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

Is this the real life?
Is this just a fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality.
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 ghting to remain in the Hole rather
than be sent o 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 oce. 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 stu 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 oor,
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