Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape
By Jenna Miscavige Hill (with Lisa Pulitzer)
Reviewed by Marcia R. Rudin
New York, NY: William Morrow (imprint of
HarperCollins). 2013. ISBN: 978-0-06-2248473
(hardcover), $27.99 ISBN: 978-0062248480
(paperback), $15.99 ISBN: 978-0062263438
(international edition). 404 pages.
In 1980 I coauthored one of the first books about
cults, Prison or Paradise? The New Religious
Cults, with my husband Rabbi James Rudin.
For some reason, we were prescient enough
even in those very early stages of our efforts to
understand the cult phenomenon to write that
there were children caught up in these groups as
well as adults.
I say “for some reason” because I really don’t
know how, 33 years ago, I managed to realize
there were children and hence complicated
multigenerational family situations in these
movements. At that time, we pioneers of the
countercult movement dealt only with the
scenario of college-age young people recruited
from college and university campuses or as they
wandered around the United States or the world.
The cult experiences of these individuals
generally lasted only a few years. These bright,
often affluent young people told what were at
that time typical stories of recruiters
approaching them during their travels or on their
college campuses: “chance” encounters,
invitations to meetings or weekends, love-
bombing, isolation from parents and friends,
pressure to quit their jobs or drop out of school,
and so on. Most commonly, these young people
were rescued by their parents and then
channeled into our recovery network for the
purpose of rebuilding their lives.
How could I have foreseen 33 years ago that
today cult educators, therapists, and researchers
would be dealing with what we now call
SGAs—second-generation adults? Now we
hold special conferences and recovery
workshops for former members raised from
early childhood in groups and often born into
them. Their numbers are increasing. Today we
hear and read accounts of the lives and struggles
of many who have grown up in groups and have
managed to exit and build new lives, perhaps
leaving behind families, loved ones, and often
the only world they knew. These tales are
fascinating and filled with heart-breaking
details. As time moves on, we are seeing third-
generation cult members, with these
complications compounded.
One can perhaps always assume, and both what I
have read and firsthand accounts I have heard
support, that growing up in these groups is
painful and difficult. Generally there is a lack of
education inadequate if any health care often
physical or even sexual abuse and isolation
from other kids, “normal” life, and normal
events or phases of growing up. (I once read a
sad account of how a young girl in a cult, who
attended a public school, was not allowed to go
to her high-school prom. This event may not be
very important in the universal scheme of things,
but it is oh, so important to a teenager!)
There are also horrifying accounts of childhoods
in these groups. The memoir of Jenna
Miscavige Hill, the niece of the president of
Scientology, David Miscavige, written with Lisa
Pulitzer and titled Beyond Belief: My Secret Life
Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape, is
one of these accounts. The life Jenna led as a
child raised as a third-generation Scientologist—
or, more accurately, as she points out, who
fended for herself even as early as age 6,
elevates these stories to an astonishing level.
When Jenna was 6 years old, her parents joined
Scientology’s Sea Organization (“Sea Org”)
religious order comprising the group’s most
dedicated members and placed her as a cadet in
a Scientology settlement known as The Ranch in
California so they could devote themselves to
intensive Scientology work elsewhere. Jenna
and her brother, along with other children, could
see their parents only a few hours on weekends,
64 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014
By Jenna Miscavige Hill (with Lisa Pulitzer)
Reviewed by Marcia R. Rudin
New York, NY: William Morrow (imprint of
HarperCollins). 2013. ISBN: 978-0-06-2248473
(hardcover), $27.99 ISBN: 978-0062248480
(paperback), $15.99 ISBN: 978-0062263438
(international edition). 404 pages.
In 1980 I coauthored one of the first books about
cults, Prison or Paradise? The New Religious
Cults, with my husband Rabbi James Rudin.
For some reason, we were prescient enough
even in those very early stages of our efforts to
understand the cult phenomenon to write that
there were children caught up in these groups as
well as adults.
I say “for some reason” because I really don’t
know how, 33 years ago, I managed to realize
there were children and hence complicated
multigenerational family situations in these
movements. At that time, we pioneers of the
countercult movement dealt only with the
scenario of college-age young people recruited
from college and university campuses or as they
wandered around the United States or the world.
The cult experiences of these individuals
generally lasted only a few years. These bright,
often affluent young people told what were at
that time typical stories of recruiters
approaching them during their travels or on their
college campuses: “chance” encounters,
invitations to meetings or weekends, love-
bombing, isolation from parents and friends,
pressure to quit their jobs or drop out of school,
and so on. Most commonly, these young people
were rescued by their parents and then
channeled into our recovery network for the
purpose of rebuilding their lives.
How could I have foreseen 33 years ago that
today cult educators, therapists, and researchers
would be dealing with what we now call
SGAs—second-generation adults? Now we
hold special conferences and recovery
workshops for former members raised from
early childhood in groups and often born into
them. Their numbers are increasing. Today we
hear and read accounts of the lives and struggles
of many who have grown up in groups and have
managed to exit and build new lives, perhaps
leaving behind families, loved ones, and often
the only world they knew. These tales are
fascinating and filled with heart-breaking
details. As time moves on, we are seeing third-
generation cult members, with these
complications compounded.
One can perhaps always assume, and both what I
have read and firsthand accounts I have heard
support, that growing up in these groups is
painful and difficult. Generally there is a lack of
education inadequate if any health care often
physical or even sexual abuse and isolation
from other kids, “normal” life, and normal
events or phases of growing up. (I once read a
sad account of how a young girl in a cult, who
attended a public school, was not allowed to go
to her high-school prom. This event may not be
very important in the universal scheme of things,
but it is oh, so important to a teenager!)
There are also horrifying accounts of childhoods
in these groups. The memoir of Jenna
Miscavige Hill, the niece of the president of
Scientology, David Miscavige, written with Lisa
Pulitzer and titled Beyond Belief: My Secret Life
Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape, is
one of these accounts. The life Jenna led as a
child raised as a third-generation Scientologist—
or, more accurately, as she points out, who
fended for herself even as early as age 6,
elevates these stories to an astonishing level.
When Jenna was 6 years old, her parents joined
Scientology’s Sea Organization (“Sea Org”)
religious order comprising the group’s most
dedicated members and placed her as a cadet in
a Scientology settlement known as The Ranch in
California so they could devote themselves to
intensive Scientology work elsewhere. Jenna
and her brother, along with other children, could
see their parents only a few hours on weekends,
64 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 5, 2014
