makes it look like you are drug dealers. And we were like, oh, didn't know that.

Marc Headley [03:47:06] Yeah. And we told them, yeah, Our parents always encourage us to use cash for everything. And they're like, yeah, that was bad advice.

John Dehlin [03:47:16] I just have to say, you've got to be incredibly grateful to your dad.

Marc Headley [03:47:19] Oh, yeah. My. My dad is literally the only reason that if we didn't have him, this whole thing would not have worked at all. And he. He actually ended up moving in with us, and we supported him and took care of him when he. He ended up getting lung cancer and then brain cancer, and he actually passed away at the end. The end of 2019. But he basically, from 2011 through 2019, he spent tons and tons of time with us. He got to meet all three of his grandchildren, which were his only grandchildren that he was able to have contact with. My sister and my mother have both since been kicked out of the SEA Organization, but they are still Scientologists, So he hasn't met my sister's children, and my mom was not allowed to talk with him.

Marc Headley [03:48:17] She actually told her family that if she spoke with my dad, Claire, or myself, that she would be risking the future eternity of all mankind by speaking with us. And so even now, her family are like, she is batshit crazy that she thinks talking to Bernie is gonna wreck the year.

Claire Headley [03:48:40] Who was never in Scientology. The only thing he ever did was be there for us when we escape raped.

Marc Headley [03:48:46] So. But yeah, we are very grateful to my father.

John Dehlin [03:48:51] And just the. The lesson for those of you who are in other high demand religions or cults that I take away is that 1-800-line. You don't never give up, never give up on someone completely. But also don't, you know, there's some out there that want to do interventions where they're like, you know, like okay, let's, let's basically kidnap the person and try and shake them into getting them out.

Claire Headley [03:49:21] Right.

John Dehlin [03:49:23] Go ahead, you're shaking.

Claire Headley [03:49:25] And on the contrary, very often those types of measures and approaches backfire and actually end up driving the person further in. We've seen it many times through the work we do with the foundation and, and when we were still in where we hurt would hear of a, a Sea Org member whose family tried to do an intervention and not only did it fail, but it ended up driving the person in for longer than they would have otherwise.

Marc Headley [03:49:53] And then they weren't even allowed to contact that person at all. So maybe they had, they could write letters back and forth or maybe they could talk on the phone every few months. Now they have no contact with that person and they are no longer, longer a resource for them.

Claire Headley [03:50:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:50:07] And I don't, I guess if somebody goes to that measure, if they're worrying that they're going to become Shelly Miscavige and in, in the hole for the rest of their life, I can see why they would think a dramatic intervention could work or might work or might be the only chance.

John Dehlin [03:50:24] And maybe occasionally that's actually worked. But also, as you're kind of doing your calculus, what I think your dad did that was amazing is he. He maintained some sort of a relationship with you, made made himself feel safe to you so that when you could arrive at your own time in your own way, you knew he would be there for you. Yeah, that seems like not necessarily the right answer in all situations, but a really sound strategy for many which is make them feel like you're safe. Safe. Don't create the backfire effect. Make them feel like you love them and are just there to support them when they're ready.

Marc Headley [03:51:07] That's right. Just be there have be a safe space that they can go to.

John Dehlin [03:51:10] Is that right?

Claire Headley [03:51:10] That's exactly, absolutely right. Yeah, for sure. And, and you know, we work with law enforcement agencies to educate them so that in the event or a situation where somebody is concerned that their loved one is going to become a Shelly Miscavige, then let that then great. Get, let's get a welfare check done and make sure that the responding law enforcement understand that they need to have a one on one conversation, no handlers present. They need to look and see. Is the person nourished? Are they sleeping? Like, you know, ask educated questions if there is a sincere concern that the person is being held against their will.

John Dehlin [03:51:48] Yeah, yeah. And just to be ham fisted about it, Mormons, I'm talking to. You do. I'm talking about your believing spouse. You're believing parents, you're believing kids, believing friends. Don't be so obnoxious in your zeal to, you know, take people out that you, number one, push them farther in and. Or make them feel unsafe with you so that you eliminate any chance you have at influencing them once they come around.

Marc Headley [03:52:22] Yeah. The other thing that we try to do is we try not to focus on the beliefs of Scientology, but the actions of Scientology. So it's okay with me if you believe that you're infested with space cooties. It's okay with me if you believe L. Ron Hubbard is the Messiah or he's created all this wonderful technology. I don't care about that. If you feel like you're being held prisoner and you feel that you're not in a safe space and you're being cut off from family or deprived of sleep or food or. Or, you know, personal rights that you are entitled to, then. Then you should get out of that situation.

Marc Headley [03:53:06] And then if you decide, once you get into the real world, if you don't want to continue to. To be a Scientologist, that's. That's your own thing. That, that. That's a totally separate matter. Then it's not a matter of believing. It's a matter of are you a prisoner? Are you free to be a human? Yeah, well, let's fix that first and then we can sort out the what. What you believe in.

John Dehlin [03:53:30] Nice.

Marc Headley [03:53:31] After you get to a good place.

John Dehlin [03:53:32] Nice.

Claire Headley [03:53:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:53:33] Okay. Sorry. Didn't mean to Rabbit hole.

Marc Headley [03:53:35] It's all good.

Claire Headley [03:53:36] No, it's relevant.

John Dehlin [03:53:38] Yeah. Okay. So you're grateful for your dad. Dad, both of you. That's cool you were able to have a happy ending. That, that, that's going to work well in the screenplay for your movie.

Claire Headley [03:53:51] Would have been better than me getting caught and never seen or heard from again. Right.

John Dehlin [03:53:54] And him never reconnecting with his dad or.

Claire Headley [03:53:56] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:53:57] Okay. So the move to la, you know,

Marc Headley [03:54:00] so I start posting stuff on the Internet as blown for good. And now I know I'm. And I'm posting the stories that we've told today, a lot of the things that happen at the base, pretty much everything that's in my book. Book, I did post some version or a snippet of that on the Internet where it was on a forum called Operation Clam Bake, which was a very, very popular site for ex Scientologists and Scientologists under the radar. And it comes from some L. Ron Hubbard.

Claire Headley [03:54:32] It's from like one of L. Ron Hubbard's books where he talks about clams

Marc Headley [03:54:37] on the whole, like humans are descendants of clam.

John Dehlin [03:54:39] So this is totally wild because now I'm paralleling because I lose my faith in 2001, but I'm still in the church and I'm working at Microsoft. Facebook hasn't been invented yet. Instagram doesn't exist. YouTube doesn't exist. Podcasts don't exist. But it's past the AOL, you know, bulletin board chat groups.

Marc Headley [03:54:57] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:54:57] So forums, these Internet forums that really no longer exist. Yeah, between 2000 and 2005 were like the main way I communicated with people. So I'm going through my process now at the exact same time.

Marc Headley [03:55:11] Totally.

John Dehlin [03:55:11] You're going through yours.

Marc Headley [03:55:13] So 2005 into 2006, I'm posting. And during that time there's all kinds of coincidences and things happening where we, we basically suspect very strongly started to

Claire Headley [03:55:29] clue in that they were not going to leave us alone and that we were being watched. And because I remember our first son was born in February 2006. So leading up to his birth I was spending more time at home and I would remember, remember mentioning to Mark, I was like, man, there's this creepy old man who walks by our house at the same time every day with this big old clunking like old style radio. I'm like, I don't know. I think they're watching us. And Mark's like, no, no, it's, it's okay, they're not. But then, yeah, things started to add up that we were like, no, there's, there's definitely there, there.

Marc Headley [03:56:08] And she was pregnant. So I was basically trying to be like, like, don't worry, don't sweat it.

John Dehlin [03:56:15] You're being emotional.

Claire Headley [03:56:18] No, I'm like, no, I'm actually not being emotional. I think I'm being very logical.

John Dehlin [03:56:23] Yeah.

Marc Headley [03:56:24] Anyway, so basically over the course of a few years we start getting connected up with other people that worked at the property with us that have now it. And it actually turned out in 2005 there was sort of a major exodus of people that escaped or they did something and they got kicked out. And they were all from this property, Jeff Hawkins and.

Claire Headley [03:56:50] And this included Shelly Miscavige's half sister.

Marc Headley [03:56:53] Yep. Oh, that's the other thing. So when we got a house, we got a house in Burbank, California, and we had a. We were renting a house from a guy who actually was a vendor that used to sell software to Scientologists. And he was a great ally of ours, and he was an amazing guy. Shout out to Sean and.

Claire Headley [03:57:12] Never in Scientology.

Marc Headley [03:57:13] Never in Scientology. But he. He had a guest house, like a. It was basically like a converted garage that was made into a little apartment. And Shelly Miscavige's sister had gotten kicked out in 2005, and we ended up reconnecting with her, and she lived in our guest house. So we got to hear all kinds of Shelley information that we.

Marc Headley [03:57:38] We never had access to because we never really would find out the personal things about Shelley, just the business or the Sea Org side of things. And her father, Shelly Miscavige's father, would come and visit her sister at our house. And I became very, very good friends with him, and I eventually hired him as my handyman because I saw that he was basically broke and he. He. He had cancer, and he was a roofing guy, and he was a very old guy, and he was working like a 60 hour week and trying to support a bunch of people that weren't related to. It was a horrible scene.

Marc Headley [03:58:17] And he wasn't being supported at all from Dave and Shelley, not a penny. They would send him L. Ron Hubbard lectures for his birthday instead of just giving him a bundle of cash that he needed. And so I started hiring him to do things at my. My business. And basically, here we are. We've got Shelley's sister and her father coming and going from our house. We don't know this at the time, but there's private investigators watching Our House 24 7. But they don't know who this old guy is. Nobody knows. Well, at some point, somebody from the Office of Special affairs, which is the. Which is the successor to the Guardian's office that does all the Scientology's dirty tricks.

Claire Headley [03:59:00] Yes, exactly.

Marc Headley [03:59:02] Somehow, one of their top people ends up coming to our house to watch the house, to see for herself who's coming and going. And she knows who Shelley's Miscavige's father is. And as soon as he starts showing up, things get very exciting, very quick.

Claire Headley [03:59:19] And. And to be fair, the reason she showed up is because we helped break out somebody who worked very, very closely with David Miscavige for years. From the outside. We broke. We got in, got a line in and broke them out. So we were, from the get go, not, you know, we were doing everything we could to help people get out.

Marc Headley [03:59:39] It's the first time that we know of, besides a couple, that somebody was able to activate a spy, get us, not a Scientologist, onto their property to deliver a phone in a box of gloves to the exact person that we needed the phone to go to. And we basically got that person out of the headquarters. We broke her out in a. In a tactical planned operation that involved multiple vehicles and decoys and everything. And when we did that, and it was. It was somebody that was very, very closely connected to David Miscavig.

Claire Headley [04:00:21] Yeah. And. And to your point, by the way, the reason the phone was critical was so that there would be an open communication line by which she could say, yes, I'm happy here, or, no, I want to get out. And the latter is what she said, which is where we helped her get out. There was no convincing. It was like, no, I'm ready. I. I'm. I'm being held. I want to escape. And she did.

John Dehlin [04:00:43] I just want to say that, you know, in Mormonism, the absolute worst state of a soul is someone who believed. I think we mentioned this yesterday. Someone who believed and then forsake their beliefs. They're called sons of perdition in Mormonism. And they don't go to the lowest degree of heaven. They go to a place called outer darkness, where eternity. They're weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth. It's the Mormon equivalent of hell. Yep. Hitler doesn't go there. Rapists and pedophiles don't go there. The only people that go there are people that once believed and then, you know, apostatized. And the only reason I make that point, that the enemy from within the walls is always more dangerous than the enemy without.

Marc Headley [04:01:33] And it's so wild that you're saying that, because. What did they call it? Eternal darkness.

John Dehlin [04:01:39] Yeah, outer darkness.

Marc Headley [04:01:41] In Scientology, it's called you go. You went to the darkness, dark side. They use the Star wars analogy, and they say, oh, no, he went to the dark side. And that is how they say. They say if somebody left and they're. They've turned enemy or they've turned suppressive, they say they're either an SP or they turn to the dark side.

John Dehlin [04:01:58] But it's. It's. It makes sense why I'm excommunicated, why so many of my public spokespeople, you know, podcasters, YouTubers, are excommunicated, why we're so dangerous. Because we have insider information, we can explain this to the public. We gather other people together. We help form communities and networks that we are super dangerous.

Claire Headley [04:02:22] Yes, completely. And that has always been Scientology's objection with Mark especially and me as a. By. By association. Yeah. Because we've always brought people together. They don't want former Scientologists talking to each other, comparing notes or like, hey, do you have nightmares? Yes to a one. Every person we've ever asked that question, they say, yes, they have had nightmares. But you reminded me too, that Hubbard has a policy where he says, if someone's a suppressive person or, you know, you expel them, you always leave the door open just a crack to give them one last chance. Except if they escape from the headquarters where we worked, then hub cupboards dictate was you bolt it shut and do not ever open it, not even a crack.

Marc Headley [04:03:09] And you weld it with an atomic branding iron. That's what he said. That's how shut door gets shut. When you turn to the dark side, it's done.

John Dehlin [04:03:20] But also there's the fair game. It's not like it's done.

Claire Headley [04:03:22] No.

Marc Headley [04:03:22] Yeah, well, okay.

Claire Headley [04:03:24] Yeah, exactly.

Marc Headley [04:03:25] So what ended up happening was we started helping people. We did help people escape, but we also helped former members that they had either thrown out or who had escaped. We started to create a loose knit group of individuals that we would figure out how to help that person get a job. We would get them a car, we would help them how to get a bank account, we'd show them how to get a good credit score, like get a Macy's card and put $200 on it and just pay off the. The bill or get a debit card that's a pay as you go car, all these different things to basically help them survive and be.

Marc Headley [04:04:08] Be a support group for them. Because in a lot of cases, they still. Their family was still in Scientology, or they didn't have the knowledge or the resources to be able to kind of get their life going again. So for many, many years, we didn't have a foundation or we didn't have donors. We just had had Headley Savings and Loan that would basically finance helping people that had escaped that really just needed some direction and a champion to make it so that they could then succeed and make some money and be able to pay their bills and be able to get an apartment or whatever it was that they needed help with.

Marc Headley [04:04:49] We were there for them. And that is when we started, started gathering. We used to have these things, we would call them sp Parties, and we'd invite everybody to a restaurant or our house or Thanksgiving or Christmas. And for many years, that was sort of our new family was all of the other people that had escaped or had been kicked out or however they ended up getting to the outside world, if we knew them at the. At the international headquarters, we considered them part of the family.

Claire Headley [04:05:21] Yeah. The only issue there was that some of those people were spies and were reporting back to Office of Special affairs as to who was there, who we were meeting up with and what we were doing.

Marc Headley [04:05:32] Yeah. We even got. When. When Mike rinder escaped in 2007, he left with a thumb drive. And he, at the time, was doing operations for David Miscavige and relaying and communicating back from the Office of Special affairs people that were being investigated or people that private investigators were following, following. And there would be, like, daily reports and summary reports that would come from Los Angeles. They would go through Mike Rinder, and then he would forward them to David Miscavige. And when he left and we got those files, we basically got an entire year's worth of documents, because it was basically up until Mike left in 2007.

Marc Headley [04:06:16] So from basically 2006 to when Mike left, left, we got to see every person who was spying. Their reports, Their reports. Their reports that they gave to the. Their handlers at the Office of Special Affairs. And then what Office of Special Repairs was reporting up to David Miscavige.

Claire Headley [04:06:36] And. And that's where we learned that they had our phone lines tapped. They were doing special trash collections.

Marc Headley [04:06:43] They would get our guns monitoring who

Claire Headley [04:06:45] we were talking to. They even were getting caught. They had. They had a way to find copy, get copies of every fax we sent.

Marc Headley [04:06:54] Well, they were digging them out of the garbage.

Claire Headley [04:06:56] Yeah. Well, but they also. But they also had phone records, not just, like, who we called, but summaries of the conversations.

Marc Headley [04:07:03] Yeah, it was wild.

Claire Headley [04:07:04] Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:07:05] And then that's when we found out that a bunch of people within our friend circle. At one point, I think I had a birthday party in 2006, and I think we counted up that there was maybe, you know, 25, 30 people there. Maybe 25. There was seven people that were there. And they knew that they were there to kind of watch and see what was going on, and that they would report back to the Office of Special Affairs. And one of the individuals had even volunteered that if I was out in the back running the barbecue, that while I was doing that and cooking all the burgers and dogs and wings and all that, that he would go through my office and see as much stuff as he could get through while I was outside, basically entertaining all the people that were at the party.

Claire Headley [04:07:55] And, and what's laughable is let's not forget we're talking about a billion dollar cult and we're just two people that have left and just trying to start our lives over with a, a newborn baby and everything else. And they are. Have seven people spying on us.

Marc Headley [04:08:13] That's the other reason when people say, well, doesn't Scientology have millions of members? And this. And they've got all these billions of dollars. Okay, maybe they do have the billions. Now they do not have the membership. If you had a million people in Scientology, why would you be worried about 2x members? If you have 20,000 members and you've got two people that are poisoning all of these people into.

Claire Headley [04:08:42] Poisoning. Well, sharing the truth. Yeah. And educating. Exactly.

Marc Headley [04:08:47] Yeah, but from Scientology's view.

Claire Headley [04:08:49] Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:08:49] You're. You've got a few group, a loose group of people that are maybe influencing hundreds of people. That's a huge deal when you've got 20.

John Dehlin [04:09:00] Well, let me just be clear. The Mormon Church has 4 or 5 million active members. Members, but they have, they hire staff. They. They have what's called the Strengthening the Members Committee, which is an organization that keeps files on all people that speak openly on the Internet or newspapers. They save clippings, they save blog posts, they say podcast episodes, all in a big file. You guys are.

Marc Headley [04:09:25] We have, in our law. In our legal case.

John Dehlin [04:09:27] Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:09:28] In, in our depositions, they had banker's boxes and bank, I want to say 10 banker's boxes.

Claire Headley [04:09:34] They had printed out copies of anything Mark had ever posted on the Internet.

John Dehlin [04:09:39] No, they have that. They had a file on me. It's called the Strengthening Members Committee. And they have volunteers that help collect all that information and submit it to church headquarters. But they also have employees. We've met employees that have left the church's employee who their full time job was to track people like me every single day. What did he post on Facebook? Screenshot. What did he post on Instagram? What did he post on? So the Mormon Church is doing this too. Even, you know, with 4 million in,

Marc Headley [04:10:08] in science, in the Scientology community, we call it Facebook police. They have people on Facebook volunteers. And like you said, this, the Sea Org members.

John Dehlin [04:10:15] Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:10:16] They go to your Facebook profile and they look at every single profile of every friend that you have.

John Dehlin [04:10:23] Have. Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:10:24] And every friend that they have and they triangulate everything.

Claire Headley [04:10:29] I would say maybe it's even because of Scientology. That Facebook made it so you could hide the friendless. I'm. I'm half joking, but. But, you know, in the early days, you couldn't hide who was on your friend list. Now anyone who's on under the radar, that's the first thing they do is hide who they're friends with.

John Dehlin [04:10:47] And also Mormon church employees and apologists, infiltration trait groups, private groups that you're a member of.

Marc Headley [04:10:55] Same exact thing.

Claire Headley [04:10:56] Yeah, yeah, completely.

John Dehlin [04:10:57] To monitor what's being said and to turn people in.

Claire Headley [04:11:00] Yes, yeah, exactly. And. And cause, at least in Scientology, in the former Scientology community, there's efforts to cause dissension amongst the former Scientology community to cause division.

John Dehlin [04:11:14] Oh, we have that big time.

Marc Headley [04:11:15] So like what you mentioned, in other

John Dehlin [04:11:16] words, my book biggest enemies are ex Mormons, oftentimes not believing or active Mormons.

Claire Headley [04:11:23] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:11:24] And I believe I. I have to wonder if some of that dissent in animosity is stoked.

Marc Headley [04:11:31] Yeah, they do.

Claire Headley [04:11:32] Yeah, it definitely is. And I mean, we've seen it many times. O. The office of Special affairs creates dead agent packs. That's what it's called, where they'll put together all the documents about Mark or about me. Me to show it to any. Show it to my mother or other members who. Who were. I was friends with. To show them, oh, look, see this. This is. This is all the bad things that we've collected. And therefore I'm dead to them to minimize any power or influence I might have. But when you see statements and lines from those dead agent packs being spread in the former Scientology community, you have to wonder and go, well, if they're saying the same things, then that's not a coincidence.

Marc Headley [04:12:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:12:17] And you were mentioning Mark just because. For the sake of time, I want to make sure we get this in. They've. As far as, you know, they've contacted clients of yours.

Marc Headley [04:12:26] Oh, 100.

John Dehlin [04:12:26] To try and get clients to buy you as you know. Right.

Marc Headley [04:12:31] Yeah. Both Claire and I operate our own companies that are. We're moderately successful. We. We support our families easily with it.

John Dehlin [04:12:40] You bought Generalized night.

Marc Headley [04:12:42] Yeah, I did. I did buy dinner.

Claire Headley [04:12:44] We've worked really, really hard to build up our, you know, a successful.

John Dehlin [04:12:49] Much to my chagrin, you.

Claire Headley [04:12:50] But Mark sneaky that way.

Marc Headley [04:12:55] We. This is. Within the last few years, this has become. They. We've had instances where we've got. We've almost gotten projects or we've been invited to participate in projects that were setups that if we had gone through and done the project project, they'd figure out a way to basically Throw us under the bus and it would cost us or we'd have to sue or we wouldn't get paid or whatever it is. But more recently, within the past few years, they have been directly contacting my clients and former clients and sending them these dead agent information, either pictures or factoids or PDFs or whatever, basically saying, I'm horrible person. I'm.

John Dehlin [04:13:38] You got drunk ones.

Marc Headley [04:13:39] I got drunk in 2005 and passed out on Hollywood Boulevard on my birthday. And so he's a drunkard. He's a horrible person. And so it's. A lot of people ask me, well then why don't you sue them for defamation? And this goes. It circles all the way back to they are very proficient and have the resources and wealth to participate in lawfare to the end of time. I can't do that. I don't have millions and millions of dollars to spend on attorneys to then only it just dead end somewhere because unfortunately for me, and I don't. I don't think I've ever shared this publicly, but in a lot of instances where they have sent an email to my clients, I end up getting more work work from that client because now they know the other side of my life.

Marc Headley [04:14:34] And in a lot of instances, my clients, the clients that I work with, they know me. When we do a project, we are sometimes working with that client for maybe a year or two. A year or two before we do the job, and then many months and months after we do the project and we're there on site for many weeks or months. So they get to know me as. As a working person, a professional relationship. But then they find out about all this, and then they read my book or they watch our videos or whatever, whatever. And now they're like, dude, we want to get you back there just so we can ask you all kinds of crazy stuff about Scientology.

Marc Headley [04:15:06] And we do end up getting. Sometimes get more work. So it's a horrible thing to have your business world being contacted by this cult and talking smack about you. Unfortunately for Scientology, and, and to be fair, I don't know of all of the people they've contacted connected. So I don't know if it's gone sideways for some people just because I don't. I don't usually. We do a job and then we usually don't hear from those people again. It just so happens that the people that they have contacted that we know, they've contacted, in a lot of instances, we've done additional work or future work with those people.

Claire Headley [04:15:44] And those, Those Are the people that have told us.

John Dehlin [04:15:46] Yeah.

Claire Headley [04:15:47] That they were contacted and they're. They're always shocked and surprised, like, what the hell is wrong with these people?

Marc Headley [04:15:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:15:54] But it takes mental resilience to know that there's always people trying to take you down, always trying to smear your name. And anytime, you know, someone declines an offer or something doesn't work out that you think should, is it because they've been told something? What do they know? What have they been told? Who's working? And then to not just give up and say, I. I'm defeated, but to keep moving forward.

Marc Headley [04:16:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:16:27] Takes a particular level of resilience and consternation or grit or, you know.

Claire Headley [04:16:35] Yeah. In our case, every time these things happen, we take it as a sign that our work to help people get out is important and meaningful and needs to continue. That's just how. How we always approach it of, you know, ob. Obviously, they don't like what we're doing, so let's keep getting people out and helping people start over.

Marc Headley [04:16:55] Yeah. And. And in regards to the hate sites and the. The tweets and all the nonsense they put out about us, I don't remember where I heard it, but I remember somebody talking. It was a very similar situation, like, I think, in regards to the Internet and social media. Why should you care about somebody who talks about. About you, that doesn't care about you? They don't have your best interests in. In mind or in heart, so why should you care that they're saying bad things about you? It's. It's basically irrelevant. It's horrible, and it sucks, but it's sort of like they're not my. They're not my people, and I don't care what they say. They're gonna say bad things. I know that. So it's. It's. I can't control it, so there's no. It's not productive for me to worry about it, because I can't. I don't. I have no way of changing it.

John Dehlin [04:17:54] So it's acceptance.

Marc Headley [04:17:55] It is what it is.

John Dehlin [04:17:56] But also, it's one thing if it's just their opinions about you.

Marc Headley [04:18:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:18:00] It's another thing if they're tampering with your livelihood.

Marc Headley [04:18:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:18:04] But still, either way, you. You got to just keep moving forward.

Marc Headley [04:18:07] Exactly.

John Dehlin [04:18:08] And I'm. I'm happy to know y' all are doing okay.

Marc Headley [04:18:10] Yeah, we.

Claire Headley [04:18:11] We.

Marc Headley [04:18:11] We basically, for. For many years, it was sort of hit or miss on if we were going to be able to come out of the other side of this. Okay. And I would say within the past five or six years, we have just. We just, you know, soldiered on and soldiered on and. And now we are at a place where we are confident that there's not a lot that they can do that we can. Can't weather, and we can't make it through.

Rebuilding Life After Scientology

John Dehlin [04:18:40] Let's take a minute just to talk about your. The. The kind of, like, rebuilding and that there's hope and joy afterwards. Do y' all just want to paint a picture of how you know your family and. And how you've done work to. To heal and grow, that kind of thing?

Marc Headley [04:19:00] Sure.

Claire Headley [04:19:00] Yep. Absolutely. So, yes, it's been. And it's. It's been years of hard work, but every day, absolutely is a joy that I'm personally grateful for. And just having the freedom to set our own course and set our own goals and set on. What do we want to do? What are we passionate about? What are we good at? You know, both of both Mark and I have built successful companies, and in addition to being out, having the opportunity to have three boards voice, it's been an amazing journey. We've. I've personally. My road to recovery has included therapy, reading books, learning about other people's experiences and parallels.

Claire Headley [04:19:46] Two weeks before my oldest son graduated high school, I got my ged, mainly on the principle that I wanted him to know. We do consider schooling very important, you know, but. And of course, not that I haven't done other studies too, but, you know, you know, I. I'm always very passionate to let people know that it is never too late to change the course of your life. It's just a matter of your perspective and your drive to do it.

Marc Headley [04:20:15] Yeah. One of the other things I think helped me a lot is when we do help other people and we. We find somebody that contacts us, or even before we had the Michael J. Render Aftermath Festival Foundation, I sort of talked about how we had this loose group of people and we'd help people get cars. And so we have been doing this since 2006 on our own. So the fact that when the Leah Remini Scientology and the Aftermath TV show came out, that really sort of started telling the stories of a lot of these people that were at those early SP parties. Amy Scobie, Matt Peck, Jeff Hawkins, all these ex Sea Org members, Mike Rinder, they then started telling their stories, and then they were given a voice and so that we could help more and more people like that, that sort of makes it worthwhile to us that we're doing the right Thing because now these people have got their families and their.

Marc Headley [04:21:17] They have grandchildren they've now met. And it's sort of not only were we able to achieve that for ourselves, but we're trying to, as much as we can, help other people that escape or leave or are wayward people that don't know what to do in life if we can help them. And we also have a store that's called the SP Shop, the Suppressive Person.

John Dehlin [04:21:41] You're embracing sp.

Marc Headley [04:21:42] We love sps, and we also. I am also a huge Lord Zen Zenu fan. He's one of my favorite guys. I hang out with him. I have T shirts that say xenu is my homeboy. I've got all kinds of merch at the Blown for Good website. But one of the things that we do is we sell these things. When you're in. In Scientology and you achieve the state of clear, you get given a bracelet, and it's called a clear bracelet. And it has. It says clear, and it has a number, and you're assigned the number of clear Clear. I don't know what number they're up to. I think they're in the tens of thousands or hundred thousand or something in the 50 year or the 70 years that they've been giving these things out. Well, we sell in the SP shop. We sell SP bracelets. And just.

Claire Headley [04:22:27] Because. Because we always say the only power in their labels that they have over you is the power you give them.

Marc Headley [04:22:33] Yeah, yeah. So if you're an SP and you've been declared a suppressive, hey, show your colors.

Claire Headley [04:22:39] Let's embrace. Let's. Let's do this.

Marc Headley [04:22:42] Another thing that we did just this last Christmas, I think, is when we started doing them. Was it this Christmas or the Christmas before? Sometime before Christmas. The Sea Org is like a Navy. It's David Miscavige's Fake Navy. So one of the things that we also sell in the SP shop is we have the Captain Davey dolls or the Fake Navy doll and these little. This is a life size David Miscavige Digital. But we sell these. I think they're like $20, and they're a good. Good cat toy, dog toy. They. They have a little Velcro.

Claire Headley [04:23:19] And all of the proceeds from the SP shop benefit the work of the af, the Michael J. Render Aftermath Foundation.

Marc Headley [04:23:26] Yeah. So we brought you a couple of those for you. So you have your own little fake Navy Davey doll now.

Claire Headley [04:23:33] There you go.

John Dehlin [04:23:34] I love it.

Marc Headley [04:23:35] We also call them Capital Chuckles Worth and all kinds of other fun names. There's about eight. Eight different listings for the same doll on this.

John Dehlin [04:23:41] Some Santa Christmas tradition.

Claire Headley [04:23:44] Elf on the Shelf.

Marc Headley [04:23:45] Elf on the shelf. He is the exact same. His life size, David Miscavige. But he is the same size as an Elf on the Shelf doll.

Claire Headley [04:23:51] Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:23:51] And. And that is actually a. A pretty accurate Sea Org captain uniform that he's wearing.

Claire Headley [04:23:58] And we're very dedicated to bringing humor to the world. Dangerous, abusive cult of Scientology. What's that?

John Dehlin [04:24:05] Is he blonde?

Claire Headley [04:24:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:24:07] Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:24:07] I mean like, it's not really David Miscavige. It's. It's a guy named Fake Navy Davey or Captain Chucklesworth.

Claire Headley [04:24:15] But.

Marc Headley [04:24:16] But. But the other thing. And also in the Sea Org, I should say for accuracy, they don't have the. The. The star collar or the little elf hat. That is not an actual official Sea Org uniform style. But.

Claire Headley [04:24:28] But the captain bars and the insignia, the Appalachian. That is all true. True.

Marc Headley [04:24:33] That's.

Claire Headley [04:24:33] That's legit good look there.

Marc Headley [04:24:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:24:35] What are you talking about? I don't.

Marc Headley [04:24:37] Anyway, so. But all of the proceeds from the FSP shop, they all go to the Aftermath foundation to help people that are either trying to rebuild their lives or we have helped a number of people get out of the sea organization.

Claire Headley [04:24:50] And I would like to say too. So since that's a really good look, I'm gonna have trouble keeping a straight face.

Marc Headley [04:24:56] Worried about getting. Giving him the doll that he might take it the wrong way going with.

John Dehlin [04:25:01] I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

Claire Headley [04:25:02] Oh, this is hilarious.

Marc Headley [04:25:04] So I got one for you as well.

Claire Headley [04:25:06] Yes, there we go. We also brought you SP bracelets too.

John Dehlin [04:25:09] I was gonna ask for an sp.

Claire Headley [04:25:10] Yes, we brought us bracelets as well, but. So the Michael J. Render Aftermath Foundation. Mark and I have both been volunteer members since its inception. I now serve as the president. We're. We have. Have built up so many great programs. Career counseling to help former members identify transferable skills. We have education grants. We have an online support group now. And of course we help with emergency costs when someone is just getting out so that they can get emergency housing, transportation, etc, while they reconnect with the outside world, reconnect with their family and loved ones on the outside. So it is incredibly meaningful work that we could not do without the support of the many people who support the work and the. And our donors.

John Dehlin [04:25:59] What do you think, Davey? I like it. Oh yeah. I like it a lot.

Marc Headley [04:26:05] How do I do comedic episode we've done in a while.

Claire Headley [04:26:13] How did I do on keeping my cabin straight there?

Marc Headley [04:26:17] We try. That is another Thing that I personally feel that is valuable in all of this kind of work. This is not a uplifting subject. Most of the time. It's very depressing. There's a lot of. I. I don't want to. I don't like to use the term, but there's a lot of trauma drama, and there's a lot of just, you know, destruction in the wake of Scientology. And we, like.

Claire Headley [04:26:42] There's a. There's a lot of truth in the statement that hurt people. Hurt people. And we're, you know, in. In whatever form it takes, we are just committed to continuing to do this work of exposing, despite the hardships.

Marc Headley [04:26:54] And we don't want to make it depressing, and we don't want it to be a grind. We want to be like, hey, we're doing what we're doing, and we're trying to help people, and we're trying to also have a laugh while we're doing it.

John Dehlin [04:27:04] Yeah. So love it really quickly. I don't want you all to miss your plane. But Margi wanted to make sure. I asked about rebuilding marriage and parenting under a new paradigm. And I. It's. It's probably rude for me to even ask you, knowing you have to leave soon, but.

Claire Headley [04:27:21] No, no, not at all. Not at all.

Marc Headley [04:27:23] When we first got out and we got. We went to the bus station, and we got to Kansas City to my dad's house, and we're sort of narrow. Now we're there in a house in the middle of Kansas City, and Claire says to me, hey, I was thinking of making dinner. And I was like, really? What are you gonna make? She's like, I was gonna make spaghetti bolognese. And I looked at her, and I went, you know how to cook. We had been married for 13 years, and she had never cooked a meal for us.

Claire Headley [04:27:52] But. But he. But so much so. Mark didn't even know that I knew how to cook because, remember, when I was 13, I read Fannie Farmer cookbook cover to cover. Loved cooking. I just had never in 13 years had the opportunity to cook a meal for Mark. It was. It was one of those moments that's really reflective of the situation that we were in. It's like, you know, we have our marriage that started and the first 13 years in that cult, and then it was. It was a lot like starting over.

Marc Headley [04:28:26] It really was. It really. We've. For the first time, time we could actually communicate with each other. Completely open. There's no. We don't have. For 13 years, we had to keep secrets from each other, that we weren't allowed to talk. It was. It was forbidden that we would share thoughts or.

Claire Headley [04:28:44] Yeah. And I will say. I will say, too, that part of that rebuilding was also dismantling the lies that they had put in place, that we were. That our marriage was destined to fail. Fail on the outside. And we. We. You know, we talked about that too. Like, hey, that's, you know, that fear that you have is from them, not from us and our relationship and our trust that is still there and remains intact. So it was. It was a lot of things to work through, but, you know, but also the overwhelming joy of freedom is helpful in, you know, just, hey, we can do whatever it is we want to do and build whatever life we want to have.

Marc Headley [04:29:28] The. The only other thing I wanted to say was in Scientology, I did so many different things, and a lot of those did transfer to the real world, whereas Claire's jobs were very Scientology esque functions. That there was no real transfer or equivalent in the real world. And. And. But we did work hard, and we did know that if you work and you do a good job, then you can make a living that way. We didn't. We knew at least that. And it's funny now, looking back, that just working all day is. That's a high bar in this world because you go into the workplace and the people might be there from nine to five, but there's only about three or four hours worth of work getting done.

Marc Headley [04:30:19] You bring in somebody that's working 100 hours a week, and you just tell them you only have to work for eight hours. And if you work for the entire eight hours, you're an instant rock star in almost any industry that you. You go into.

Claire Headley [04:30:33] Yeah. And I will say it was a shock to the system to adjust, for sure. Like landing in Kansas City. And like, you know, I would get off work at 4, and we would literally be sitting on the couch like, what do we do now?

Marc Headley [04:30:46] Yeah, we.

Claire Headley [04:30:47] And it was. This was in the early days of Netflix, we were watching like two, three movies a night just because, you know, it was like, hey, we have all this dead time. What do we do? Of course, now, you know, it's not like that.

Marc Headley [04:30:59] We also did have 15 years where we didn't see any movies. So even though Netflix didn't have a lot of new movies, it had 15 years worth of movies that we never got to see.

Claire Headley [04:31:09] We were trying to make up for our media blackout years too, you know, was like. But yeah. And then I will say that when we had Kids. That for me was a huge shift because I had. I did not have a good childhood, but I had just kind of shut it away and not ever even considered what I went through or, you know, reflected on anything. But when the moment we had kids, we both knew we would do anything to protect our kids from Scientology and, And also to show them unconditional love and raise them in a way that. And give them opportunities that we never had.

Claire Headley [04:31:48] And it also with that brought some latent anger, I would say, and frustration with my childhood gaining perspective. Like, would anyone do these things to a four year old child or to a newborn child or, you know, all those things? So that. That has been a part of the road to recovery too.

Marc Headley [04:32:09] It was interesting when they would reach certain milestones which coincided with my, like, oh, he. Our. This son turned this age. And it's like, gosh, that's the age I joined the SEA organization. And just trying to in my mind rationalize, in what universe would I let my child make that decision and not just be like, no way. That's never in a million years gonna happen. And then, then to the point where then the kids are, as our two oldest sons are, how old we were respectively when we got married.

Claire Headley [04:32:47] Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:32:47] Seven. 19 and 17. And it's like, can you believe that we got married when we were 19 and 17? What the actual hell is going on? So we, we, we. I. I think if anything, we might be erring on the side of too much opportunity and too much of everything that we didn't get. And I don't. From everything I've read and seen and watched. And that tends to be kind of the way it goes. If you had a bad childhood, you want to make sure your kids had a good childhood. If you had a really, really good childhood and you think you might have gotten too much, then you try to maybe air the other direction for your kids.

John Dehlin [04:33:31] Sometimes you can overcorrect.

Marc Headley [04:33:33] Yeah.

Claire Headley [04:33:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [04:33:33] And sometimes, no matter what you do

Marc Headley [04:33:35] as a parent, it is what it is.

John Dehlin [04:33:37] It ends up.

Claire Headley [04:33:38] Yep.

John Dehlin [04:33:38] Yeah. But you do your best.

Claire Headley [04:33:40] Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

John Dehlin [04:33:41] And unconditional love, it's hard to. It's hard to feel like there's any other way to go.

Claire Headley [04:33:46] Yeah, exactly. And that's. And that's how we've approached the topic of disconnection with our kids. Like, obviously they know that they're both Mark's mom and my mom are not in their lives. But we've said, you know, know our. We. We call it our family of choice. Our family of choice. Love you unconditionally, and that's much better. And certainly any. Any person who's under the control of an organization that's attempts to destroy those family bonds is not worthy of support.

Marc Headley [04:34:16] Yeah. The last thing I wanted to say is one of the proudest moments for me as a father was it's. We often struggled with how are we going to tell our kids what happened and what we went through. And one of my sons had to do a book. He had to read a book and write a book report. And he on his own said, let

Claire Headley [04:34:38] me insert one thing. The. So the English teacher said, pick a book about a story of survival.

Marc Headley [04:34:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:34:47] Wow.

Marc Headley [04:34:52] Anyway, he got an A and he. He read my book and he wrote a book report on my book. And when the teacher was like, what book did you do? He was like, oh, this. My dad wrote this book. And it just so happened. Teacher also just happened to be a big Depeche Mode fan, and there is a giant Depeche Mode Easter eggs in this book. And. And that. That probably didn't hurt his grade either, but he did get an A. But it. For me, it was sort of of like, I didn't tell him. I didn't encourage him. I didn't. I had nothing to do with it.

Marc Headley [04:35:27] But the fact that he chose that and then that I could basically tell him the story the way I tell. Well, the way I've told everybody the story. But he got to read it and experience it in that way. And also for him to be able to. It was part of his education, and he got to do that.

Claire Headley [04:35:49] He told us that it really helped him understand a lot about us, gain some understanding of who we are, which was incredibly meaningful, especially because, you know, yes, he knew Mark wrote a book, but it's not like we're like, so when are you going to read dad's book?

John Dehlin [04:36:05] Yeah.

Claire Headley [04:36:05] You know, we never. We just never approached it that way.

Marc Headley [04:36:07] The funny thing is that they happen to just be the packaging crew for these books. For years, they've been putting these books into cardboard boxes for.

John Dehlin [04:36:15] Since 2006.

Claire Headley [04:36:17] They know we're entrepreneurs and they see that side of us. So they've. They've learned various things along the way. They. They didn't do all the packaging, but they certainly have on.

Marc Headley [04:36:27] On occasion, they've dropped off many a book at the post office.

Claire Headley [04:36:31] Yeah, for sure.

Marc Headley [04:36:33] Anyway, I wanted to, if possible, end on that because I think that's kind of. That's kind of where we're at. We're trying to help people. We're trying to tell our story. We've been doing it kind of on our own for a while, while within the last few years. The Aftermath Foundation, Michael J. Render. Aftermath foundation is now. It's an organization. We have a board, we have volunteers, we have donors. And now it's sort of spreading, and we're now getting. It's not just heavily savings and loan anymore. We got other people throwing in on it, and we think it's working.

Claire Headley [04:37:08] It's really reassuring to see people getting out and having resources to start over, because obviously we had to escape with nothing. Nothing, and start over from nothing. So that's where that work is just so incredibly meaningful to us.

John Dehlin [04:37:26] Wow. Beautiful. And let me predict. At least two Easter eggs in your book. Is that okay?

Marc Headley [04:37:32] Oh, there's way more than that.

John Dehlin [04:37:33] Let me predict. Let me predict two. Yeah, here's the first.

Marc Headley [04:37:36] Oh. Oh, you're gonna.

John Dehlin [04:37:36] Grabbing hands. Grab all they can.

Marc Headley [04:37:40] Well, you're almost.

John Dehlin [04:37:42] No, no. Get out there.

Marc Headley [04:37:44] That's.

John Dehlin [04:37:45] Is that not in your book?

Marc Headley [04:37:46] It is, but in it, you'll have to see. You'll have to read.

John Dehlin [04:37:49] How about this one? Let's play Master and service.

Marc Headley [04:37:53] Absolutely. 100%.

John Dehlin [04:37:58] Yeah. That was it. That made it.

Marc Headley [04:38:00] Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [04:38:02] Yeah.

Claire Headley [04:38:02] You'll see. You'll know instantly when you look at it.

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin [04:38:06] All right. Well, Claire and Mark had Lee. What a beautiful, powerful two days. Y' all are so generous. 12 hours. 11 hours of recording. Who knows if anybody watches all 11, 12 hours. We'll have a event where we bring you all together and buy you all cheeseburgers.

Claire Headley [04:38:29] We'll send them a Davey doll.

John Dehlin [04:38:31] We'll send you a Davey doll.

Marc Headley [04:38:32] Yeah, we do. Actually. Every time we. We do a video once a week on our channel, on the Blown for Good channel, and pretty much every single episode, we do a giveaway. And. And just this last week, we have switched over to exclusively giving away Davey dolls, and we gave away three Davey dolls last week. So all you have to do is comment on one of our videos when we're doing it live and you're entered in to win a Davey doll, so.

John Dehlin [04:38:58] So subscribe to their channel. Blown for good. Buy the book. Blown for good. Buy the merch. Get yourselves a Davey doll and a bracelet.

Marc Headley [04:39:11] Sp. Bracelet.com.

John Dehlin [04:39:14] donate to the foundation. Subscribe and like all the stuff. Foundation again.

Claire Headley [04:39:22] Oh, yes. The Aftermath Foundation.org and the YouTube channel is the Aftermath Foundation.

John Dehlin [04:39:28] All right. Right. Beautiful. Well, thanks, y'. All.

Marc Headley [04:39:31] Thank you.

Claire Headley [04:39:32] Thank you so much for having us.

John Dehlin [04:39:33] Let's collab some more.

Marc Headley [04:39:35] Absolutely.

Claire Headley [04:39:35] Very definitely.

John Dehlin [04:39:36] Let's change the world.

Marc Headley [04:39:38] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [04:39:38] Thank you for all you do for so many people.

Marc Headley [04:39:40] That is the other thing. David Miscavige is going to lose his mind. Knowing that the ex Scientologists are teaming up with the ex Mormons, that is going to ruin his day.

Claire Headley [04:39:51] It's destined for success.

John Dehlin [04:39:52] No, what he's going to do is he's going to walk, watch this and get all sorts of good ideas about how he can make Scientology a 300 billion dollar.

Marc Headley [04:40:00] Well, this is another trick. As long as we say he should do it, he can never do it because then we're right and he's wrong.

Claire Headley [04:40:08] He can't take or he cannot take orders from a suppressive person.

John Dehlin [04:40:12] So yeah, you know what, they can do whatever they want. Actually, that's true.

Marc Headley [04:40:17] Whether he will or not.

Claire Headley [04:40:18] Yeah.

Marc Headley [04:40:19] All right.

Claire Headley [04:40:19] But no matter what, a collaboration between former Scientologists and former morons Mormons is absolutely going to lead to good things. No doubt about it.

John Dehlin [04:40:27] Okay, well, look at world. All right, well, thanks, y'. All.

Claire Headley [04:40:31] Thank you so much.

John Dehlin [04:40:32] Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Thanks to Margi for co hosting as always. Thanks to Brooklyn for all she does behind the scenes. And Julia, thanks to all the donors that make this possible. We couldn't do this without donor support.

John Dehlin [04:40:45] Almost. You know, a large percentage of our revenue is just donor supported. So thanks to all of you who don't donate to make this possible. If you don't donate and you value this type of content, all you got to do is become a monthly donor. Go to mormonstories.org Click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor. We lose dozens of monthly donors every month for whatever reason. And so if we don't replace them, we have to start cutting back. So if you value what we do, become a monthly donor. If you can't donate, no worries.

John Dehlin [04:41:15] We give the content away from free, don't even bill back. But there are other ways you can support us. Subscribing to the channels on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Liking our episodes, commenting on them, sharing them with others. All that helps with the algorithms and just makes things interesting. You can also email us@mormonstoriesmail.com we love your feedback. We love when you apply to be on the show. We're really looking for people like couples in their 40s or above, 50s, 60s, 70s. We need some more just traditional Mormon couples who are big fans of Mormon stories podcast and want to tell their story. Please apply go to MormonStories.org click on the application button, fill out the application, do a 3 minute video, send it in.

John Dehlin [04:42:02] We'd love to have some more Mormon couples to interview as well as all the others that are applying. We really appreciate it. That's. That's it. Thanks again. Claire and Mark. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Marmon Stories podcast. I don't even know David. His voice.

Marc Headley [04:42:25] No, you're good.

John Dehlin [04:42:26] Is it? Fine. Let's get you guys the airport before that. You miss your plan?

Claire Headley [04:42:31] Yes.

John Dehlin [04:42:31] All right, you guys take care, everybody.

Marc Headley [04:42:33] Thank you.

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