A recent Facebook posting, coupled with the blog post about my daughter yesterday, prompted me to write this today.
Mirit Hendrickson is a full-on scientologist known for her “VM videos” — donning a yellow t-shirt and heading out to look for photo-ops during hurricanes that she then posts all over social media to prove the “effectiveness of the tech.”
Her life is immersed in all things scientology. So it is hardly a surprise that her children are being raised as part of an “ideal” scientology family (which includes joining the Sea Org as soon as possible).
As you can see she is proudly announcing that her daughter Manaka was a Class V auditor and Clear at age 14 and joined the Sea Org at age 15. And now her daughter Kiki, who is 13, is on her professional auditor training line-up.
I feel for this beautiful girl (I assume her sister is similarly blessed). They have from an early age been indoctrinated into the idea that education outside scientology is a waste of time. Manaka may not even have a high school diploma. Kiki looks to be following in her footsteps. L. Ron Hubbard believed only he had knowledge worth imparting — he is famously derisive of “wog” education and particularly higher education after he flunked out of George Washington University.
Both of them have already been subjected to the mind-fuckery of TR bullbaiting, desensitizing them to sexual harassment. Manaka is interrogating adults about their sex lives, practices and perversions at 17 (this is the primary duty she has as the “Senior Sec Checker” of the Flag AO) and her sister is soon to follow as another child “counselor” digging around looking for sordid and discreditable things in the lives of those who sit before them. I have seen what this does to children. I have been sec checked often by girls like these two. Scientologists are proud of the cold, uncompassionate “in-TR’s” of these “Children of the Corn.”
This is how my daughter was raised by me, so sadly I know the path.
The indoctrination of children is perhaps the most dangerous and tragic aspect of scientology.
Perhaps Mirrits glowing admiration for Chris Baker is partly due to the fact that he is married to DM’s niece, Tara Baker ?
I try, hard, to not blame the victims of the mind-fuck perpetrated by the criminal organisation known as the “church” of $cientology. Mirit makes that so very difficult đ
I hope they all get out, and that her kids realise that the Co$ is the real villain here.
Ironic,,, what is it that Hubbard says about the person who sits in his ivory towe not really being a part of life! Claiming a man has to get into the nooks and crannies of life to rea lly know life?
But kids in Scientology never get the chance to do this. Too busy reading and not experiencing life.
I haven’t commented here in the last couple years (and never under this name), although I do visit quite frequently. As a former cadet org kid, I wanted to offer this aspect for posterity:
Growing up in scientology, immersed mostly in Hubbard’s thinking and scn culture, means you spend your formative years in an environment which is almost entirely lacking in intellectual stimulation. There is no enquiry or inquisitiveness about life because the answers are already ‘known’. This can make a big difference to a person’s intellectual and emotional development compared to having a reasonably ordinary childood.
I feel very sad for the two girls. They will have spent most of their late childhood and early puberty internalising Hubbard’s views instead of finding out who they are. They have no freedom and as teenagers are not permitted to rebel, else heavy ethics awaits. They must be suffocating inside.
I joined staff at a Class V org at 13 and recently I’ve been thinking of those days of more than 20 years ago now, and in my mind I can’t help thinking “FUUUUUCK YOU” to the adults (it wasn’t just my parents)
involved in the whole ridiculous situation. So it seems I have some built up resentment.
I’m UTR and went to the org a while ago to drop something off to my mother and of course the bots tried to talk to me, I could tell they read my PC folders as soon as they were aware of my presence and surreptitiously tried to push buttons and so on, attempting to reel me back in – a purely futile endeavor at this point. Once again in my mind I think “FUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU”. With a bit of resentment and also a small amount of black humor.
At the present time we have a great volcano that has wracked havoc on the Philippines. It may still erupt more any day. Thousands homeless and hurt. We are still cleaning up from Typhoon Ursula that hit us on Christmas. Interesting that no VM’s have shown up down here. Or is it that the Philippines is poor and cannot afford scientology. Which is it Mirit? Oh, by the way a scientology front group did go to Bagio, where the rich live and convinced a council person to speak. It is against the Constitution of the Philippines to get government employees at a lecture like that. The papers got ahold of it and are getting people to take legal action. The front group has left the area without any notices.
â This is how my daughter was raised by me, so sadly I know the path.â
This statement brings a tear to the eye because in it we can feel the loss. The loss of family, the loss of childhood, the loss of time…but I can still see a glimmer of hope because Mike was also raised like this and he woke up. I remember seeing Mike on the Sweeney film looking thin, almost skeletal and aged…poor guy looked like heâd been in prison and he had been little did we know. Compare that film to Mike today looking well and happy with his wife and children…my favorite new photo being the one of him holding one of the boys up and laughing. Itâs a tantamount âThis is your life on Scientology…This is your life FREE of Scientologyâ comparison.
Miscavige is cannibalizing the second and third generation Scientologists because there is NO NEW MEAT…from the looks of their propaganda the only new meat they are getting are the elderly crowd that I can almost guarantee are being taken financial advantage of. So the pressure to join the SO and/or staff is got to be at an all time high. How can you maintain a fake navy if you have no new volunteers?
Anyone else notice the grip that âChris Bakerâ has on Makanas arm? That doesnât look
like a friendly grip to me.
Isn’t Baker British? my Anglo (NEVER been scientologist, barely Anglican or Methodist) family also grab pretty tight like that … they either show no emotion at all (stiff upper lip) or over the top squeezing (especially if you did something good or they haven’t seen you in awhile). Don’t get me wrong like anyone who’s ever been in I suffered in scientology but let’s try and concentrate on actual crap instead of adding intrigue & innuendo ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ
Sea Org members are sex+sleep deprived, therefore it’s very easy to get touch deprived https://www.healthline.com/health/touch-starved#type-of-touch and that can pop out in weird ways.
Itâs a great irony that scientologists consider general education to be worthless, but these kids have to be able to read enough in order to get through the Scientology courses. There was a solution to the illiteracy at one point, Key to Life, but with that gone, it must be difficult for children to study Scientology exclusively.
Is it even legal for kids to be in the SO at 15? And didn’t the CofS claim they no longer employed children?
Hendricks has claimed that Scientology saved her from an abusive ex-husband, though when I tried to fact-check some of her biographical claims it appeared that they actually got into Scientology together – it must not have fixed her problems or their marriage. Sadly she’s now setting her daughters up for abuse, including the likelihood of multiple bad marriages.
Her well-off parents, who may be subsidizing her lifestyle since she doesn’t seem to support herself, don’t appear to be in Scientology, so they must be horrified about their granddaughters.
“Is it even legal for kids to be in the SO at 15?”
Peacemaker there are no laws about age restrictions on joining a religious order. Nor could there be in the USA. Please read US Const.
The Constitution can be amended and if we agreed to greater world laws then it would become illegal once https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child is ratified. Which it should be, everywhere not just USA. Children everywhere should have those rights & freedoms.
Spoken like a true uneducated fool Valerie.
Wynski, there are laws restricting child labor:
https://www.hr.fsu.edu/pdf/publications/compliance/childlaborlaw.pdf
If Scientology is behaving typically, they are violating at least some of those laws, and just getting away with it. Plus there are also requirements to attend school, so a minor at least can’t be a Sea Org member in the way it’s typically construed as a 100+ hour a week commitment.
Grew up with the Feshbach twins…I remember some of this. In retrospect Iâm surprised my (practicing Lutheran) parents let me go over to their home so often…but we knew so little then…
“Scientologists are proud of the cold, uncompassionate âin-TRâsâ of these âChildren of the Corn.â The indoctrination of children is perhaps the most dangerous and tragic aspect of scientology.” YEs, Mike, this is the sad, tragic truth of the situation. If my kids ever wake up and get out, they will have nothing that could translate on a resume. j What will they say, “I spent the last 20 years working for a cult? How will they get a job? And if they do go to college they’ll be going as a 40 year old or older, not the same as their peers who all went to college and have graduated by now. I just hope I’m still alive to help them when they get out.
Yes, this is a big problem. The inside the bubble, hard core and still blind scientologists have educated, sorry, indoctrinated their own kids into the scientology way to think about life and others.
The kids have only heard, from their parents, that scientology is incredible!
So, the kid has no way to differentiate between power of choice and personal freedom versus being manipulated by this cult. He will blindly follow his or her parent’s advice and god bless him once he joins the sea org.
Lets hope this covert abuse dwindles down one way or another.
I wish Mirit would look carefully and with a mature eye at the example of SO children who almost always eventually disconnect from their parents, either because one party became PTS, were declared SP, or simply blew from the COS.
There are so many parents pining to love, hold, and spoil their grandchildren, but they have no contact, and the children hardly know they even have grandparents. The opposite happens also, though adults disconnecting from children and grandchildren may happen less often than children disconnecting from their elders.
“Back in the day” covers some sins of action and inaction by scilon parents, but that excuse has worn very thin since the days of the Paulette Cooper book and Fair Gaming, the Debbie Cook letter, and the revelations found in books by Jon Atack, Russell Miller, and others. For decades there have been many, many sources of truth available at the click of a mouse, the turn of a page, or the changing of a TV channel. It’s pretty stupid to act as if the entire publishing and documentary industry are simply evil anti-religion bigots out to make a quick buck, then later try to swear they had no way to know that they were being brainwashed into a culty scam.
Agreed. So sad. My mom let my sibling join the SO as a teen. We’d only been involved for a couple of years and I knew my sibling was not even joining out of some sudden urge to save the planet. He’d been lied to and he was getting away from being under my mom’s control. In teens, that drive for independence is strong and Scientology capitalizes on it. They give children power over others at a time when they crave being treated as an adult but aren’t ready for it yet. Thankfully he is out now – of both the SO and the cherch.
There is so much to say on this subject . I look at my daughter who was literally pulled out of college by recruiters , they just went there and convinced her to quit .
It took all my energy to keep her out of the sea org but the damage was done.
Now at 36 , she is going back to school , all this time lost , all the regrets , and she is one of the lucky ones .
Good lord. I have heard and seen this story over and over. Makes me sad.
Maria, you are incredible for what you’ve done. And going back to school fantastic!
Re: All this time lost, all the regrets, I hope you can put it behind you.
Good for your daughter getting out and going back to school. It is nice to hear a positive story. May there be more that follow her out. I wish her the best!
Me too on all that Chicken just said. Bravo!
Marie, good for you! You did the right thing!
Damn right she is!
Good on you for keeping her out of the SO! So glad to know she got out and is going back to school! Yes, she is one of the lucky ones – she had a mother who fought for her.
Talked to two OT VIII’s declared about ten years ago at Flag. They paid a visit to Clearwater. All new faces. Scientology is a ;revolving door” that just sucks in new people. They get a brief high and then then they are out.
In FLorida children must go to school at least until the age of 16. I wonder how all these young kids get around the law.
The SO has the young kids do school work like home schooling so that they get a GED. But sometimes, when a big event or all hands is coming, they fudge a little and the kids don’t go to school for that day or week.
my greatest failure as a scio was that my offspring did not reach for the bridge despite all my best intentions and efforts.
it’s been the thing I’m most grateful for ever since I woke up.
……
Without examples such as you, Mike, and Aaron.. I would feel totally hopeless about 2nd Gen’s prospects for finding out the truth and getting out.
For now… those girls are just trapped. Gawd only knows what they’ll have to go through before the real world becomes real.
Same. So grateful…
If my parents had not been devout, I may have had a chance of not getting involved. I was doomed by their fervent belief.
But yet you got out. Against great odds, you got yourself out. You’re not doomed. You were on the road to BEING doomed, but you turned a corner, you got yourself out! Well done! Very well done!
I recall doing the PTS / SP course and in that course, they gave me a DVD to hand out to friends and family questioning why Scientology has so many young people. I never used the DVD or watched it really until I left. This DVD is part of the mind control and brainwashing Scientology does to adult Scientologists to let Scientology eat their young.
Scientology, the criminal organization covers all of its bases.
Scientology Destroy’s Lives.
That’s very sad. I know it’s not entirely her fault, given her bot mindset as a cult member, but I still feel angry at the mother for not protecting her daughters. I’m not sure what I expect her to have done — some research, ask some questions of SO members — but SOMETHING. It just seems so much easier now to get info about how Sea Org members are treated than it was 15 years ago.
What bothers me so much is that whilst âMomâ is finding herself, galavanting from one photo op to another and then working on her latest creation in between the rest (clearly living quite comfortably), sheâs allowing her girls to have NONE of those experiences! Her eldest is a virtual slave (and thereâs no way she doesnât know – countless parents on here have talked about their diligence in refusing to allow their kids to be coerced into SO until theyâd finished their education BECAUSE they knew what their kids were in for!) and now her precious and beautiful 13yo girl is focused on how to suppress her emotions and audit adults (along with probable pressure to join SO just like big sis) instead of getting excited about starting high school soon, her first school dance, extra curricular activities that are actually FUN for a child that age…
Mirit – You see the value in travel and discovering a new creative outlet for yourself! What about your daughters? You donât have to stop doing what youâre doing to be a decent parent and protect your daughtersâ childhoods and opportunities. So whatâll it be, continue sitting in your little bubble thatâs all about âMirit… Mirit…â or be the mom and protector those girls deserve?
Why should she be bored parenting her daughters when she has money coming in enabling her to not have to work, and why spend any of it on her kids when she can dump them in the Sea Org, and be extravagently praised by the cult for all of that? , Why not gallivant around the globe for the cult? She is, after doing what EVERY parent (per the cult).SHOULD do. Her dynamics are the cult’s “Ideal Scene”! All other Scientology families should be EMULATING her! And if they’re not, if they’re holding their kids BACK from joining the Sea Org, then these Scientologists should be ASHAMED. And yes, I’m serious, this is how the cult thinks.
Cat W, don’t be angry at this mother or any Scientology parents for not “protecting” their children. As incredible as it may sound, with their very actions they believed that they WERE protecting their kids. These parents placed their kids from infancy into the cult with the best, the purest, the highest of intentions for the welfare of those children.
Many of them sent those kids to Scientology schools in their certainty that there could be no better start in life for their children, no better way to protect them from the evils and dangers and out-ethics of the “wog” world and the big expense well worth it. They bought them Scientology courses and Scientology auditing too.
What these parents didn’t realize was that from day one their kids were being trained to believe that any disagreement experienced by ANY Scientologist that could not be “handled” meant that one would have to disconnect from such a person – no exceptions.
Well, one day it came to pass that these parents had disagreements and their children couldn’t handle them and the ethics people at the orgs couldn’t handle them and so poof! the children were ordered to disconnect from said parent(s) and guess what? They obeyed.
No surprise here. “Handle or disconnect” was all they knew and all they had ever known all they’d ever practiced from infancy their parents’ enthusiastic approval.
Then one day, its Dad who can’t be handled, or Mom just won’t listen and keeps disagreeing…’bye Mom, ‘bye Dad…’bye ANYONE who cannot or will not be handled!
Cat, these people now have to live without their kids. While they deal with the pain of these losses they have to live with the fact that, bluntly, its their fault that the kids became cult robots, because they, the parents put them into the cult. With the best of intentions too. This cannot be overstressed. With the very best of intentions and the most altruistic, idealistic and unselfish of motives.
So don’t be angry with them. There’s enormous pain they’re dealing with. They believed they were doing right by their children. They’re innocent in that regard.
There’s nothing that Mike Rinder’s daugher Taryn is doing to hurt him, no behavior with the full on intent to destroy her father in any way legally possible, no activity along this line ini which Taryn Rinder Teutsch is engaging which would not or could not be done by ANY Scientology kid against a disconnected parent.
No difference. Taryn is following orders to destroy her father – period. She’s following orders. She does nothing – NOTHING – that is not obedience to or in sync with orders from the cult. She may even, in her heart of hearts, not WANT to be in compliance with her orders. No matter; she does what she’s told, no more, no less, period.
The other “kids” that are in, be they staff or Sea Org or public Scientologists – if they’re NOT doing the same, its because they haven’t been ORDERED to do so.
That simple, really. If they’re not spreading nasty lies about their disconnected ExScn parent it just means that that these disconnected parent are not “high profile” enough. Mike Rinder is a serious high profile threat; if and/or when any parents here would speak out and get the kind of attention Mike or Leah get from their still in kids would be trotted out and ordered to attack and destroy their parents in some way, to “shudder them into silence”. And these kids would obey, just as Taryn does.
What she’s doing to her father is what any of the still in kids would do if they were ordered to do so.