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| Eric Knutson witnessed David Miscavige physically attack Jason Bennick in the late 1980s. Today, Eric is a custom home builder and developer in Montana. |
Background
I was 20 back in 1978 when I walked into the Mission of Davis in Portland Oregon. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, the sign read. Did the Communications Course and I was hooked.In 1980, Laurie Jenson and Starr Halligan from the Flag Land Base (FLB) in Clearwater, Florida came to Portland on a recruit mission for the Flag Eval and Execution Unit. Laurie had worked with LRH on the ship and made it appealing to join the ranks and start helping to “clear the planet,” meaning to make it possible for others to attain the State of Clear, too.
Weeks later, I arrived at the FLB, did my Sea Org Basics, graduated from the Estates Project Force (the Sea Org’s boot camp) and began expediting at Flag Management in the Eval Corp. Shortly thereafter, a mission came in and reorganized Flag Management as it was known to become the IMO/MSB. My first post was Master at Arms. After a few months into the reorg, my director, Steve Warshaw(?) abdicated his post and I was next in line. I held this post for the next year, completed my training for the post on May 6, 1981. Bill Franks was Scientology's Executive Director International at the time and Kerry Gleason was Commanding Officer of the IMO. These were crazy times with the Guardian’s Office (GO) in turmoil.
While at Flag, I met and married Phyllis Hunt.
Sometime in 1982, Mark Yager (newly appointed Commanding Officer (CO) of the Commodore's Messenger Organization International (CMOI) was on Mission at Flag to recruit for the Int Base. One of the posts he held (among many others) was that of WDC Books/Pubs. I was interviewed and recruited for the position. Phyllis was recruited into the LRH's Household Unit (HU) at the Gold Base under the supervision of CMO Gold. She became the Nanny for LRH’s granddaughter, Roanne.
After doing my CMO EPF program I trained directly under Mark Yager as WDC Books. LRH was heavily on the lines at that time. His orders were issued as “Advices” or * advices, where the asterisk stands for “Ron.” Each WDC Member would receive direct orders on each of the respective sectors. We in turn would do an analysis of the situation (usually grave) and respond back uplines to * (LRH) with our respective handlings. At one point near the end of my WDC career, I remember an * dispatch came down to me scathing at how he was so fed up with the Pubs orgs refusing to get his books into the hands of the public and condemned them heavily as a group to me. You could tell this was a deep-seated long-standing beef he had with his Pubs Orgs. Well, my handling was to go down to the Bridge Publications Org and with my senior's approval let these guys know how utterly dissatisfied Int management was with their performance but also how LRH had recently dispatched his disapproval of their performance... After all, am I not simply attempting to deliver command intention and wasn’t I doing what my Management wanted? Oh my gawd... When LRH found out I was immediately removed from post.
After my "clean up" I was re-posted as SO (Sea Org) Programs Ops in the Programs Bureaux of CMOI. Mike Rinder was WDC SO at the time and I answered to him. I was later promoted to Operations Director and completed my training for that March 9, 1983. Later I was removed from that post and demoted.
I think it was at this point that I had decided I‘d had enough trying to be an exec in the CMO. I couldn’t win at that game. I asked to be demoted to Gold and expressed an interest in renovations as I had former experience in the trades. Maybe I could help contribute and help clear the planet from that level. I was traded and ended up in the Gold Estates Div under Steve Willett and Andre Tabayoyon. Jim Mortland was also in command of the Ests Div and other Gold Exec Posts as time went on. We all had our times, but I thought it was a tough dedicated outfit at the time. Lots of sleepless nights. This was the time when Tom and Nicole had just started coming to the base and every once in a while you’d get a glimpse of DM riding his Yamaha big wheel bike with Tom and Nicole on theirs. In the Estates Div, I was proud to be part of various renovations projects, ie, Music studio, Movie studio, Exec Exercise room, Cafeteria upgrade, G Unit upgrades for celebs, etc. I did several personal renovations on DM's living quarters at Int and living spaces in L.A.
I was part of the Portland Religious Freedom crusade building sets stages and went to Washington DC as was part of that demonstration. When LRH died (or “dropped his body,” as we say in Scientology) we were all sent in buses to the Shrine Auditorium to learn the news.
David Miscavige Violence
One point of note with respect to Miscavige; not only was he a master at personally stripping you of your dignity and integrity, thereby completely demoralizing you, I also witnessed another side of him that showed genuine evil.While working on a construction project as a Department Head in Gold in the late 80's, I was summonsed to the RTC office building at the Villas to answer some kind of question Miscavige had with regard to the project I was working on. For some reason I was called to the office where Mark Fisher and Jason Bennick worked directly under David Miscavige as his execution arms. Jason and I were the only ones in the room with DM. I had answered any questions Miscavige had and when I was finished he asked Jason a question about his post (I don't remember the subject content). Jason replied and DM came flying across the office behind Jason's desk where he was sitting. Screaming obscenities, Miscavige started punching Jason with body shots to the chest and ribcage with closed fists as Jason used his arms to protect himself from the thudding blows. I remember Jason’s eyes as big as saucers filled with terror in his disbelief as to what was happening. It ended almost as abruptly as it started. I remember DM looking at me with an expression that stated clearly "this is what will happen to you if you fuck up." I was excused from the room and that was the end of it. I remember asking myself what I would have done had I been physically attacked, and I don't think I would have sat there and taken the beating....
Duress and Destruction
In the mid-80’s during the construction of the LRH Sound Studio, Miscavige was heavily involved with the execution of this project. LRH was directly on the lines issuing his advices to Miscavige from anything to technical sound data to complex construction details to obtain a dead-sounding studio. I was part of the construction of this building along with dozens of others. Construction lasted for months. There were many separate occasions where we were ordered to do “all nighters” working 2 to 3 days at a time without sleep to keep production on schedule. It was not uncommon during these “blitzes” to find construction staff sleeping in hidden corners on cold concrete slabs with only their clothes to keep warm in an effort to recover from the fatigue, even if only for an hour. Anything helped. I’ve seen staff sleep standing up due to sheer exhaustion.
Yet all our actions have consequences. Thanks to Miscavige keeping everyone up around the clock, on one horrific occasion at 4 AM after already being up for approximately 68 hours, I witnessed one incoherent staff member run his hand through a table saw equipped with a dado blade (a wide blade used for making large grooves or channels in wood.) He lost 3-4 fingers just like that. He was taken to the hospital, but afterward his hand was useless. David Miscavige couldn't have cared less.
As a result, he was "offloaded" for being "accident prone" (a condition which is caused by suppression). Cruel. “All nighters” also included a total lack of shower facilities and many times you couldn’t even brush your teeth for days. Of course beans, rice and water was the staple of our diet.
Set Up... and Knocked Down
At any rate, in the spring of 1990 I was put in charge of a 50-acre sports field complex under construction at Golden Era Productions. This included an 18-station exercise trail, soccer field and full size baseball field. The target was to have this sports field done by Sea Org day 1990. Needless to say, the project was grossly mis-planned, under funded, undermanned with an extremely unrealistic timetable all thanks to David Miscavige, a habitual bypasser who violated his own command channels constantly to personally meddle in everything, while cross ordering personnel and funding resources. The result was to effectively sabotage many projects which he blamed on his juniors.In fact, when you look at the long, long, long, long, long string of juniors he’s busted, you either have to conclude that practically everyone on earth in inept but Miscavige, or else Miscavige is the actual source of the sabotage.
In that context with the threat of violence hanging over my head, I made further mistakes on the Sports Field Project and, by golly, David Miscavige held a briefing telling the entire Int Base that Sea Org Day (a holiday) would not be held that year at Int because of my failures. I was made to stand in front of the entire crew of about 700 people and was berated, belittled and invalidated so heavily that I was crushed to a point of complete non-existence. If anyone ever felt like a speck of sand in stature compared to the boulders around me... I was a prime example. To top it off, in the ensuring decades the sports field was almost never used.
Billed for $250,000
At any rate, after being blamed for the Sports Field fiasco, I'd had enough and realized that I couldn’t win at that game. I needed to get out. I reported to HCO and told them I wanted to route out immediately. I was told that I could go back to the RPF (for the fourth time). I told them it hadn’t worked the last 3 times I was sent to the RPF and was always reprieved (as apparently having made enough change) far in advance of actually graduating. What I liked about the RPF was the physical labor and the sense that one could create something of value. It was extroverting.Near the end of my handling I was summoned to the CO Golds Office (Wendal Reynolds). There, Mark Yager and Mark Ingber (acting on orders from Miscavige) informed me that I owed the Church $250,000.00 for the minuscule training and auditing I actually received in the Sea Org and mistakes on the Sports Field project. This sent me reeling since my normal pay was only $24 a week, if I got paid at all.
I was asked if I still wanted to leave. I told them yes, that I couldn’t win at their game, and I'd had enough. They told me I was a piece of shit and, in the same breath, actually asked me to reconsider staying in the Sea Org.
More Threats and Coercion
Before I was allowed to leave, I was put on physical labor detail and placed under 24-hour guard for several weeks. I can’t tell you the hours of confessionals and various ethics handlings I was subjected to, but at one point I was apparently no longer considered a threat (Gold Security threats of what might happen if any info leaked the base or its whereabouts or anything about LRH’s granddaughter, Roanne). I was forced to signed many millions of dollars of confidentiality bonds under duress by Gold Security before I was finally given authorization to leave the Int Base. I was told that my physical well being would be jeopardized if I leaked data. I said, “What the hell do you mean by that?” I was advised by church officials to “stay quiet, you don’t want to know.” How about that for an 18-year-old enforced withhold?And so, I was given my clearance to leave on that wonderful hot August day. ALL of my belongings were searched and sifted through -- every item, every paper, every photo, much of which was confiscated and not allowed to leave the base. So, I threw what was left of my belongings in my 1968 primer gray Mustang with the $64.00 I had managed to save in my pocket and drove off, knowing I had just been declared a Suppressive Person. Phyllis and I divorced as she stayed in Gold at the time.
Starting Over from Scratch
Fortunately, one of the contractors I'd been working with at Gold befriended me. He liked my work and asked if I would supervise the construction of an upcoming post office building he was a general contractor for. That was great, but the only problem was that the job wasn’t going to start for another month. He put me up in his spare room with his family, and gave me a job refinishing his antique furniture collection until this job started. About two weeks into the refinishing project he informed me that a contractor friend of his was looking for a construction crew to go to Japan to build American-style homes over there. I immediately jumped on this as an opportunity to get back on my feet and get back into the adventure and exploration that I had missed so much in the last 10 years of my life. In all, I spent three years living and working in Japan in Tokyo, Fujisawa, Maebashi, et al. I was self-employed the last two years in Japan and brought my own crews from the US to fill my contracts. I constructed a Seventh Day Adventist church, residences and apartment units. I had the good fortune to meet many Japanese "Dogyu" (carpenter craftsmen) and learn the craft of building the traditional Japanese Buddhist prayer rooms. They’ve got some great architectural history there with Shrines, temples, pagodas and the like.The funny thing that Miscavige never has been able to figure out after three decades is that the basics of construction actually do work: one job, one place, one time. “Do it right the first time,” get or train qualified staff to do their jobs, and then let them do it without impossible targets, underfunding, musical chairs, unmocking working installations, and the list goes on. Miscavige is the biggest saboteur I have ever known.
While in Japan, every 90 days I had to leave the country as I only had a tourist Visa. On my many departures I spent time exploring in Korea, Bali Island (Indonesia), the Philippines three times, and many trips back to the US. In 1993 I bought an acre of riverfront land in northwest Montana, built a home where I live today with my wife, who I met in Japan. Today, we have a 14-year-old son. I have a guest house above my shop where my mother and her husband spend several months of the year away from their Oregon residence. My father and his wife live nearby.
All About the Money
In 1994, I had just come back from Japan to live in Montana and somehow Leisbeth Jones found me and told me of an amnesty that had come out from Int Mgmt. She was the Treasury Secretary at Golden Era Productions.I was abused, yet declared “suppressive” because I decided to leave (go figure). Leisbeth told me I could accept the amnesty and come back on staff. I told her that was not an option. She then told me if I accepted the amnesty and sent the Church $10,000.00 as some form of restitution that they would lift my declare and I could be in good standing again and continue on the Bridge. Still under the influence of the brainwashing at the time, I sent in the $10,000. Nothing ever came of it. Apparently, they had no problem lying to me, possibly since I’m “fair game.”
Lead Astray
I find it interesting in COB’s RTC ED 750 where he states, “In times of war, there are always some casualties. There are those who may have been led astray by the ill-intentioned. In the presence of suppressives, people can make mistakes and get confused. This is unfortunate, but nonetheless true.”Well Mr. Miscavige, I’d have to agree with you there and I’m taking notes as I certainly seemed to have been led astray, made mistakes and been plenty confused under your direct leadership, management and influence. At any rate, I have since disconnected from you, from current Int Management and from any other suppressive elements therein.
Epilogue
Today, I am a general contractor in Montana. I build custom homes and own/develop other land holdings in the same area. I have a modest website for my land development company at www.knutsonlanddevelopment.com.I have been able to locate many of my former ex-Sea Org friends via the Internet and am thankful to all who responded. I hope to hear from many more as time goes on.
So, there’s another eyewitness account of David Miscavige's violence and what it was like to live under that dark cloud. The anxiety I suffered in the past seems to be lifting, the world is brighter, clearer and I feel a renewed sense of life, livingness and the pursuit of happiness. Even at 51 it’s great to be alive.
Written by Eric J. Knutson