Hannah Ferguson

In a 2003 article, the Times of India reported that some 1,500 abortions had been carried out by women of the Sea Org.

Many forced or coerced.

I looked into a little bit of how many people would have been on the Sea Org, about 5,000.

That being said, some children were allowed upon the ship, namely young girls dressed in shorts and halter tops who were responsible for running errands for Hubbard.

One of the common tasks were dressing him.

As you can imagine, the story here isn't nice.

Hubbard on the run with unbridled power and a ship of devoted patrons.

Claims of rape began to surface and later so would claims of human trafficking, of forced labour, child abuse and more.

Hubbard would spend the majority of his final days out to sea writing about operating Thetan states and he would eventually pass away from a stroke.

Hubbard's death was a major loss to the Scientology religion.

He was regarded as the source of Scientology with no successor.

He had made plans to have all his writings on Scientology etched onto steel tablets and placed into a vault under a mountain, the top of which had a bulldozed Scientology logo visible from space.

But apart from that, there was no real plan for the future of the organization.

until David Miscavige stepped in.

In the meantime, let's quickly get up to date and chat about what Scientology means today, I guess.

So the religion continues to fight numerous legal battles around the world, both to keep its tact-exempt status and to fight against its alleged harassment campaigns towards journalists, defectors, and even governments that have stood against them.

One such notorious legal battle was over the death of Lisa McPherson, which was early in David's leadership movement.

McPherson was a woman who had been involved in Scientology for several years when she experienced a mental health crisis.

After a minor car accident, she was taken to a Scientology facility rather than a regular hospital upon her request.

She was under the supervision of the church staff for 17 days at this facility where she endured a new protocol we haven't mentioned before called introspection rundown.