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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
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DM: Source's Apprentice 
