A new book by Jenna Miscavige Hill, a former member and outspoken critic of the Church of Scientology, reveals secrets and details the tough conditions for child members of the religious order. But the group’s spokesperson lambasted the book, calling the claims false.
Released in February, “Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape,” written by Miscavige Hill, the estranged niece of powerful church leader David Miscavige, claims the church-run “Ranch” in the desert near San Jacinto, Calif. was little more than a child labor camp with deplorable conditions.
AMAZON
‘Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing’ Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill chronicles the twisted underbelly of a controversial faith.
"The conditions we worked under would have been tough for a grown man, and yet any complaints, backflashing (Scientology term for talking back), any kind of questioning was instantly met with disciplinary action," she said.
Miscavige Hill, 29, left in 2005 but not before spending six years doing backbreaking work for the shadowy, secretive religious order. She claims she and other offspring of the elite Sea Org members of the Church were sent to the Ranch and worked in the blazing sun, seeing their parents only once a week at most. Sea Org members were the most dedicated, working 14 hours a day, seven days a week.
Jenna Miscavige Hill photo from "Ex-Scientologist" newsletter.
The Ranch was "like a military boot camp, with grueling drills, endless musters, exhaustive inspections, and arduous physical labor that no child should have to do," AFP reported the book says.
The Church’s spokeswoman, Karin Pouw, denied the claims and said, “The Church does not engage in any activities that mistreat, neglect or force children to engage in manual labor.”
Jenna Miscavige Hill recounts the horrors of the Scientology child labor camp, called the ‘Ranch,’ in her new book ‘Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape.’
Miscavige Hill writes that the many celebrity members of the Church, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta, were shielded from the inhumane treatment of children. Last summer, Miscavige Hill posted a statement on her website warning Katie Holmes, Cruise’s ex-wife, of her hard time with the Church. Holmes and Cruise have a young daughter, Suri.
“My experience in growing up in Scientology is that it is both mentally and at times physically abusive,” Miscavige Hill in July 2012. “As a mother myself, I offer my support to Katie and wish for her all of the strength she will need to do what is best for her and her daughter.”
The statement was posted on the website “Ex-Scientology Kids,” which has the tagline “I was born. I grew up. I escaped.”
Pouw, the Scientology spokeswoman, discredited the outspoken Miscavige Hill in a statement to AFP.
"Those who decide a religious order isn't for them are free to move on with their lives, as Ms. Hill did,” she said. “Every religion has its detractors; there is no faith that can satisfy everyone's spiritual needs. Revisionist histories are typical of apostate behavior and tabloid tales should always be taken with an enormous grain of salt.”
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Jenna Miscavige Hill, left, has written a book about her experience with the Church. Source: news.com.au
- Bombshell claims from leader's niece
- Disturbing allegations of child labour- in the desert
- Scientology goes on the attack
- "I'm at a Scientology church and they're pinching me"
THE Church of Scientology has fired a withering attack on the niece of the church's leader, after she wrote a book describing how she was brainwashed by the Church and forcibly estranged from her family.
Jenna Miscavige Hill, whose uncle David Miscavige runs the church and is one of Tom Cruise's closest friends, has told about growing up with the church in My Secret Life Inside Scientology.
The Church's international spokeswoman, Karin Pouw, has slammed her claims as "false" and "apostate behaviour", as well as an attempt to "exploit Mr Miscavige's name", AFP reports.
But Ms Miscavige Hill's book contains a number of disturbing allegations, including:
- CHILDREN being forced to participate in manual labour – dragging giant rocks around in the sun for a paltry $45 wage
- WHEN she turned 13, she had to detail every sexual experience she had ever had to the Church
- SHE was prevented from seeing her parents from a young age
- SHE had to sign a billion year contract of servitude to Scientology's elite ‘Sea Org' group
- EACH class at school ended with three cheers to L Ron Hubbard
"Those who decide a religious order isn't for them are free to move on with their lives, as Ms Hill did.
"Every religion has its detractors, there is no faith that can satisfy everyone's spiritual needs," she said.
David Miscavige
Tom Cruise shares a moment with David Miscavige, the Church of Scientology's leader, at the opening of a Scientology church in 2004. Source: news.com.au
Ms Miscavige Hill's book is only one in a series of bombshell exposes released about the Church in recent months.
Journalist Lawrence Wright released the results of his long-running investigation into the secretive Church's activities in Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief.
The book made several allegations about the Church, arising from interviews with former prominent members of the Church.
UK publishers who had planned to bring their book to the shelves changed their minds over fears of legal retribution from the Church of Scientology.
The Church of Scientology has published a website strenuously denying Mr Wright's allegations, describing his book as "so ludicrous it belongs in a supermarket tabloid".
In another book released late February, Inside My Time with Narconon and Scientology, a former member of the Church for more than 12 years, Lucas Catton, alleges the Church destroyed his relationships with his family.
"Revisionist histories are typical of apostate (behaviour) and tabloid tales should always be taken with an enormous grain of salt," Ms Pouw said.
Scientology Critics in Ireland Exposing Crimes and Abuses
Scientology Ireland
Credits:
Smart People Today
Ex-Scientologist Pete Griffiths talked to me today from Dublin, Ireland, about his experience in the cult and his determination to keep fighting.
Pete stated: “Quite simply really, I will not be giving up….there’s no amount of money would I accept to give up and walk away. No, I want to see the job done; I want to see it done in my lifetime; I want to see injustices righted, abuses stopped, fraud corrected - - I just want to see the right thing done.”
Griffiths was instrumental in organizing an international conference in Dublin the end of June 2012, with Scientology critics attending from several countries. The second day of the event was more like a party and dance, with protesters lining the street in front of the tiny Scientology Mission.
The well-organized event included a press package that attracted the attention of Europe news media.
Dublin Offlines Press Pack: http://tinyurl.com/ac4g2rx
Pete Griffiths has been active for several years now as an outspoken Scientology critic and just completed a global survey on the declining activity of what he and many others call a dangerous and abusive cult.
When I asked Pete about his time as a member of Scientology and if he suffered from trauma and nightmares, his reply was: “Oh’ David, David, to this day I have nightmares." We talked about how many people who “get out” have these traumatic dreams and how tragic it is to see and hear about young Scientology children suffering from years of abuse - - many separated from their parents in the Sea ORG.
In Ireland and other countries around the globe, new Scientology Ideal ORG buildings sit near empty; only staff is seen lingering about. However, the leader, David Miscavige vows to keep building and opening more of the same.
Scientology continues to inflate statistics with a 2007 a Church claim they had 3.5 million members in the United States, but a 2001 survey conducted by the City University of New York found only 55,000 people in the United States who claimed to be Scientologists.
Today, Scientology membership is estimated between 25-50 thousand and only 25,000 in the United States - - a bleak decline since 2007.
David Edgar Love
Going Clear: When Hubbard lied, what do we call it?
During a recent discussion on this blog, I came across a technical bulletin written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1956. It goes to show how he not only exaggerated his own work and put down other works – but that he engaged in outright lying.
I will quote parts of this bulletin here in fair use and ask the reader what you make of this. Here goes:
” TECHNICAL BULLETIN OF 22 JULY 1956
I feel the urge to communicate to you the best news since 1950.
I have whipped the problems of the whole track and memory of the past and can resolve the worst cases we have ever had. That is a huge statement but I have solved and can untangle in an intensive the problems of the vacuum and havingness plus memory and health and have just done so. Hence the exuberance.”
[...]
“We are now capable of solving Book One style cases to the extreme level of clear. No wild burst of enthusiasm is here intended. I have to put the finishing touches on a lot of things and the process is still slow—25 to 75 hours. But I’ve now done it and seen it done to worse cases than any you’ve had. And that’s fact!
Okay. It’s not simple. It requires a minute understanding of Book One. It would take me 50 pages to explain all I’ve lately found about vacuums. You haven’t seen the last of me or of study, but you will have seen the last of unsuccessful cases providing only that we have time and environment in which to audit them.
We can make homo novis. (AND give a grin to those who kept standing around bleating, “Where are the clears?”)
We know more about life now than life does—for a fact, since it was reaching, we can communicate about the reactions.”
[...]
“This is true—
1. We have created the permanent stable clear.
2. In creating him we have a homo novis in the full sense, not just an Operating Thetan.
3. We now know more than life. An oddity indeed!
4. We now know more about psychiatry than psychiatrists. We can brainwash faster than the Russians (20 secs to total amnesia against three years to slightly confused loyalty).
5. We can undo whatever psychiatrists do, even the tougher grade from away back. We can therefore undo a brainwash in 25 to 75 hours.
6. We can create something better than that outlined and promised in Book One.
BUT
1. We need to know more and be more accurate than ever before about the time track and auditing. I have not given a thousandth of what I know about this.
2. We have a new game but also new responsibilities amongst men.
3. This data in the wrong hands before we are fully prepared could raise the Devil literally.
4. Because we know more than the Insanity Gang, we’re not fighting them.
5. Because we can undo what we do, we must retain a fine moral sense, tougher by far than any of the past.
6. We can create better than in Book One now only if we know Book One and know our full subject.
AND WE DO NOT YET KNOW ALL THE SAFETY PRECAUTION TO BE USED.”
[...]
“I have given you this data in this bulletin at this time because now I know I know and I want you to share in seeing the surge of vision which will be our future.
L. RON HUBBARD”
For reference, here is what Hubbard says about a Clear in the book “Dianetics – the modern science of mental health”:
“A clear can be tested for any and all psychoses, neuroses, compulsions and repressions (all aberrations) and can be examined for any autogenic (self-generated) diseases referred to as psycho-somatic ills. These tests confirm the clear to be entirely without such ills or aberrations. Additional tests of his intelligence indicate it to be high above the current norm. Observation of his activity demonstrates that he pursues existence with vigor and satisfaction.”
[...]
“Clears do not get colds.”
[...]
“What this means to gerontology, the study of longevity in life, cannot at this time be estimated, but it can be predicted with confidence that the deletion of engrams from the reactive bank has a marked effect upon the extension of life. A hundred years or so from now this data will be available, but no clears have lived that long as yet.”
[...]
“A clear, for instance, has complete recall of everything which has ever happened to him or anything he has ever studied. He does mental computations, such as those of chess, for example, which a normal would do in a half an hour, in ten or fifteen seconds.”
See: http://isene.com (website) http://isene.me (blog)
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