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

to destroy it?
However, eleven former Sea Org members told me that Miscavige had assaulted them;
twenty-two have told me or testied in court that they have witnessed one or more
assaults on other church sta members by their leader. 9 Marc Headley, one of those who
say Miscavige beat them on several occasions, said he knows thirty others who were
attacked by the church leader. Rinder says he witnessed fourteen other executives who
were assaulted, some on multiple occasions, such as the elderly church president, Heber
Jentzsch, who has been in the Hole since 2006. Some people were slapped, others
punched or kicked or choked. Lana Mitchell, who worked in Miscavige’s oce, saw him
hit his brother, Ronnie, in the stomach, during a meeting. Mariette Lindstein, who also
worked in Miscavige’s oce, witnessed as many as twenty attacks. “You get very
hardened,” she admitted. She saw Miscavige banging the heads of two of his senior
executives, Marc Yager and Guillaume Lesevre, together repeatedly, until blood came
from Lesevre’s ear. Tom De Vocht says he witnessed Miscavige striking other members
of the sta about a hundred times. Others who never saw such violence spoke of their
constant fear of the leader’s wrath.
The attacks often came out of the blue, “like the snap of a nger,” as John Peeler
described it. Bruce Hines, who was a senior auditor in 1994, told me that before he was
struck, “I heard his voice in the hallway, deep and distinctive, ‘Where is that
motherfucker?’ He looked in my oce. ‘There he is!’ Without another word he came up
and hit me with an open hand. I didn’t fall down. It was at that point I was put in RPF.
I was incarcerated six years.”
Davis admitted that the musical chairs episode occurred, even though the church
denies the existence of the Hole, where it took place. He explained that Miscavige had
been away from Gold Base for some time, and when he returned, he found that many
jobs had been reassigned without his permission. The game was intended to demonstrate
how disruptive such wholesale changes could be on an organization. “All the rest of it is
a bunch of embellishment and noise and hoo-haw,” Davis told me. “Chairs being ripped
apart, and people being threatened that they’re going to be sent to far-ung places in
the world, plane tickets being purchased, and they’re going to force their spouses—and
on and on and on. I mean, it’s just nuts!”
The Scientology delegation objected to the negative tenor of The New Yorker queries
about the church’s leader, including such small details as whether or not he had a
tanning bed. “I mean, this is The New Yorker. It sounds like the National Enquirer,” Davis
complained. He wouldn’t say what Miscavige’s salary was (the church is not required to
publicly disclose that information), but he derided the idea that the church leader
enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle. Miscavige, he contended, doesn’t live on the ostentatious
scale of many other religious leaders. “There’s no big rings. There’s no fancy silk robes,”
he said. “There’s no mansion. There’s no none of that. None, none, none. Zero, zilcho,
not.” As for the extravagant birthday presents given to the church leader, Davis said that
it was tradition for Sea Org members to give each other gifts for their birthdays. It was
“just obnoxious” for me to single out Miscavige.
“It’s not true that he’s gotten for his birthday a motorcycle, ne suits, and leather