He likes to see things done properly. Anytime you see his involvement in anything, it’s always at the highest professional level that you could imagine. Peter Hodkin

Video Transcript:

The first time I met David Miscavige, kind of you know, properly as it were, was when I was working for the Church. And I recall there was a bit—we had this sort of big sort of conference. I think it was about ’93. It was up in the Great Hall at the Saint Hill Castle just up from here. And there were a lot of European lawyers and different people around. We were just discussing things going forwards and so on.

And I remember sitting around a table with him. He was on the opposite side to me. Extremely well organized person, you know. He knew—he was following everything that was going on extremely well. This was, yeah. I was just very impressed by how insightful he was. He had a good sense of humor. It wasn’t like a heavy sort of meeting, etc. But his level of control was very clear to see. And the other thing I noticed about him is that he was very keen that everybody in the meeting would be involved in the meeting. You know, there’s a temptation, you’ve got somebody there who’s obviously the, you know, the most significant person you’re talking to. But he was very clear in that everybody else should be involved in it as well.

Just the way he was made that clear that he was not expecting me just to direct my communication just at him. This was a meeting. And that my communication was to everyone in the meeting. And the way he did that, almost subtly, was quite impressive to me. You know what I mean?

And actually, it actually put you somewhat more at ease because, you know, it’s one thing where you’re just talking to, you know, a single person, you know, of obviously his seniority in the Church and another where, you know, there’s a meeting of people and sharing ideas and so on. So, you know, he made a very good impression on me just from that first meeting.

I remember one meeting we had. There were a lot of people there and David Miscavige was going around and he was talking to everyone there, making sure that he spoke to everyone there, basically. And there was a colleague of mine who had been at the meeting, and he—I don’t know how long it had been going on—but he had to leave early.

And David Miscavige, obviously didn’t know that he had to leave early particularly but—and so he went to leave. And David Miscavige was on the opposite side of the room and within, whatever conversation he was having, noticed that this person was leaving and said, “Hold on,” walked right across the room and had a short chat with him before he left. It was like, his level of awareness of what was going on was just unbelievable. And even in those sort of situations, you’re aware that he just has this sort of, I don’t know, you know, a vision of everything that’s going on whilst still managing to have an intimate conversation with you, which is very impressive.

He’s very down to earth and human as well, you know what I mean? And he will always introduce things into the conversation which are just a total human level, you know. My brother works up in Los Angeles in the sort of same area that he does. And you know, so the first thing he comes, he talks about my brother, you know what I mean? He’s just very human.

He’d been talking at some big event and so forth and he was meeting with a few Scientologists afterwards and taking a photograph with them, which was very nice of him. And I remember standing there, my wife was with me and so on and I thought, “Okay, how do I pose for a photograph like this?” We’re standing there, there’s David Miscavige and so on and so on. And complete professional, he sort of directs the shot. “Right, this is how you stand,” and so forth and he taught me how to stand for this photograph and so on. And great. You look at the photograph afterwards and you say, “Actually you can see what he’s talking about. He knows how to take a photograph even though he’s in it.” But…

He likes to see things solved. He likes to see them solved properly. He likes to see things done properly. Anytime you see his involvement in anything, it’s always at the highest professional level that you could imagine, you know. And he does get involved. He doesn’t sort of do anything by half measures, you know what I mean? You can see that with the Ideal Churches and so on.

You know, every one of those has been, you know, created to an absolute, you know, perfect standard using the best professionals, you know, and so forth. And that’s the sort of, level at which he sort of does everything.