Woman who escaped Scientology explains 'murder routine' mental trick used in interrogations to get people to 'confess'

A woman who ‘escaped’ the Church of Scientology has explained its mental trick used to try and get people to ‘confess’.

Jenna Miscavige says the organisation has a ‘murder routine’ it uses in interrogations, having been asked ‘traumatising’ questions as a child.

The American grew up in the movement, telling LADbible: “I knew of Scientology before I knew of anything else.”

Now 41 years old, Miscavige is the niece of Scientology’s Chairman of the Board, David Miscavige, but left the organisation in 2005. Since then, she has become an outspoken defector of it.

Often criticising and spilling the goings on of Scientology on TikTok, the author sat down with LADbible for an episode of Minutes With as she was asked about being interrogated with an ‘E-meter’.

Jenna Miscavige grew up in the church of Scientology (LADbible)

Explaining that it is short for ‘electro psychometer’, she says it has a device with ‘two cans’ that the person being interrogated holds.

“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,” Miscavige says.

“It's sort of like a lie detector.”

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She adds that the interrogators ask questions to see ‘if you’re telling the truth’ but also use it for other parts of Scientology processes like ‘counselling’.

An E-meter used by the Church of Scientology in Quebec City, Canada, pictured in 2010 (Gaétan POULIOT/AFP via Getty Images)

“I mean, they would ask anything from like, ‘Have you stolen anything?’ ‘Were you unproductive?’ ‘Did you flirt with anybody?’ ‘Did you have sex before you were married?’” she explains.

“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.”

Saying she'd always just say 'nope', she continues: “Why would I say yes?”

And Miscavige claims the church would often do ‘what’s called the murder routine’ where questions about ‘really horrible things’ are asked in a bid to get you to confess to something else.

“[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 adds.

In her first interrogation, Miscavige remembers being asked ‘Did you rob a bank?’ before ‘Did you have sex with your father?’.

Just 12 years old at the time, she says it was ‘so traumatising’.

Nowadays, Miscavige helps others to leave the organisation and shares an insider's take on the beliefs, rituals and secrets of the controversial 'religion'.

LADbible has contacted the Church of Scientology for comment.