The Cadet Org is a subdivision of the Church of Scientology for the children of members of the Sea Org (SO), an internal Scientology grouping of the organization's most dedicated members. It operated for about thirty years between the early 1970s and the early 2000s in a number of locations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Some of its facilities reportedly housed as many as 400 children who were aged between a few months and sixteen years old.
Children in the Cadet Org were divided into two or three different categories reflecting their age and level of proficiency in Scientology. They were typically housed in dorms under the supervision of a small number of adults. Conditions at Cadet Org facilities were reportedly often dirty and unsafe, which resulted in at least two prosecutions by public authorities. The children were granted only infrequent contact with their parents and reportedly had very little time off or playtime.
The Cadet Org was said to have been severely under-resourced, leading to a lack of basic provisions such as toilet paper, food and clothing at various times and places. The Church of Scientology itself reported that the Cadet Org was often treated as a dumping ground for adult staff who had failed elsewhere in the Sea Org, leading to unsuitable people, including pedophiles, working in Cadet Org facilities. Internal church documents and the accounts of ex-members have highlighted recurrent problems with physical and sexual abuse of children in the Cadet Org.
Like the adult Sea Org, the Cadet Org was run on quasi-military lines with a strict daily routine, timed to the minute, that ran from at least 6:30am to 9:30pm. Children were given posts and were assigned responsibility for managing various aspects of their facilities, including discipline. They were required to do hard physical labor, sometimes without protective equipment and at very young ages.
The Cadet Org was eventually dissolved around the start of the 21st century after Sea Org members were forbidden to have children, as they were regarded as too great a burden. This reportedly resulted in many female Sea Org members having abortions to avoid being punished by the Church for contravening the ban.
Origins and policies
The Cadet Org was defined by Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard as being
Hubbard's attitude towards children was to treat them as what he termed "assets". In 1972 he wrote:
He told Scientologists in 1973:
In Scientology doctrine, children are regarded as being "adults in small bodies". According to L. Ron Hubbard, their bodies house ancient and immortal thetans or spirits who are capable of carrying out the same responsibilities as any adult. Because their spirits are regarded as ageless, their status as children is irrelevant. Scientologists working as staff members believe that their most important purpose is saving the world and everything else is secondary. Vicki Aznaran, a former church official, explains: "Scientology comes first, and everything else is off-purpose. Parents who want to spend time with their children are looked down on. It's not socially acceptable."
During the late 1960s, when Hubbard founded the Sea Org to accompany him aboard the ships Apollo, Athena, Diana, and Excalibur, caring for children presented a significant problem for Sea Org members. A post of "Governess" was established in 1968 to look after Sea Org children. The difficulty of looking after children aboard a ship is hinted at by Hubbard's instruction that if a child was "found in Hold 1 or any hidden compartment of the ship they are to be locked up."Hubbard, "Governess". Flag Order 1630, 3 December 1968
By the early 1970s, Sea Org members were being based ashore and new arrangements were needed. In 1972, the newly-established Cadet Org was divided into three subgroups: Cadets, who were Sea Org members on the payroll with posts of their own; children, aged 6 and above, who were not on the payroll, and babies or small children, who were under 6 years of age. Children and Cadets were permitted to attend public or state schools in their area, but had to undertake Scientology study in the evenings to "handle any confusions" caused by what they had covered in school. Sea Org parents were allowed to form Parents' Committees to oversea the living conditions and upbringing of Sea Org children. However, parents' contact with their children was restricted; communications "to a child or about a child" were required to go through the Cadets' Commanding Officer "who may alter or cut it if off [program]."Crivello, Steve, "Re – Cadet Org". CMO ED 411, 29 August 1979
Children who transgressed were to be punished "by placing that child in the [Rehabilitation Project Force] under severe restrictions". The RPF is a program for Sea Org members who are regarded as having violated expectations or policies, and has been characterized by critics as a forced labor and re-indoctrination program. A version for children was established by order of L. Ron Hubbard. It appears to have fallen into abeyance for a while, but a 1989 minute by a Cadet Org staff member recommended its reinstitution. The author wrote that she had "several Cadets and blown [escaped] Cadets who need to go to the children's RPF ... A very small percentage are enturbulative [troublesome] sources and are sabotaging efforts to set the scene right. They need to be moved off the line per Forcing In The Ideal Scene." One particular child, who was named in the document, was recommended to be "moved off everyone's lines and put into the Children's RPF. [He] recently took a razor blade and cut X's in his skin up and down both his arms. He is pychotic [sic] in PT [present time] and needs close supervision."
Life in the Cadet Org California Los Angeles Sea Org children based in Los Angeles, California, lived in a number of facilities including a building on Fountain Avenue, another on Melrose Avenue and two three-story buildings at 811 Beacon Street. One of them, Tonja Burden, spent three months at Beacon Street in 1973 at the age of 13. She later testified that at the facility, which housed 400 children,
By the Church's own admission, the Fountain Avenue facility was illegal, as it flouted local child safety regulations. It violated several building codes – it was not the right type of construction for group care of children, children under five were cared for above the first floor, and the children's rooms did not all have exits directly to the outside of the building. The illegalities were discovered by the Los Angeles County and State authorities following a hepatitis outbreak in February 1979. The church was tipped off that it would be raided by California state agents. This gave it time to move the children into an annex building that was hurriedly made to confirm with legal requirements. By the time the raid took place, a church official reported, "there was nothing they could do to us."Lamarr, Stephen. "Parent Briefing on Annex and PT Scene". Cadet GO ED #4, 5 May 1979
One of the nannies, Sheila Huber, said that at the age of sixteen she was put in charge of around thirty children aged under three, all housed in a single one-bedroom apartment: "I couldn't believe it. It was wall-to-wall cribs. There were just under 30 children and they were under my sole care. I had no training." Perhaps not surprisingly, the children had very restricted lives, according to Huber. She later recalled:
PAC Ranch Some of the children of Scientologists working at the Church's Pacific Area Command (PAC) base in Los Angeles were housed at Canyon Oaks Ranch near Santa Clarita, California, north-west of the city. According to former Scientologists Saina Kamula and Mirriam Francis, who lived at the PAC Ranch in the mid-1990s, it was a "military-esque" facility that operated "like Lord of the Flies". Francis described it as "a bunch of trailers plopped down on a few acres in desert SoCal area and that's where we studied more Scientology and worked and lived amongst each other." Kamula and Francis say that children were punished by being made to eat lunch behind maggot-infested dumpsters. Similar to other Cadet Org facilities, the children living at the PAC Ranch were made to carry out hard physical labor including demolishing possibly asbestos-laced walls or laying bricks on L. Ron Hubbard Way in Los Angeles. Kamula says that she was made to work for 60 hours a week as an underage teen and suffered severe stress as a result, which led to her being placed on a suicide watch on several occasions. The facility was shut down in 2007.
Int Ranch In the 1990s, the children of Sea Org members working at Scientology's Gold Base in California were housed in a facility called the "Int[ernational] Ranch". This was located on five hundred acres of land in the San Jacinto Hills in Riverside County, adjacent to the Soboba Indian Reservation about 20 miles from Gold Base. A cluster of buildings called the Motels occupied the center of the site, with six or seven other buildings scattered around nearby. When Jenna Miscavige Hill was sent there at the age of six in March 1990, she was one of fifteen other children of senior Scientology executives who lived at the site – a figure that eventually grew to around 80.
The site was dilapidated, overgrown and presented fire risks, so the children were put to work renovating it. Although electrical and plumbing work was carried out by adults, virtually all of the other renovation work was carried out by the children. The children were divided into three groups: Children, Precadets and Cadets. The grouping was determined by both age and how advanced they were in their Scientology training. The youngest, the Children, were generally under six years old, Precadets were seven to nine and Cadets nine to sixteen. It was possible for particularly advanced younger children to be Cadets, or for older children who were behind with their studies to still be Precadets. It was also possible for children to be demoted to a lower group as a punishment.
Later in 1990 an increasingly regimented regime was put in place in which the children's activities were scheduled down to the minute. It became more like a military boot camp in which children were made to do what Miscavige Hill describes as "grueling drills, endless musters, exhaustive inspections, and arduous physical labor that no child should have to do." A rigorous system of punishments and internal surveillance was implemented to keep the children in line. Any infractions resulted in being issued a chit, a kind of written demerit, which was kept on record. The children were instructed to report on each other's activities and speak up if they saw any infractions, otherwise they would be considered an accessory to the offense and would receive the same punishment as the offender. This, Miscavige Hill says, "made it difficult for anyone to trust anyone else".
Life for a Cadet or Precadet followed a set, and lengthy, daily routine, overseen by the children themselves in accordance with L. Ron Hubbard's instructions. They wore uniforms consisting of khaki shorts with a red t-shirt or polo shirt with the Sea Org emblem embroidered on it. They also had sweat pants, dress pants and a vest but were not permitted to wear any of their own clothes, with the exception of pajamas.
They were roused at 6:30am and given half an hour to carry out cleaning assignments. At 7am they were formed up into seven different Divisions, each under a Division Head, for a morning muster in front of the Commanding Officer Cadet – a fellow Cadet. The children stood to attention with the Division Heads saluting while the Master-at-Arms, another child, read out a military-style report on each Division's status. Uniforms were inspected and the personal hygiene of each child was checked, with their breath and armpits smell-tested and their hair inspected for lice.