Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [176]
On other occasions, the leader of Scientology is said to have publicly slapped, kicked, punched, or shoved executives who angered him, including Jeff Hawkins, who said he was attacked by Miscavige on five separate occasions, beginning in 2002. "It wasn't like he did it everywhere—it was usually in meetings or when he was inspecting an area," said Hawkins. Only those present saw what went on, "and they did not talk about it to other staff." The lowest-ranking workers on the base, for the most part, were exempt from the leader's abuse. The rest took what came to them silently. No one reported these beatings to the police.
"After twenty-eight years in Scientology, you blamed yourself for what was happening. I must be a real scumbag to pull that in," explained Tom De Vocht, who said he was attacked several times by Miscavige. He never fought back, nor did he expect anyone else to put up a challenge. "You're talking about the pope of Scientology beating on his staff, the man who controls your eternal salvation," he said. Besides, De Vocht added, many people, including him, had been conditioned to act exactly as Miscavige did.
Indeed, this toxic environment metastasized to such a degree that Miscavige's underlings, unprovoked by the leader, would similarly descend upon one another, ganging up on whoever seemed weakest. Group confessions, referred to as "séances," had become regular occurrences at Int. At these events, executives who'd angered Miscavige in some way were made to sit at the front of a large room, such as the base dining hall, and one by one stand up and confess their "crimes." De Vocht witnessed numerous séances, including those where Miscavige himself would stand up and reveal someone's crimes, having combed through their auditing folders. "In front of seven hundred people, he'd say, 'It came up today that so-and-so was jerking off,' or 'Sam, here, in another life molested a child.' Well, people had very little sleep, they were eating rice and beans, they were half psychotic from working such long hours, and they'd go into a frenzy." Often the attacks were made in defense of the chairman of the board himself. "What have you done to Dave?!" the people would shout, and they'd jeer while the accused racked his brain to think of an appropriate response.*
Somehow, Tanja told herself, all of this must be for the greatest good. But doubt had begun to eat away at her. "Please try to get back here—you have to," she told Stefan one night on the phone. "I don't think I can handle it here alone."
But Stefan remained in Los Angeles, no closer to leaving the PAC Base than when he'd arrived four years earlier. Miscavige had refused to sign his release papers. The leader now decreed that those recently finished with the RPF were not to be seen as "rehabilitated" until they'd made up for the damage they'd caused the organization. How they were to do this was never explained. Meanwhile, Miscavige had grown suspicious of his secretary. One day in Los Angeles, the leader confronted Tanja. "Tell me the truth," he said. "Have you spoken to that scumbag husband of yours?"
Mustering all of her courage, Tanja admitted it: yes, she had. It was the last conversation she and Miscavige would have.†
The following day, August 14, 2004, Tanja was sent back to the Int Base, where she was ordered to the Old Gilman House, a ramshackle, two-story building on the far edge of the property, which was used as a detention center for staff who'd expressed disaffection with the current management or a desire to "blow." There she would begin a program of "correction," a less structured, and more isolated, version of the RPF. She picked vegetables, lived in a trailer off the main house, and ate her meals, delivered by a security guard, alone. She was audited daily. None of her friends or former colleagues in Miscavige's office were allowed to have anything to do with her; indeed, her name would