A Scientologist’s Horrifying Memories of Child Abuse and Exploitation
The world has become increasingly aware in the last decade or so that Scientology isn't just part of a punchline about closeted homosexual celebrities, but an actual cult that believes that humans are reincarnated aliens and uses mind control, physical abuse, and indentured servitude to not only keep its members in line, but keep the entire operation running. This week, Jenna Miscavige Hill—a third-generation Scientologist and the niece of David Miscavige, the church's leader—has released her tell-all memoir, Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape, of growing up inside the organization that isolated her from her family, robbed her of an education, and put her to work, full time, at hard labor when she was just seven years old.
It's one thing to think that Scientology is weird, gawk at its bizarre relationships with celebrities, and be horrified by stories from ex-members. But it's another to be confronted with the abuse of little children who were brought into the religion by their parents and forced into a life of oppression, severe punishments, and psychological control that borders on torture, as Miscavige Hill describes in her book. As far as brainwashing, miseducating, financially defrauding cults go, Scientology is right up there with the FLDS in its treatment of children. (Interestingly, Miscavige Hill's coauthor was Lisa Pulitzer, who also cowrote Stolen Innocence with Elissa Wall, who escaped the FLDS and became the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs at his trial for accomplice to rape.)
There's an excerpt from Miscavige Hill's book on Salon about Scientology's infamous Celebrity Center. It's really the only time in her memoir that she drops any famous people's names, so of course that particular chapter would attract attention. There isn't anything there that we hadn'tread about before, but did establish the stark contrast in treatment that the celebrities experience compared to the members of Sea Org.
The accommodations were gorgeous, and the beautiful grounds made the experience enjoyable. Everything was tightly controlled and orchestrated, and if the celebrities themselves took things at face value, they'd simply see the act and never witness what went on behind the curtain. There was never a risk that they would get exposed to child labor or something similar that the Church didn't want them to see. Sea Org members at the Celebrity Centre appeared happy because it was their job to do that, so celebrities wouldn't know from talking to them or watching them whether they'd been paid their forty-five dollars that week, or if they missed their families.
The reason why there aren't celebrities scattered throughout Miscavige Hill's book is because, despite their public association with the religion, they weren't part of the day-to-day operations of the organization at its different bases.
When she was just five, the members of Miscavige Hill's family—her parents and her brother—were separated. She was raised by other people, while her parents worked for the church. (She wasn't allowed to speak on the phone privately with her mother, and there was a period of time when she went for two years without even seeing her.) When she was six or seven she moved to where her older brother was residing, a place called the Ranch, owned by the church, and where the members of Sea Org's children were to be raised and educated. She's not specific about its location, but it was in some remote desert area in California, that had once been a motel.
The children—nearly 100 of them—did not receive a traditional education, like math and science and history, but instead, took Scientology courses. They were completely isolated from not only their families, but also non-Scientologists. This included doctors and medical care. Children were not allowed to be given fever-reducing drugs, even if their temperature was over 103 degrees.
The kids were put to work, six days a week, on construction jobs renovating the old motel. This involved landscaping and digging and using pickaxes, even in the pouring rain.
Rock hauling to build stone walls was another arduous deck project. We would pick up rocks from a creek that ran nearby and put them into a pile, where another group of children would load them into a wheelbarrow and carry them tot he site of the newest rock wall. once the rocks were in place, yet another set of kids would lug around cement bags, and the older, more skilled kids would use the cement to secure the rocks in the wall.
She was seven! The kids were told that the hard labor was an exchange for them being allowed to live on the ranch.
We got calluses and blisters. We had cuts and bruises. Our hands lost feeling when we plunged them into the frigid water of the creek bed for rocks. When we pulled weeds from the scorched summer earth, our hands burned from the friction and stung from the nettle. The conditions we worked under would have been tough for a grown man, and yet any complaints, backflashing, any kind of questioning was instantly met with disciplinary action.
Jenna Miscavige Hill writes in her must-read book: “It remains a mystery to me how, in our current society, this [Scientology] can go on unchecked. It is particularly insidious because of its celebrity advocates and affiliated groups, such as Narconon, Applied Scholastics, and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. I feel that people should be warned about what the Church truly is, who its founder really was, what really goes on there, the lengths it is willing to go to, and what they are willing to sacrifice in the name of achieving their ends. The ends themselves are shrouded in secrecy and conflicting information. Scientology always has been a game of power and control. L. Ron Hubbard was the ultimate con man, and it’s hard to figure out how much of Scientology was an experiment in brainwashing and controlling people, and how much of it was truly intended to help people.”
The book is “Beyond Belief: My Secret Life in Scientology and My Harrowing Escape.” This young woman was raised in Scientology but has indeed escaped with many members of her own family and her inlaws, to tell the story. Her uncle is David Miscavige, the mysterious leader of the cult who has been accused of mental and physical brutality by former members. He’s also Tom Cruise’s BFF, Cruise’s idol, and the man who probably drove the biggest wedge into Nicole Kidman’s life with Cruise.
Hill’s book is as fascinating as Lawrence Wright’s new “Going Clear.” It should leave no question about the extreme dangers of Scientology as a cult. Hill pulls no punches either. I was very happy to see she calls Tommy Davis, son of actress Anne Archer, and the group’s number 1 hatchet man, “cowardly.” I know all about this: I was attacked verbally by Davis and Kelly Preston in August 2008 in the lobby bar of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee the night before Isaac Hayes’s funeral. This pair eventually came to New York in an effort to get me fired from Fox News that fall.
Hill does not have a lot of gossip about the Scientology celebrities like Cruise, Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Her boyfriend, now her husband, “audited” Cruise personally. This means that Dallas Hill knows all the secrets any tabloid would pay millions for about Cruise’s personal life. Jenna observes that Nicole Kidman was basically not a believer, and was someone Scientology wanted get rid of. Mission: accomplished.
Jenna writes: “[because he was married to] Nicole Kidman, who was not as committed to the Church, Tom had been labeled a “Potential Trouble Source,” which had interfered with his progress in Scientology. Because Nicole’s father was in the psychology field, this made perfect sense. We were taught that those in the mental health field were bad and evil.”
Once Cruise divorced Kidman in a brutal and public way– by trying to pretend their marriage hadn’t last ten years and by making cryptic remarks about her– he became re-committed to Scientology and started jumping on couches, fighting with Matt Lauer, etc.
Jenna: Aunt Shelly [David Miscavige's wife, unseen in public since 2007] … proceeded to go on about how similar Tom Cruise and Uncle Dave were, in that they were both very intense. Apparently, people called them by the same nickname, which had something to do with the word “laser.” I told Aunt Shelly how it seemed to me that Nicole wasn’t really into Scientology, and she seemed surprised that I had figured that out, saying I was exactly right and it was a problem they were trying to solve.”
One can only feel sympathy for Kidman, who was pared away from her children. It was extremely painful, but she’s remained mum to keep her connection with them.
Order Jenna’s book. Read Wright’s book. And Jenna is correct: it’s amazing this is still going on.
Jenna Miscavige Hill: Church Of Scientology Forced Women Into Abortions, Abuse, Manual Labor (VIDEO)
Posted: 02/07/2013 6:15 pm EST | Updated: 02/07/2013 6:41 pm EST
Former Scientologist Jenna Miscavige Hill joined HuffPost Live Thursday to share her personal story of growing up in the church and to explain how she escaped from it.
Hill, the niece of church leader David Miscavige and author of Beyond Belief, told HuffPost Live host Ahmed Shihab-Eldin about the oppressive practices of the church, which include forced abortion and abuse.
"If you do become pregnant when you're there, you get kicked out," she said. "Or many of my friends were actually coerced into having abortions."
Hill also described tales of forced labor and abusive teachers, and said she knew she had to leave the church after being exposed to the outside world on a mission trip abroad.
"When we went back to LA after that mission, it was like, everything was in plain view," she said. "Back to fifteen minute meals, you can't go to bed before 1:00 AM, you have to stay up all night even though you did yesterday...It put a lot of things in plain sight. There was no denying it. They started taking away your phones, your internet access...that was a big turning point for me."
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