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Neil Gaiman, a bestselling author of titles like Good Omens and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, has a complicated relationship with Scientology through his family. His father, David Gaiman, and his mother, Sheila Gaiman, were active members of the Church of Scientology in the 1960s, following their conversion and subsequent relocation to East Grinstead, near the cult’s world headquarters at Saint Hill Manor.
Working behind the scenes and often with legal threats, Neil Gaiman’s father helped Scientology counter growing criticism, through many media appearances to counter negative narratives. Neil’s childhood coincided with these events and his later works, especially The Ocean at the End of the Lane, are inspired by this era.
In the story of Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman addresses the tragic death of Johannes Scheepers, a young Scientology student whose suicide was both mysterious and misrepresented. He was a 29-year-old South African man who had arrived in the UK in June 1968 to study Scientology at Saint Hill Manor, the controversial church's international headquarters. Scheepers died by suicide on August 30, 1968, in the car belonging to the family he was boarding with, the Gaimans. Scheepers’ death was officially classified as poisoning from carbon monoxide.
How Neil Gaiman’s depiction of Johannes Scheepers differs from the official inquiry findings
According to a blog written by Mike Rinder, the official accounts of Scheepers’s life and death differ dramatically from the tale Neil Gaiman would go on to tell in Ocean at the End of the Lane.
The inquiry into his death found that Scheepers was a student of Scientology, though he was not in sound financial shape. His suicide note indicated that he was not blaming Scientology for his death itself, though the pressures of his existence and financial difficulties might have contributed to his anguish.
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In his blog, Mike Rinder goes on to explain how David Gaiman, Neil’s father, was instrumental at the time in distancing the family and Scientology from the tragedy. In his testimony, David denied knowing Scheepers or that he had been a Scientology student, and sought to portray him as a gambler who had taken shelter in the Gaiman household.
In the story, Gaiman gives a fictionalized account of Scheepers’s death, complete with stories about his supposed practice of smuggling money out of South Africa. These and other details were never included in the inquest report and have been debunked.
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