The niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige has shared the unsettling inquiries she faced from the church at the age of 12.
Jenna Miscavige left the Church of Scientology in 2005 and has since been vocal about her experiences.
The 41-year-old spoke with LADbible in an episode of Minutes With, where she recounted some of the probing questions posed to her by the church during her involvement.
Jenna described being subjected to ‘traumatizing’ questions as a young girl, stating: “I knew of Scientology before I knew of anything else.”
She explained: “We had what was called checksheets, which was like ‘read this’. We had to do 30+ hours of manual labor a week. We were told because basically we had a place to live and food to eat, that we had to exchange [and] give as much if not more than we were being given.
“That’s why we had to work. If we didn’t give back and if we took things for free we would become criminals.”
Jenna further elaborated on the types of questions she faced from the church, stating: “They would ask anything, from ‘have you stolen anything?’, ‘Were you unproductive?’, ‘Did you flirt with anyone or have sex with anyone before you were married?’”
“I remember the first interrogation that I got. I didn’t really know the procedure, and so they just started out asking me if I had done anything bad.”
Jenna described the experience of being questioned with an ‘E-meter’, which stands for ‘electro psychometer’.
She explained that the ‘E-meter’ involves holding ‘two cans’.
“Basically, it puts a tiny current of electricity through one side, goes through here, then back into the E-meter, and then the needle registers what’s going on. It’s sort of like a lie detector,” she continued.
Jenna mentioned that the interrogators use the device to determine ‘if you’re telling the truth’, as well as for other Scientology practices like ‘counseling’.
Miscavige alleges the church employed techniques like the ‘murder routine’, which involves asking about ‘really horrible things’ to elicit confessions of lesser actions.
“[It’s] to make you say, ‘No, I didn’t do that. I just did this’. So they have all these like, mental tricks,” she added.