Friday night, Hollywood. I’m at dinner with my wife and two friends. The
restaurant seems ordinary but the wine list features bottles costing more
than $1,000, and our waiter – there’s something not quite right with his
French accent – keeps vanishing, leaving us with only a closed-circuit TV
camera for company. We look out of the window at a floodlit lawn with tall
palms and rocky water features. There’s a glass building to our right.
Within it, we can make out a blue glow and several rows of straight-backed
chairs facing a screen – upon which is projected the giant, sombre image of
L. Ron Hubbard.
It’s surprisingly easy to get a reservation here at the Renaissance
restaurant, which is in the conservatory of one of LA’s grandest buildings,
the Château Elysée – a towering Norman-revival castle on Franklin Avenue,
built in the 1920s and bought in the 1970s by the Church of Scientology,
which renamed it the Celebrity Centre. The building, which includes a detox
facility and a 39-room hotel – endorsed by John Travolta – has been
beautifully restored for well under market cost, partly by members of the
Church’s Rehabilitation Project Force, a kind of penance detail for those
who have fallen out with the organisation and want to regain its trust.
Few non-Scientologists go near the place, for fear of being solicited – or,
worse, declared a “Suppressive Person” or “Potential Trouble Source”.
Not us.
“Vaht kind of bierugh vood you laghk?” asks the waiter, as I glance around at
the empty room.
“Beer?” I reply. “Vaht kind vood you laghk?”
“What kind do you have?”
The waiter holds up his palm and disappears to check the selection. Once again
I become acutely aware that we are the only people in a restaurant that
could probably accommodate 100 people or more. There are supposed to be 10
million members of the Church of Scientology worldwide – and if you believe
the organisation’s critics, it practically runs Hollywood. So where the
devil is everyone? Are they all in Clearwater, Florida, headquarters of the
Church’s elite and naval-uniformed Sea Organisation, the members of which
allegedly sign an employment contract for one billion years? Or are they all
out in the Church’s “secret” 500-acre compound in the desert?
It’s anyone’s guess but it plants a seed in my mind: what if it is all just so
much Hollywood hype?
The dinner was a last-minute idea– an attempt to get a hold on some reality
when it came to Tom Cruise’s faith. The video of the actor from the Church’s
archives had just been leaked on the internet – you’ve probably seen it by
now, and heard Cruise tell his audience: “We are the authorities on the
mind!” – and I had been asked to write this piece for times2
on Scientology’s influence in Hollywood.
Cruise was roundly ridiculed and the criticism was about to become more
extreme, with a German historian comparing his hyper-intense oratory style
to that of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist who conspired in the
extermination of several million Jews. I wondered if Cruise deserved it, and
if the Scientology spokesman Bob Adams had a point when he said to me: “What
did Mr Cruise do? Could you imagine if you replaced the word Scientology
with the word Catholicism? Would anyone stand for it?”
From a PR perspective, of course, Scientology has always had a number of
unique problems. For a start, it was founded by Hubbard – a science-fiction
writer. It began with his book Dianetics, which became a sensation in
the future-obsessed 1950s, promising a technology to cure allergies and
colds, among other things.
Over the years, Hubbard turned his ideas into a Church, although it took
several court rulings for anyone to recognise it as such. Along the way,
Hubbard fell out spectacularly with the psychiatric profession (to this day,
Scientologists call for psychiatry’s global obliteration) and the tax
authorities.
“They don’t trust anyone, except each other,” says one former member of
Hubbard’s Sea Organisation, who didn’t want to give me his name. “Banks, the
Government, the medical system, even schools. The organisation attracts a
lot of people who are disgruntled with the world.”
Scientologists dispute this – they argue that they work with governments and
other businesses all the time, and indeed even Cruise’s closest business
partners, such as his producer Paula Wagner, are not Scientologists.
And yet the Church has undoubtedly had some dark days, particularly in the
late 1970s when a series of FBI raids revealed that Scientologists had
infiltrated and wiretapped the Internal Revenue Service and other US
government agencies. Several Church members, including Hubbard’s wife, Mary,
were sent to jail.
At the same time, Scientology’s critics found themselves the targets of
vicious silencing campaigns – they were “fair game” according to Hubbard –
with the journalist Paulette Cooper facing arrest for a fake bomb-plot
carried out using her identity. Hubbard, meanwhile, had taken to spending a
lot of his time at sea, outside of US jurisdiction, hence the founding of
the Sea Organsiation.
When he died in 1986, the Church’s leadership was handed over to his
26-year-old former assistant, David Miscavige, a supremely self-confident
speaker who brought the likes of Cruise and Travolta into the organisation.
The Church argues that it has come a long way since then.
“That policy [of fair game] was yanked very quickly,” claimed Bob Adams, when
I asked him about Cooper and the dread that many journalists still feel when
writing about Scientology. “As in any organisation made up of lots of
people, some will be internal renegades, if you will. Those people paid the
price. And those days are over now.”
Describing the beliefs of a Scientologist is difficult, because many of the
Church’s most important teachings are confidential and copyrighted. Broadly,
however, Scientologists believe that they carry with them spirits, or
thetans, and that through the process of paid-for auditing, it is possible
to overcome trauma and misery and become “clear”, a status known as being an
Operating Thetan. Hubbard invented the “E-Meter”, and other devices, to help
with all this.
Meanwhile, Hubbard’s texts – especially those available only to Operating
Thetans – remain the subject of rumour, and were infamously satirised in a
2006 episode of South Park. That was when Cruise allegedly put
pressure on Sumner Redstone, the head of Viacom – which owns both South
Park’s home of Comedy Central and Paramount – to pull repeats of the
episode. Isaac Hayes, a fellow Scientologist who played Chef in the series,
resigned over the same issue. In the end, the episode was pulled and then
nominated for an Emmy, with a full-page advertisement appearing in Variety
with the South Park characters pictured against a backdrop of the
Celebrity Centre. “C’mon Jews, show them who really runs Hollywood!” was the
caption. Weeks later, Redstone, who happens to be Jewish, dumped Cruise. Any
fears of a Jewish/Scientology fallout were soon put to rest when Cruise went
into business with MGM’s Harry Sloan, who also happens to be Jewish.
As one movie executive told me (on condition of not being identified): “It’s
all a bit of light comic relief, to be honest. Some of us think the
Scientologists are nuts, but it doesn’t really affect how business is done.
That said, they won’t act in anything that promotes psychiatry, and there’s
a special process they go through before making a decision.
“Most people will say, ‘Maybe we should do that, maybe we shouldn’t. What do
you think?’ A Scientologist will ask for 100,000 pages of factual
information so that they can go away and study it and form their thoughts in
clay [clay is often used in Scientology courses] and come back with a
black-and-white decision.”
Incidentally, the text satirised by South Park concerns Xenu, a
dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, who is said to have paralysed billions
of his subjects 75 million years ago, brought them to Earth, scattered them
around volcanoes and then killed them with hydrogen bombs, their disembodied
souls becoming thetans. When the Dutch writer Karin Spaink put this on her
website, she was sued over copyright in a case that went on for eight years.
These days, the Church simply declines to comment, aside from saying that
Xenu is used as a tool of ridicule, and that “they can’t win, either way”.
None of this appears to have damaged Scientology’s power in LA, where rumours
persist that David and Victoria Beckham will soon be attending
Scientologist-only functions with the likes of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith
and Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Indeed, you can literally feel its presence
on the streets: the Scientologists now operate five buildings on Hollywood
Boulevard alone, all purchased when the street was an inner-city slum. “I
think the FBI raids would have put them out of business, but the
celebrities, like Priscilla Presley, and then Travolta, and now Cruise, has
made people say, ‘Hey, maybe there’s something there’,” says Paulette
Cooper, the journalist who was once targeted as “fair game”.
When our dinner at the Renaissance is over, we take a walk down a beautifully
restored 1920s corridor, passing an office kept for Hubbard in case he
returns to Earth, and stroll into an bookstore where for $71.99 (£37) you
can buy seminars for Hollywood wannabes – Breaking into Soaps, How to Get an
Agent, Making it in the Industry – along with an overwhelming number of
Hubbard books, pamphlets and CD box sets.
As I stand there, I think about the claims that the Church is a rip-off and a
cult that excommunicates awkward members only to take them back as cheap
labour, and I wonder about all the clearly intelligent people who consider
themselves Scientologists: the Crash screenwriter Paul Haggis, for
example – or Greg Garcia, who created My Name is Earl.
And then I think about those that claim that the organisation’s membership has
been estimated by some at 1 per cent of the official 10 million and then I
begin to wonder if the Cruise association, like the “fair game” of the
1970s, might finally have run its course.
We’re about to leave when the man in the bookstore – think William H. Macy in Fargo
– offers to show us a video of Hubbard giving a lecture. We watch it, and it
seems as alien to me as anything on the ultra-evangelical Christian
Broadcasting Network.
We ask for the tour of the building, but after several phone calls, our man
can’t find a guide. “They’ve gone to the movies,” he says, with a shrug.
“Perhaps you can come back on Tuesday? We’re having an event.” And so we
leave: unaudited, unbullied, and unchastised.
Sinister, right?
To the author: Damn shame you didn't get to look around the place, it's a great building. Every time I've been there it's been teeming with people but then I was never really there for an ordinary evening mealtime so I couldn't tell you where everyone was! er, this comment box is short.
Sam, York, UK
And ah, the comment-box bickering. Anyway, the author would do well to see some Scientology happening rather than just the manner of Church staff members. Pretty easy to do, just ask them. As a Scientologist I can tell you that it's the practice of the philosophy that it's all about.
Sam, York, UK
It is incredible how certain people just appear before you and are all the same. The guy that is really protesting against Scientology is the one that protests against anything: you can meet him in shops telling the shopkeeper how bad a product is or in the street shouting, lol.
Giancarlo, London, England
I have been in that pseudo religion and I can testify to the truth of those who criticize It for being a dangerous fraud. I too was at one time convinced by all Dianetics "scientific discoveries", sadly, they are not true.
John Mcguire, San Juan, USA
What you are ignoring is that most of Anonymous are not protesting the beliefs of Scientology, so why is necessary for us to have an indepth knowledge of this? What we need to know is the extent to which the organisation has abused both its members and its detractors, evidence for which is extensive
Jim House, Birmingham, UK,
@Jennifer, Birmingham, UK
Jennifer,
thanks for your slightly presumptuous and patronising advice! In fact I have explored xenu.net and every other anti-scientology site, over the course of many years. I know every bad comment that has ever been thrown at the church and I still stand by them. I'm not a blind believer; I've exhaustively studied both sides of the game and settled on my own conclusions.
In fact I believe it is more appropriate that I as a Scientologist should be advising -you- to more thoroughly check out Scientology before becoming too completely persuaded by the many contrary viewpoints. Otherwise you are potentially missing out.
So far, every member of Anonymous I have encountered has known next to nothing about the actual religion. Instead they parrot the accusations made on various websites, taking them for gospel truth without considering the alternatives.
There is no better description of the process of ignorance. How about YOU find out for YOURself?!
Dave Stone, Telford, Shropshire
I was at the 15th March Protest and met loads of happy people (ananoymous) who were just out to inform the public and have a good time while doing it.
They directed me to:
www.whyweprotest.net
Paul, high wycombe, Bucks
@Dave Stone, Telford, UK
Dave,
Nobody is saying that you are weired. it is however, important that you go and check out the FACTS behind Scientology, before you become too heavily involved in it. Why? Because scientology is a cult, that relies on the powers of coersive persuasion to convince people that Hubbard's tech works. Once you totally beleive that the "Technology" is perfect and infalliable, and that you can apply it to everything in your life, it will be too late for you. You will climb your way up the Bridge, it will cost you more and more. But when you finally cannot apply the tech any more, you shoot down the tone scale, end up in the RPF or worse, get declared PTS or SP. This W I L L happen to you eventually, as it has happened to countless others. I strongly recommend you do some reading, or, if you find auditing helps you, why not check the unofficial free versions of scientology that teach dianetics at cost value? I can't stress how much you are playing with fire here, despite the fact that you don't think so. Please, I BEG you to go to xenu.net and have a look around.
My best wishes to you.
Jennifer, Birmingham, UK
Scientology has imprisoned my sister and her best friend with its mind control tactics. She is a schizophrenic and is in mortal danger, but the cult does not allow her access to her meds. It has separated us from her and refuses to allow any contact. We have initiated a deprogramming strategy and will report results in subsequent comments.
J. Schwartz, New York, NY, USA
No one so far has commented who has lost a friend to Scientology. I did: thirty years ago. She is totally brainwashed, deep in the cult, and lost to her loving family. It has been an ongoing nightmare. Of course they are going to treat people courteously. They are running scared now. All power to Anonymous, and to xenu.net
Celia Bright, Bedford, UK
This is a very worrying organization, and like many Britons I'm hoping that the current focus on this cult will help to remove their charitable status in the UK. It's time we all protested against this!
Simon, London,
There is plenty of evidence that you can walk into a scientology store and peruse the beliefs of the group.
There is plenty of evidence that you can be a scientologist and a good person.
There is plenty of evidence that scientologists help people in need.
There is plenty of evidence to support the belief that critics of scientology are harrassed and their lives shattered.
There is plenty of evidence that scientology destroys families.
Research what you believe, no matter what. Determine what is the best path for you.
Innocent bystander, Oceania,
If they claim to be a religion, what faith is necessary? Faith in what? I would really like to know the basis. If no faith is required isn't it more an "ism" than a faith? What's behind the curtain?
John, Philly,
I really enjoyed the article, but lets face it anyone who saw the documentary last year(?) on Scientology should be running for the hills if had ever considered joining.
There are many comments here asking why do so many people consider Scientology threatening or sinister? Look no further than 'Fair game' and cultist approach of the organisation.
Want to be a religion? Open up all teachings and structures to review and fair criticism like any other religion. Stop victimising those who question your motives and maybe then people can openly discuss the merits (or downfalls) of Scientology.
Dave, Gibraltar,
I enjoyed this article. The author speaks frankly, expresses his misgivings, reserves his doubts, but tells you what he observed. In regard to: "Describing the beliefs of a Scientologist is difficult", the author could have assimilated Ron Hubbard's definitional lecture, "Scientology: Milestone One", given on 3 March, 1952. It says that Scientology is your study of knowledge, to understand your knowledge. If you will take the time to understand what you know, you will be better able to use what you know. That is why people clay demonstrate, why people clear misunderstood words, and so on. It is a study of knowledge, to understand your knowledge. Because then you can use it right away, with confidence.
Terryeo, San Francisco, California, USA
"Seriously, In what way is Scientology more sinister or weird than any other religion"
The difference, and what makes scientology a scam, is that all other religions actively promote their doctrines free of charge - reading the new testament doesn't cost you any money if you go to a church and you won't be sued for copyright if you post quotes from the bible on your website. Charging money for enlightenment is what cults do - religions exist to promote their ideas FREE OF CHARGE because they believe the ideas are truly for the betterment of society.
Moira, Seattle, WA
The courses are expensive, but then so is conventional psychiatry. In the UK psychiatrists tend to refuse to treat healthy people, but that's not universally true. Scientologists only accept mentally healthy people. They don't claim to be able to reverse the course of a genuine illness like bipolar disorder, though they do claim that this inability is due to the administration of conventional anti-psychotic medications rather than to inherent limitations of their courses.
Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK
Seriously, In what way is Scientology more sinister or weird than any other religion
Adrian, Fremont, CA
Many years ago I was in Dublin with a girlfriend. One day we were invited into what looked like a bookstore to do a personality test. The test results were analysed and we were then seperated to discuss the results. The graph of my results supposedly pointed out that I had 'issues' and an unhappy childhood. When i pointed out to the man that it wasn't the case, he tried other angles to say the same thing. Meanwhile, my GF had the same results [amazing!] - turns out though that she had some issues and got quite upset. 3 members of the shop then crowded round her to say that they could help, or rather Scientology could help. So were these rogue elements in the organisation or is this a well-documented method of attracting new recuits? Yes other faiths are based on just that - a belief system. However there is evidence to support the view that Jesus exsited; Scientology derives from the mind of a Science fiction author. I think the key words here, everyone are Science and Fiction.
George Baker, London,
I agree with the messages posted so far and suspect it is this article, not Scientology that is effete.
Surely the danger with Scientology regards people being brainwashed and conned out of their money. There are many other concerns.
Does the writer of this article think he and his friends have enough 'star factor' to be courted at the celebrity centre?
Celebrities are targeted to, in due course, attract normal recruits. Tom Cruise is by many accounts a very decent and kind individual and it is of course tragic that he is ensnared by the lugubrious cult.
There is a huge new Scientology centre in The City of London and The City Corporation (in its wisdom) has agreed a very low rates paying agreement.
Governments should protect their citizens from dangerous insane cultists. Fortunately we have some sense in the upper echelons of our legal system: Mr Justice Latey at the Old Bailey called Scientology "both immoral and socially obnoxious".
B Serious, London, UK
B Serious, London,
There are 19 FREE Scientology on-line life improvement courses (the course material online help are also without cost) that anyone can take and decide for him / herself if it provided information that made it easier to understand and resolve the problems most people face in life (communication, relationships, etc.).
Sign up at http://www.VolunteerMinisters.org -- while there check out the RESULTS page to see a video of religious, politial and social leaders praising the technologies that comprises Scientology and are extraordinarily effective in resolving deep-rooted societal problems: drugs, illiteracy, crime and immorality.
It's starting to become much more known that one does not have to be a Scientologist to use its methods to resolve issues in life.
James Lightfield, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Scientology is good for sales & marketting.
It can teach skills on how to make money.
It does not have the truth that can set the spirit free as can be found in the teachings of Jesus.
Scientology is in the category of Dale Carnegie :how to win friends & influence people'
Scientology does though go OTT {over the top} the more a person can become involved with it.
Moneen, Cape Town , South Africa
The difference between scientology and any other "mainstream" faiths is that no other faith encourages you to break so much communication and interaction with the outside world - as well as pay vast sums of money in order to make progress within the organisation.
The celebrity hollywood image of scientology is the recruitment machine for the organisation. The reality of scientology for many of it's members is very different experience to that of say, Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
A great site to visit is www.xenu.net if you are interested in the workings of this strange religion/cult. - Scientology is not recognised as a religion in the United Kingdom - and in many other developed countries in the world. anyhow check xenu.net to hear one side of the argument...
Graeme , Glenrothes, Fife
Live and let live. I see nothing strange about this relegion. None of these Celebs are obssessed with themselves. The leaders of the Scientologists are not power hungry con artists. Oh, must go, I have just seen a pig fly past my window being chased by a flying saucer!
Dino, London,
I went through the Catholic school system in England and we prayed first thing in the morning, before and after lunch, before we left at the end of the day, and every time anyone had lost anything (St. Anthony). Every so often we walked round churches and school corridors singing to the Virgin Mary, wore ash on our foreheads once a year and were terrified by confession every Saturday evening. If it hadn't been the RC church you would have sworn it was a cult!
Toni S Hargis, CHicago, USA
When people believe in nothing they believe in anything.
John McD, San Francisco, ca, USA.
Scientology is no more a cult than Christianity or Muhammadanism aka Islam.
Jai Khosla, New York, USA
I've read the books that they offer those that they think are suitable candidates.
The stuff that Hubbard has written is absolute rubbish. It basically akins life to a game of monopoly.
Furthermore it is about control. Strong wills and minds over weak ones.
Having said that, perhaps there is a case for making the human race into an ant colony...that way perhaps we would at least not screw each other over and this planet to boot. :=)
Kambiz Shahri, Pretoria, South Africa
I don't know how you have all arrived at the conclusion that only rich people can join Scientology - that's not even one of the common list of myths that journalists generally quote!
I am a Scientologist and earn only 19K a year. I'm normal, I live a happy life with my partner and children, I have friends and family, I go out, I watch TV, I eat my meat and vegetables, and I study Scientology.
I'm fairly tired of being depicted as someone who is somehow incredibly weird, because I'm not, and none of us are!
I have to say this was a remarkably fair article, and I must praise the author.
I should clarify a point about "confidentiality" though: the claim made by the author, echoing every other journalist, is that the whole Zenu thing is a secret. It's not. The whole story has been available for your reading pleasure for years, in a book called "The History of Man" by Hubbard. Only certain aspects of the course are secret, because it helps to do the preceding courses first.
Dave Stone, Telford, UK
What if it is a tax avoidance scheme, are not all religions registered as charities? That would account for the fact that only rich people can join. If it is it would have saved Tom C and John T an awful lot of wonga in tax not paid over the years,
Nick, london, uk
I didn't know anyone could eat there.
Thought it was Scientologists only.
Maybe I'll try it.
The building has always intrigued me.
I walked into the main building once before and talked to the guy and bought some stuff and no one ferreted me away.
The videos seemed much more reasonable than the junk you see on half the "prosperity" gospel shows or the old bible beating crazy ministers.
The emeters are simply a skin galvenmeter which measures the conductivity of your skin - which measures sweating (because salty skin conducts more than dry) - which is an indicator of nervousness. So when you talk about stuff the person can easily tell what's making you nervous and you can't hid it like in therapy so you find out your issues quickly.
The same sensors are part of standard police lie detectors (police detectors also measure breathing rate and pulse which emeters don't )
Seems smart to me.
And no I'm not a scientologist.
Thanks for the report!
George , la, ca
Thankyou. Next time, invite Skip Press (Los Angeles writer) to go with you on your tour of Celebrity Center in Los Angeles, and see what happens. - Chuck Beatty, ex lifetime staffer, Scientology movement, 1975-2003, Pittsburgh, USA.
Chuck Beatty, Pittsburgh, USA
why is it so expensive, why is it so mysterious, why aren´t poor people members of scientology, what their problem with demonstrators, what happens in the auditing? what if they are a money making org, which exploits the hopes and weakness of people. Could you sleep then, author?
schwarzl, munich,
So in other words the reporter went into Celebrity Centre, was treated courteously, not restrained or harassed, and walked out on his own accord. Well at least he set foot into the Church and had some measure of objectivity. Scary.
Steve, Tampa, Fl.