Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(106)
On April 30 of each year, Scientology staff from around the world are pressed to contribute to Miscavige’s birthday present. One year, as birthday assessments were being passed around, few could contribute because they hadn’t been paid for months. Finally, staffers got their back pay so that they could make their donations. Janela Webster, who worked directly under Miscavige for fifteen years, received $325, out of which she paid $150 for Miscavige’s gift. Such presents include tailored suits and leather jackets, high-end cameras, diving equipment, Italian shoes, and a handmade titanium bicycle. One year Flag Service Org in Clearwater gave him a Vyrus 985 C3 4V, a motorcycle with a retail price of $70,000.2 Another division presented him with a BMW.
Miscavige keeps a number of dogs, including five beagles. He had blue vests made up for each of them, with four stripes on the shoulder epaulets, indicating the rank of Sea Org Captain. He insists that people salute the dogs as they parade by. The dogs have a mini-treadmill where they work out. A full-time staff member feeds, walks, and trains the dogs, takes them to the veterinarian, and enters one of them, Jelly, into contests, where he has attained championship status. Another of Miscavige’s favorites, a Dalmatian–pit bull mix named Buster, went on a rampage one day and killed ten peacocks on the property, then proudly laid them out for all to see. Buster has also attacked various members of the staff, sending one elderly woman to the emergency room and earning Buster his own Ethics folder. Miscavige eventually had the dog taken away to another Sea Org base, even though he believed that Buster had a nose for “out ethics” behavior. The relieved staff members joked that Buster had been sent to Dog RPF.
From an early age, Miscavige had taken control of his family. His father, Ron Senior, joined the Sea Org following a charge of attempted rape lodged against him in 1985. Former church members say that significant church resources were used to contain the scandal, and that David forced his father to join the Sea Org. Because David’s mother, Loretta, refused to sign up for that, she and Ron agreed to divorce. She continued in Scientology, rising to the summit as an OT VIII. She worked as an accountant for the law firm of Greta Van Susteren, the television commentator, and her husband, John Coale, both Scientologists, who maintain a mansion on Clearwater Beach. Loretta was a heavy smoker who suffered from emphysema and obesity—scarcely the image of an Operating Thetan—but her self-deprecating, sometimes goofy sense of humor made her popular among the staff and upper-level Scientologists—“the court jester of the Scientology country club,” as Rathbun called her. Loretta’s regal position as the leader’s mother allowed her to give rein to gossipy stories about Dave’s childhood, which she told in a thick Philly accent. Miscavige complained that his mother was trying to destroy him. He ordered Rathbun to run a security check on her, using the E-Meter. When Loretta realized what he was up to, she burst out laughing.
Miscavige sent his personal trainer to help his mother get in shape, and he had church members monitoring her diet, but her chronic health problems overtook her. “She was sick for a long time,” her granddaughter, Jenna Miscavige Hill, recalled. “She was not happy with the turn the church took.” Sometimes Loretta would burst into tears. “I would try to help her the only way I knew how,” Hill said. “She was an amazing grandma.” (Loretta Miscavige died in 2005.)
[page]THE LEVEL OF ABUSE at the Gold Base was increasing year by year as—unpoliced by outside forces—other senior executives began emulating their leader. Rinder, De Vocht, and Rathbun all admit to striking other staff members. Even some of the women became physically aggressive, slapping underlings when they didn’t perform up to standard. Debbie Cook, the former leader of Flag Base, says that although Miscavige never struck her, he ordered his Communicator to do so. Another time, she said, he told his Communicator to break Cook’s finger. She bent Cook’s finger but failed to actually break it.
Miscavige can be charming and kind, especially to Sea Org members who need emotional or medical assistance. He has a glittering smile and a commanding voice. And yet former Scientologists who were close to him recall that his constant profanity and bursts of unprovoked violence kept everyone off balance. Jefferson Hawkins, a former Sea Org executive who had worked with Paul Haggis on the rejected Dianetics campaign, says he was beaten by Miscavige on five occasions, the first time in 2002. He had just written an infomercial for the church. Miscavige summoned him to a meeting, where about forty members were seated on one side of a long conference table; Miscavige routinely sits by himself on the other side. He began a tirade about the shortcomings of the infomercial. When Hawkins started to respond, Miscavige cut him short. “The only thing I want to hear from you is your crimes,” Miscavige said, meaning that Hawkins was to confess his subversive intentions. Then, without warning, Miscavige jumped on the table and launched himself at Hawkins, knocking him against a cubicle wall and battering him in the face. The two men fell to the floor, and their legs became entangled. “Let go of my legs!” Miscavige shouted.
Miscavige extricated himself and left the room, leaving Hawkins on the floor, shocked, bruised, disheveled, humiliated, and staring at the forty people who did nothing to support him. “Get up! Get up!” they told him. “Don’t make him wrong.”
Even if he had had access to a phone, Hawkins wouldn’t have called the police. If a Sea Org member were to seek outside help, he would be punished, either by being declared a Suppressive Person or by being sent off to do manual labor for months or years. Far more important, Hawkins believed, was the fact that his spiritual immortality was on the line. Scientology had made him aware of his eternal nature as he moved from life to life, erasing his fear of mortality. Without that, he would be doomed to dying over and over again, “in ignorance and darkness,” he said, “never knowing my true nature as a spirit.” Miscavige, he concluded, “holds the power of eternal life and death over you.”