A fabulous cameraderie…

The father of the autocratic Scientology leader describes his how his asthmatic young son rose through the ranks to head an abusive (and rather small?) church

Ruthless Scientology, My Son David Miscavige and Me Ron Miscavige with Dan Koon Silvertail Books 2016 245pp, £12.99, ISBN 9781909269453

What must it be like to know you’ve raised a monster?

In his youth Ron Miscavige was introduced to the Church of Scientology and found it helpful. When he joined in 1970, he writes, “A fabulous camaraderie existed among the people there. We shared a feeling that Scientology was something that was going to help everyone: the world, oneself, one’s family, everybody.” He became convinced that Scientology worked when his nine-year-old son David was cured of his asthma attacks by a Scientology process. This was the boy who would grow up to become the autocratic leader of the Church of Scientology, successor to founder L Ron Hubbard. To avoid confusion, ‘Miscavige’ on its own in this review refers to David Miscavige, the author’s son.

The entire family joined the movement, taking courses to improve themselves and to move up the Bridge, the long path of advancement through training. At 16, with his father’s support, Miscavige dropped out of school and joined the Sea Org[anisation], the elite of dedicated Scientologists who pledge themselves for a billion years’ service. “I had gotten so much out of Scientology and had seen David helping others with it, so I thought it would be a terrific career for him,” Ron Miscavige writes, with no apparent irony. “He was bright and I thought he would be successful.”

The teenage Miscavige joined the Commodore’s Messenger Organisation, working directly for Hubbard. What could have been just messenger-boys and -girls became a powerful group, effectively Hubbard Youth, with the power to issue orders and impose punishments on his behalf; “they even had authority over longtime Scientologists, many of whom had been in Scientology for decades and had reached its highest levels,” the author writes. By the time Hubbard died in 1986, Miscavige, at only 25, had manoeuvred himself into an extraordinarily powerful position as chairman of the board (CoB, as he is usually known inside the Church) of the Religious Technology Centre, which has control of all of Hubbard’s writings; as all the courses and all the Tech[nology] of the Church of Scientology depend on Hubbard’s words, Miscavige was de facto head of the Church. He swiftly got rid of older, well-respected and formerly powerful people who had worked closely with Hubbard and had been his lieutenants. Miscavige deals harshly with anyone who displeases him. At Scientology’s Gold base near Hemet, California, a pair of trailer offices have been turned into a prison known as the Hole. “At one point, iron bars were placed over the windows, and a guard stood outside the only exit 24 hours a day,” the author writes. Senior people in the Church would be confined there for months at a time, sleeping on the floor under desks; they would be allowed out for an hour a day, to be marched to another building for a shower. They would write “page after page of their transgressions day after day”, or stand in front of each other “confessing their misdeeds or evil intentions”. If someone failed to confess, “the person was screamed at and often slapped, pushed and punched by other persons held there”. The Church denies that any of this takes place.

Relations between Miscavige and his father grew increasingly strained. “All these restrictions – you have to have your mail checked, you cannot go on liberty, you can’t go to a store, and many more – each is another little bar for your jail cell. You build your own prison and you live in it.” So why don’t people simply leave? Apart from the fact that there are wire fences around the base, and guards at the entrances, “many people … have been in Scientology for 20, 30, 40 years or even longer, and they have zero savings. They live from week to week on their $50 allowance. They don’t have a car. They have next to no Social Security...” Beyond this, they have no marketable skills in the outside world, and many have no family or friends outside. Where would they go, and how would they survive? “If they left, they would literally be out on the street.”

Eventually Ron Miscavige and his second wife escaped from Gold base and left the Church – and his son then placed him under full-time surveillance by private investigators. “During the year and a half they followed me… they sat behind me in restaurants to overhear my conversations.” If he was using a computer at the local library they “peeked over my shoulder to take screenshots that showed whom I was emailing. They followed me wherever I drove. They put a GPS on my car… They photographed me wherever I went… They even rifled through my trash.”

But Miscavige’s empire is crumbling around him. First his niece Jenna, and now his father, have written pain-filled books denouncing not the religious practices of Scientology, but the corrupt organisation under its dictatorial leader. Over the last few years, many in very senior positions have left. The Church of Scientology still gives the impression that it’s a significant religious movement with millions of members, but observers believe that active members now number fewer than 25,000 worldwide. There may now be more Scientologists outside the Church of Scientology than within it; known as the Freezone, they see themselves as a sort of Protestant Reformation, still following the teachings but turning their back on the Church.

“They followed me… They photographed me wherever I went… They rifled through my trash”