The Church of Scientology has many mysteries.
The true motivations of its founder, science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, and the creation myth, which is supposed to involve an alien warlord named Xenu, have many people puzzled.
Then there are the practices of its elite Sea Org, the individuals who have committed their lives to their “religion”, and the idea of “Dianetics”, created by Hubbard and practiced by followers of Scientology with the aim to remove the “reactive mind.”
But perhaps the greatest Scientology mystery is that of Michelle “Shelly” Miscavige, the wife of David Miscavige, the Church’s head honcho. As a Vanity Fair expose reports, she has not been seen in public in seven years.
Not even at the wedding of the Church’s most famous member, Tom Cruise, to actress Katie Holmes in 2006 — a couple Mrs. Miscavige is said to have brought together.
What has happened to the First Lady of the Church of Scientology?
Was she banished? Is she a prisoner? Is she even still a Scientologist?
Anti-Scientology groups have long claimed she is missing and being held against her will. Even Lawrence Wright, the New Yorker journalist who authored the book “Going Clear,” an in-depth 2013 investigation of the Church’s activities, wrote that “her status is unknown”.
But the world may finally have some answers about Mrs. Miscavige thanks to an investigation by Vanity. Here are four facts from the report you need to know.
1. She has been a believer
By all accounts, Scientology is all Shelly Miscavige has ever known.
Her parents were both devout Scientologists in the early 1970s, serving at the beck and call of L. Ron Hubbard on his ship the Apollo, during the period the organisation spent largely at sea.
According to the report, even in her teenage years she was one of the “most devout” followers of Hubbard, “worshipping the man, hanging on to his every word and following his orders with a precision that belied her young years and girlish appearance”.
Around 1978, she fell in love with the leader of the Sea Org, David Miscavige and the pair became the group’s “It Couple”. Perhaps even the TomKat of the late 20th century.
2. Things became unstuck
Despite Mr. Miscavige succeeding Hubbard as the most powerful person in the Church, the past three decades have not been happy times for the religious group.
The Church has come embroiled in scandal after scandal — including the death of recruit Lisa McPherson during a training process — although it has managed to survive.
There has been defection after defection — known in the Church as “blowing”— including both Mrs. Miscavige’s parents and her niece, Jenna Miscavige-Hill.
Miscavige-Hill has since penned a book about Scientology which included allegations of forced labor camps not dissimilar to those run by the North Korean regime.
In the Vanity Fair piece, Scientology sources tell how David Miscavige developed a “siege mentality” in the top job, something which frayed the relationship between Mrs. Miscavige and her husband, who is notorious for his hair-trigger temper.
Their relationship began to break down in late 2006 after Mr. Miscavige assigned his wife an impossible task: to restructure the board which oversaw Scientology’s elite Sea Org group.
Mr. Miscavige denied all of her board member choices so she made the decision for herself and found herself, according to one source quoted in the piece, in a “crapload of trouble”.
Mrs. Miscavige was placed on a “special project”. And then she vanished.
3. She has been ostracized to a secret lair
The Church has long insisted Mrs. Miscavige is not missing. “I definitely know where she is,” spokesman Tommy Davis told The New Yorker.
So where is she, then? According to Vanity Fair, Mrs. Miscavige was then whisked away to a secretive Scientology base known as Twin Peaks, 90 minutes inland from Los Angeles.
It is understood to be one of the locations where the Church houses some of its most valuable artifacts and is said to be guarded by armed guards and spiked fences.
Friends told Vanity Fair it is likely Mrs. Miscavige is pleased to be toiling away for the Church away from her husband’s rage.
Missing persons reports filed with the Los Angeles Police Department have reportedly found that she is happy at the base “and has requested privacy”.
4. Despite what happened, she won’t turn traitor
Because of that, she is unlikely to turn her back on Scientology, the report said, even though she is “probably the one person who could just end it tomorrow”.
The religion is described as the only thing she has ever known. As former Church member Karen de la Carriere told Vanity Fair: “She lives in a sort of demented altered universe. Whatever she thinks of (David Miscavige), she is devoted to Hubbard, that is all she’s ever known.”
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.