This is in Melbourne, Australia, in Sydney Australia this happened to this child:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/lifestyle/article/-/12905379/Australia-s-child-labour-camp/
and more in Australia:
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/24326/church-of-scientology-accused-of-covering-up-sexual-abuse
http://androvillans.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/ex-scientologist-story-258-the-underwoods-fight-the-cult-down-under/
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3488352.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSm2hoqVhyE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEbLLjvpT7E
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/church-of-scientology-toxic-for-children/story-e6frg6nf-1225868419294
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/04/aaron_saxton_au.php
Aaron Saxton videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqzT8ZOD6mc
11th February 2008
Dear friends,
It is time for me to speak and to share my story. I have waited for
many years and honestly I doubted whether I would ever write this. But
recent events have prompted me to commit my story to text in hope of
helping people understanding just how damaging scientology can be and
showing by example that a good life after scientology is possible.
There are many who have suffered far more at the hands of the cult
than me and I am writing this both for them and for those who have not
yet escaped. To those who have already spoken, shared their stories,
and endured harassment for doing so, I give my thanks and gratitude;
your words have on many occasions carried me through dark moments. In
many ways my battle has mostly been within my own mind; trying to
become normal, to live a normal and happy life after the most abnormal
childhood you could imagine - that of a scientologist. For the most
part, I have succeeded, I am very happily settled with a beautiful
lady and I have a job I enjoy. Oddly enough my parents congratulate
themselves on my independence and success in life, but the truth is
that I have succeeded despite their actions and despite scientology. I
was very lucky not to be caught within a so-called scientology school,
the "Sea org". There are plenty who did however and I salute you who
also made it out as your journey to freedom was doubtless far more
difficult than mine.
My greatest blessing in life is that I avoided becoming a
scientologist as an adult, through sheer luck and stubbornness. Had
circumstances been just a little different I could easily have become
another victim of the cult of scientology, either as a mindless slave
caught in the "org" (or "Freezone") or a burnt out drug addled wreck.
I came very close to all three.
I know there are other second generation scientologists who made it
out, I don't know you, but I know you are out there and I hope one day
to share a beer or three with you.
We are a unique group and are in a
unique position to facilitate understanding of and help with the
erosion of scientology.
For those of you who have not ever been in scientology I hope that
this letter will serve to give some insight and understanding about
how insidious and evil scientology can be.
Once a person is caught up
in the cult or has been raised in the cult, it affects every aspect of
their life. Nothing outside the cult has any value (except money of
course) and anything outside is looked down upon or despised. The
whole jargon and language of the cult is arranged around this belief
system. Those outside are termed either "wogs" or "raw meat" - being
potential recruits.
For second (and later) generation scientologists this is particularly
insidious as their whole understanding of the world is based in
scientology. It took me the best part of fifteen years to finally
understand the world as a normal person and be able to relate to
people in a normal manner. I still struggle at times, but I have
generally become well adjusted. I absolutely cannot stress enough the
damage scientology does to children, not only in terms of blatant
abuse or neglect, which is very common in scientology families, but
real lasting mental damage which leaves them unable to relate to the
world at large in a rational and sane manner. I know - I experienced
it and this is my story.
I have to make it clear here, my story is not a one off case; many
children of scientologists experienced far worse things than I did.
For every scientologist family you see, you are looking at a tragedy
of some kind. A broken home, years of good life lost to the cult,
thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, houses
sold to pay for scientology courses, family heirlooms and jewellery
sold, children abandoned, neglected or abused. All that you read here
and on the internet and in exposé books barely scratches the surface;
many stories will never be told.
As I was an unplanned child I was, according to my parents, offered a
choice a few days after being born. The choice was to stay with them
and be a scientolgist, or be put up for adoption. I was told to "smile
if I wanted to stay or don't smile if I wanted to go". I was less than
a week old when this deal was offered to me. Apparently I smiled, thus
indicating my willingness to become another slave to scientology. Let
us suppose for a moment that a child less than a week old is capable
of understanding speech and has the mental faculty to understand such
an offer - if this was true then what child less than a week old would
choose to be cast out of their family and given to strangers to raise?
Absolutely none would be the correct answer there.
My parents related this tale to me many times as I was growing up,
usually when I was not being the mindless drone they wanted and not
"contributing" to the cause of scientology. Psychologically this was
to turn the responsibility of the situation on to me rather than take
responsibility themselves. It's very likely they still do not
understand their unconscious motivation with regards to this.
There is a moderate chance that my parents will read this as they are
now practising scientology within the "Freezone", and their opinion is
doubtless that they have done nothing wrong in their raising of me.
The facts speak for themselves and you'll have to make up your mind
about on this. They did however honestly and deeply believe that they
were doing the right and "ethical" thing for me and as such I don't
blame them for their actions, they were simply doing the best that
they could at the time. I do however pity them that they could see
these actions as somehow morally correct.
It's worth noting that my parents were very intelligent people, some
of the brightest I have ever known, and I've been lucky to meet some
very bright people indeed. They could have risen to the top of what
ever field they'd chosen, physics, maths, journalism, business,
anything you like to consider. I count myself fortunate to have a
fraction of their intelligence. With this in mind it's hard to credit
how they became involved in the first place; I suppose like a lot of
people in those days they were looking for something and believed
they'd found it in scientology. For those who are looking for
something bigger than themselves, scientology is incredibly seductive.
All sorts of promises are made about the good that can be done, the
goal of "clearing the planet", bringing order and ending
discrimination. But when all is said and done, it's all a lie,
perpetuated by people who have been brainwashed by the cult. I suspect
that the people in charge of the cult now actually believe it and I
also suspect that Hubbard ended up believing it himself in the end.
It's difficult to understand from the outside how people could believe
some of the things that scientologists believe (you know the things
I'm talking about, and if you don't then it's all on Wikipedia or
http://www.xenu.net). As adults we find it impossible to believe
blatantly untrue things without gradual indoctrination and immersion
in a different and susceptible state of mind. The cult's
indoctrination practise is well documented and understood both by
those who have seen it from the outside and those who have experienced
it and managed to regain their sanity.
Children are unable to distinguish fantasy from reality in the same
way as adults are and as a child you instinctively trust and believe
anything that your parents tell you. If your parents tell you that bad
children go to hell and good children go to heaven it is believed. If
parents tell their children that there is no god it is believed. If a
parent tells their child that they (the parent) are from "galactic
core" and have been sent to Earth, which is a prison planet, on a
spiritual mission to save everyone then it is believed by the child -
and that is what I grew up believing. It is particularly problematic
as the parent believes it and says it with conviction and lives their
life as if it was true.
From my birth to around three years old I was left with government run
foster homes on multiple occasions as the time needed for caring for a
child was detracting from my parents "mission". I don't remember any
of this, it was related to me later by my grandparents, who when they
found out where I was, came and bought me home. At one point my
parents had an adoption family arranged and I apparently spent some
time with them; a couple of times I came home bruised, and my parents
decided this was not appropriate and ended the arrangement.
Considering what happened over the next ten years or so I can only
conclude that they felt that they were the only ones who had the right
to physically abuse me. Starting at around four or five I experienced
fairly regular beatings; my parents seemed unable to "handle" me in
any other way as normal scientology "handling" didn't work. On
reflection I'm afraid the answer was fairly simple, and that was that
I was crying out for attention. If a child can't get positive
attention they start to seek negative attention, and it is fairly easy
for a child to fall into a pattern where they want attention and the
only way to get it is to provoke a negative reaction. There are a few
moments which particularly stand out; once I was screaming so much as
I was being hit that a builder working next door came to find out what
was happening. I've no idea what he was told but he was fobbed off
with some lame comment. Another was, after being given some money to
buy some cheese for myself to eat before an "auditing session" and
having been asked about it I told them I'd bought a particular brand
which happened to be processed cheese, which resulted in a massive
punch and a scream "don't ever buy that f--king marcabian crap again".
Nb. Check out "marcab" on Google if you don't know what it means.
When I was six I was started on scientology "auditing" which is the
practise of scientology counselling - I use the term counselling with
hesitation as it is not accurate. "Auditing" is in reality an active
hypnotic experience with prompts by the "auditor" to lead to a desired
mental experience. A lot of people come away from the experience
feeling like they've gained something mentally or have had a "win" of
some sort. Even if you can get free or low cost "auditing" from those
outside the organised cult, I would strongly suggest the more
traditional methods of dealing with life's difficulties - friends,
relaxation techniques, education, or counselling from a qualified
professional. Generally these come without the kind of baggage and
strange beliefs which can alienate you from the rest of society.
Personally I have had great success with psychotherapy, and without
the help of these dedicated professionals I would likely not have made
it so far into my life to write this account.
Soon after starting "auditing" I was put on the "communication
course". This involves many hours sitting doing scientology "training
routines" or "TRs"; the first of which is to sit staring at another
person until they decide you are "out TR" and they call "flunk". "Out
TR" includes excessive blinking, breaking of eye contact, fidgeting,
scratching an itch or any other normal spontaneous behaviour or just
because the other person feels like calling a "flunk". This practise
can often continue for hours. Later "TRs" include sitting while the
other person screams, shouts abuse, makes jokes, physically threatens
or actually carries out minor physical abuse such as pushing, grabbing
an arm or around throat; the subject is taught to not react in any way
except that proscribed by scientology indoctrination, which is
generally something along the lines of "I'll repeat the question, do
fish swim?". You can imagine the damage this causes to a child's
developing social ability at that age - I learnt not to react to
anything, teasing, jokes, conversation, and normal childhood playing.
I became somewhat of a social pariah at school, I was definitely the
weird kid. Three decades on and I still occasionally have problems
reacting to social situations in a natural way, particularly when I am
tired or stressed. Most of the time I am pretty good any my reactions
are actually genuine and spontaneous for the most part, but people who
spend any length of time around me do see at times that I can be a
cold fish. I have particular trouble picking up on ordinary social
cues which most people instinctively understand.
Note that plenty of time was dedicated to me having scientology
"processing" but little time or energy was devoted to ensuring that I
was either doing well in school or doing my homework from school.
Indeed, at about six years old I was left to organise everything in my
life - making my lunch for school, getting myself up in the morning
and to school and getting myself home again. Remember children are
just "thetans in small bodies" according to Hubbard and my parents
took this, like everything else he wrote, literally. So at six I was
considered to be able to manage all aspects of my life, despite the
very obvious fact that I was not able to do this at all. As a
consequence I bathed once a week at most, I didn't ever have lunch for
school, I doubt I brushed my teeth more than once every six months and
I was consistently late for school. At one point I had huge infected
sores all up my arm and they would discharge blood and puss fairly
often.
At some point the school I went to figured that something bad was
happening and they contacted my parents about the lack care I
received. Somehow the cult's local management got wind of this and I
was placed with another scientology family for some months. In this
time I was put on the scientology "purification rundown", which
involved a daily regime which included taking vast doses of dietary
supplements, weird concoctions of minerals drinking a mug of vegetable
oil every day and sitting in a sauna for five or six hours. There's
plenty of research to show that this "rundown" does not help a
person's health at all, and is likely damaging due to the overly large
amounts of vitamins taken.
When I was eight or nine we somehow ended up living in the local
"narcanon" house, which was a huge old building. A bunch of
scientologists were living there along with the public drug addicts
which "narcanon" is supposed to help. I have quite fond memories of
living here due to the size of the building and the fact that I was
often left alone for days on end. There were other people around, but
my parents were off doing what ever they were doing so I had no real
supervision. The freedom was wonderful! I'd take my sleeping bag and a
lamp and a book and camp out all over the place, behind couches, in
old closets, a couple of times in the out buildings. But there were
times I was the only person there with the public drug addicts, and in
hindsight I realised that I barely escaped being sexually abused on a
couple of occasions.
The break from scientology first happened in my mind when I was ten.
It was quite simple - I learnt to fool the "e-meter". By holding a
particular image in my mind I could cause the "e-meter" to go into
"floating needle" mode. This allowed me to start to manipulate the
"sessions", mostly by ending them earlier so I could have more free
time after school.
Soon after this my parents decided that the cult was "out ethics" and
this eventually resulted in them being "declared SPs". They ran their
own covert operation for a couple of years getting copies of Hubbard's
books and transcribing his lecture tapes. They became "squirrels" and
started a mini cult of their own, which eventually became the
"Freezone" in that city. This was the second major break for me and
where I was very lucky, with this building on the fact that I could
manipulate the "auditing" a real crack of reality was getting through
to me. If this hadn't happened then most likely the direction of my
life would have ended up very different, and I can see that I would
have likely ended up in the "Sea Org", simply because I wouldn't have
known what else to do with my life.
My parents continued to put me scientology processing which generally
I was quite happy with as it was the only time I received anything
like positive attention from them. I also found this was the only time
I could speak freely and wouldn't suffer retaliation because of
anything I said.
The crack of reality continued to grow, partially because of my
friends and me getting involved in activities which stimulated me
mentally and encouraged free thinking. As this happened my sense of
wanting to be free from the abuse and from my parents attempting to
control every moment of my life grew. After a number of serious run
ins, my parents refused to let me go to school and I was made to do
physical labour for eight to ten hours a day on their farm. Any
suggestion of rebellion or disagreement was met with physical force,
much greater than previously. I suppose this was my own personal
"RPF", and in retrospect I can only guess that my parents took their
inspiration for this "handling" from the formation of the real "RPF".
Through a friend I managed to get in contact with the social services
and the result of this was that the social services decided to visit
my parents and try to talk things out with them. The fall out from
this was worse than I'd imagined - I couldn't walk properly for a
week. My parents told me that I was "in treason", but that they were
proud of me for taking my punishment so well.
Still I was not quite at breaking point and it took one more serious
beating for me to finally leave. I left home in my mid-teens with a
book, a hair brush, and three pairs of underwear all in a plastic bag.
I went to social services and told them I was not going back. Social
services examined and photographed my injuries and contacted my
parents.
Seeing my parents back down to social services was an incredibly
powerful moment for me. They threatened to "go to the papers" if they
could not take me home. The social services people said "do that then
- and we will take you to court for custody and you will lose because
we have physical evidence of abuse". A few minutes later my parents
were signing papers to "voluntarily" allow social services to take
custody of me. This remains one of the happiest days of my life. Of
course later they said that that this was all planned and done on
purpose to teach me to be independent and able to "stand on my own two
feet". This is something you will encounter constantly with
scientologist - fact are altered or viewed in such a way to make them
appear to be in control and you will find that this behaviour is
consistent with many people suffering from delusional disorders. The
fact that scientologists commonly exhibit such behaviour is worth
bearing in mind when either dealing with them.
I spent some time in government care. I met many people whose stories
remain with me, and their stories were the start of my recovery. There
are a lot of messed up people out there, not just scientology. My
foster parents were extremely good and loving despite not having any
idea of how to deal with someone with my experiences, and I still have
regular contact with them.
After leaving government care there were times in my late teens and
early twenties when I really hit the bottom. Times when I lay on the
floor for a week, unable to move, not drinking not eating, unable to
shift my mind from the broken state it was in. There were times I sat
on the floor, knife in hand, blood coming from my arm, desperately
willing myself to cut deeper to bring some kind of end to my pain. I
was committed to psychiatric care twice. For my whole life I had been
taught to suppress and control my emotions, had no way of relating to
the normal world, and I was paying the price. I had no coping
mechanisms, I didn't know how to properly engage with people on an
emotional level.
This is the true result of scientology and
scientology processing - broken people. Both the "Freezone" and
scientology will tell you this is because of "out tech", which is
jargon for scientology processing being done somehow wrong. In the
paranoid delusional world of Hubbard all negative results of
scientology processing are "out tech". There are no positive examples
of scientology processing I've ever seen which couldn't be achieved
more effectively with normal counselling or psychotherapy.
I got in to university as an adult student on the basis of passing an
aptitude test. Studying in the real world of university was both a
relief and something I couldn't cope with due to trying to cope with
my mental and emotional state. Many people helped me in this time, in
both small and large ways. The mental health community is largely
comprised of people who have an awesome sense of caring, are well
trained and deal with incredibly difficult things on a daily basis.
THESE are the people who are able help, they're not evil, they're not
part of a conspiracy and they are amazingly dedicated. The turning
point for me came in the days after I made a serious suicide attempt.
I was off my tree for a week afterwards due to the cocktail of drugs
and booze I'd had, but something about the experience allowed me to
start to calm internally and start to focus on something. Granted I
was still a mess but I had finally gained some kind of will to survive
- never the less I can't really recommend suicide attempts as a
recovery mechanism!
I move countries, changed my name, experienced life, had lots of sex.
Sex I can recommend as a recovery mechanism, and while me didn't
always experience it in an enhancing way, it helped me to gain a sense
of intimacy and comfort with people I'd not had before. I still had a
lot of issues to deal with and I spent a long time on
anti-depressants, simply learning to live, learning to cope and
learning to be myself. After a number of years I weaned myself off the
medication and have lived for almost a decade without it; medication
has its place and gave me the mental breathing space to truly recover
from the damage that scientology had done to me.
The real kicker about the whole scientology cult is that in one of
Hubbard's lectures he describes how to control and imprison people:
first you draw the curtains around them twenty feet away and you put
the bars behind the curtains. Then you move the curtains in, little by
little so as they don't notice. As you do this you move the bars
closer too.
Eventually the curtains are a foot away and so are the
bars. That's how you control and imprison people. Think about it for a
moment. He TOLD people how he was controlling them. The truth about
scientology is right there, a bare faced declaration of what he was
doing to people and what scientology continues to do to people.
They're slowly immersed in the scientology culture and their ability
to discern truth from lies is removed. This is what you are dealing
with when you talk to a scientologist - someone who has no ability to
think outside of the cage that they are in - indeed, they don't even
know that they are in a cage. The good news is that once they see that
they are in a cage, they can start to become free again; the cage only
exists within their mind.
True there are people in the cult who are physically restrained, such
as the people in the "RPF" and those who have been caught in
circumstances like Lisa McPherson's. It's sad to say that if you
simply released those people today they would still be caught in the
cage.
That said, returning to a normal life is quite achievable; if I
did it on my own, anyone can do it. So don't give up hope for those
who are inside, if you have loved ones, friends, family, know that
there is a way out and that one day they will be free.
Life is good and life goes on. - Master Splinter
I love life, there's so much good, so many wonderful things to
experience. In many ways my childhood made me the person that I am;
curious, determined, and I hope caring and loving. I have my faults,
don't get me wrong, but I do my best to be a good person. I've done
things I'm not proud of, mostly in the throes of recovery, but I take
responsibility for them, learn from them and move on. Taking
responsibility is not something you will find in scientology. Freedom
is not something you will find in scientology. I don't blame my
parents, and I don't blame any of the individuals in scientology, they
are victims just as much as I am. What they need is help to see the
truth about the lies which they are caught in.
Yours,
Anthony,
A scientology Child
http://exscientologykids.com/anthony.html
From Australia, New Zealand, the America's, across Europe and here in England, these stories are common place. Over the last few years Scientology has been and is hitting on third world countries, as if there isn't enough strife in their worlds.
