National Post (National Edition)
‘Unconditional love does not exist’
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM EPISODE SIX OF LEAH REMINI’S SCIENTOLOGY SERIES
On this week’s episode of Scientology and the Aftermath, Leah Remini spoke to Aaron Smith-Levin, who had been a member of the church for 29 years before departing and having a relationship with his twin brother, Collin, forcibly “disconnected.”
Aaron described how he and his brother trained from an early age to become auditors: people who interrogated members connected to a machine that functions similarly to a lie detector. They worked from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. every night for three years, and by age 14, were made professional auditors.
In fact, Collin became the first person to achieve a perfect score, which prompted Church leader David Miscavige to restructure the program. This meant Collin had to redo it, but because it was much more difficult the second time around, he was unable to complete all the requirements. Out of shame, he decided to leave (or, in Scientology terms, “blow”) the Church’s Clearwater, Fla., base to return to his father’s home in Minnesota.
Remini noted that the Church pressures all members to constantly work and “be perfect,” meaning people rarely if ever take vacations or have personal time.
According to Aaron, the brothers’ mother went after Collin and brought him back to Clearwater, where she made him turn himself in for repeated interrogation following his “crimes.” Afterwards, he was relocated to Philadelphia for a Church staff position, and labelled as “a nothing,” a “criminal” and “a failure.”
Alone at 15, Collin got his GED, went to university and began writing about “how Scientology is a destructive cult that tears apart families.” However, when Aaron discovered what his brother was up to, he wrote an internal report (a “knowledge report”) about him.
“Scientologists are expected to write such reports,” former Church spokesman Mike Rinder explained, “because they believe that by writing them the person who is transgressing in some fashion or doing something wrong will be pulled in by the Church and corrected and that will be for their own good.”
Remini added that those who are aware of a “crime” happening but choose not to report it are “punished.”
The twins’ mother also wrote a report, leading to Collin being officially thrown out of the Church. Neither spoke to him again before he was tragically killed in a car accident.
“Unconditional love does not exist in Scientology . ... I had to fight to go to the funeral,” Aaron tearfully explained. “My commanding officer was like… ‘He was just a (Suppressive Person). Why would you bother taking time off post to go to the funeral?’ I’m like, ‘He’s my identical twin brother, that’s why.’ ”
Several years later, Aaron and Collin’s mother was also thrown out (“declared”) of the Church when she began to doubt its principles. In an ironic twist, in 2014, when his children’s nanny discovered he was still in contact with his mother after she had been declared, the nanny wrote a knowledge report on him and had him also thrown out, leaving his wife without a job and his kids without a school.
“Our life is much happier now,” Aaron said. “We don’t have to worry about our friends spying on us, or turning us in, or reporting on us. We can just live our lives the way we want to live it.”
In response to this episode, the Church wrote a letter to the show’s executive producer, claiming that Aaron was actually “expelled for violent behaviour, especially toward women.”
“In all, 100 separate reports were written about (Aaron) Smith-Levin being abusive toward others,” the Church alleges. “Of these reports, 20 included his being physically violent with others.
“Having cut himself off from former friends and family, he now rants about his time on staff, feeding his hateful lies to hate blogger Tony Ortega and doing YouTube interviews with Mike Rinder and other members of the anti-Scientology clique.”
Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath airs on Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. local time on A&E. Only two episodes remain of the eightpart docu-series.