What will surprise readers most about your book? We were extremely careful with this book, and I believe that the Church of Scientology was blindsided by it.
I worked with a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, Robin Gaby Fisher. I wrote on computers that were not attached to the internet. That’s why the book was not sent out ahead of time for reviews. There was no pressure on me to not publish it because I believe that the Church didn’t know about it. How did you and your publisher go about releasing the book? In the Church, homosexuality is something that needs to be “handled.” We are also made to read Science of Survival, in which he wrote that homosexuals “should be disposed of quietly and without sorrow.” Per Church scripture, there is nothing that the Church of Scientology believes is good about homosexuality or gay relationships. Ron Hubbard describes homosexuals as the lowest of the low. We are made to read Dianetics, in which L. The Church of Scientology will tell you right now and has said in public that they believe in protecting everyone’s rights, including same-sex couples. Where does the Church of Scientology stand on homosexuality?
They tweak the definition of spiritual so that it is about your ego and controlling the world more than what I now believe spirituality actually is, which is humbleness, love, gratefulness, and something much bigger than me. In Scientology, you are made to believe that they have the secret to the universe, and that you are becoming this all-knowing, all-powerful being. I wasn’t taught discernment and I had a mother who was floating from one religion to another. I had been brought up in a family that was very loving. Why write about your experiences with Scientology? In her memoir, Perfectly Clear: Escaping Scientology and Fighting for the Woman I Love (Berkley, Oct.), LeClair describes following her mother into the Church at 15, attempts to reconcile the church’s anti-gay doctrine with her same-sex attraction, and how she finally found her way out in 2011. Written with tremendous warmth and humor, Seminary Boy is a truly unforgettable memoir and a penetrating glimpse into the hidden world of seminary life.Former president of the Church of Scientology’s Youth and Human Rights organization, Michelle LeClair, looked like a poster girl for the Church of Scientology. And like many young seminarians, Cornwell struggled with a natural adolescent rebelliousness, which in one crucial instance provoked a crisis that would eventually lead to his decision to abandon his dream of becoming a priest. But when they returned to Cotton College, the boys were once again governed by the age-old traditions and disciplines of seminary life. Secret romantic attachments between seminarians were not uncommon on visits home they were overwhelmed by the powerful attractions of the emerging youth culture of the 1950s. But while normal teenagers were being swept up by the rock ’n’ roll era, Cornwell and his fellow seminarians continued to be emotionally and socially repressed. The wild countryside around the seminary, the moving power of church ritual and music, and a charismatic priest enabled him to persevere.
In the hothouse atmosphere of the seminary he strove to find stable, loving friendships among his fellows and fatherly support from the priests, one of whom proved to be a sexual predator. For the next five years Cornwell lived under an austere monastic regime as he wrestled with his emotional and spiritual demons. When he was thirteen years old he was sent to Cotton College, a remote seminary for boys in the West Midlands countryside. John Cornwell evokes a vanished time and way of life in this moving and, at times, troubling memoir of an adolescence spent in the isolated all-male world of the seminary.īorn into a destitute family with a dominating Irish-Catholic mother and an absconding father during World War II in London, John Cornwell’s childhood was deeply dysfunctional.
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