Why isn't "The Hole" being raided by the FBI?

[Chris OConnor]

According to the claims made in Going Clear there are currently people being imprisoned in "The Hole" right now. Why isn't the FBI making a raid on this place?

[LanDroid]

I wondered the same thing at first, but there are reasons given in the book and I believe the movie also. The main reason why law enforcement won't touch this is the "victims" actually WANT to be there and believe they DESERVE the punishment!

There is a more fundamental reason why those in The Hole don't want to be rescued and why folks have so much difficulty leaving Scientology in general. That reason is revealed in Chapter 9. Not sure if I should "spoil" it here or post it in that section of this discussion.

I'll try to find interviews with ex-Scientologists on this matter and post them later.

[Chris OConnor]

I read Chapter 9 and am not sure what you're referring to. Because they have so much dirt on you by the time you decide to leave?

[LanDroid]

Jefferson Hawkins, a former Sea Org executive who had worked with Paul Haggis on the rejected Dianetics campaign, says he was beaten by Miscavige on five occasions, the first time in 2002. p. 275

Miscavige "began a tirade about the shortcomings of the infomercial." Then he beat the hell out of Hawkins leaving him "shocked, bruised, disheveled, humiliated, and staring up at the forty people who did nothing to support him."

Even if he had access to a phone, Hawkins wouldn't have called the police. If a Sea Org member were to seek outside help, he would be punished, either by being declared a Suppressive Person or by being sent off to do manual labor for months or years. Far more important, Hawkins believed, was the fact that his spiritual immortality was on the line. Scientology had made him aware of his eternal nature as he moved from life to life, erasing his fear of mortality. Without that, he would be doomed do dying over and over again, "in ignorance and darkness," he said, "never knowing my true nature as a spirit." Miscavige, he concluded, "holds the power of eternal life and death over you." p. 276

This is a key insight that I wish the author explored in more detail. This fear of enduring a sub-optimal afterlife explains the initial allure, why people stay, and why it is so difficult for abused Scientologists to leave the religion.

That primal fear and paralysis applies to many other religions. The parallel to Buddhism is obvious, where failing to achieve certain insights keeps one on the wheel of reincarnation. Take Christianity, where being in the wrong denomination (let alone the wrong religion), or even slightly off as in the "right Church, wrong pew" could doom a fool to much more than seven trillion years of torture in the afterlife.

[LanDroid]

Having said that, I don't think it's a complete explanation. According to the following video, there are quite a few people who do indeed want to escape from "the hole." The fact that the doors and windows are barred and security guards placed at the only exit indicates not all are willing prisoners.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mho0oWe2Ypk

Here's a 5 minute clip with Mike Rinder on the incremental nature of the abuse. Notice he mentions "you're going to lose your eternity".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rfUlL0_TCQ

Marty Rathbun figures prominently in the book and film. Even though Marty was one of Scientology's enforcers, here's his experience with, and escape from The Hole.

Miscavige maintained a management prison known as “the hole.” Managers in the hole were required to sleep on the floor, eat cold leftovers, and were confined to the premises 24/7 for weeks on end. In late January, Miscavige sentenced me to the hole.

On approximately the third day in the hole I decided that nothing could be done to reform this insanity from within and I escaped. After three years of decompressing from the experience on the outside, in 2008 I met up with friends who had followed my lead and left the Scientology compound after I had. I learned that Miscavige had prison bars installed at “the hole” in response to my escape and that his sadistic behavior had increased since I left. In 2009, I decided that I had to speak out before someone was killed in “the hole.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... -1.1106735

Now I'm more inclined to believe the FBI is backing off due to a potential lawsuit deluge and 1st amendment issues...

Disclaimer: We should be wary of some of these folks. Although they are "ex-scientology", they are operating independent tech, meaning they believe all the L. Ron Hubbard inter-galactic manure, but don't like the abuses of David Miscavige.