going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

ecalled. “ ‘David has episodes, very unusual episodes.’ ” The parents explained that
Dave became extremely angry when he was suering an asthma seizure. “Then they
said, starting with the husband, ‘When these episodes occur, do not touch him!’ The
mother reiterated, ‘Yes, please don’t touch him!’ I said, ‘What happens?’ They said,
‘David gets very, very violent, and he beats the hell out of you if you touch him.’ And
the sister says, ‘Oh my God, he does beat you, really hard!’ ” Again and again, the
family members emphasized that David had beaten them during an attack.
Scott glanced at David, who, he recalls, nodded in agreement. He seemed almost
smug, Scott remembers thinking, “like he was arrogantly proud of kicking their ass.”
Scott was puzzled. He had never heard of asthma making a person violent. In his
experience, a person in the grip of such an attack was frozen with fear. He said he
would heed the warning, however.
The next morning, David moved in. Scott took him shopping and then to a pub, where
he bought him a Coke. Scott also got a nonalcoholic drink. They chatted with some other
Scientology auditors and David began to warm up. He seemed pleased to be around
auditors, but Scott felt that there was “a certain falseness” in his behavior.
They went back to Scott’s quarters and watched television, then turned in around ten.
Scott placed David in the bed by the window, which was cracked to give him some fresh
air. David went right to sleep. Scott was used to the rattle of asthmatic breathing, so he
soon fell asleep as well.
Scott remembers hearing a scream around one o’clock. He jumped up and turned on
the light. David was leaning on the bed with one arm. His face was blue and his eyes
were rolled back. Scott had never seen anything like it. He started to touch him, but
drew back and performed a Scientology “assist.” He said, “That’s it, David, come up to
present time,” repeating the command twice. David blinked and then jolted awake. He
was still disoriented, so Scott performed another Scientology exercise, called a
locational: “Look at that wall. Look at that bed.” Slowly, David began to focus. Finally
he asked Scott, “Did I hit you?”
“No.”
“Whew!”
David was still groggy and quickly went back to sleep, but Scott was unsettled. He
watched the boy for another hour before drifting off again himself.
In the morning, David remembered nothing of what had happened during the night.
He got ready to take a shower. When he took o his pajama top, Scott did a double
take. He had never seen a thirteen-year-old boy with such muscles. “This kid is built like
Arnold Schwarzenegger!” he thought. “A young, very small Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
While David was in the shower, Scott took a look at the medication on his nightstand.
He remembers seeing two bottles and two inhalers. One of the inhalers was a typical
over-the-counter medication, but all the others contained steroids. Scott had grown up
on a farm, and he had used steroids to treat some diseases in animals, but also to build
up the muscle mass in cattle. Could that have had the same eect on Miscavige?
(Actually, asthma medications often use corticosteroids, which do not have the same
eect as the anabolic steroids that weightlifters and athletes employ. Corticosteroids can