Bali Hai -August to October 2023

Gary Collier here. I’m sitting on a plane flying from Bangkok back to our villa in Bali. I just watched your podcast with Trish and Tony Ortega.  I really feel for you both. You’ve done the right thing sharing your story but unfortunately not too many of the “true believers” will have the courage or fortitude to watch it. 

Firstly just so you feel a bit more comfortable I’m on the same side of the fence that you guys are on and have been since early 2012. I won’t go into that now but after all those decades in Scientology the cracks started happening for me and I started my own journey out of the bubble that I had helped create. After my son Paul passed away in early 2012 I realized that my family were far more important to me, as were my personal beliefs, doubts, integrity and viewpoints than all of the discordant “ beliefs” and cognitive dissonance and even the friendships that I had cultivated since getting into Scientology in 1975.

Ironically I met Jim in the spring of 1963. I had just moved from inner city Melbourne out to the deep suburbs and ended up at Bentleigh High School. Jim and another guy named Don Baird were the super tough guys in my year (year 7). I was a couple of years younger than Jim, a bit arty farty and into music and playing the guitar to be part of that peer group so I never got to really know him, apart from the fact that he was so tough that he rode a bicycle that had no brakes and he used his foot to put enough pressure on the back wheel to stop it. When I wandered into the Church in 1975 with my long hair and “ hippy drug case” in tow one of the first people I saw in the building was Jim. Holy shit, I almost ran out the door. I had been led to believe that Scientology was some sort of hippy philosophy in disguise and couldn’t work out what the hell one of the Conley boys was doing there.

Later on your brother Gary worked for me and Melanie for a while in our print business just before your family set of for America. I heard that he had an accident at Gold decades ago, I hope he’s OK.

My daughter Allissa (or Paul either) never got into Scientology. It’s funny, I always thought I was different than the others, that I wasn’t brain washed or forceful but talking to Allissa in minute detail about what it was like for her growing up in a Scientology family and going to Yarralinda disabused me of my naivety and blind spots.

One of my greatest pleasures in life is being a very lucky father and the amazing relationship that I have with Allissa and Finn, my 23 year old son and that I had with Paul. They are 2 of my closest friends and confidantes, we have no secrets and say what we think about each other openly. Absolutely nothing is important enough for me to foresake my kids. That is one of the reasons I am writing to you. I’d love to go and shake your parents by the shoulder and tell them that they are responsible for the horrible situation that your family has gotten into and all for a lost cause, a flimsy dream that never really had much substance and to be quite frank never delivered what it so adamantly promised. I’d love to wave a magic wand and sprinkle fairy dust on all Scientologists so that they might wake up and realize that their belief that they are “thinking for themselves” and special is a wet dream that Ron Hubbard hatched somewhere along the line.

Anyway, I wish you both well. Well done on pursuing your career as an artist. Georgie and I had a couple of Galleries in Melbourne for about 20 years, we still do a bit online but to be frank my goal now is to keep myself fit, healthy and open to new ideas so I can get out and explore the world, meet people, discover the beauty of our planet and have whatever adventures I can have each and every day.

I’m really happy with my life and my own beliefs which have become very fluid and will hopefully continue to evolve.

Good luck. I know that it is unlikely but you have my best wishes that Jim and Kaye will wake up and see that they are missing out on being part of an amazing family. I just hope that they (plus the Ceberanos) might one day (soon) have the strength and resolve to say ““Fuck Scientology” we can make our own decisions!”, the world won’t crumble and eternity will continue to exist for all of us.

Bangkok

Circle 31 : 7 Days in Bangkok

I had to return. I had to face the past. I hatched a plan back in 2007 that contained equal parts of desperation and salvation. Paul’s life was in tatters, ruined. He was living like a hermit, lonely, forlorn, hopelessness pervaded his life. He was lost, no future, no goals, no friends. The black hole that he was in had been pulling on me, trying to drag me in. I had no option but to be there for him, after all I was his father.

The fact that I didn’t sink into the quicksand is a testament to my resilience. It came close at times, I became a full blown alcoholic, the stress felt as if it had the power of an atomic bomb, I was running out of ideas. 

Paul had lived in Bangkok for a couple of years  in early 2002. We were living down near the Yarra River in Kew when 9/11 happened. Paul and his friend Mahesh had hatched a plan to visit Thailand just after . We had spent a few days in Bangkok together on the way to Europe in September 2000. The night before Paul was due to leave with Mahesh he had a diabetic hypo which resulted in him missing the plane and subsequently missing Mahesh who arrived on his own and ended up going to the islands. Paul left a few days later and arrived in Bangkok, solo. He gravitated toward the Nana area in Sukhumvit. This was 4 years after he had spent almost a year living in San Francisco on his own. The stress of him living with Type 1 diabetes had become a tacit part of our lives. There were countless times that Paul had hypos and hypers, this became a part of the reality of life. What I didn’t know back then was that this was constantly wearing down his body. Sounds dumb to me now but that’s the way it was back then when  the future seemed far away.

The thing is that coming to Bangkok opened doors for Paul, he started to learn Thai, make friends and possible even enjoy life in his own crazy way. Bangkok gets in your blood, it intoxicates you, it is like a drug. Paul got hooked. What was meant to be a 2 week holiday turned into a 2 year stay in Bangkok. I finally talked him into coming back to Australia, maybe Melanie insisted, I can’t be certain. The thing is that he did return. This was possibly the most intense period. Dreams were shattered, the future became uncertain, nobody knew what was going to happen in the next 5 minutes. It’s like time was put into a blender and mixed up like a smoothly. I have no real idea of the time track during this period. Whenever I look into this few years it’s like a ball of string that has been unravelled and gotten all knotted up. Paul live with us at the warehouse in Clifton Hill, he lived above Graphic Impressions, he lived in 2 flats in Hawthorn, he lived above the shop in Rathdowne St. I lived in constant fear that he was going to die and that I would find his lifeless body after a hypo. I was in terror. No wonder I hit the booze. I even lived with him for a while above the shop in North Carlton. My life was in turmoil as was his. I was constantly looking for solutions where there were none to be found. I was so close to the craziness of the situation that I couldn’t see anything clearly. All I could think of was to solve the problems as they arose. Put out the fires as they began, waiting until the next one started. Somehow I continued to work, to keep my relationship going with Georgie. I could have been, should have been a better father to Finn. Life was tumultuous. Nothing could save me from the black pit that surrounded both his and my lives.