The Terrible Culture of Scientology: Part 3

This is the third and final part of my interview with Larisa Smith and her family about growing up with and in Scientology. All of what was gone over in the first two parts has been leading up to this. I think you’ll see why we wanted to cover her early life and experiences in such detail, so as to put everything that she describes here into a full context.

For most of its members, Scientology is a series of misadventures and sometimes horrifying traumas which never end up with them experiencing the full promises or gains that L. Ron Hubbard talked about in his books and lectures. Sure, some people feel like they benefited from some of their auditing or training, but when you compare those gains to the cost in human misery, broken lives and outright criminal activities, there is really no question whether or not the Church of Scientology is a beneficial organization. For those raised in it, they never had any choice as to whether they wanted to participate or not. By the very fact of being raised in a household of Scientologists, they were indoctrinated with L. Ron Hubbard’s philosophy. As Larisa described earlier, they often received much more than a passing knowledge of the subject and were told by their parents that Scientology was the one and only true path to spiritual salvation and happiness. The culture of Scientology permeates every aspect of their lives and its influence cannot be easily discounted.

Now consider for a moment what it must have been like for the children of Sea Org members. All but taken away from or abandoned entirely by their parents for most of their upbringing, taken care of by overworked and indifferent adult supervisors who themselves were castoffs and “those who could be spared,” the children raised at the Canyon Oaks Ranch in Los Angeles or the International Gold Base in Hemet, California were given short shrift, hardly any education to speak of and mostly left to fend for themselves. These children were victims of Scientology in ways that most of us cannot imagine and which I hope in the future to expose in much more detail. In this video, you will see the the results of this upbringing. I am in no way justifying or apologizing for the evil behavior described here, but I am saying that by understanding where it comes from, it makes the tragedy of Scientology that much deeper. There is an entire generation of these kids, mainly living around the Sea Org bases around the world, who will never be able to lead what anyone would consider a normal life because they were cut off at the knees before they were able to walk.

L. Ron Hubbard said that Scientology is the only game where everyone wins but I would say that getting as far away from Scientology as possible is the only way to “win” and this video series shows exactly why. Larisa and the whole DeWall family managed to escape from Scientology and are never going back. In the end, their story is a success against very difficult odds which should be shared far and wide.