A Miscavige who turned on Scientology

Jenna Miscavige Hill may be Scientology’s worst enemy, said Sara Stewart in the New York Post. Hill, the niece of church leader David Miscavige, was 6 years old when she was sent to the Ranch—a training academy for the church’s highest order, the Sea Organization. Located in the California desert, the Ranch was run like a military boot camp. Students would spend 25 hours a week doing manual labor, like digging trenches and hauling rocks. “We would get the rocks out of a running creek,” says Hill, 29, who has written a devastating memoir. “It was freezing cold.” Bedrooms were inspected daily, and kids who failed to meet Sea Org standards were sent to “Pigs Berthing,” a “run-down room with a mattress on the floor. There weren’t any lights, and there were bats in there.” (Scientology denies her charges.) Her classroom education was focused on the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and attempting to move inanimate objects with her mind. You are so “completely brainwashed,” she says, that when you have doubts, “you think that you’re crazy.” At age 21, she fled Scientology, and says the church sent private investigators to follow her. But Hill refuses to be bullied into silence. “In the end, I’m just not afraid of them anymore. What are they gonna do at this point that they haven’t already done?”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up