Beyond Belief (20 page)

Ever since I’d returned from Flag, I’d been making continuous improvements. I had more responsibility and felt like I’d been building momentum. For months I’d been taking comfort in my hat-in-life plan I’d put together to join the Commodore’s Messengers Organization (CMO) after graduation. That plan had offered me a sense of direction, not to mention excitement about the future.

Having to become a Class V auditor changed things completely. Now it could be years before I’d get to realize that plan. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but as most every Scientologist learns at some point, these kinds of adjustments are all too typical. Just as I’d been getting into a rhythm and just when I’d figured out the rules, they changed them.

A few weeks later, at my brother Sterling’s wedding, I had a chance to talk to Aunt Shelly about it. I told her I was very upset about the new graduation requirement. She explained to me that she thought that auditor training was the greatest thing in the world if you really wanted to learn how to help other people. She said that the finest CMO messengers were trained auditors, and Uncle Dave himself had become an auditor at a very young age. The way she framed it made it sound sensible, and her words calmed me down. At the very least, she’d made it sound more exciting. After all, the way to clear the planet was through Scientology auditors and our goal as Sea Org members was to bring everyone on the planet to a state of clear. Only then, could we be at peace. Still, it seemed like a lot of work and a lot more years.

Even though I was still frustrated, I turned my focus to Sterling and Suzette’s wedding. Suzette was actually Aunt Shelly’s half sister. My mother didn’t like her very much for some reason. I got along with her better than I did with Sterling, as Sterling and I hadn’t had a chance to get very close. He had left the Ranch to work in the Sea Org at Int some years earlier and prior to that, when he was at the Ranch, he had been much closer to his younger brother Nathan. I was the flower girl, and Justin the best man. I thought I was a little too old to be the flower girl, though.

The event was being held at the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles, as were most Sea Org weddings. That Sunday morning, Justin rehearsed his best-man speech in the car during the entire drive down from Int. When we arrived, I went into the dressing room where all the bridesmaids were gathered. Aunt Shelly helped me get into my dress and put the floral wreath on my head. Her other sisters, Clarisse and Camille, were tending to Suzette. Sterling and Suzette’s wedding was a traditional ceremony, with the bride in white and an exchange of vows. There were about one hundred people in attendance. A Scientology wedding ceremony also included the ARC Triangle, the letters of which stood for Affinity, Reality, and Communication. The ARC Triangle was a fundamental Scientology concept of how to get along with people and build understanding relationships. It stressed the importance of communication, which was applicable to marriage, with the ceremony having the bride and groom promise that they will never go to bed without resolving an argument. After the ceremony, we all watched Sterling and Suzette open their gifts.

On a Sunday morning following the wedding, I told my mother that I really missed my friends at Flag, and that I was bummed about not being able to graduate until I did my auditor training. To my surprise, she said that she would let me visit there, and even stay long enough to do a course. Though I was intrigued by the prospect of this, I was over the moon when she suggested that I do my entire auditor training program at Flag. Flag, she explained, had the best auditor training on the planet, and this would probably mean spending a year in Florida. I had never intended to stay that long, but I figured I wouldn’t be held to it, so I agreed immediately. My father didn’t like the idea of me being gone for so long, saying he would miss me too much, but he didn’t stop me from going. The next few weeks at the Ranch were just about counting the minutes until I could board a plane to Flag.

As I waited to leave, Mr. C got me even more excited about the auditor training. He told me I’d have a thrilling time, as the program led to personal miracles. Remembering the story of one course in particular, he told me that when he was finished, he was suddenly able to play the piano, something he had never been able to do before in this lifetime. The prospect of discovering a hidden talent was very alluring. After this course, I thought, anything might be possible.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

CMO TRAINING

T
HINGS WERE ODD FROM THE MOMENT
I
LANDED IN
C
LEARWATER
that June afternoon in 1996. Tom, who was supposed to meet me at the airport, was nowhere to be seen. I had no money, no phone number for him or anyone else, and I was starting to get really worried. There I was at Tampa International Airport without a backup plan. When Tom finally arrived an hour later, he looked happy enough to see me, but somewhat distracted. He apologized, saying he had gotten the arrival time wrong. He thought the flight landed an hour later than it did.

During the ride to the base, he seemed in a hurry and a bit preoccupied, although he was still nice. When we got to the Hacienda, he drove right by Mom’s condo, where I thought I would be staying, and pulled up in front of the H-block, where the CMO dormitories were. I was not sure what was happening at first.

“I don’t get to live over in L-block?” I asked, confused.

He laughed and said, “No, that is for senior execs from Int.”

“Oh,” I said, suddenly wondering what I had actually signed up for. The whole time I’d imagined living at Flag; it had never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be living in Mom’s old apartment. It had never occurred to me that I was going to be in a dorm.

We got out of the car, got my bags out of the trunk, and walked up to the door of apartment H-2 on the ground floor. I remembered this being Valeska’s apartment, but even she wasn’t there. In fact, Tom told me that she was no longer in the CMO, so she had a different berthing. He offered no explanation, and I didn’t ask. He seemed to be in a rush to go somewhere, so he said I should probably unpack my stuff and get some rest, and then he was gone.

The H-block was a dormitory for girls in CMO; most of them were fifteen or sixteen, not twelve, as I was. Apartment H-2 had two bedrooms, with three girls in each one, one bathroom, and a small kitchen. Diane, my old twin from my first Key to Life course, now lived there and was going to be one of my apartment mates. The girls didn’t seem to know why I was living in H-2, as I had told them I was only a Cadet, and the Cadets didn’t live in CMO berthings. They were supposed to live at the Cadet Org. I said I didn’t know why I was there, either. I thought I was going to be at Mom’s apartment and had been looking forward to it. Now I was on my own.

I claimed the bathroom for a quick shower; a girl banged on the door five times and shouted at me to hurry up. When I got out, one of the girls was mouthing off at me for taking too long. It seemed pretty harsh for a new place; I just walked away without saying anything. When I went to lie down for a short rest, there were no sheets on my bed. Being too shy to ask, I almost burst into grateful tears when Diane saw that I needed linens and showed me where to get them. I still didn’t know where I was supposed to go after this; Tom had told me nothing. Things were not off to a good start, and it was very possible that I had made a huge mistake by coming back to Flag.

I tossed and turned for thirty minutes and finally decided to walk over to Don’s place in the H-block to see if he knew the plan for me; he was the only person whose location I knew. He seemed genuinely happy to see me and gave me a hug. He said he had no idea, either, but that he would take me to the WB and that someone there would certainly know. Don drove a white convertible Mustang, a cool car according to my mother, but I didn’t know anything about cars.

At the WB, I went straight to Tom’s office on the third floor. He greeted me warmly when I came in, then instructed one of his messengers to get me a uniform. I was taken aback when the woman returned with a blue uniform, the type all the Sea Org members wore. I thought I was here for an auditor course and had no idea why I was getting a Sea Org uniform. Before I could ask Tom, his messenger handed me the dark blue pants, light blue collared dress shirt with epaulets, cross-tie with a button snap, and flat black shoes. The name tag read Jenna Miscavige—Trainee, CMO Clearwater, so it became obvious to me there was no mistake with the uniform. I was going to be in the CMO training to be an auditor.

I had always dreamed of being in the Sea Org, and being in the CMO had been my plan for the future, but this had come on so suddenly. Not only that, I had wanted to join mainly so I could work at Int with my parents, friends, and family who were at the base, but now they were three thousand miles away. I was speechless.

The strangest thing about all this was that I knew I hadn’t done the steps that were necessary to be in the Sea Org. Specifically, I hadn’t done the basic EPF, the Estate Project Force, mandatory for all Sea Org members. The EPF was an introductory ritual for the Sea Org, and everyone who joined was required to do it as their first step to becoming a Sea Org member. The EPF was a rigorous boot camp of sorts, with some physical labor and a few intense courses. Even more baffling, CMO, where I was now going to be a trainee, had its own individual EPF requirement. I hadn’t done that one, either. In every way, this was premature.

I changed into my uniform and went back to Tom’s office. He laughed at the sight of me, saying, “Little Jenna is all grown up.” When I told him how uncomfortable the situation was making me because I had bypassed the two EPFs, he told me not to worry about it, for now I was a Sea Org member. I wasn’t sure if I should smile or burst into tears, but Tom didn’t seem to notice my anxiety. He instructed me to go to the Coachman Building to start the course.

One of my first courses was called the “Student Hat.” I saw several people I knew in the course room, which made me feel somewhat more at home. My first checksheet assignment had me sitting in a chair in front of a wall that had an LRH policy bulletin taped to it. I had to sit and look at LRH’s words for one straight hour. If I moved, got tired, coughed, looked away, or fell asleep, the hour would start over. The idea was that I was supposed to learn to be a good student, and that this drill would force me to confront the policies I would have to study in order to achieve that. Several people in the course room had been on this drill for weeks. Because I was the restless type and used to being up and about, I knew it would take me forever, too. Sure enough, I struggled to sit still.

In terms of vocabulary, the entire course was so far over my head that it might as well have been in another language. I had to learn “The Ten Points of Keeping Scientology Working” verbatim, reciting it over and over to a wall and having it verified by another student. I also had to learn the 10 different ways a word could be misunderstood. Beyond that, I listened to twelve tapes of LRH’s notoriously dense, wordy lectures filled with technical terminology about photography and printing, and read hundreds of his bulletins. After I had read a series of bulletins, I was put through rigorous testing of my knowledge with what were known as “Theory Drills” and/or “What Do You Do?” drills. This meant another student would ask me a series of questions taken from quotes in the policies. “What do you do?” he might ask. Or, “What are the ten ways in which a word can be misunderstood?”

I would have to respond correctly and without hesitation in order to pass the drill. The shortest one I ever took was twenty-five questions, but they were usually between forty and one hundred questions in length. If you answered a question incorrectly, you would first have to finish the series, then start again from the beginning until you could do a run-through without a single flunk. As was standard for any Scientology course room, we would receive daily meter and spot checks. I would count the seconds until lunchtime, both because I was starving (as I never could get ready in time for the bus from berthing to have enough time before roll call to eat breakfast) and because it was a much-needed break.

I ate lunch at the crew dining room in the newly refurbished Clearwater Bank Building, right across the street from the Coachman Building. I was so happy to see that Valeska worked there. We gave each other a huge hug and caught up. She told me she was no longer allowed to be in CMO, because her mom was speaking out against Scientology, which made her unqualified for the organization. She was now a staff steward, so she was responsible for serving food and cleaning up after the crew.

I was very uncomfortable in the crew dining room. Everyone had an assigned place to sit but me; all of the seats in the CMO section seemed to be taken. Whenever I asked if I could sit in an open spot, the CMO gals would tell me that someone else was there. I was so shy that instead of claiming one of these seats, I would just eat with Valeska and the rest of the galley crew at their table after mealtime was over.

I didn’t really fit in with the CMO group. They thought it was strange that I hung out with kitchen staff, so they kind of shunned me. When the course was over at nine-thirty, I caught the bus home and went to Valeska’s room, only going to my room to sleep. If I got too scared in the middle of the night, I could still run across the apartment complex to Valeska’s room and crawl into bed with her. I had to do my own laundry now, but I had no idea how to do it, since one of the kids at the Ranch was always assigned to that duty. Valeska helped me wash and iron my uniform shirts and showed me how to do it myself. I didn’t know what I would have done without her.

After a few weeks, Valeska suddenly disappeared without even saying goodbye. Her departure was so abrupt; I was really worried. I later heard that she had been sent to the
Freewinds
, which would make it much more difficult for her mother to get in touch with her.