Night of the Living Dead | Print |
Wednesday, 13 May 2009 23:40

After the year 2,000 David Miscavige was gone for long periods from the Int Base -- a 500 acre compound with scores of buildings, and new ones continually being built. When he returned, his first action was to tour the base. Wherever he saw anything out of place, heads would roll. If a curb wasn't painted the proper shade of red, if a few weeds had grown in a flowerbed, if a production graph was out of date... 

Abuse

Basically, on any pretext, heads could roll and that could result in any number of penalties. For example, you might forfeit your weekly pay of $46 for weeks on end, you might suffer sleep deprivation for weeks, your driving privileges (and thus chances of escape) might be suspended for months, you might be forced to run everywhere you went, you might have to go up in front of several hundred people and "confess" your crimes (make some up if they didn't exist), you might be "thrown overboard" i.e., pushed fully clothed into a pond, with a word you might lose your job and be forced to do degrading work, you might lose the privilege of eating normal food so that you had to live only on beans and rice, you might be incarcerated or "restricted" to the Base meaning you'd sleep under guard, unable to see your spouse for months (= no sex). Then again there were various "justice actions" that could be called, each one a kangaroo court that passed sentence on your guilt in a public way.

This is life at the Int Base. Of course, it was horrible. Under these kind of idiocies and pressure, friends and even your own spouse might turn on you. If they showed any sympathy, they too might become a target. Sometimes people received all these penalties at the same time. 

Why would anyone put up with that? In my case, after more than 15 years of marriage, I did not want to leave my spouse. And my spouse failed to grasp what was happening. That was all that kept me there... that, plus (thanks to David Miscavige) leaving the Int Base meant automatic declare. So there was the little matter of not knowing how I'd manage to start life over from scratch, with no friends, no money, no car, no contacts, no college degree, no 401K, no health insurance, no place to live, no savings, no credit score, no credit cards, no computer, no idea how to use a cell phone or email, no idea how to "surf the net." Then again, I was not sure how of if I could ever find someone to love again; I wasn't as good-looking as I once was. My hair was gray. Thanks again to Miscavige, I suffered from lack of sleep, lack of exercise and lack of confidence. I wasn't sure how a resume that said I'd slaved for a notorious cult for 25 years would land me a decent job in the modern work force.

But I digress. 

It is quite an understatement to point out such living conditions comprised what L. Ron Hubbard called the "dangerous environment." The dangerous environment is the mechanism behind the cause of accidents and always created by a person. Anyone under stress can usually be helped by getting them to root out who created the dangerous environment in which they struggle. It's a way to decrease the frequency of accidents and improve safety, a tool Hubbard gave Scientologists to enable them to create a safe environment. That is the purpose of Scientology.

Black Scientology: Weapon of David Miscavige

The trick of David Miscavige was always to use Scientology in reverse. So instead of making a safe environment, Miscavige created an environment so incredibly dangerous that staff were too harried, distracted and upset to resist his control, to band together, or even to realize what he was doing. His attacks on staff were relentless, vicious and continuous. Using Scientology in reverse even has a name: Black Scientology. And Hubbard warned that Black Scientology could be used to enslave others in the same way that nuclear physics could be used to destructive ends.

So before Miscavige would arrive back at the Int Base, after being gone for months, someone from his office would send word to tip us off. At that point hundreds of staff were suddenly mustered to an "All Hands." Shovels and brooms were quickly handed out, staff pulled weeds at midnight or painted curbs in full dress uniforms. Late into the night heavy machinery filled in ditches or moved whole trees, streets were washed down, sidewalks were painted, and flowers were painted along Highway 79 that ran right through Gilman Hot Springs. 

Beheaded

I was working one Saturday night, one of the few who was excluded from the All Hands since I interacted directly with Miscavige. From my office I could hear distant shouts and orders, motors and heavy machinery as several hundred staff worked to improve the view along the highway that Miscavige would take when he arrived. The orders were to beautify and make the highway as picturesque as possible, and thereby avert impending slaughter. And the angst was such that at 10 or 11 PM, hundreds of staff were still working along the highway in the dark. Stupid.

A local contractor with a huge front-end loader had been brought out to help along the highway. And so the work wore on, with staff toiling along a dark along the highway, without proper safety equipment or even lights. 

Suddenly, there was a long screech of tires and a hard crash. Moments later came a wail of inhuman agony unlike anything I have every heard in my lifetime. The screams were so incredibly loud. They filled the sky and the valley and my empty office. 20 or 30 minutes they went on.

Days later I heard the story.

A young girl was driving home, followed by her parents in another car. She was just 16 or so. Apparently distracted by a throng of strange zombie-like creatures (staff) staggering along a two-lane highway in the gloom -- a weird and wonderful scene straight out of the film, Night of the Living Dead -- she didn't see the huge front-end loader that was blocking her lane, its massive steel shovel leveled just above her hood.

She smashed directly into the blade of the front end loader and was instantly beheaded. Her parents, driving just behind, witnessed it all. And when her mother ran up to the car, she found her daughter's head. The senseless loss and her mother's inconsolable agony makes the soul ache... words can not describe.

If you think about David Miscavige, think about that girl. Think about her mother. And connect the dots.