In your opinion, is Scientology a cult? [Spirituality & Religion]

“She went to the org in Switzerland and asked for damages for her husband’s suicide. So they sued her for blackmail and tried to get her jailed,” Valeska says. That attempt to get Jackson prosecuted criminally failed, but then Jackson went on television.

Valeska at the time was a Sea Org member, working diligently for the church, cut off entirely from the outside world. All she knew was that suddenly, in 1995, she was told that she would need to “disconnect” from her own mother, with no word about what her stepfather had gone through or the church’s attempt to get her mother prosecuted.

“They never told us any of that. They only told us she had sued the church. I didn’t know that my stepdad had been upset or any of that,” she says.

In standard church procedure, Jackson was declared a “suppressive person” — Scientology’s version of excommunication — and as a result, every Scientologist in good standing was required to cut off all ties to her.

Valeska alleges that church leader David Miscavige, in order to keep her away from her mother, had Valeska kept in isolation away from her mother at Flag Land Base, in Clearwater, Florida while she was only 17 years old. The next year, in September 1996, after she had turned 18, she was then moved to the Freewinds, the cruise ship that sails the Caribbean and caters to wealthy Scientologists paying for the highest level of spiritual training, Operating Thetan level eight, or “OT VIII.” Valeska joined the Sea Org that works on the ship. She says she was told her stay would only be two weeks. Instead, she spent the next twelve years there, unable to leave. For several months, she alleges, she was punished with an assignment in the ship’s engine room, where at one point she passed out from the noise and heat.

Scientology has its own codes:

http://exscientologykids.com/glossary/

1.1 – Pronounced “one one”. Means that someone is “covertly hostile” – they smile to your face, but will stab you in the back. Hubbard said that homosexuals and psychiatrists are 1.1.

Potential Trouble Source (or PTS) – Someone who is connected to a Suppressive Person (SP). According to Scientology a PTS will often be sick (in fact, they believe that PTSness is the only reason anyone gets sick), have emotional ups and downs, and not be able to get very far in life.

(For the above, in other words blaming other people without taking any other factors into the equation)

RPF – Rehabilitation Project Force. When a Sea Org member has done something considered particularly bad, they are isolated from the rest of the Sea Org members in the RPF program. People on the RPF are not allowed to walk (they run everywhere), are not allowed to speak to another Sea Org member unless spoken to, and spend most of their time doing manual labor. This is a very controversial program. Scientologists call it “rehabilitation”, critics call it “slave labor”.