INSIDE THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY'S SEA ORGANIZATION
- Katherine Spallino recently appeared on the Cults To Consciousness podcast
- She explained how she was born into the religion before becoming a cadet
- But the now mom-of-three revealed that she was 'horribly neglected as a child'
A woman has candidly lifted the lid on what it was really like growing up in the Church of Scientology's Sea Organization.
Katherine Spallino, who is now based in Minnesota, appeared on a recent episode of the Cults To Consciousness podcast to discuss her childhood experience.
She explained that she was born into the religion and grew up as a cadet before being trained to become a full member of the Sea Organization - the senior-most status of staff in Scientology, which started as the founder's private navy.
But mom-of-three Katherine, who has since authored memoir The Bad Cadet, has revealed how she was 'horribly neglected as a child' and was left with 'no education' after being 'forced into hard labor' from a young age.
Katherine began by telling host Shelise Ann Sola how she was born at a Scientology church in Hollywood - but never got registered at birth.
'My parents were so busy working for the Church of Scientology, they never got around to registering me,' she shared.
This would later prove to be problem since a lack of Social Security Number meant she could not legally get paid - but she conceded the oversight likely stemmed from the fact that children were not prioritized within the organization because kids were considered 'adults in small bodies.'
Elaborating on her path to becoming a cadet, Katherine explained: 'For cadets - which is what I was - our parents worked for the Church of Scientology in the inner, inner circle of it.
'They signed a billion-year contract giving their life to the Sea Org and, in turn, mine as well.
'So I was literally born in the Sea Org and I had started signing contracts by the time I was six years old saying "I'm a Sea Org member, that's my purpose."'
Katherine said that at eight years old she 'randomly got pulled aside at school' and got told she would be going to live in the cadet ranch - where her older sister, who is six years her senior, was already staying.
'I don't remember saying goodbye to my parents at all. I just got in a car and left - that's how nonchalant it was,' she said.
'I went with my best friend at the time and we arrive at the school and I'm just like "I can't believe we're going to be cadets."'
Katherine divulged that she felt 'special' and was keen to impress from the outset, adding: 'All I want to do when I was there is be a good cadet.'
The young cadets were shipped off to a boarding school as she shared: 'I was not raised with my parents....
'By the time I was eight years old I'm living away from my parents at a boarding school in the mountains above Los Angeles.
'I'd see my parents very rarely. It becomes once every few months... sometimes I wouldn't see them for a year and I thought that was normal.
'They had little to no involvement in raising me.'
She dished that she was instead raised by staff members in her dorm which she shared with between 13 and 16 other girls at a time.
'There were three bunk beds stacked high, all crammed in a room, and we would all just get ready together.'
The group would then walk to a school building opposite the Church of Scientology.
Katherine explained: 'We would all go there for the day and learn how to read and so on - but we'd already started the Scientology processing and indoctrination at that time...
'Every day there was some sort of Scientology word or term that we would be learning verbatim and repeating back and we would shout it over and over which is a form of an indoctrination.'
She said that once a week the children were also taken to an exhibition about Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
'We would see all of this information about L. Ron Hubbard - about how much we adored him,' she said.
'Every week we would see these amazing accolades as an exhibit of him. It was literally like a museum that they walk through and they show all the wonderful works of L. Ron Hubbard....
'To me he was like a god - this all-knowing person who knew everything about the world.'
Discussing the concept further, she said: 'I thought that he knew everything that there was to know and I did think he had special powers.'
Katherine committed herself to being in the cadets until the age of 14 when she was invited onto the Estates Project Force (EPF) - as part of the Sea Organization - which she described as a 'boot camp for children.'
'The EPF is when I start to run into trouble because I am 14 and I really like boys and there's a lot of cute boys on the EPF,' she said.
'I can't help flirting with them and I keep getting shamed for that.
'They say "get your veilance in" which means get your Sea Org personality on, stop messing around and joking around.
'That continues for a couple years where I finally join the Sea Org and I'm always just getting yelled at for being too loud, too rambunctious and I also kind of skip out on Scientology studies.
'I'm kind of doing what normal teenagers might be doing except for I'm in a cult environment where there's all these rules.'
She said that within the organization 'age does not matter' so there would be some teenagers holding 'executive' posts who were telling adults what to do.
Katherine divulged that at 16 years old she was subject to an 'interrogatory' - where her contemporaries were forced to report on her bad behaviors.
'I was so mortified... I get called into the ethics area - which is the place you go to when you're in trouble,' she said.
'They're like "everybody tells us that you're always in the bathroom putting on makeup, that you're always goofing off, that you're not in course, you don't take your post seriously."
'I just feel so ashamed. I feel like the whole organization knows that I'm such a bad Sea Org member and I feel so bad about it.'
She said that from then on she tried to fit in and be 'more robotic' but admitted: 'This cycle starts to take a toll on me and at some point I have to choose - am I going to stay or am I going to go?'
Katherine shared that anyone in the outside world who does not know about Scientology is referred to with a derogatory term that brands them as 'stupid' because 'they don't know any better.'
She was also warned about leaving the Scientology group in no uncertain terms.
'They'd say "you're going to be promiscuous, you're going to end up on drugs, you're not going to have a lot of money because you're leaving the good place,"' she said.
Nonetheless, the then teen was still unhappy within the organization.
She continued: 'The jobs I had in the Sea Org were very tedious, boring, pointless jobs where I had no excitement or joy in it.'
Katherine explained that followers were not allowed on the internet but one of her jobs was that of a rudiments register - in which she had to try and entice Scientology followers back if they had started to become disillusioned.
'I'm 15 years old and I had to convince adults to come back to the church because they aren't coming anymore,' she said.
'I would have this list of people to call and I would call them and I would get sworn at and hung up on.
'They're probably being harassed all of these people who I'm calling and I'm just like "why do people seem to hate Scientology so much? I don't understand." I didn't really understand it.
'That was my first post for a few months and within a couple of weeks I was already hating it. I never had any success.
'I was definitely having to push myself to try to work because it was just so pointless.'
She continued: 'If you make a lot of mistakes on your post and you get removed there's a lot of shaming that goes on in Scientology.
'People will write reports on you - it's very Big Brother. Your husband will write a report on you if they feel that you're saying something negative about the church or the Sea Org or if you're complaining like, "Oh I had to stay up till midnight to get this work done."
'They'll write a report on you thinking they're helping you. There is this sense of righteousness that everybody has in the Sea Org... It's very, very scary how bad it is.'
Katherine explained that she struggled to get paid because she did not have a Social Security Number - but the organization still took taxes out of her $15 weekly paycheck which left her 'broke.'
She said that she was teased because she only had one pair of underwear, adding: 'I also had no shoes - at one point I was walking around barefoot. There's nobody to look out for me and nobody cares I guess. That was just the way it was.'
But eventually it became too much.
'It was just weighing on me and I was like, "Maybe I'm not meant to be in the Sea Org, maybe I'm meant to just be a Scientologist - somebody who just takes services from the Church of Scientology and doesn't have to act like a Sea Org member - maybe that would be better,"' she said.
'Another huge part that was starting to come to play was being 15 or 16 and I'm aware of this rule that they made in the 80s where they said Sea Org members cannot have children. I loved kids....
'I was beginning to realize I actually want to have kids and I'm also not doing very well in the Sea Org and I also just want to have a life... There was no joy that I was getting from being in the Sea Org.'
She eventually left the training program - but was saddled with $5,000 in 'freeloader' debt that covered the cost of the courses she had studied during her time in the group.
Katherine went to school and later decided to break away from Scientology all together.
She landed a job as a personal assistant part time, which then allowed her to work on her book.
'I was just putting it all down just like barfing all my thoughts on my page and copying my journal into it,' the author divulged.
'My mom said, when I told her I had been working on writing, she said, "You better not be writing about Scientology." That was her first reaction.'
She continued: 'My book is not even attacking Scientology. It's me just telling my story and you could take what you want out of it. How I was raised was how I was raised.
'I just want people to form their own opinions about it.
'Most opinions are I was horribly neglected as a child and I was forced into hard labor and no education.'
Katherine, who has since married and had three sons, revealed that her relationship with her parents is still strained, adding: 'They chose Scientology over me and my children.
'I'm not angry at my parents because I know that they're just under undue influence. They've just been indoctrinated to what they think and if they do want to leave I'm here. I would still be here and love them.
'It's sad obviously and disappointing but I also know how much influence Scientology has on these people.'
Reflecting on her mentality now, Katherine concluded: 'I revel in being able to make my own choices for myself every day all day.
'It's the nicest feeling to not have someone telling you what to do all the time.'
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