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us 15
---
title: "Understanding Scientology — us-15"
source: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-15.html
retrieved: 2026-06-28
---
Understanding Scientology, by Margery
Wakefield
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Chapter 15
## The Plight of Parents -- Some Suggestions for Families
We would like to ask the congressmen and senators ... to
imagine what it would be like to have their son or daughter take a trip
across the country after graduating college, planning to retum home at
the end of a stated time, to resume the life and career for which they
had been preparing ... and then to receive a phone call from an
unspecified place three thousand miles away, from someone who sounds
only vaguely like the son (or daughter) they knew so well only a few
months before, but whose voice is the voice of a ventriloquist's dummy,
who speaks to them only in the stilted phrases of a religious pamphlet,
who seems to have no recollection of the twenty-odd years of mutual
caring and struggling and tears and laughter that makes a family ... and
who cannot answer the simplest question without consulting some unknown
person standing beside him!
-- Parents of a cult member
I have often thought that the twelve years I spent in the Church of
Scientology were a far worse ordeal for my parents than for me. For me,
the problems came later, when I left the cult and was faced with reentry
into the world I had abandoned twelve years earlier.
Losing a child must be the worst imaginable nightmare for any
parent. The death or abduction of a child at any age can leave a parent
with scars that never completely heal.
Losing a child to a cult can be equally traumatic for a parent;
however, unlike the death of a child which can be mourned and resolved,
having a child in a cult like Scientology presents the parent with a
frustrating dilemma in the form of an unresolved and unresolvable loss.
The child is gone -- perhaps for five years, perhaps for twelve, perhaps
forever -- and the parent is left behind with the difficult task of
reconciling feelings of both uncertainty and hope.
What I want to do in this chapter is provide a few tips for the
parents of a Scientologist, written from the point of view of an
ex-member. In other words, things that helped me or that I think would
have helped me to escape from the cult.
In writing this chapter, I rely on the wisdom of others who are
professionals or experts in the field of cult recovery, including: The
Cult Awareness Network; The American Family Foundation in the book
Cults: What Parents Should Know; Steve Hassan in his book
Combatting Cult Mind Control; James and Marcia Rudin in their
book Prison or Paradise; and R. K. Heller in the book
Deprogramming for Do-It-Yourselfers.
The American Family Foundation gives a list of behaviors in a family
member which may be indications that they are becoming involved in a
destructive cult such as Scientology. For parents with a family member
already in Scientology, many of the behaviors on this list will probably
seem quite familiar.
- Secretive behavior -- the person going out frequently but
not wanting to say where he or she is going, or talking on the phone in
a secretive
manner, being vague about who is calling, etc.
- Change in vocabulary or speech patterns -- especially
important with this cult.
- Emotional changes -- the once warm, loving and open
family member who becomes cold and distant toward other family members.
- Shift in friends and activities -- especially with new
friends who also use unfamiliar vocabulary; spending long hours at night
and on weekends at "the org" or "on course" is demanded of new
Scientologists.
- Rejection of secular goals -- the new Scientologist very
quickly learns to shift his goals from secular activities (college,
career, marriage, etc.) to goals within Scientology such as "going Clear
or OT," "becoming a Class Eight auditor," etc.
- Dubious financial activities -- Scientologists are under
constant pressure to come up with more and more money. A warning sign
would be a child asking to borrow large amounts of money, or trying to
borrow money from a bank, or from relatives.
- Disturbing sexual attitudes -- the person no longer
dating or expressing an interest in marriage or family.
- Abrupt marital decisions -- a child who abruptly severs a
serious relationship with someone outside the cult and instead looks for
a relationship within the cult.
- Shifts in religious, philosophical or political views --
the student in Scientology learns from the beginning to discredit all
forms of government, and all forms of traditional mental health,
particularly psychiatrists. A sudden belief in past lives and a
denigration of Christianity or other religions would be consistent with
Scientology.
- Extreme commitments -- such as the decision to sign a two
and a half or five year contract to join "staff," or a billion year "Sea
Org contract," which are the standard contracts for staff members in
Scientology.
- Unconventional lifestyle -- living communally and working