Inside Scientology Part 12

Kendra worshiped her parents, who she believed had extraordinary psychic powers as OTs. She was particularly fascinated by their claim that they could remove the pain of death from the spirits of friends or family who'd recently died; they could telepathically connect with their thetans and give them a supernatural auditing session. As a child, she would watch, transfixed, as her mother sat on the living room couch, silently communicating with the spirits of the dead. When Kendra was six, her favorite great-aunt died. Rea.s.suringly, her mother told her daughter that she had spoken to this great-aunt's thetan, which had agreed to go to hospitals and look for pregnant women who were Scientologists, so that it could be born again. The same was true when it came to the death of Kendra's favorite dog.

Kendra felt better. She thought to herself, Okay, I'm six now, so when I'm ten, I should look for a four-year-old who's a Scientologist, and that'll be my dog. She did that quite a bit when people died, made that mental calculation, though she never really followed it up. But she had a general notion that the world was going to be full of Scientologists soon, each one reincarnated from the last, and that one day, in the cycle of one of her lifetimes, she would again meet everyone she ever loved. "It was comforting, and it helped you get over death," she said. "I guess it's parallel to the idea of heaven."

Heaven, though, was a concept Kendra never knew much about. Like the idea of G.o.d or the messiah, it belonged to the world of wogs, who Kendra believed were evil at worst, but simply helpless at best, caught in what Hubbard called the "labyrinth"; only Scientology provided a clear route out of this confused state. Unlike Natalie, who was once reprimanded for referring to a non-Scientologist as a wog, Kendra's family and their acquaintances used the term liberally.

Frightening concepts about the wog world permeated Kendra's childhood. Wog society, she believed, was a place where psychiatrists, whom she was raised to fear and considered "the devil," had total control, particularly over children. In wog schools, she was told, kids, particularly the smart and active ones like her, were force-fed medication to calm them down. The fear that she might be sent to a dreaded public school, where she'd be diagnosed with a learning disability and given Ritalin, loomed over her every time she got in trouble. "I remember hearing, 'If you went to public school you'd have to tiptoe around being too smart in case they try to drug you,'" she recalled. "That totally freaked me out, since there was no protection from psychiatry in public school. I even heard that s.e.x ed was taught in public school with a psychiatric agenda."

Kendra's own school ran much differently. Scientology schools all claim to be secular but replicate the org experience to a greater or lesser extent. At Delphi, a formal "org board" hung on the wall, listing many divisions and job t.i.tles found in a Scientology church; the school ran so much like a Scientology organization, former students say, that it mirrored the experience almost completely.

Teachers were known as "supervisors," as they also were at church. Counselors were called "ethics officers." Those who administered discipline were "masters at arms." When it came time to be tested, students would report to a separate division known as Qualifications, or "Qual," where, to make sure kids were being honest about how fully they understood what they had learned, they were quizzed verbally while hooked up to an E-meter. The exact same procedure is used for students in courses at Scientology orgs.

Socially, Delphi worked like an org as well, maintaining ethics files on every student, which included reports of every rules violation a child ever committed. From the time that they can write their name, Scientologist children, like their parents, are taught to report on one another, as well as on themselves, if they have taken part in a "crime," such as chewing gum when it wasn't allowed or stealing a kiss with a cla.s.smate, which is considered "out-ethics" behavior.

Located in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest, Delphi looks like any private school in southern California, with gra.s.sy playing fields; expensive facilities for art, music, and computer work; and a research library, which includes all of the cla.s.sics as well as numerous history and foreign language texts and a great number of encyclopedias and dictionaries. The school, which enrolls about 175 students, most of them Scientologists, offers a standard academic curriculum as well as a Scientology curriculum.

At the primary school level, students begin their encounter with the basics of Hubbard's study tech through a book called Learning How to Learn. As they progress, they are introduced to other Scientology concepts, such as ethics and the "conditions of existence," which they learn through an abridged version of Hubbard's Introduction to Scientology Ethics, a core Scientology text. Other books teach them about the harmful effects of drugs and the basics of "money and exchange," the Hubbard concept that nothing worth having comes for free, which is the principle upon which all churches of Scientology operate.

Because study technology is based on the idea that it's possible to teach oneself anything simply by following Hubbard's core precepts, there is often no actual "teaching" in Scientology schools; indeed, many teachers at Delphi, as at similar schools, have earned no accreditation outside the Church of Scientology. There is also no cla.s.sroom discussion. Instead, students work alone, following individualized "check sheets" that list the books or tasks required to finish the course. Maggie Reinhart, the former director of the Delphi Academy, told me that this technique forces a student to take an active role in his or her education.

Natalie Walet was educated this way at Chesapeake, and thrived. And so did Kendra, a voracious reader, who spent most of her time reading and writing papers. But her best friend, a girl I'll call Erin,* yearned for a more rigid academic structure. "I'd look at the supervisor and think, 'Why can't you just teach me?' But they never did," she said. "All they did if you had a question about anything was tell you to refer to the materials, or find your misunderstood word." A bright and articulate girl, Erin nonetheless finished high school unable to name the two houses of the U.S. Congress.

But this training is vital if a child is to become a Scientology parishioner, something all children raised in Scientology are expected to become. Natalie went "on course," or enrolled in cla.s.ses at the church, at the age of seven. Kendra started even earlier-around five, she believes. There was no refusing: it was expected of Scientologist children and their parents too, so the adults would not seem "off-purpose" to the goals of the church. In a vast array of programs, children learned alongside adults, and Kendra, like Natalie, enjoyed them. "You played with dolls or made little figures out of clay," she said, recalling one course, Overcoming the Ups and Downs in Life, which required that she learn the twelve "anti-social personality types" in society by memorizing the definitions and then demonstrating the principles using dolls as actors. Another course, known as Key to Life, taught aspects of study tech with the help of picture books.

One course that kids particularly enjoyed was Success Through Communication, the entry-level rung on the Bridge, which teaches both children and adults the basic training routines. To children, staring at a partner without blinking or making funny faces to try to break the other's composure feels like a game. But some of the other TRs, notably the drill known as "bull-bait," in which one partner heckles the other mercilessly in an attempt to shake the other person's resolve, can be excruciating for sensitive adolescents.

Erin, a slender, somewhat shy blonde girl, was thirteen years old when she did her bull-bait TR. Her partner was a teenage boy. "I'd just gotten b.o.o.bs and I was wearing a tight shirt, and he made fun of me," she said. "Then, at one point he started to unzip his pants. I was horrified, but I just had to sit there. It was mortifying. But since it was part of bull-baiting, it was okay. The whole idea is that you're supposed to be able to handle anything that comes at you with no reaction, just totally self-contained."

These drills, particularly bull-bait, are a crucial part of auditor training, which children also begin at a young age. Kendra was being audited by the time she was in kindergarten and learned to audit others when she was around eleven or twelve years old, working with a partner who'd play the role of the preclear. Her job was to ask her partner questions, and then, using the techniques she learned in her TR drills, repeat them if her partner didn't answer or refused to give her the answer she sought. If the preclear got up, she would force the person back into the chair, something she was taught was for the subject's own good, as it might be harmful to leave the session before the person was deemed "ready" to do so. If a subject still refused to do what he or she was told, Kendra, using another technique she'd learned, would yell to show her "intent," as Scientologists put it. A tall, naturally a.s.sertive girl, Kendra had no trouble doing as she was trained to do, which was to "be in control of the session one hundred percent of the time," she said. "Even if it meant blocking the door if the person wanted to leave the room."

Kendra learned her TRs at church; Erin learned hers at school. Some kids learned them in both places. This is by design; a Scientology education provides a natural flow between the two inst.i.tutions. The idea, noted Sandra Mercer, the former Scientology registrar from Clearwater, Florida, is to create a seamless world through which children can travel without any outside influence. But the Scientology world is viable only as long as a member agrees with its precepts. Natalie Walet, despite her independent spirit, never doubted these ideas. Kendra Wiseman did.

In 1997, when Kendra was fourteen, she developed a fascination with a bookstore across the street from the Celebrity Centre, where she was then on course after school. The shop, a Hollywood landmark known as the Daily Planet, sold eclectic books on different subjects as well as an a.s.sortment of New Age products: candles, crystals, tarot cards. Kendra had peeked in the window and thought it "looked really cool inside" but was afraid to go in. "The Scientologists at church said it was very degraded and woggy," she said. "I can still remember that feeling. I was fourteen, and I was afraid of going into a bookstore."

One day, on her lunch break from a course, Kendra and a friend mustered their courage and ventured into the Daily Planet. Entranced by the bohemian atmosphere, Kendra picked up a vial of incense, something she had never smelled before, and inhaled deeply. Immediately, she began to worry that she was "out-ethics," and fearing that the girl she was with would write a report on her, Kendra left. But the next day she returned, alone. She bought a vial of gardenia oil and furtively hid it in a T-shirt inside her gym bag. When she got home, she carefully unwrapped it and stowed the vial in the back of a dresser drawer. "I'd just take it out sometimes and smell it," she said. "It was like my little secret."

Before long, she'd shared her secret with Erin, who then sneaked into the Daily Planet and bought her own vial of gardenia oil. This initiated a period of exploration. The girls began to read about other philosophies-Buddhism and Taoism. When the singer Madonna famously embraced Kabbalah, they explored that too. Then Kendra and Erin discovered Wicca. And like many teenage girls at the time, they fell in love with the occult.

They collected books with mysterious Wiccan symbols on the cover. They grew herbs, lit candles, and recited spells. They baked "mooncakes" and hiked into the hills to eat them. "It was a phase," Kendra said, "but at the time I thought it was so cool-it was like an entire religion for Lord of the Rings fans."

Kendra's Scientology counselors, however, were not sympathetic. Feeling guilty that she might be breaking church rules, Kendra admitted to her auditor that she'd been lighting incense and meditating. At once, she was sent to a tiny room in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Celebrity Centre, where she was grilled about her newfound interest in "other practices." And, to her horror, the same thing was done to her at school. "The thing about Scientology is that everything is connected," she explained. "So if you're skeptical about something or don't agree with something, you get this entire society coming down on you: your school will call the church, the church will call your parents, or your work, or both; your parents will call somebody-you're locked in."

At school, students, teachers, and even the school's headmaster avoided her. Finally after several days, a friend confided that he'd been ordered not to speak to her. Kendra's phone then began to ring off the hook, with parents of her friends calling to tell her that she was unwelcome in their homes and not allowed to spend time with their children. She would continue to be unwelcome, they said, until she came to her senses and was back "in good standing" with the church.

At home, Kendra's parents, with whom she'd always been close, believed their daughter's rejection of Scientology was a phase. When Kendra insisted it wasn't, they quoted Hubbard's sayings related to sin: one single wrong act-an overt-could result in a series of events that would make a person want to leave a group. What was it? What was her sin? Kendra countered by citing L. Ron Hubbard's most famous statement: "What's true for you is true." She'd done nothing wrong, she said. Scientology just wasn't true for her any longer.

Fearful that Kendra was losing her chance at eternity, her parents turned to the church itself, which dispatched members of the Sea Organization to their home to handle the problem. Kendra hid in her room. "They'd cl.u.s.ter in little groups around the coffee table, discussing my case, while I made my point by blasting Rage Against the Machine at full volume from behind the closed door," she said. The church officials came day after day. Kendra's parents begged her to talk to them. Finally, she agreed.

"I was so angry, I just wanted these people to drop dead and leave me alone," she recalled. "But on the other hand I was really scared." For weeks, she said, one Sea Org official after another would take her aside and "use Scientology on me," as she put it. When Kendra didn't answer their questions, they'd ask them again, just as they'd been trained to do in their TR drills. If she was sulky or defiant, her interlocutor, following Scientology teachings, would try to "raise her tone" by hitting a note just above hers-"antagonism," one tone higher than hostility, was the most common note they struck.

"After a while I'd want it to end so much, I'd end up crying and agreeing to whatever"-which was usually to talk to yet another Sea Org member, Kendra said. "But I knew what I wanted, and I so didn't want to have that conversation, because all they did was break me down. They'd throw things back at me until I felt like I was the guilty one for not wanting to stay in Scientology. Every conversation I'd had with the Sea Org for years had been like that."

The Sea Org had, in fact, once targeted Kendra for recruitment. The same held true for virtually every one of her friends. Scientology children are raised to not only respect and defer to Sea Org officials, but to envision themselves in a Sea Org uniform. Since David Miscavige became the leader of the church, the Sea Org ranks had swelled with the children of church members. Recruiters patrol the orgs and also show up at schools like Delphi, looking for possible candidates. Once they've isolated a target, who can be as young as eight years old, they may make frequent visits to the child's home, sometimes, as Kendra witnessed, almost forcing their way in to talk to the kid. They present an image of the Sea Org as one part humanitarian mission and one part "cool, s.p.a.ce-age army," in the words of one young Scientologist from Los Angeles, who recalled Sea Org promotional materials filled with military imagery like swords and shiny uniforms, as well as pictures of s.p.a.ceships. It is a powerful pitch for kids raised in the insular bubble of the church.

If that angle doesn't work, there are other lures. Some kids are a.s.sured that they will still be able to become an archaeologist, or a ballet dancer, if they join the Sea Org. Others are encouraged to think about the independence they'll have, living away from parents. One of Kendra's friends, who swore for years that he would never join, changed his mind after he was presented with an offer he simply couldn't refuse. "You're not supposed to have s.e.x unless you're married," said Kendra. "So they pulled him into a room with seven beautiful Sea Org girls and said, 'Join the Sea Org and you can get married.' After being hara.s.sed over and over again, he signed."

Kendra estimated that 25 percent of her Delphi cla.s.s joined the Sea Org. Like her friend Erin, she resisted and ultimately did succeed in leaving Scientology, to her family's dismay. Natalie Walet also chose not to join the Sea Org, though she said she seriously considered it. "I was too young-I think I was thirteen when I was approached, and even though I was really mature, I was still a kid." Her parents also had a hand in her decision, she added. "They made me understand that if I signed up, it would be like the military; I wouldn't be able to come home whenever I wanted." So Natalie decided to finish her education. "I think everyone at some point gets spoken to about the Sea Org," she said. "It can be really tempting."

One Scientologist who was tempted, and succ.u.mbed, was Claire Headley. Claire was nine years old when she spoke to her first Sea Org recruiter, although it wasn't until she was thirteen that she began hearing from the org regularly. She was a seventh-grader living in Burbank with her parents, Gen and Hugh Whitt, both dedicated Scientologists who had moved to California from Scientology's British hub, Saint Hill, just a few years earlier. Lacking the finances to send their daughter to Delphi, where tuition was over $10,000 per year, they home-schooled Claire, a well-scrubbed-looking girl with a cascade of long red hair, adding an extra layer of isolation to an already sheltered childhood.

This made her a particularly easy target for Sea Org recruiters, who approached her at church with a warning about the dangers of the wog world. Then they asked her what she wanted to do with her life-Claire didn't know. So they appealed to her idealism by saying if she joined the Sea Org, she'd be "helping people." Who wouldn't want to help people? The recruiters called her on the phone: the planet was in desperate trouble, they told her; there were only five years left to clear the planet-she needed to do something about itright now.

Unlike most of her friends at church, Claire was intimately familiar with the Sea Org: she'd grown up in the order, which her mother had joined when Claire was four years old. Divorced from Claire's biological father, Gen had taken her daughter to Saint Hill, where they spent the next four years. As Gen worked and pursued her own spiritual goals, Claire saw her mother for one hour a day, around dinnertime, and then for three hours on Sat.u.r.days.

Children of Sea Org members, notably those whose parents serve at large Scientology installations, were given their own organization, called the Cadet Org.* They lived apart from their parents, in dormitory-style accommodations, with little adult supervision. At Saint Hill, the Cadet Org was housed in a dilapidated country mansion known as Stonelands. When Claire arrived, in 1979, there were about forty kids between the ages of four and sixteen, supervised by a single adult, a Scientologist in her sixties.

Few provisions were made for the education of the kids in the Sea Org (aside from putting them to work, Hubbard never figured how to accommodate actual children in his organizations). At Saint Hill, which had no school, some children joined the Commodore's Messenger Organization, which they could do at age eight. Claire, still too young, was bused to a local elementary school in East Grinstead, whose residents, like those in Clearwater, were notably unfriendly.

Yearning to make friends with the "normal kids"-Claire and her Cadet Org friends were, in her mind, the "weirdo kids"-she learned how to speak two languages: one for Scientology, the other for school. When she slipped up and started talking about things like overts or withholds, the other kids laughed. She'd been relieved when her mother met Hugh Whitt, an American Scientologist working at Saint Hill, and decided to marry him. Whitt had taken LSD in his youth and was prevented from joining the Sea Org because of it. As Sea Org members are not allowed to marry nonSea Org members, Claire's mother had to pet.i.tion Scientology to leave the Sea Org, and was granted permission.

"To me, it was like a dream come true: I was finally going to get to live in a house with my parents and be like a normal kid," Claire said. But the years she spent at Saint Hill stayed with Claire even after her family moved to Los Angeles, where Hugh ran the Scientology mission of Beverly Hills. She said, "The world outside of Scientology just seemed like this vast unknown: how could I possibly live in it?"

In 1989, when Claire was fourteen, she and her father went to Clearwater, where a friend of her father's named Richard Reiss, the base's highest-ranking auditor,* told her that joining the Sea Org would be the "right thing to do." Momentarily inspired, Claire decided she would join. But she changed her mind once she got back to Los Angeles, particularly as her mother, according to Claire, "flipped out" when her fourteen-year-old daughter told her she'd signed a billion-year contract to serve Scientology for the rest of her life. Gen understood the rigors of Sea Org life. Claire was intelligent and attractive-there were plenty of things she could do, Gen believed, and still remain true to the church.

The reaction of Claire's mother ill.u.s.trates a common dilemma for Scientologist parents, who are supposed to feel honored that their child has been selected for the Sea Org in the same way a Catholic parent is supposed to swell with pride if their child joins the priesthood. But many parents are not eager to give their son or daughter to the church, which requires signing away all legal rights to the child's welfare. "You get a lot of parents who are just beside themselves," says Sandra Mercer, whose youngest son was approached as a ten-year-old, and without either of his parents present, signed a contract-with crayon, she said-though he was not formally approached to activate his contract until he was thirteen. Mercer refused to allow her son to join until he finished high school (by which point, she added, he'd lost interest), and since she was a prominent Scientologist in Clearwater, church officials didn't push. "But I was an exception," she noted. "If you're just a rank-and-file member, you can't complain or say no."

The scrutiny that unwilling parents receive-they may be condemned for being "counter-intentioned" to Scientology, an act of treason, if they prevent their child from joining the Sea Org-forces many into silence and even leads some to encourage their kids to make the commitment. Gen Whitt managed to delay Claire's enrollment for two years with a pledge that her daughter would help out at the Beverly Hills mission. But in 1991, when Claire was sixteen, Gen finally gave her consent. Richard Reiss reminded the Whitts that were they to refuse to let Claire go, they might be put before a church ethics board. Reiss himself might face a Scientology tribunal for his failure to recruit her unless Claire agreed to enlist.

And so began Claire's immersion into the tightly wound, paramilitary world of the Sea Organization, where she would spend the next fourteen years of her life.

Chapter 16.

Int.

SCIENTOLOGY'S PUBLICITY MATERIALS portray the Sea Organization as similar to the U.S. Marines. "The toughest, most dedicated team this planet has ever known," says one recruiting brochure. "Against such a powerful team the opposition hasn't got a chance." Though these are L. Ron Hubbard's words, the vision they invoke has been fully realized only in the era of David Miscavige. Today it is impossible to understand the Church of Scientology without understanding the Sea Org, which over the past forty years has evolved from Hubbard's private navy to Scientology's managerial elite, to its current incarnation: an executive body but also a low-paid workforce that can run the church's engines without impacting its overall revenue.

Induction into the Sea Org begins with a boot camp known as the Estates Project Force, or EPF. In Los Angeles, the EPF is located at the Pacific Area Command Base (PAC Base) on Sunset Boulevard. Here, Claire Headley learned to march, salute, and perform manual labor. Physical work is a key training technique for new Sea Org recruits. Among the ch.o.r.es given people on the EPF are scrubbing pots, washing garbage receptacles, and cleaning roach- or rat-infested ducts. Claire described the work as "nasty" but ultimately n.o.ble in purpose. "The idea," she told me, "is that you do this for a few weeks and you can do any task given to you and do it right."

After graduation, inductees are a.s.signed a post at one of Scientology's organizations. Many kids hope to work at Celebrity Centre, where staffers are outfitted in custom-made uniforms and have a chance to mingle with movie stars. Claire was even more ambitious: she wanted to work at Int, the most exclusive Scientology facility on land. Like all public Scientologists, she'd known of the base as "Gold," the home of Scientology's film studio, Golden Era Productions, which sounded glamorous. She heard rumors that Tom Cruise was a regular there. And she'd been shown pictures of the five-hundred-acre property and its large swimming pool and golf course. There were gra.s.sy meadows, winding paths, and a small lake where swans and ducks roamed freely. With its neat white buildings with blue tiled roofs, she thought it looked like Disneyland-and in fact, this comparison with Disneyland was often used to promote the place to potential teenage recruits.

Only the most qualified and privileged Sea Org members were posted to Gold; often they were the children of Scientology's elite. Among them were L. Ron Hubbard's granddaughter Roanne and the sons and daughters of some of Scientology's top attorneys and money managers. Claire was told she'd need to score at least 125 on an IQ test, which she did, and that she would also have to score high on a variety of leadership and personality tests. The rules were very strict: no one with family members in government or media could work at the International Base; no one with friends or family who'd left Scientology on bad terms could be a.s.signed there either. A wholesome, virginal girl with a "clean" drug history, Claire sailed through the process, and two months after joining the Sea Org, she got her wish and was a.s.signed a clerical position at Gold.

At first glance, Gold did look a lot like Disneyland. Driving in through the main gate, Claire saw a beige estate house, known as the Castle, which looked like an actual castle. This housed Scientology's film wing. Nearby was a stone carriage house called the Tavern, which was where visiting VIPs often ate their meals. It was decorated in the style of King Arthur's court, complete with a sizable round table and even a stone with a sword embedded in it, like Excalibur. Across the road, rising up from the hills, was the Star of California clipper ship, which was done up in "Pirates of the Caribbean" style, with mermaid figurines and plastic crabs.

But there were also many other buildings, most of them utilitarian looking, scattered around the property, and Claire had to memorize the names and locations of all of them, and their abbreviations. Her new home, she learned right away, was far more than the film and production studio most Scientologists thought it was. This was a ruse, or "sh.o.r.e story," the church told the public in order to maintain the security of the base. Int was Scientology's nerve center, where every policy, legal strategy, advertising campaign, and event was planned and launched.

Virtually everything about the Int Base was different than Claire had imagined. It was run and organized like a covert military installation. The base's location was a secret-Claire had to pledge never to divulge it to her friends or family, under the threat of treason. Leaving the compound with any doc.u.ments or paperwork was forbidden. Similarly, she was not allowed to speak of her job nor of any goings-on at the base to anyone, not even to a Sea Org friend. She was banned from riding in local taxis or taking any form of public transportation; instead, she traveled on special Scientology buses or in a private vehicle driven by a staff member who'd completed a special driving course designed by L. Ron Hubbard. Every Sea Org member who wants to drive is required to attend this "car school," even if the person already has a driver's license and a car.

Writing home from Int was an ordeal. Letters could not be sent through regular mail or Fedex, but had to instead go through the base's internal mail system, where screeners read everyone's incoming and outgoing correspondence. In a similar vein, staffers were given Nextel phones that doubled as walkie-talkies to communicate on the base, but with very few exceptions, they were not allowed to use the phones to make outside calls. They were also banned from using pay phones in town, and could make calls only from special base phones, which were monitored by censors. To get permission to do this, one had to fill out a formal request, citing the reasons for making the call.

"All of this was so freaky, especially for a sixteen-year-old," said Claire, who immediately began to wonder if she'd made a mistake by working there. But on the other hand, the Int Base was the very heart of the whole Scientology organization, whose mission was to save the world. Every training and orientation film, every marketing strategy, every bit of technical material-dictionaries, instruction manuals, recorded Hubbard lectures, even every E-meter-all were born of the efforts of the staff members at Int, the most "on-policy," ethical, ideal organization on the planet, or so Claire believed. How could she call herself a Scientologist and not be a part of it?

Plus, David Miscavige was at Int. Like all young Scientologists, Claire was in awe of Miscavige, who, at the events she'd attended with her parents, came across as a handsome, charismatic, youthful, tanned (thanks to a personal tanning bed aides said he utilized before every Scientology event), and most of all, totally in control. To Claire, he (she was instructed to call him "sir") appeared to be the most dedicated Scientologist on the planet.

Like L. Ron Hubbard, Miscavige moved with an entourage, the two constants being his wife, Sh.e.l.ly, and his personal a.s.sistant, or "communicator," a dark-haired New Zealander named Laurisse Stuckenbrock, who was called Lou. The three of them always dressed identically, in white or black, and Sh.e.l.ly and Lou also carried tape recorders to take down Miscavige's every word, much as Hubbard's personal aides had scribbled his directives with paper and pen. The tapes were then rushed to Miscavige's office in the RTC building, which was located at the far north side of the base in a modern structure called Building 50. There, a pool of secretaries set to work transcribing them; then they issued transcripts so that staff could read Miscavige's thoughts and directions just as they had L. Ron Hubbard's, and, as with the Founder's, follow them exactly.*

Stories of Miscavige's lifestyle abounded at Int, where the leader rode his customized Yamaha motorcycle around the base, leaving huge dust clouds in his wake. A car aficionado, Miscavige owned a Mazda Miata, a forest-green Range Rover, and a BMW M6, among other vehicles. He also had a custom-made, armored GMC van with bulletproof windows, which was set up as a "mobile office" with a computer, a fax, a wireless hookup, and a surround-sound audio system and satellite TV. He lived lavishly, by base standards, in private quarters, with a screening room and a $100,000 stereo system. On his birthday, each April 30, everyone at Int was required to chip in part of his or her salary to buy him a present. One year staffers got him a fancy golf cart,* another year a t.i.tanium frame mountain bike, and another, a handcrafted acoustic guitar.

A workout fanatic, Miscavige, who rarely wore the same garment twice, was fond of extra-snug T-shirts that showed off his buff physique. On more formal occasions he wore a Hermes tie, a monogrammed Egyptian cotton shirt (handmade for him by Turnbull & a.s.ser), and a $5,000 suit; the suit was custom-made by his Beverly Hills tailor, Richard Lim, who also made suits for Tom Cruise. Lim visited the base regularly to do the leader's fittings. Miscavige was quite particular about distinguishing himself from all others: on days when his staff dressed in uniform, the leader wore civilian clothes. On weekends, when the Sea Org was allowed to wear "civvies," Miscavige wore his navy blue Sea Org uniform, trimmed with gold braid.

There were hundreds of kids on the Int Base in the 1990s, some even younger than Claire. Boys were often sent to work in the technical areas, building computer systems or working in the lighting department. Girls worked as secretaries, quality control officers, and, as Claire did for a time, "program operators," charged with making sure other base staffers were meeting their targets. This meant she was expected to exert her power by roaming the base and descending upon unsuspecting officials to demand compliance. A soft-spoken, angelic-looking girl who was well-drilled on the training routines, Claire quickly learned to scream at staffers who questioned an order, refused to address her as "sir," or in any other way challenged her authority, or "command intention."

The base followed a protocol L. Ron Hubbard had devised called the Team Share system. Upon arriving at Int, each staffer was given five cards: one for social activities, one for pay bonuses, one for "chow," one for salary, and one for berthing. Hubbard had designed it as a motivational tool, explained Jeff Hawkins, who was also at Int, to make each staffer feel as if he or she had a stake in the organization.

In practice, the Team Share system was a form of punishment. When a worker committed an infraction, the supervisor or ethics officer was ent.i.tled to take away a card. "If you lost your social card, you could not take any liberties"-the rare day off, awarded only to staff whose statistics were up-"or attend any events or parties," said Hawkins. "If you lost your bonus card, you would not be paid any bonuses. This was kind of a null card as we weren't paid any bonuses anyway," he added. "If you lost your pay card you could not collect your pay. If you lost your chow card you had to eat beans and rice only. And if you lost your berthing card you had to sleep outside, or in your office-you could not go home. We used to joke about having an 'air card,' and when that card was pulled, you weren't allowed to breathe."

Virtually any executive, seeing an actual infraction, or more commonly, wishing to advance a personal vendetta, could "pull cards" on a subordinate. As a result, staffers were routinely deprived of things like money or balanced meals. Sometimes entire divisions had their berthing or pay cards revoked, meaning they'd all have to sleep at their desks or go without their weekly $50 salary.

Even under the best of conditions, Claire's day began at seven-thirty in the morning and went until midnight, seven days a week. She had fifteen-minute meal breaks, sometimes half an hour if she was producing well. On Thanksgiving, the staff got an hour for dinner; otherwise, the schedule was the same.

Exhausted, the staff gave in to the paranoia that was a constant at the base. They were required to report any critical statements, reports, or casual asides they'd hear, even if it meant turning in their spouse or best friend. That person would then be hauled into security checking to uncover the "crime." Only when the person confessed, recanted, and in some cases publicly retracted whatever critical statement he or she had made, would the process end. This was called a "viewpoint shift." And what it meant, Claire quickly understood, was that everyone at the Int Base lived in fear of everyone else and what they might be saying, or reporting, about one another.

In 1992, about a year after she arrived at Gold, Claire met nineteen-year-old Marc Headley. He too was the son of Scientologists from Los Angeles and had been recruited into the Sea Org at the age of fourteen. Unlike her, though, Marc joined immediately. Signing a billion-year contract, he'd decided, was an excellent way to get out of school-Marc attended Delphi, which he hated. Joining the Sea Org also offered the chance to make money, or at least that's what his recruiters told him, promising he'd make at least a few hundred dollars a week.

A handsome kid with light brown hair and large blue eyes, Marc, as everyone knew, was Tom Cruise's preclear, and he was excellent at gaming the system. Though the rules on the base were always tight, Marc and his friends still managed to break them to act like teenagers: renting movies at Blockbuster, pooling their money to hold late-night pizza parties in their rooms, racing around the base on their motorcycles, and even going into the town of Hemet, a small community with several strip malls, to hang out from time to time.

Claire fell for Marc right away. And Marc fell even harder. But the couple knew they had to be careful. s.e.x, even kissing, before marriage is strictly prohibited in the Sea Organization. After a few months, in August 1992, they decided to get married. Because Claire was only seventeen, and thus not able to be legally married in California, the couple went to Las Vegas to get married, then returned to Los Angeles to have a more formal wedding at the Celebrity Centre in Hollywood. Dressed in a white, off-the-shoulder gown and tulle veil she'd purchased the day before, Claire promised Marc that, in addition to being true, she would always "maintain communication" as a sign of her commitment. Marc, in a tuxedo, vowed the same. The next morning, they returned to Gilman Hot Springs.

Day-to-day life there was grueling. Though she loved her husband, Claire frequently thought about what she'd given up by joining the Sea Org. Her stepsister was planning to go to college. Claire, who'd looked at Scientology as the only education she'd ever need, would never have that chance. She also knew that she'd probably never have children, because it would mean leaving the Sea Org. This rule had not been in place when Claire was a child at Saint Hill, but by the mid-1980s, rules had changed. So that the Sea Org could dispense with providing child care for the very young, parents who had children under the age of six were no longer allowed to join. Also, women were not allowed to have babies while serving in its ranks. In the 1980s, those who became pregnant had to leave the order and work at lower-ranking Scientology organizations while raising young children.

By the early 1990s, however, a new, even stricter policy was coming into force to prevent such departures. Members of the Sea Org were pressured to terminate their pregnancies.* Having kids was seen as bad for business, and at Int, Claire learned from casual conversation, a good 60 to 80 percent of the married women on the base had had at least one abortion, even several, often claiming indigence to force the county to pay for the procedure. If a woman resisted (and few did), she would be separated from her husband, put on heavy manual labor, and vigorously "sec checked." If she still refused to get an abortion, she would be sent from the base in disgrace, alone.

Claire had never thought much about having children, but that changed when she married Marc. "I would often have these fleeting thoughts of how much I would love to have a family with him-not that I could ever express them. And not that we ever discussed it either."

Such conversations were strictly forbidden; after all, a discussion of that nature was considered tantamount to a discussion of wanting to leave. And leaving, Claire knew from the moment she arrived at Int, was not an option. Though it was against the rules to physically prevent a person from departing, tremendous security measures were set up to keep staffers on the base. Anyone suspected of "disaffection" would be immediately reported to a collective security force known as the Perimeter Council. This group maintained lists of "suspects" who were seen as security risks. Those individuals were forced to do manual labor and endure long hours of interrogation. Some were put on a twenty-four-hour security watch, during which staff members shadowed them as they went about their day. A security guard slept outside their door, sometimes with wrists tied to the doork.n.o.b, to prevent them from escaping in the middle of the night.

Electric fences ringed the property, topped by razor barriers that were said to be for the staff's protection-a deterrent to intruders-but in fact they faced inward, to prevent the staff from escaping. If a person got too close to the exit, underground motion sensors would activate a series of alarms and searchlights. In addition, electronic monitors, concealed microphones, and hidden cameras were installed throughout the property, and even outside the base itself. Security guards were outfitted with night-vision goggles.

If a person did manage to escape, a special "blow drill" was launched. Ethics and security officers combed through the files of the escapee to determine where he or she might go. Then teams of Scientologists would fan out to the local bus and train stations, the airport, and area hotels to "recover" the truant, using information gleaned from the ethics files to convince the person to return. Back on base, heavy labor and intense interrogation awaited the recovered staff member. The defeated look of those who had blown and been recovered was enough to discourage Claire from attempting the same course of action.

In 1994, Claire's "worst nightmare," as she said, became reality. She was nineteen, and pregnant. "Birth control was expensive," she admitted. She'd done her best to prevent conception, but having had no s.e.x education as a child, she said, "I guess I failed miserably."

Devastated and terrified, she told Marc, and they agreed that she should go through with the abortion at the local Planned Parenthood clinic in Riverside, where Scientologists from the base went regularly. A base staff member drove her to the appointment. "Every ounce of me was screaming no, and yet I felt like a cornered cat ... there was absolutely nothing I could do about it," she said. "If I tried to keep it, they'd put me on manual labor, which might hurt the baby. Not to mention that I had no money, no insurance, and I knew that I would be cut off from Marc completely if I didn't go through with it. So I did it."

Two years later, Claire found herself pregnant again. This time, she didn't have to think about what she should do. Obediently, she had an abortion and then returned to work, training for her new job as a member of the Church of Scientology's police force. Claire had been given a promotion. She was now working for David Miscavige's Religious Technology Center, by then the most prestigious organization in Scientology. To even be considered for this exclusive order, Claire had to pa.s.s a battery of security checks and be deemed superior intellectually, ethically, and also physically: "COB," as everyone knew, loved having pretty women around him.

The RTC is Miscavige's honor guard-some might even say a Praetorian Guard-comprised of a few dozen staffers at the base as well as maybe a dozen or so RTC representatives at key Scientology outposts like Flag. Their job, in addition to controlling the rights to all of Scientology's intellectual property, is to patrol Scientology for wrongdoing of any kind. No one else in Scientology has such absolute authority.

Accordingly, no one else in Scientology, or the Sea Organization, is treated with such deference. The majority of RTC officials are young women, not unlike L. Ron Hubbard's original Commodore's Messengers. While the "crew," or regular Sea Org staff, queue up for meals in the dining hall, stewards wait on RTC staffers. Housekeepers tidy their rooms. The clothes they wear-in the 1990s, a simple blue suit with a white cotton shirt; by the 2000s, a black suit and shirt-are made of high-quality material and are purchased by the church. Other staffers shop for clothes at Wal-Mart and pay for them with their meager earnings.

For the first few years, Claire worked at the RTC as a "corrections" officer, a.s.signed to "fix" whatever was wrong with management executives who were not performing up to standard. Most of her job consisted of interrogating executives on the E-meter, investigating them for abusing drugs or alcohol, viewing p.o.r.nography, or making financial errors. She also pressed them for details about their s.e.xual proclivities: masturbation, a sin in Scientology, was a frequent problem for some men on the Int Base, she said. Claire was twenty-two when she started this job. Other women were as young as fifteen. "I remember being so embarra.s.sed by some of the things I had to ask, but I think that was the idea of having someone like me do the check," said Claire. "How much more humiliating could it be, if you're a forty-year-old man, to be asked by some young girl if you've been masturbating?"

Working for the RTC meant working directly for David Miscavige, who, like L. Ron Hubbard, smoked constantly and worked tirelessly-well into his forties, the leader bragged about staying up until 4 A.M. He frequently called officials at all hours of the night, demanding that they work round-the-clock shifts as well. Those who couldn't handle the exhaustion were routinely attacked for not being "tough enough." Toughness was an ideal that L. Ron Hubbard had promoted as "a distinctive SO attribute," suggesting that a Sea Org member was capable of handling any challenge. Miscavige, however, made it the definitive criterion, indicating whether a person could cut it in the Sea Org.

To harden his staff, Miscavige brought back Hubbard's practice of "overboarding," which had been largely abandoned in the 1970s. Sometimes the base's swimming pool stood in for the Mediterranean, and its diving board served as the gangplank; at other times, the muddy lake on the property was used and staffers were pushed off a bridge. Many of these events took place at night, in the desert chill, without regard for the season. Miscavige, recalled a number of former Base staff, seemed to enjoy the spectacle; he'd often watch officials submerge themselves and resurface, freezing, while he sipped tea or cocoa, wearing a fuzzy bathrobe.

This behavior was of a piece with L. Ron Hubbard's in the late 1960s. The Commodore, as his former aides recalled, also was captivated by the drama of overboarding: dressed in his naval uniform, he would watch, and sometimes make a film, from the deck of the Apollo as his crew members were tossed into the sea with feet and wrists bound. But few at Int, save men like Jeff Hawkins, Mike Rinder, and Norman Starkey, the former captain of the Apollo, had any recollection of those days, nor in fact of L. Ron Hubbard at all-who, it should be noted, also surrounded himself with young people, believing them to be the only Scientologists whom he could trust.

Miscavige preferred an entourage of young staffers for somewhat different reasons. The leader of Scientology, the head of a multinational religious corporation, had a.s.sumed power with virtually no prior executive experience. Within a very short time of his takeover, it became obvious to longtime Scientology officials that Miscavige, while an able warrior, lacked the maturity of a stable manager. What's more, he had very little administrative ability. A micromanager, but famously impatient, he involved himself in nearly ever detail of church business, from legal strategies to carpet samples. If a project didn't deliver immediate results, he'd sc.r.a.p it and blame his staff's inadequacies.

Deeply paranoid-so much so that he ordered his water gla.s.s be covered with cellophane, for fear that someone might poison him-Miscavige trusted virtually no one and was openly contemptuous of anyone whose experience in Scientology predated his own. "I think he was panicked that someone who knew more than him might try to usurp power," said Jeff Hawkins, who saw in Miscavige a "manic desperation" that drove him to surround himself with naive young people who would never question his authority. Surely none of the pretty girls at the RTC would challenge the system.

One of the most pliant girls was Tanja Castle, the daughter of prominent British Scientologists. A few years older than Claire, Tanja, a willowy blonde, was one of Miscavige's secretaries. There were more than one dozen such women in Miscavige's personal office, in addition to the ordinary RTC staff, and most were, like Tanja, beautiful, even-tempered, and under the age of twenty-five.

Tanja was a favorite of the leader and his wife, Sh.e.l.ly. She went to the movies and out to dinner with the Miscaviges. At the conclusion of a particularly grueling work cycle, she and her colleagues might be rewarded with a day at the beach, a ski trip, or even a few days of vacation. There were trips to Europe and Caribbean cruises aboard Freewinds; Miscavige's entourage sometimes enjoyed scuba diving or jet skiing. "In terms of a Sea Org life, I had a great life," said Tanja. "I couldn't really complain, especially given how everyone else was treated."

Tanja's husband, Stefan, for instance, never enjoyed the perks his wife received; this was also true for Marc Headley (Miscavige was notably uncharitable to the husbands of the women who worked for him). A wiry, handsome, and extremely headstrong young man, Stefan had married Tanja in June 1988, about a year after she arrived at Int. He was twenty at the time and a department head in the Commodore's Messenger Organization-nearly the same position Miscavige himself had once held at about that same age. Tanja and Stefan had begun what appeared to be a perfect Sea Org life, though like the Headleys, they wrestled with disappointment over not being able to have children. But they resigned themselves to that fate as faithful servants of the Church of Scientology. Raised by his Scientologist mother in Washington, D.C., Stefan had joined the Sea Org when he was twelve. He had every intention of spending his life at Int, as did his wife.

But as the couple began advancing in their careers, things changed. Stefan became a producer of Scientology's technical films and live events; Tanja was promoted to the RTC. This made Tanja a "sir" to Stefan-just as Claire was a "sir" to Marc. It was weird, the girls thought, but they accepted it. Far less comfortable, however, was the unspoken rule that staffers in David Miscavige's organization should distance themselves from anyone not in the RTC, including a spouse. Of course many people ignored this-Claire was married to Marc, Tanja was married to Stefan, and many of their friends were married to men in other organizations. But there was always a subtle pressure to stop being married to that person.

Tanja felt this pressure profoundly. For all of his initiative, Stefan would never ascend to the same echelon as his shy and retiring wife, who became a companion of "COB a.s.sistant" Sh.e.l.ly Miscavige, a tough woman with very few friends. Sh.e.l.ly demanded that Tanja keep her company on Sat.u.r.day nights. While the women ate popcorn and watched movies at the Miscaviges' condo on the base, Stefan spent the night alone.

Before long, Stefan's resentment began to show. In 1998, while in England producing a live event, he knocked heads with Miscavige-over what, Stefan does not exactly recall. But Sh.e.l.ly Miscavige approached him immediately after the altercation. "What kind of beef do you have with Dave?" she asked.

Stefan considered his answer: what beef did he have with DM? "You know what?" he said. "I hate that I don't see my wife. And when I do," he added, bluntly, "she's too exhausted to have s.e.x."

Sh.e.l.ly blanched. "Oh," she said. "Okay."

This criticism would be Stefan's undoing. He was subjected to the False Purpose Rundown, put on the E-meter, and asked about his crimes. Why did he hate COB? What had he done to hurt him? Stefan maintained he'd done nothing. But Sh.e.l.ly was suspicious. As Tanja later explained, "Sh.e.l.ly was extremely serious about protecting Dave. She was like his bodyguard, doing whatever she had to in order to stop anyone or anything getting to him. She honestly believed that there were numerous people out to intentionally harm or destroy him-suppressives were all around." Those working closest to Miscavige, such as Stefan when he was managing the events, "were under constant surveillance," she added.

Miscavige himself had always had mixed feelings about Stefan, as he did about most of his employees. It was only a matter of time before he would find fault in Stefan's performance. In early 1999, Stefan booked a venue for the church's Millennium New Year's Eve event, in Los Angeles, only to be told later that it wasn't available. Miscavige was furious about this logistical mishap. Major events like this one had become his chief fundraising tool; a perfectionist, he was often dissatisfied with some aspect of their planning or production. After this problem occurred, both Tanja and Stefan recalled, he began to look more closely at Stefan's management of the budgets, apparently convinced that Stefan had hidden crimes.

To uncover them, Stefan's co-workers were audited in hopes they'd inform on him, he said, and he himself underwent an even more stringent form of interrogation, known as the Truth Rundown. Like the False Purpose Rundown, the Truth Rundown is a security-checking process specifically targeted at "black propaganda." Under duress during this interrogation, Stefan admitted to harboring deep resentments about the leader's lavish lifestyle, particularly given how parsimonious Miscavige could be in concerning truly pressing needs within the church. The leader seemed to think nothing of purchasing first-cla.s.s plane tickets to attend Scientology events in England, for example, but he would fly into a rage if a few extra workers were flown over, in coach cla.s.s, to help on the project. He would approve demanding plans for lavish new buildings, then become tremendously angry about the money being spent to construct them, almost always insisting that staffers were being wasteful. "It made no sense," Stefan said.* "But once those criticisms were known, my life was over. And because my wife worked for DM, my life with her was over as well."

In June 1999, Miscavige, now believing himself fully aware of Stefan's "black propaganda," sentenced him to an indefinite period of reeducation on the Rehabilitation Project Force, which was located in a remote camp at the edge of the base known as Happy Valley. On its website, the church describes the RPF as a voluntary rehabilitation program offering a "second chance" to Sea Org members who have become unproductive or have strayed from the church's codes. It is not, in the strictest term, a "prison," if only because Scientologists agree to do the RPF of their own free will. There is tremendous psychological pressure to consider oneself fortunate to receive this chance of redemption.

"The way the RPF works is you agree to leave your day-to-day life and go through the program to explore all the areas of your life and what types of transgressions you've been committing," Stefan said. Upon arrival on the RPF, each person is given a partner, or "twin," with whom to spend virtually the whole time there, whether auditing each other, working side by side on a gardening or construction project, or watching to make sure the partner does not try to escape. Meals are scant, often just rice and beans, and communication is controlled: just as in Hubbard's day, people on the RPF are not allowed to speak to anyone who is not also on the RPF, which means that wives and other family members are not allowed to visit or call. The only communications allowed to and from RPFers are handwritten letters, which are screened.

Stefan was entering his ninth month on the RPF when the church closed Happy Valley* and moved its fifteen-odd RPF inmates to the fortress-like Cedars of Lebanon building in Los Angeles, where they merged with more than a hundred other disgraced Sea Org staffers, including a number of high-ranking executives such as Brian Anderson, the former commanding officer of Flag's Office of Special Affairs, who had been sent west for rehabilitation after the Lisa McPherson debacle.