Scientology’s private navy
This is part of a series of posts on Scientology.
The Sea Org is Scientology’s private naval force. Sea Org members are typically born in to Scientology families and are extremely dedicated to Scientology’s causes and pursuit of planetary control. These people are, in my mind, the victims of Scientology’s greatest crimes.
Members of the Sea Org work more than fifteen hours a day, seven days a week. There are as many as 9 Sea Org members sleeping in one small bedroom and they are fed a nutritionally poor diet. Despite living and working under these awful conditions, Sea Org members are denied medical and dental expenses.
Sea Org members are not allowed to have regular civilian contact with friends and family, they are not allowed to read newspapers, watch television or listen to music. Any letters addressed to Sea Org members are read by management to ensure they contain no dissenting information about the organisation. All information about the outside world is filtered through the executives, so Sea Org members are presented with a very distorted view of reality. According to one former Sea Org member;
“In the Sea Org, all the management staff are told about all the glorious victories we’ve had, we’re never told about one single failure on the part of Scientology…
As far as you know while you’re working there, Scientology is dominating the world, and you want it to dominate the world. The goal of the Sea Org is not to have Scientology worldwide, the goal of the Sea Org is to control all activities on the planet and to eliminate all people to who are hostile to their stated goals, whatever they may be…
The only you’re information you’re shown about the public is a war, bad psychiatrists, evil IRS agents, a world of paranoia and fear, death and destruction.” – Aaron Saxton
If you are a member of the Sea Org, you are not permitted to marry somebody who is not also a member. Sea Org members are not allowed to have children, and if they do fall pregnant they are interrogated and put under immense pressure from management to abort the pregnancy. If a Sea Org member is non-compliant and refuses to have an abortion, they can be sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which is a penal colony where they are forced to do hard labour. In the RPF, Sea Org members are cut off from all communication. Even pregnant women in the RPF are not allowed to walk, they must run at all times, if they do not run then they are punished with further physical exercise such as pushups. This often results in women miscarrying due to the physical and emotional stress.
If you fall pregnant in the Sea Org and would like to have the child, your only real option is to leave the Sea Org. If you leave, you are declared a Suppressive Person by the Church of Scientology and are disconnected from your friends and family who remain within Scientology. Because Sea Org members have generally spent their entire lives inside Scientology, they often have no source of income, no work experience outside the organisation and no non-Scientology friends or family to stay with or rely on for support.
It is hard for someone like myself to comprehend why a Sea Org member would tolerate these conditions, and not just find a way to survive on the outside. I must remind myself that these people are truly deluded and believe that they saving the world from imminent danger. As they are never allowed to be critical of the Sea Org, even to other members, they must often feel they are the only one having doubts and therefore must be a bad person for wanting to leave.
I recently spoke with Aaron Saxton, a former Scientologist who spent several years as an enforcer of Scientology’s policies in the Sea Org. Aaron shared some truly disturbing examples of real human rights abuses within the Sea Org, and I would suggest those who doubt that any of these policies are ever put into practice should read Aaron’s story.
I, like you, cannot comprehend why they would choose to remain in such conditions. It doesn’t make sense to me. I honestly cannot grasp how they even became involved in such a false belief.
I guess I should familiarise myself with more Ex-Scilon stories. Perhaps it will allow me some form of understanding.
But really, how could someone, an adult, let themselves be pulled into such an idiotic fantasy world? It’s just ludicrous.
If you take a look at a lot of the photos of Sea Org members — many are hardly even adults yet. There are a heck of a lot of kids in there; brought up in Scientology families — fairly well indoctrinated even before they sign their “billion year” contract with the Sea Org.
As is the case with almost all cult-ish organizations, the very first thing they strip you of is the ability to assimilate “outside” information. They take away all the tools necessary to make an objective evaluation of your situation. No TV. No newspapers. No Internet. No cell phone. No unmonitored communications or activities.
Beyond that, you’re financially strapped. You’ll get just enough pay to cover the very barest of necessities. You aren’t going to be able to save up enough of a nest egg to get out and get back on your feet in the real world.
Hang around in a situation like this long enough — and pretty soon your entire world will be dependent on staying in the good graces of the cult. Your employer… all your friends… your co-workers… and probably most of your family will all be in the same situation.
That is an incredibly coercive situation to be sucked into. Step out of line… read something critical… or, heavens forbid, say something critical of the cult and *BOOM* you’re in an instant cut off from everyone you know and rely upon for your daily existence. Overnight, you’re penniless, friendless, and on the street with no marketable skills or experience.
It’s not just “stupid” people who get sucked into a situation like this. For many, especially second or third generation cult kids… it’s damn near inevitable. They were raised by cult parents, went to cult schools, and only had cult friends for the entirety of their existence.
They’re between the hammer and anvil — constantly living between fear and intimidation.