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The following was written by a former member of the Church of Scientology. It is a rebuttal to some of the statements made by Church representatives in the articles that have recently appeared in the St. Petersburg Times. It is offered here to get some of the facts straight and most importantly to give the reader evidence of what is actually taking place within the Church of Scientology. - Thoughtful
"It's not a question of they have a version and we have a version. It's that this never happened," said Monique Yingling, a non-Scientologist lawyer who has been highly paid to represent the church for more than 20 years. "There is a story here, and it's not what you've been told."
Monique may or may not believe what she is saying here. But the truth is she was not at Int (International Headquarters) to see what took place.
The truth is some staff saw Mr. Miscavige physically assault others and others did not. There were hundreds of people at Int and some saw the attacks and some did not. In fact, I could find hundreds of people who were at Int and they would tell you they never saw Mr. Miscavige hit anyone and they would be telling the truth. And then there are those who saw Mr. Miscavige physically assault people including themselves and will lie right to your face that he did not. Well, Mike Rinder and Marty Rathbun admitted to doing just that when they were under Mr. Miscavige’s control.
I happened to see Mr. Miscavige physically attack staff twice. Once he was furious with Ray Mithoff and shoved him so hard that Ray went into one of those free standing coat racks, and he and the rack came crashing down. Ray was not hurt. But the rack broke and the carpenters had to be called into to take it away and fix it. This took place in the CMO Int trailer in the conference room. And on the other occasion I saw Mr. Miscavige hit one of his own RTC staff in the stomach.
I have no reason to make this up, most importantly because I don’t consider Mr. Miscavige’s physical abuse of primary importance either in his mistreatment of staff or in the overall picture of his negative affect on others. I consider it actually off the main subject of what is wrong with his actions and the harm he brings.
I believe any of the Ex-SO Int staff members will agree, the mental duress and mental harassment was far far worse than any physical abuse. It was Mr. Miscavige’s use of constant micro mis-control and harassment of Int staff that made them miserable or drove them away and his refusal to follow the intention of the written scriptures of Scientology. I would, however, add one physical abuse as the worst: forced no sleep. That alone was enough to drive a person crazy. And add to that the off-scripture mental duress for those in constant contact with Mr. Miscavige, and that was far worse, in my opinion, than being pushed, punched or shoved.
Yingling and Davis said the church doesn't relish using documents from ethics files. But after the four defectors spoke out against Miscavige, the lawyer and spokesman said they had no choice.
The use of a parishioner’s files is quite a serious matter--quite serious for any Scientologist. However Monique and Davis feel about it, they could not have originated the use of data from a parishioner’s file as it is quite a serious breach of trust. The order or permission to do so would have come from Mr. Miscavige himself who has not only used data from staff’s ethics sessions and files but, far far worse, from their private sessions with auditors. This, in Scientology, is a heinous and unforgivable breach of its tenets. Mr. Miscavige was known to use such data in various ways including using that data to make fun of and degrade persons in front of others.
One of many many examples was one male staff member who was attracted to or at least had sexual thoughts regarding other males. He was immediately ridiculed and disgraced and soon sent away. Proof? How do I know about this when this data was none of the business of me nor anyone else. Further, to harass or otherwise hold up a staff member’s thoughts (sexual no less) as somehow reprehensible is again a barbarous and spiritually repulsive act completely against the principles, beliefs and mores of a Scientologist or any human being. It is not a person’s thoughts which cause harm, but actual actions. This is a major underlying principle in Scientology, which Mr. Miscavige has obfuscated and altered so that staff are now wary of and upset by their own thoughts even when not discovered by Mr. Miscavige. It is the person’s actions and his production (evidenced by statistics) that determine his worth in Scientology. Not his thoughts.
"It was a real problem, Mike's propensity to lie …Obviously he had an issue with the truth,'' said Davis, Rinder's successor as spokesman. After denying Miscavige hit him or anyone else, Rinder is lying now, Yingling said. "He left because he was demoted … He is bitter now and he has in his bitterness latched on to the one allegation he so vehemently denied for so many years.'' Added Davis: "One of the things he was known for saying was, 'Well, if I'm so bad, why keep asking me to do things?' You know the answer to that question?... The ultimate answer to that question is 'Mike, you know what, you're right. Why keep asking.' And we stopped asking. And then he left and nobody came for him.''
Davis said Rinder has not been able to deal with his fall from spokesman for an international church to his current, workaday job. "Mike left. I think we can all agree he is bitter,'' Davis said. "This is a guy who ran with the big dogs in the tall grass … it's a very exciting life. And now he is selling cars, and it must be a hell of a shock.''
Again this is Mr. Miscavige speaking through the lips of Tommy Davis. Tommy has no clue what took place at Int, nor what motivation Mike Rinder has. Tommy here is attacking but in so doing, he is avoiding the real issue. It was not because the defectors didn’t make it or couldn’t live up to a supposedly high and ethical standard held by Mr. Miscavige. It was because Mr. Miscavige has perverted the written word of L. Ron Hubbard. (I won’t even elaborate on Davis’ underhanded slight at those who sell cars as being beneath working for Mr. Miscavige as Davis now does.)
"He's the one who's saying that Dave Miscavige beat these people,'' Davis screamed. "And he's saying that Dave Miscavige beat the exact same people that he beat. And that's what pisses me off. Because this guy's a f------ lunatic and I don't have to explain how or why he became one or how it was allowable. "The fact is he's saying David Miscavige did what he did … And now I'm getting a little angry. Am I angry at you? Not necessarily. But I'm g-- d--- pissed at Marty Rathbun. Because he knows that he was the reign of terror."
I think the above paragraph speaks for itself and for Tommy’s ability as a public relations representative of the Church. Apart from that, he has no clue who beat who as he wasn’t there to observe it. He is acting personally offended when he wasn’t even there to be offended. He has no direct personal observation of the situation. There isn’t much to add to this other than what Tommy is saying is in fact true in some parts in that Marty did hit some staff. However, missing from Tommy’s statement is that Mr. Miscavige led the charge and began and continued the physical abuse of staff. Others, like blind sycophants imitated their leader’s actions to show him how “tough” they were at enforcing his required discipline. But Mr. Miscavige spearheaded this kind of action and was not only the main offender, but caused the acceptance of such bizarre behavior in others. Well, look at how Tommy now reacts antagonistically to valid questions or criticisms which if taken to heart, investigated internally and corrected (in Scientology called the Qualifications division), could widely improve the Church’s actions and put them closer to the scriptures of L. Ron Hubbard.
The four defectors say Miscavige took the practice to a new level. They said he convened group confessions that came to be known as "seances." The executives would confess sins they had committed against Miscavige, reveal their bad thoughts about Scientology and make personal disclosures, including sexual fantasies. If someone couldn't come up with a transgression, the others bullied him into admitting something. Anything.
Davis cited church founder Hubbard's policy that encourages members to confront and "come clean" when they have done something to bring down their group. It's one hallmark of a successful organization. "It's not for the purposes of punishment,'' Davis said, "and it's certainly never for the purpose of trying to make the person feel guilty for it." The church says Rathbun and De Vocht acted so inappropriately — roughing up staffers — that they were required to confess publicly. "They were definitely guilty, definitely in violation of the mores of the group,'' said spokeswoman Jessica Feshbach. "And were they confronted by peers and asked, What's going on? Absolutely. Because that is the responsibility of the group.''
Here we have Tommy again speaking of things he knows nothing about and could never support with facts. He wasn’t there. Jessica Feshbach’s statements violate LRH written policy. Mr. Davis is desecrating the ethics scriptures of the very religion he is representing by pretending to know what LRH wanted. What L. Ron Hubbard wanted is all written down. And in Scientology, if it isn’t written, it isn’t true. Specifically, there is no public confession for such ethics matters in Scientology. LRH expressly forbid staff to be forced to confess to a large group of people, not to mention allowing the mob to react to the person’s confession by berating him or screaming their opinions of the validity of the confession or forced explanation. L. Ron Hubbard specifically says that a person undergoing ethics handling (that is, trying to get his own moral code straight or his own code aligned in relation to his group) should not be confronted by more than a few people. LRH exactingly stated how many in key ethics scriptures. It is not 400 people or 100 or 50 people jumping down the throat of one individual and screaming at him, hitting him and demanding he “come clean” (by which Mr. Miscavige means, “Tell me something horrendous and awful about your intentions or thoughts or actions so I’ll be satiated”). No, it is less than 7 people who professionally gather facts when there has been a major situation to confront or more normally, one person, the Ethics Officer, who alone confronts the individual to help him find out what he can do to better himself. More than that is expressly forbidden. And Tommy’s statement that “It’s not for the purposes of punishment” is not supported by facts. Those group meetings were nothing but harassment both mental and physical.
It is very hard to describe the horrendous degradation one feels under one of Mr. Miscaviges group harassments. It is wholly against the scriptures and wholly destructive. The name Int staff gave to these vicious meetings was “group séances.” An apparent euphemism, but in fact a slight at Mr. Miscavige, showing how off the wall he was in creating and enforcing them. There is no séance in Scientology. Even Mr. Miscavige couldn’t control the staff’s hatred for these meetings and, by extension for many of us, Mr. Miscavige himself.
For those who experienced these meetings, they know they were the culmination of Mr. Miscavige’s assault on the standard and normal actions required by the scriptures. It was truly a low point for all of us who still held out hope that the progressive decay of the movement could be reversed. For those still defending Mr. Misavige, let them produce the written scriptures that cancel standard ethics actions and instead invoke the use of group meetings to make a staff member “come clean.”
Letting down the group also can result in overboarding, church spokesmen said. It's a Sea Org ritual akin to traditions in other religious orders. Starkey, the 66-year-old former captain of the Apollo, said plenty of people have been overboarded in his 50 years in Scientology. If a Sea Org member messes up, "you throw him over the g-- d--- side of the ship," Starkey said. "He falls into the water, he swims around, climbs up the ladder, gets off at the dock, walks back in again. He never does that again. He knows that that is the way we operate. That is what the Sea Organization is like." Church lawyer Monique Yingling said overboarding is part of ecclesiastical justice. "They're not backing away from it or ashamed of it,'' she said. It has been done hundreds of times, with precautions taken to make it safe.
Here again the real issue is being ignored: the scriptures and, in this case, Sea Org scriptures.
Firstly, the statement by Monique that precautions were taken to make overboarding safe is quite false. No precautions were taken and one was merely thrown over the side of the ship. Whether it was unsafe or not I cannot say. I never heard of anyone being hurt. But there were absolutely no precautions taken and Norman Starkey is well aware of this.
But more on point, at that time, it was LRH’s intention that people be thrown over board. So at that time it was within the scriptures.
However, later, overboards were canceled by LRH. If they were reinstated by LRH unbeknownst to me, let Tommy produce the Sea Org scripture that reinstates them. Otherwise, it is just another off-beat action violating our scriptures.
Throughout all of this, there is the strong implication from Mr. Davis (Miscavige) that the defectors are not tough enough to take all of this. Well firstly, Mr. Davis has no clue what tough is as he was never at Int. He can speak up about toughness after another 25 years at it while remaining (or at least trying to remain) true to the tenets of Scientology. That is toughness. Tommy Davis defines toughness as suffering without question the off-beat actions invented by someone (Mr. Miscavige) who cannot understand the true tenets of Scientology as clearly written. And Tommy has already failed the test himself and abandoned true Scientology for vicious substitutions. Tommy didn’t hold his ground or leave in protest. In fact he is helping spearhead a rogue Church.
Make no mistake, former Int staff are complaining that Mr. Miscavige has led a thorough and consistent campaign to alter the true tenets of Scientology including the destruction of Scientology ethics technology, that exact technology which a person should be using to forward his own personal integrity and self respect, but which was impossible to achieve under the rule of Mr. Miscavige.
This is in fact what ex Int staff members are objecting to. The destruction of what is actually written that is good in Scientology and what we all agreed to follow when we joined. It is a Scientology transgression of the highest degree to violate the written words of Scientology, but this is what the current management is doing. The result is just what L. Ron Hubbard predicted would happen when someone violated the scriptures completely. The Church would contract. And that is what has been occurring under Mr. Miscavige’s reign.
The most important statistics (new people and auditors—those invaluable people who help others to expand their own awareness and gain abilities) have steadily declined under his control. It is a brutal datum in Scientology that you only judge someone by their statistics, which mirror what they actually produce and the affect they are causing. Scientology may be getting more new buildings and real estate (Davis' clever justification for saying the Church is expanding) but they have not gotten more and more new people in nor have they trained more and more auditors since David Miscavige took control of Scientology. This is the key fact which is left out of their arguments against others and more importantly, kept from the public.
David Miscavige is in fact what is called in Scientology a “downstat,” as under his reign Scientology has contracted and as evidenced above, lost its way. Interestingly enough, this is what he accuses most Int Staff of being—downstats. But in fact by actual statistics and facts the Church has contracted under his actions and is continuing to do so today. Only its continued acquisition of real estate goes up. But buying buildings (redefined by Miscavige as “new churches”) is not actual expansion. It is what takes place within the walls of the building that matters. Ask the Founder L. Ron Hubbard who wrote about this very subject.
However since these are being funded (apparently through separate donations and not actual delivery of Scientology services), a new church building is not a sign of expansion. A sign of expansion is how many new people are signing up for Scientology as compared to earlier and more importantly, how many new auditors are being made weekly, monthly and yearly as compared to an earlier time.
My only reason for taking the time to write this up is to make it clear to those who care that the objection of those who left Int is only one thing: Scientology has been corrupted from its scriptures and is contracting commensurately.
One can argue with the Church about whether Mr. Miscavige physically attacked others for the rest of time and he will never admit it and he will get those still under his control to swear he never did it. And although this is a mind boggling falsehood, in the long run it doesn’t assume as much importance as the fact that he has thrown the Church off its original path and has taken it down a path that is resulting in contraction and in harming more lives than it needs to.
The real statistics and facts speak for themselves.
Written by Mirror
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Spearheading a Rogue Church (NEW!)
"Scientology has been taken over by a self-appointed dictator, David Miscavige, who has turned the Creed of the Church of Scientology, the Code of a Scientologist, and the Credo of a True Group Member on their heads and instituted the virtual practice of Reverse (Black) Dianetics..." 
I think there is inevitably "hope", since the OEC and writings of Hubbard which are in the hat packs of those who are staff and go to study, will have those writings to go back to, when the dominant cross ordering personalities like Miscavige fade from the scene.
This will take decades, possibly, likely, to play out though.
But that will be the BIG LONG future of Scientology.
I'm so glad that former top management people who've lived decades in the top ranks are speaking up, sharing their experiences of these years of cross ordering, in effect.
David Miscavige is simply cross ordering LRH.
It will stop when Miscavige fades away.
LRH's policy directs staff to read and follow their hat packs, full of his voluminous writings, and the future generations of top management will discover again what LRH wrote.
The whole movement is sort of in the abused spouse syndrome, long duration.
That's the cult like downsides to large operations like this, where one guy, in the final analysis, it comes unfortunately back to LRH to NOT have seen this potential problem and written somehow to prevent a Miscavige from taking this tyrant dominant role.
The Coord Council PLs, should have had another section, precluding ANY SINGLE leader from being the ultimate king of the mountain role in top management.
That's LRH's fault for not adding the policy rule to prevent any single top management person from being the top dominating position.
How to get those there, Starkey, Ingber, Yager, Leserve, Spurlock, Wilhere, to band together and depose Miscavige, and set about setting WDC and Exec Strata back into being realistically so those two top councils have a chance to long range survive, is my long shot thought.
If not, then Scientology will only long range change, when a whole new generation of people move up, and replace the whole crowd, since we are all mortal, and change might have to wait until this whole crowd passes away, in the next 20 - 30 years.
But I see the voluminous writings of Hubbard as being what will MOST effect how the movement LONG RANGE proceeds, despite the dominant personalities who've cross ordered and who will in the future continue to cross order, here and there forever more, Hubbard's laid down guidelines.
Thanks so much for speaking up.
I believe all the ex top management people speaking up will have an effect, and all your views I believe ought to be summarized, and compiled into a book, showing this phase in the longer history of the Scientology movement.
Chuck Beatty
412-260-1170 Pittsburgh
ex Sea Org 1975-2003