Inside Scientology Part 28

* Sea Org staffers, who divorce at an alarmingly high rate, are an exception to this rule. Jeff Hawkins, for example, had three wives during the time he was in Scientology.

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* Scientology's course completion lists, published in the back of many church magazines, pertain strictly to programs, not individuals. The 1989 figure thus does not suggest that over 11,000 people were at Flag-indeed, according to the website www.truthaboutscientology.com, which keeps track of these statistics, just 5,515 people completed courses at Flag in 1989, and just 3,155 in 1998, some taking multiple courses. These numbers are consistent with anecdotal reports from Scientology members and onetime officials who say the number of people at Flag decreased in the 1990s, along with the number of courses or other programs they signed up for and completed.

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* According to several reports, Packer is no longer affiliated with the church.

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* Once, recalled Marc Headley's wife, Claire, Cruise came down with food poisoning at Int, prompting the immediate departure of the unfortunate Sea Org member who had unwittingly fed the actor bad shrimp.

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* This spate includes my own article, "Inside Scientology," published on February 23, 2006, in Rolling Stone.

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* The Sea Org had abandoned its navy-style uniforms as day-to-day attire in Clearwater by 1996, as part of the church's ongoing effort to make friends in the community. This would soon become standard practice throughout Scientology, though the Sea Org dons the formal uniform on special occasions.

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* The family ultimately settled with the church in 2004 for an undisclosed amount, estimated at $20 million.

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* The city of Clearwater has never conducted its own survey to test Scientology's claims.

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* A pseudonym.

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* The Cadet Org was abolished in the mid-1990s.

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* Richard Reiss was the senior case supervisor at Flag who was out of town on training in 1995, when Lisa McPherson was receiving counseling-her care fell to Reiss's deputy, Alain Kartuzinski.

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* Miscavige's missives, unlike L. Ron Hubbard's, are generally not for public consumption. With the exception of the occasional RTC Executive Directive, such as one of 1991 wherein Miscavige announced that the church was winning its campaign against the IRS, the leader's written words are confined to the base, where staffers maintain thick binders of his utterances. Miscavige speaks to the Scientologist public at events, and his speeches are often reprinted in Scientology magazines.

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* According to several former staffers, including Marc Headley, Miscavige rejected the golf cart, which was used instead by the base's public relations officials to give tours to visiting VIPs. When I visited Int in the winter of 2006, the OSA chief at the time, Mike Rinder, drove me around the base in the golf cart.

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* The church denies that it pressures people into having abortions. In 1996, a formal policy was enacted, banning Sea Org members from having children. Youngsters were seen as "interfering with the productivity" of the staff, according to the current Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis. See Joe Childs and Thomas Tobin, "No Kids Allowed," St. Petersburg Times, June 13, 2010.

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* During my last interview with Stefan, in September 2010, he noted that he ultimately came to understand that Miscavige feared appearing to be too much "in control" of the church, as that might violate the church's agreement with the IRS regarding its tax exemption. According to this agreement, Scientology's Mother Church controls the budgets and the RTC simply oversees copyrights and trademarks.

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* Though Scientologists are not supposed to know the location of the Int Base, nor that it is the seat of international management, the base's location has been public since the 1980s, and maps of its various buildings have been posted on the Internet. Happy Valley, however, was a true "secret" until 2000, when a German doc.u.mentary team revealed its location. The church, seeking to avoid negative publicity, closed it down.

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* The Church of Scientology denies that Miscavige has ever physically attacked anyone.

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* During the late 1990s, Miscavige spent most of his time in Clearwater. However, according to Marty Rathbun, the leader would often monitor the "seances" remotely, by instructing an RTC staffer to put a conference phone into the room so he could listen in. "When he heard something that piqued his interest, he would have his a.s.sistant reach one of those RTC staffers through a separate phone, and then bark his instructions. Many times this had to do with making the confessing person give more details about his or her transgressions, particularly alleged s.e.xual ones. Miscavige would then continue to listen surrept.i.tiously through the conference phone to ensure that his order was complied with satisfactorily."

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Eighteen months later, Miscavige did acknowledge Tanja's presence one more time, with a single sentence. He otherwise never spoke to nor acknowledged her again.

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* Albeit with a price attached: offloaded Sea Org members are presented with "freeloader bills" for the years of training and auditing they've received as church employees. All "blown" staffers must reimburse the church to clear this debt before they can resume auditing and other services and be considered members in good standing. But those who wish to permanently leave Scientology and risk disconnection from their families generally do so without paying their freeloader bill.

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* By 2006, one of those abruptly "disappeared" from the RTC, and from Int, would be Miscavige's wife, Sh.e.l.ly, who was reportedly exiled to a Church of Scientology compound near Big Bear, California.

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* One of Mike's sisters, an OSA executive, is the president of the Church of Scientology of Los Angeles; the other, also in Los Angeles, is the headmistress of the upper school at Delphi. Two of Mike's nephews are in the Sea Org, posted at Int, and Mike's son is also in the Sea Org, posted at the American Saint Hill Organization, on the PAC Base.

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* Because the Fort Harrison serves as both hotel and "religious retreat," all of the renovations, which include gold-leaf crown moldings and a chandelier made of twelve thousand crystals, were installed tax free, under the church's 501c3 tax exemption. This exemption has saved the church roughly $1.2 million in property taxes in Clearwater. Still, Scientology paid $800,000 in property taxes on nonreligious, revenue-generating property in 2008, which church officials maintain makes the Church of Scientology the largest single property taxpayer in the city, as well as the largest property owner.

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As it is recognized as a crucial partner in the city's downtown development scheme, the church has so far been spared the collection of more than $300,000 in liens that has been levied against the church by the city of Clearwater over Scientology's "Mecca" building.

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* Whether the black community will truly take to Scientology is anyone's guess. Proselytizing to the poor through missionary efforts and other activities is the work of modern churches. Scientology, however, is a corporation; the sustainability of its connection with Farrakhan or any other black leader will ultimately rest on whether such leaders are willing to embrace Scientology's Bridge to Total Freedom, which is a pay-as-you-go endeavor.

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* Nas himself never used this term. In an interview shortly before his alb.u.m was released, in October 2006, the rapper explained, "When I say 'Hip-hop is dead,' basically America is dead ... There is no political voice. Music is dead ... Our way of thinking is dead, our commerce is dead. Everything in this society has been done." See Shaheen Reid, "Nas Previews 'Hip Hop Is Dead ... the N,'" MTV.com, October 10, 2006.

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