Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(104)

While Queen’s Greatest Hits played on a boom box, the church executives marched around and around, then fought for a seat when the music stopped. As the number of chairs diminished, the game got more physical. The executives shoved and punched each other; clothes were torn; a chair was ripped apart. All this time, the biting lyrics of “Bohemian Rhapsody” floated over the saccharine melody:

Is this the real life?

Is this just a fantasy?

Caught in a landslide

No escape from reality.


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Rathbun, with his bad back, was eliminated fairly quickly. Rinder, De Vocht, Marc Headley—one by one, they found themselves standing alone, behind low cubicle walls, watching the surviving contestants desperately fighting to remain in the Hole rather than be sent off to God knows where. There was a clock over the door marking the hours that passed as the music played on and on then suddenly stopped and the riot began again. As people fell out of the game, COB had airline tickets for distant locations printed up for them at the base’s travel office. There were U-Haul trucks waiting outside to haul away their belongings. “Is it real to you now?” Miscavige teased. They were told that buses would be ready to leave at six in the morning. Many were in tears. “I don’t see anybody weeping for me,” Miscavige said. The utter powerlessness of everyone else in the room was made nakedly clear to them. The game continued until 4 a.m., when a woman named Lisa Schroer grabbed the final chair.

The next morning the whole event was forgotten. No one went anywhere.

In several legal declarations he has made over the years, Miscavige has protested, “I am the ecclesiastical leader of the religion, not the Church.” The distinction is important when the church is dragged into lawsuits or threatened with criminal liability; Miscavige can point to a chart that assigns organizational responsibility to other departments, whereas the sole responsibility of the Religious Technology Center, which he heads, is to protect Scientology doctrine and literature. And yet, Miscavige freely consigned those other department heads to the Hole or sent them to RPF. During the period that the organizational chart was being constantly rearranged, the only reliable posting on the base was his, that of COB RTC; everyone else was constantly being uprooted and repotted in other temporary assignments. There is really only one person in charge of the Church of Scientology.

A few days after the musical chairs episode, Miscavige ordered everyone in the Hole to report to Golden Era Productions to stuff CDs into cases. At one point, he began sharply interrogating De Vocht, who was shaken and stuttered in response. According to De Vocht, Miscavige punched him in the face. He felt his head vibrate. He tried to turn away from the next blow, but Miscavige grabbed his neck and shoved him into the floor, pummeling and kicking him.7 De Vocht had served Miscavige for years, and had even considered him a friend. He had dedicated his life to Scientology and had been in the Sea Org for nearly thirty years. He recalls thinking, “Now here I am, being beat up by the top dog in front of my peers.”

After the attack, Miscavige continued his speech. De Vocht was so humiliated that he couldn’t bring himself to look at his companions. Finally, he managed a glance at them. Pie faces.

Rathbun was there, and at that moment he made a decision. As the other executives were being led back to the Hole, he slipped away and got his motorcycle and hid in the bushes. When a car finally approached, he raced through the open gate into the outside world.





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1 The church denies that Cruise was videotaped, or that Miscavige watched such tapes, or used such information to manipulate anyone. Noriyuki Matsumaru, who worked in the RTC with Miscavige, confirms De Vocht’s account.

2 Cruise, through his lawyer, denies this exchange and says he has no political ambition.

3 Spielberg’s publicist says that the director doesn’t recall the conversation.

4 Tom Cruise’s lawyer says that the actor doesn’t remember the incident or his being upset with Haggis.

5 As previously noted, the church denies all allegations of abuse by Miscavige.

6 The church denies that anyone in the Sea Org has ever been pressured to have an abortion.

7 The church denies that Miscavige has ever abused members of the church.





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TC and COB


Great fame also imposes a kind of cloister on those who join its ranks. Tom Cruise had been a movie star since he was twenty-one, with two popular movies in the same year, The Outsiders and Risky Business. By age twenty-five, he was the biggest star in Hollywood, on his way to becoming one of the most famous movie legends in history. At the same age, Miscavige had become the de facto leader of Scientology. Each of these men assumed extraordinary responsibilities when their peers were barely beginning their careers. Their youth and position set them apart. So it was natural that two such powerful, isolated men would see themselves mirrored in each other.

A number of Sea Org members who observed Cruise when he came to Gold Base remarked that he seemed liberated to be in an environment where no one hassled him, or took his photograph, or asked for autographs. There are cottages built for the use of other well-known Scientologists, such as John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Edgar Winter, and Priscilla Presley, so the base can sometimes feel like a secret celebrity spa. Once, Miscavige had the entire Gold Base crew line up at the gate and salute Cruise when he arrived. Cruise must have felt self-conscious about this display, because it happened only once. People on the base have been directed not to speak to Cruise at all, unless spoken to. In this way, Cruise tastes the life that Miscavige has lived for decades, one of seclusion and deference, concentrated on spiritual advancement.1