When you hear the phrase
CNN — When you hear the phrase „Scientology cruise ship,“ it may conjure images of Tom Cruise playing shuffleboard on the deck while church members sunbathe and sip strawberry daiquiris.
That’s not exactly what happens aboard the Freewinds.
The Freewinds, a cruise ship belonging to the Church of Scientology, was quarantined this week in the Caribbean with an apparent case of measles. This has led to a number of questions, including: Wait, why does Scientology have a cruise ship?
According to the church, the Freewinds is less a vacation and more of a floating religious retreat center. Some former Scientologists have described it in harsher terms, but more on that later.
Once upon a time, Scientology had a fleet of ships, the church says, which were manned by its Sea Organization. The ships and crew helped Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard with „research“ and supervised church functions around the world, according to the church.
Scientologists compare the „Sea Org“ to members of a religious order, like monks and nuns, who devote their lives to the faith, often working long hours for no pay and living communally. The Freewinds is entirely staffed by the Sea Org, the church says, who dress in spiffy naval uniforms.
But there was another reason for Scientologists‘ seafaring ways, say scholars who have studied the church. In the late 1960s several countries, including the United States, started scrutinizing Hubbard’s new movement. He had been kicked out of England in 1968, according to Hugh Urban, author of „The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion.“
„Thus Hubbard’s shift to a sea-based organization during these years was clearly in part a response to his inability to operate freely in many nations,“ Urban writes.
