Sometimes, being in Scientology leader David Miscavige's inner circle sounds kind of fun. High-level church defector Mark Rathbun says he personally recorded Tom Cruise's confessionals—and that Miscavige read the transcripts out loud, "joking and laughing" at parties.

Rathbun was a spokesperson and senior management leader in the church before splitting from the church in 2004. Now he's made a career of showing everyone else where Scientology's bodies are buried—like in secret recording devices inside the Scientology Celebrity Centre in LA.

I audited a number of intensives of confessionals on Tom Cruise from July through November 2001. By order of [Scientology leader David] Miscavige many of those sessions were secretly recorded by a well-concealed video camera and voice recorder system built into the VIP auditing room at Celebrity Center International. … All I knew at that time was that I forwarded the videos to my CS at Int (RTC). I was also required by Miscavige to write reports on the content of every session I delivered during that period and send them directly to Miscavige. I was told by him that he needed to know because recovering Tom to Scientology was the most important mission possible.

And what, pray tell, did Miscavige do with these videos and reports?

I have recently learned from a very reliable witness that DM [David Miscavige] regularly held court with others in his personal lounge in the roadside Villas at the Int [International Scientology] base, and while sipping scotch whiskey at the end of the night, Miscavige would read Tom's overts and withholds from my reports to others, joking and laughing about the content of Tom's confessions. My witness is unimpeachable in my eyes as his account contains too many accurate details from someone who had zero reason (or ability) for being anywhere near Tom's folders, videos and reports direct to DM.

David Miscavige is such a jerk, he makes us feel bad for Tom Cruise. [Mark Rathbun via Village Voice. Photo of Cruise and Miscavige via AP]