A cruise ship owned by the Church of Scientology has been quarantined over a measles outbreak:

A crew member aboard a cruise ship used by the Church of Scientology tested positive for measles, causing the vessel’s occupants to be quarantined in the Caribbean since Monday, a report said. The vessel and its roughly 300 passengers and crew members have been stuck on the “Freewinds” ship in the Caribbean port of St. Lucia after the confirmed case of the highly contagious disease, according to NBC News. The infected female patient has been isolated and is in stable condition, according to St. Lucia’s chief medical officer Dr. Marlene Fredericks-James. St. Lucia Coast Guard Sgt. Victor Theodore confirmed to the network that the cruise ship was the same as the one listed on the Church of Scientology’s website. The ship is described on the church’s website as being used as a floating “religious retreat ministering the most advanced level of spiritual counseling in the Scientology religion.”

What most people reading this story might not know is that Freewinds isn’t just a Scientology ship, it’s the Scientology ship. “The Freewinds is the exclusive training center for OT VIII (Operating Thetan Level 8), the highest level of Scientology and the last of the published OT levels. Members of the Church of Scientology who have reached the highest levels must receive their training on the Freewinds, as the Church does not deliver this service anywhere else.”

It’s also the likely current location of the Church of Scientology’s infamous “Sea Org” that formed the command and control nexus of the church while founder L. Ron Hubbard was alive, under which some of the Scientology’s most shocking human rights abuses were committed, including the mysterious death of Susan Meister.

The Sea Organization is the actual nexus that controls the scientology empire. Sea Organization personnel are authorized to take over and control scientology organizations and to demote personnel, move bank accounts and run the corporation as if the SO personnel were employees or representatives of that corporation but they are not.

Snip.

Crew were put into a chain-locker as punishment. A chain-locker is “a dark hole where the anchor chains are stored; cold, wet and rats,” to quote one ex-Sea Org officer. A crew member that was put on ethics could spend up to two weeks in the tiny hole. Former Scientologists who served as crew together with Hubbard in the early years remember a five years old deaf and mute child being locked up in the chain-locker. Hubbard said she was not to leave the chain locker until she completed the formula by writing her name. Another witness claims that a three-year-old was once put in the locker.

In 2011, The New Yorker published an expose of Scientology that accused the Church of using child labor on the ship.

Oh, and the people who work on the Sea Org ship have to sign a billion year contract.

I am very far indeed from the heart of Scientology leadership, but by all accounts Sea Org still exists, and Freewinds is the only cruise liner still used by Scientology. Maybe St. Lucia authorities can use the quarantine to determine just what else might be going down on Freewinds…

(There’s a lot more on Scientology’s lunacy at the Operation Clambake site.)

Tags: Church of Scientology, Crime, Freewinds, Sea Org, St. Lucia, Susan Meister