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David Miscavige's Beatings of Staff - More Information

grundy

Gold Meritorious Patron
No one ever hit me, and I don't remember ever seeing anyone hit. Of course, I was at a service org, not a management org ....

Also, I'm a big dude and I grew up in the GHe-het-TOE! No one in their right mind would have considered hitting me. I would have hit back. I think it showed.

I have heard about it though.

When I was in, people who struck other people were given ethics/justice regardless of their position on the org board. Of course, higher ups were give much less "justice" than those lower down for such things. And dragging a person toward/away from a place when they were "downstat" or "HE&Ry" was just looked at as "control" not abuse ...:unsure: :confused2:
 

ExScnDude

Patron with Honors
No one ever hit me, and I don't remember ever seeing anyone hit. Of course, I was at a service org, not a management org ....

Also, I'm a big dude and I grew up in the GHe-het-TOE! No one in their right mind would have considered hitting me. I would have hit back. I think it showed.

I have heard about it though.

When I was in, people who struck other people were given ethics/justice regardless of their position on the org board. Of course, higher ups were give much less "justice" than those lower down for such things. And dragging a person toward/away from a place when they were "downstat" or "HE&Ry" was just looked at as "control" not abuse ...:unsure: :confused2:

Same here, Grundy.

"To the moon, Alice!"
 

Cat's Squirrel

Gold Meritorious Patron
From OCMB http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?p=302136&sid=67707b3bc509c300ff60691fede4fbe9#302136
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Thanks to Andreas for expediting my OCMB access. Many of you will have heard my interview on Tom Smith’s “The Edge” radio show, regarding, among other things, violence at the Int Base.

I’ve had a lot of comments about the show, Some old timers, who left the Sea Org many years ago, said that they never experienced physical abuse in the Sea Org. Well, I hadn’t either, up to 2002. I believe this is a fairly recent trend, at least to the degree it is practiced now.

I worked at the Int Base for about 15 years before I encountered DM’s violence. I never knew that DM physically assaulted staff. It’s a well kept secret, even at the Base. It isn’t talked about. It was only when I began to regularly attends meetings with him that I discovered that he does assault staff, and viciously. Over the last few years I was there, it was getting increasingly worse.

I first became aware of this in June 2002. I was called up to the CMO Int Conference room (which is now “The SP Hall”). I had submitted a script a few days prior to this, so I knew that’s what the meeting was about. When I arrived at the conference room, it was packed – there must have been 40 executives there – most of WDC and Exec Strata, as well as key Gold execs. Everyone was crowded around one side of the big conference table, leaving the other side for DM. After the usual half hour or so wait, DM arrived, and he was fuming. He hated the script, and proceeded to mercilessly make fun of it and me. He strutted back and forth, and demanded that I “confess my crimes.” Obviously I was a criminal since I had submitted such a criminal script. And he was obsessed with my facial expression (and I subsequently discovered that he is obsessed with people’s facial expressions when they are in his presence – if you’ve read 1984, it’s what Orwell describes in that book as “facecrime.”) “Look how he looks at me!” he would shout. And the rest of the execs in the room, completely cowed by this, would be telling me to “knock it off,” having no idea, I am sure, what he was talking about.

Suddenly, and without warning, he leapt up on the conference room table and launched himself at me. He slammed me up against a wooden partition and proceeded to hit me in the face. Then he threw me to the floor. I was in complete shock. I ended up laying on the floor with my legs entangled in his. “Let go of my legs!” he screamed. I did. Then he walked out of the room.

I was shaking, my shirt was torn, and my face stinging. An exec near me said “Get up, get up – don’t make him WRONG.” Imagine that. I’ve just been assaulted by the Chairman of the Board RTC, the head of Scientology, and all they can think of is to “not make him wrong.”

Needless to say, I was the Ethics target – of course. I was put on the decks. And of course, I never spoke about this to the general staff. My wife asked me why my face was scratched and bruised, and I said I had fallen down. At this point, I was 56 years old.

Over the next few years, the assaults continued. He assaulted me and others. Once he violently and repeatedly slapped me on the side of the head, until my ears were ringing, then proceeded to hit Mike Rinder and then throw Marc Yager to the ground. I once saw him attack Lyman Spurlock, and older man many years his senior. I saw him throw Mike Rinder off a chair onto the ground (And good on you, Mike, for leaving).

Once when I was up in the “RTC Building” (Building 50), taking a tour of the place with other execs, DM was passing me as he left one of the rooms and suddenly, without warning, rabbit-punched me in the stomach. He then said “I can smell Black PR a mile away,” and walked off. I tried to reply but I literally could not speak of breathe for a few seconds.

Another time, he hit me several times in the face and actually drew blood. He signaled to his assistant, Laurisse (“Lou”) Stuckenbrock, and she produced a vial of mercurochrome from her purse and proceeded to dab it on my face. Like, this was business as usual. He said to me at the time, “You know why I beat you up?” I said “No, Sir.” He said “To show you who’s boss.” He literally said this.

Another time he was talking to myself and Rick Cruzen, and he said, “Look at him (meaning me - he loves to talk about people as if they are not there). He’d like to take a swing at me. And you know what? I hope he does. Because then I could REALLY unload on him.” Exact quote.

Of course, other staff picked up on this and the worst of them began imitating DM and beating up their own staff and juniors. Henning Bendorff, the “Art Director Gold” was one of the worst. His standard way of greeting me was to come up behind me and violently shove my face into my computer keyboard. Once he threw me off a chair and I ended up bleeding from the nose. What a stellar example of a “Scientologist.”

DM never hit women, to my knowledge. But he would goad women execs into hitting women staff. The most willing of these was Lisa Allen (Schroer), who has been on-and-off CO Gold for a number of years. She’s arrogant and vicious – the perfect DM tool. She once slapped my wife at the time hard in the face. This was the type of person DM promoted and lauded – those willing to follow his lead in the abuse of staff. Janet Light (McLaughlin), ED of the IAS, also began hitting staff, following DM’s example.

In the last year I was there, the violence at the Base was escalating, due to DM’s example and pressure on execs to imitate that example. When I was finally marked for “offload from the Sea Org” I not only didn’t fight it, but looked forward to it. I had worked for 30 years to create what I conceived to be “a Scientology World.” In my mind, that was a place of communication, love and tolerance. But when I finally saw the reality of a “Scientology World” at the Int Base, I realized it was an abusive prison. And that IS what the world would be like if organized Scientology ever got a foothold – lockstep compliance to authority, and abuse and imprisonment for anyone who questions that authority.

Some have asked, “why do people put up with this?” Well, I’ll tell you. First, there are always dozens of staff and executives around – any one of them would intervene if you tried anything – to curry favor with DM. Secondly, any attempt to fight back would mean instant offload. Instant. And you can say “that’s a good thing,” and it is, from our viewpoint on the outside. But if you’re a dedicated Scientologist, that means losing everything – your group, your friends, your spouse or children, not to mention what you conceive to be “your eternal salvation.” I touched on this in the radio interview.

DM is your typical bully – a coward who only fights those who cannot fight back.

All this is a bit long and rambling, but I hope it gives you some insight into the violence. More to come on many other subjects.

Jeff

Hell's bells. I knew there were problems in the SO, but didn't realise that they extended to actual physical violence.

The obvious question is; why on earth, in a supposedly Tech-based organisation, did people not put two and two together and realise that DM's behaviour and that of others was nothing like that of a high toned being?
 

Wisened One

Crusader
The obvious question is; why on earth, in a supposedly Tech-based organisation, did people not put two and two together and realise that DM's behaviour and that of others was nothing like that of a high toned being?

I asked myself this question tons of times regarding our ED's behavior and treatment of Staff...

All I can say is: We were so introverted and out-ruds most the time, that things she'd say/do to us just 'made sense' :confused2: and felt we 'deserved it' as 'downstat, degraded beings, sabateurs,etc..'.

Maybe it was like that for others, too?

Wisened One
 

sandygirl

Silver Meritorious Patron
Quote from Wisend Ones:
I asked myself this question tons of times regarding our ED's behavior and treatment of Staff...

All I can say is: We were so introverted and out-ruds most the time, that things she'd say/do to us just 'made sense' and felt we 'deserved it' as 'downstat, degraded beings, sabateurs,etc..'

How True!!! Remember being told EVERY time you are upset by ANYTHING it is a missed withhole! In other words, you can witness the most insane sh** and if it bothers you in any way a W/H is being missed. (read: you are always WRONG and GUILTY!)

Sometimes I really thought I was gonna crack!!!:nailbiting: :pullhair:
 

Wisened One

Crusader
Sometimes I really thought I was gonna crack!!!:nailbiting: :pullhair:

Oh yeah, there were MANY MANY times where my mind felt like it was gonna SNAP when given wrong indications by Seniors, etc, Arrrggghhh!

And I loved your word 'withhole' (vs withhold)...lol!
 

Lynn Fountain Campbell

Silver Meritorious Patron
Hell's bells. I knew there were problems in the SO, but didn't realise that they extended to actual physical violence.

The obvious question is; why on earth, in a supposedly Tech-based organisation, did people not put two and two together and realise that DM's behaviour and that of others was nothing like that of a high toned being?

It's like the Emperor's New Clothes. Everybody knew, but nobody wanted to actually stand up and say he was naked. And just like now, with Anon, it took a little child piping up to indicate the truth.

Lynn
 

gomorrhan

Gold Meritorious Patron
This is probably why I wasn't qualled for the SO. I would have said something. I tolerated a lot of outpoints, but if I had seen genuine abuse, I would have pointed it out and stopped it, or if I couldn't stop it, called the authorities.

I remember when our org was threatened (promised?) that an SO mission was going to come out and fix our org. The senior staff was very upset, whereas I was psyched! I thought: great! The SO is coming to help, wonderful! I didn't understand that it was a BAD THING. If I had experienced that, my stay in the Church probably would have been very short.
 

sandygirl

Silver Meritorious Patron
Quote:
I remember when our org was threatened (promised?) that an SO mission was going to come out and fix our org. The senior staff was very upset, whereas I was psyched! I thought: great! The SO is coming to help, wonderful! I didn't understand that it was a BAD THING. If I had experienced that, my stay in the Church probably would have been very short.
__________________

OMG:omg:

The mission that came to our local Org "was hand picked by DM"

What a F****g nightmare!

Let's put it this way -NOT "the Friendliest Place on Earth"!:nailbiting: :nailbiting:
 

GreyLensman

Silver Meritorious Patron
I was hit by another staff member at CC because I did not get her in session (I was in charge of that- staff auditing).

A couple of times I fought with another junior of mine, he used to try to shove me out doors and close them on me, but I would push back. What a jerk he was. I hated having to work with him. He was an ass. he was also a C/S so it seemed he could do whatever he wanted.

I cant recall any other instances.

Though the ex-Captain FSO can be a real bitch too and I could see her doing that too. I dont have any evidence of her doing it. She did not do it to me, though it looked like she had it in her, the one time she was screaming at me. Debbie Cook, I guess is her name.

Working on a Church Renovations project, the Sea Org guy who was responsible for supervising the project was screaming at my partner for about five minutes culminating with "You're fucking me in the ass!".

He said I don't think so, James. With perfect confront.

Jeez the pressure that must have existed on these guys. We were public, both of us trained and audited to OT but this guy wasn't paying any attention at all to anything but the fact that his butt was on the line. Extremely out PR.
 

notLRH

Patron
From OCMB http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?p=302136&sid=67707b3bc509c300ff60691fede4fbe9#302136
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I worked at the Int Base for about 15 years before I encountered DM’s violence. I never knew that DM physically assaulted staff. It’s a well kept secret, even at the Base. It isn’t talked about. It was only when I began to regularly attends meetings with him that I discovered that he does assault staff, and viciously. Over the last few years I was there, it was getting increasingly worse.

I first became aware of this in June 2002. I was called up to the CMO Int Conference room (which is now “The SP Hall”). I had submitted a script a few days prior to this, so I knew that’s what the meeting was about. When I arrived at the conference room, it was packed – there must have been 40 executives there – most of WDC and Exec Strata, as well as key Gold execs. Everyone was crowded around one side of the big conference table, leaving the other side for DM. After the usual half hour or so wait, DM arrived, and he was fuming. He hated the script, and proceeded to mercilessly make fun of it and me. He strutted back and forth, and demanded that I “confess my crimes.” Obviously I was a criminal since I had submitted such a criminal script. And he was obsessed with my facial expression (and I subsequently discovered that he is obsessed with people’s facial expressions when they are in his presence – if you’ve read 1984, it’s what Orwell describes in that book as “facecrime.”) “Look how he looks at me!” he would shout. And the rest of the execs in the room, completely cowed by this, would be telling me to “knock it off,” having no idea, I am sure, what he was talking about.

Jeff


Jeff,

I wonder if I knew you at some point in time, but I guess you got there in about 1987, about 6 years after I was long gone. Like I read by some other person here, I never heard a word of such a thing as you described. I always knew DM was an SOB, but after just now reading your post, I'm really shocked and surprised to see how it escalated over time. What an amazing story of a tyrant. You probably know he was very self conscious of his size and no doubt became the bully in part because that was his way of overcoming it.

Again, wow! It's amazing to read. Your description was so clear, I could practically see DM doing that to you. And I'm surprised Lyman took that abuse. He was an auditor when I knew him. I'd guess he was at least 10yrs DM's senior.

I'm reminded of a very minor incident I once had with DM. Totally pales to what you experienced. But I was walking to where CMO Int married couples lived to the east side of the pool and as I was at the pool, DM was sitting off in the distance with some others and yelled to me something like "XXX (my name), why do you have tape on your pants?" to which I simply replied that it's not tape, just some jeans with white stripes that actually were pretty nice looking, I thought. It's just an example of how he has always had an attitude of wanting to pick a fight. But it was never elevated to anything more. Just an attitude with him. From the first time I met him when he was the cameraman and living at "the Palms" outside of La Quinta when we were all working on the training films, he was always pugnacious. But we also sometimes enjoyed doing things together. I remember he sat down at a piano once and banged off a nice number which surprised me, because I had no clue he could play it. And we had fun once shooting guns way up the hill beyond R's house with Peter Gilham, a big gun collector, blasting away the cans with AK47s, 357 magnums, etc.

Just today I read the Wikipedia entry for DM and was surprised to see what he listed as his hobbies. He NEVER did any of those things when I knew him. I guess all his world travels also has helped him to find some normal interests and his top rank has given him time to actually do them. One must wonder how much money he has sifoned off for himself and wife, Shelly (who was always a self-absorbed bitch - a perfect match with DM).
 

Pixie

Crusader
Thanks for your stories notlrh! :thumbsup:

Stuff just coming back to me after reading this post. My husband was punched in the stomach two or three times before we were both frog marched out of the org for being too noisy and questioning McSavages orders to 'chang'e the tech and policy vols with his sticy bits of shit. The whole experience culminated in us punching each other. Scientology sure knows how to turn the sane.. insane that's for sure!
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
I remember he sat down at a piano once and banged off a nice number which surprised me, because I had no clue he could play it.

Was he actually playing it? I read about a staff party once where he pretended to play, as a joke, with the actual playing being done by someone else.

It's not impossible that he can play. His father was/is a musician, and DM could well have put in the required hours and hours of practice as a kid before the family got involved with Scientology.

Paul
 

notLRH

Patron
Was he actually playing it? I read about a staff party once where he pretended to play, as a joke, with the actual playing being done by someone else.

It's not impossible that he can play. His father was/is a musician, and DM could well have put in the required hours and hours of practice as a kid before the family got involved with Scientology.

Paul

I never met his father, but he sure did play it. It was when we first moved to Gilman Hot Springs and just setting things up there. It was practically a vacant property. There was a piano in the building that later became some sort of treasury office. It's been so long I don't remember all the names of the buildings, but when you crossed the road from the north side of the property to the south, if you just went straight ahead, you go into that building. And if you veer to the right, there were rooms where staff lived in dorm conditions.

Yea, he must have been taking formal lessons at some point. It was a jazzy little piece, sounded good, but only lasted 10 seconds or so, if I recall.
 
Stan is still at ASHO. Never have been sure of his post tho, seems like he's in Div 6. He always was decent to me - but as public I guess that's nothing unusual!
 

skydog

Patron Meritorious
Strangulation

The allegation that DM actually strangled another staff member is very disturbing. Strangulation will cause serious physical injury and/or death within minutes. Law enforcement has only recently begun to focus on the seriousness of a strangulation assault. Several states have made strangulation a felony.

It is also disturbing because it is an indication of some serious unresolved anger issues. If the allegations against DM are true, I have even less respect for him than I had before (which wasn't much).
 

Pixie

Crusader
The allegation that DM actually strangled another staff member is very disturbing. Strangulation will cause serious physical injury and/or death within minutes. Law enforcement has only recently begun to focus on the seriousness of a strangulation assault. Several states have made strangulation a felony.

It is also disturbing because it is an indication of some serious unresolved anger issues. If the allegations against DM are true, I have even less respect for him than I had before (which wasn't much).

Welcome skydog!! :welcome2: It's great to have you here on the forum and I look forward to reading more of your posts! :yes:
 
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