http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/12/2844150.htm?section=justin Scientology insider details 'nightmare' childhood
By Sarah Collerton
A former Scientologist who says she was a "child slave" and alleges
she saw a six-year-old boy chained up in a ship's hold is disappointed
the Senate has blocked a full inquiry into the religious organisation.
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has been calling for a full inquiry
into the church since revealing claims of forced abortions and other
abuses in Parliament last year.
Keryn, 54, grew up in the church and has asked the ABC to identify her
only by her first name.
She says she was a victim of "hard labour, mental brutality and
separation" on Scientology ships, which were used for the Church's
elite band of followers in the 1960s to 1970s. She is angry the motion
for a Scientology probe has been blocked in Parliament.
"Australia is an egalitarian society; Scientology is not egalitarian,"
she told ABC News Online.
"There is no protection for workers and no protection for children.
It's the push for the inquiry that has brought me out of the
woodwork."
Keryn says her mother was a founding member of the church and went on
to become the CEO of Scientology in South Africa.
"It should be banned; it's a very dangerous pseudo-religion and
corporate enterprise, and it really needs to be looked at very
closely," she said.
"If it's not looked at very closely and monitored and checks and
balances put in place, then one day people are going to look back and
say, 'This is bad news and we did nothing'.
"The structure is very totalitarian, and I just think it's very bad
for mental health. They need to look into the separation of families.
I know many broken families because of Scientology."
Keryn wants an inquiry to investigate living and labour conditions as
well as schooling for children working for the organisation at a young
age.
"There is a belief in Scientology that normal schooling simply
indoctrinates you with social norms and ideologies ... so they prefer
to indoctrinate with their own ideologies, with the result that
Scientology children, if they manage to leave, are usually unskilled
and uneducated.
"This forces them back into the world they know - in other words
Scientology recreates its own labour force," she said.
"People just get so brainwashed and it's made so difficult for people
to leave, they just don't. Staff members don't get paid so they can't
accumulate money to leave.
"There's a belief system that if you find something wrong with
Scientology, then there's something wrong with you. That's instilled
in you so deeply that it's very hard to shake."
'Nightmare' childhood
Keryn's decision to speak openly about her experiences comes after
ABC1's Four Corners program, The Ex-Files, in which former members
told of forced abortions, pressure to work extreme hours and being
forced to hand over large sums of money.
Members of Scientology's elite unit of full-time staffers the Sea
Organisation - or Sea Org - detailed allegations of a strict regime of
discipline and punishment in place during the 1960s.
Scientology has denied the claims, but Keryn says she can back up the
allegations.
She says she signed a billion-year contract as a 12-year-old, lived on
the Scientology vessels The Royal Scotman and The Athena, and was in
effect a "child slave".
"When we were on the ship, we had people working 20 hours a day, seven
days a week," she said.
"It was a nightmare for me and my brother. For most of our lives, we
were separated from our mother because she was in the Sea Org.
"A lot of the children hadn't seen their parents for months, and their
parents were on the same ship."
She says what she saw happen to one child, a six-year-old boy named
Larry, still haunts her today.
"I've carried him with me all my life and I want to put it on record
what I saw," she said.
While working on one of the Sea Org boats, which was a former cattle
ship, Keryn heard a clinking sound and found the boy in the hold.
"Larry was chained by his leg and he was there for a few days. He was
fed, but he was chained," she said.
She says she was forced to "disconnect" from her father, who did not
want to be part of the church.
"They say they don't break up families but they most definitely do,"
she said.
"[On Four Corners, Scientologist Tommy Davis] claimed they have no
disconnection policy - that's an outright lie, unless they've changed
that. I was told to disconnect from my father, that he would suppress
us. I was told to write a letter to him when I was six to disconnect
from him."
L Ron Hubbard
Originally the prospect of "sailing the high seas, having adventures
and not going to school anymore" was exciting to Keryn, but she soon
realised the reality of life in the Sea Org. She says it was "worse
than jail".
"My brother was allocated a job in the engine room of the shift as a
greaser - he was 10 ... I was working in the canteen and we were both
working 20-hour shifts," she said.
"I didn't see him for weeks and then one day I bumped into him in the
doorways between the dormitories, and he was this little thing,
covered in grease with these big red eyes, and he saw me and he
started crying and he said he wanted to go home.
"At that stage, you could petition the commodore, who was L Ron
Hubbard, who was living on the ship up in his luxury apartment. I
petitioned him and he went home straightaway, but you had to have a
replacement for him, so I took my brother's place in the engine room."
While Keryn was not aware of any forced abortions, she says she
remembers cruel punishments such as people being locked in dark
hatches and at other times being forced to do hard labour at "double
time".
"One of the punishments they had was throwing you overboard, which
happened to my mother on a regular basis," she said.
Keryn also knew Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, and recalls seeing
him around the ship in a "white sailor suit".
"He was a very powerful, enigmatic figure," she said.
"As an individual, he had a very powerful force about him and I could
see people would quiver in his presence, he had immense self-belief.
In the flesh, he didn't wander around like some demented, nutty
professor."
Tracking her down
Keryn, who moved from South Africa to Australia in 1989, worked on the
ships until she was 13, when she was "rescued" by her grandmother.
For years, she has kept the torment to herself and only occasionally
spoken about it to her brother, who is still bitter and angry about
their upbringing.
She did not want to speak publicly out of fear and "conflicted
loyalty" to her mother, who stayed a devout Scientologist until she
died.
Keryn was left frightened after Scientologists tracked her down on
Facebook and called her, 42 years after she left the organisation.
"I thought it was well and truly behind me," she said.
She also says they have been harassing her brother, who still lives in
South Africa, calling him day and night.
Big business
Keryn says over the years Scientology has changed from the more
idealistic early days.
"They've really refined their acts and become very slick at marketing
and promotions and corporate management," she said.
"They're still doing what they've always done, but they've just
morphed into something slicker so they're much more dangerous than
they were before.
"I'm really nervous about where it's going - it's just infiltrated so
many educational programs, management programs."
What makes Keryn very angry is the celebrity following.
"When I hear John Travolta and Tom Cruise come out and say 'this is
the way', I think 'have you actually ever been behind the scenes of
the Celebrity Centre to see how they live?' They don't," she said.
"The hard work is done by staff members. The people that have money do
what people with money always do. They just throw money at stuff and
people are nice to them. And Scientology has always courted
celebrities because that is their legitimisation and it's working.
"If there's one thing I can say though, because Tom Cruise jumped on
that stupid couch, that actually started the ridicule, and the
ridicule has grown bigger and bigger and started to undermine
Scientology's image."
Scientology 'has changed'
The ABC has approached the Church of Scientology about Keryn's claims.
Scientology's Australia spokesman Cyrus Brooks says after the Sea Org
was formed in 1967, it "took several years to settle itself" and
"there were a few staff who were violating the church policy at that
time".
"What we have today is far from its earliest days," he said.
"As we have grown and evolved, we have formulated strict regulations
as to conduct of staff and conditions and we also have a much firmer
screening policy of those who apply and join."
He says children have not been allowed to join the Sea Org for more
than 20 years, however the ABC's Four Corners investigation found
members have been recruited and separated from their families from the
age of 14 since then.
Mr Brooks says the Sea Org's 5,000 members, who are now on dry land,
do not get paid.
"We don't expect a wage and we don't do it for a wage. We know this
before we join and it is a major decision to do so," he said.
"We understand that we are going to be working almost full time -
including a work day, along then with religious studies and practice
daily."
Mr Brooks says if members are in touch with people the church opposes,
they cannot go to church services.
"If a current member by way of family connection or another
relationship is connected with someone who is violently opposed to
Scientology and engaging in conduct to attack the church, we state
that while the upset remains, they are unable to have church services
until they resolve the situation," he said.
"A person who is connected with someone against their religious faith
by experience does not make spiritual gains, as any gains they make
are invalidated by the antagonistic source."
END
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