The Church of Scientology suffered two more “black eyes” in the past week with news of the break up of actor Tom Cruise and actress Katie Holmes – two “higher-ups” in the organization – and the mysterious death of the son of Scientology president Heber Jentzsch.

Alexander Jentzsch

The Daily Mail is reporting that the death of 27 year-old Alexander Jentzsch came as a shock to everyone, especially his mother, Karen de la Carriere, who was shunned two years ago after leaving Scientology. The shunning forced Alexander, her only child, to completely disconnect himself from her, which the cult enforced to such an extent that she had to learn about her son’s death on Facebook and was not even permitted to view his body at the Los Angeles County Morgue.

“For two years, he was gone from my life, and a few weeks ago his life fell apart…and now he’s dead,” Ms. de la Carriere told the Mail.

She went on to describe how Alexander’s wife was allegedly pressured to have an abortion in 2007. According to a blog written by Ms. De la Carriere shortly after she left the cult, Scientology’s reproduction policies are indeed shocking.

For instance, when a couple announces that they are expecting, they are removed from their jobs at the organization in order to look at whether or not having the child will contribute to the “greatest good.”

Years ago, de la Carriere and her husband had to petition to have a second child. “And along with the petition, you were to name why you should be allowed to have a baby,” she described.

Their petition was denied and her husband was beaten for making the request.

After Alexander and his wife Andrea went through this process, “Andrea had an abortion and they were returned to post,” de la Carriere wrote.

This abortion triggered a downward spiral in their lives that ended in Alexander’s death last week.

Karen de la Carriere

Although the cause of death has not been released, Alexander had been taking prescription pain medication ever since an auto accident that occurred two years ago that left him with a bad back. Recently separated from his wife and struggling financially, he moved back to Los Angeles to live with his in-laws where he continued to take painkillers.

At some point during the last months of his life, Ms. de la Carriere said she learned he had a breathing problem but rather than take him to a doctor, his in-laws performed a “touch assist” on him.

According to the Scientology Handbook, the purpose of a Touch Assist is to reestablish communication with injured or ill body parts by bringing the person’s attention to the injured or affected body areas. “This is done by repetitively touching the ill or injured person’s body and putting him into communication with the injury. His communication with it brings about recovery. The technique is based on the principle that the way to heal anything or remedy anything is to put somebody into communication with it.”

Ms de la Carriere told the Mail a “touch assist is for bruised knees. Breathing difficulty is medicine.”

The only answers she was able to ascertain from posts found on Facebook is that her son complained of having a fever the night before he died and was found dead the next day.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office said that Alexander was found with multiple prescription medications, as well as NyQuil.

Alexander’s mysterious death has only brought more attention to the bizarre cult which was founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1952. An American science fiction writer, he authored the best-selling book, Dianetics, which is self-enhancement program that eventually became the Church of Scientology. It teaches that people are immortal beings who have forgotten their true nature and are in need of a kind of spiritual rehabilitation known as auditing in which practitioners work to free their minds of “engrams”, which are life experiences that have been recorded in the brain. The object is to clear these “engrams” to become more self-determining.

This latest scandal comes just as news broke of the divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, which is apparently taking place because of Cruise’s Scientology beliefs and how it might impact their six year-old daughter, Suri, 6.

Holmes filed for divorce while Cruise was on location in Iceland and Hollywood entertainment magazines are reporting her fears of being followed by Scientologists. She is also said to have removed Suri from her Scientology preschool in Los Angeles and enrolled her in a Catholic school in New York which is believed to be a sign that Holmes intends to leave the cult.

“Hollywood insiders say other former Scientologists have been encouraging Holmes through her Roman Catholic family to question her relationship with Scientology,” writes Mark Ebner for the Daily Beast.

A former member told him “she was in deep, because she was Cruise’s wife and they had the resources to push her up the bridge [Hubbard’s mythical Bridge to Total Freedom] quickly. As she moved through it, it must have gotten scary for her. I mean, imagine what it’s like for a good Catholic girl getting to the part where Hubbard declared as doctrine that there was no Christ, or that Jesus was an alien ‘implant.’”

Ebner’s article contains interviews with other former members of Scientology who paint a chilling picture of what’s in store for Katie and Suri Holmes as they attempt to disengage from this dangerous cult.

That Scientology operates as a cult has been confirmed by numerous former members who describe the organization’s fierce control over every aspect of the lives of its members. It makes me wonder how many more lives are destroyed before some arrests are made in this organization?