Beyond Belief (39 page)

On one such occasion, despite Mr. H not approving it, we went to the Celebrity Centre to meet his mom at the Renaissance Restaurant for brunch. Not only had Dallas done course work there as a public Scientologist, but he had also worked there as a senior in the Hubbard Communication Office in the late 1990s. Therefore, he knew firsthand how differently celebrities were treated. People like John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Catherine Bell, Jason Lee, Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley, and Marisol Nichols were always around on services. At the time, Jason Beghe and Jack Armstrong were the two most revered celebrities at the Centre, because they were both on full-time study and very gung ho about Scientology.

In comparison to other Scientology churches, things for all the celebrities were over-the-top in terms of elegance and privacy, starting with their own separate double-gated entrance on the corner of Franklin and Bronson Avenues, and a special area in the underground parking garage that was monitored by security. Celebrities entered through the President’s Office, which had its own lobby, Purif delivery area, and private office space. Upstairs were two auditing rooms and a private course room to be used solely by celebrities and other people of importance, such as big donors to the Church. Scientology defined celebrities as anyone influential, so it could be well-recognized names like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, but it could also be someone like Craig Jensen, CEO of Condusiv Technologies, and Scientology’s biggest donor, or Izzy Chait, a prominent Beverly Hills art dealer. The security for the celebrities was very tight but deliberately inconspicuous, so that a big celebrity could literally be on services and most people at the Centre would never know he was there.

The Celebrity Centre also had guest rooms. They weren’t special rooms designed just for celebrities. Any of the paying public could reserve any room as long as they were able to afford it; some rooms commanded a hefty overnight rate. It all depended on the size and level of elegance of the room, but the prices were in line with upscale hotels in the city. Back when my mom had been working on the renovations of the Celebrity Centre, I’d even stayed at the hotel a couple of times. The room we stayed in was a duplex, and was super nice. I was told that Kirstie Alley had actually stayed in that particular room. When Dallas was working there, Kirstie was the only celebrity he knew who would stay overnight. The others would just come for the day for their services, then go home.

As Dallas explained, the celebrities who would come to the center were very human there. Some were quite nice and social; others were more reserved and didn’t want to be bothered. And, of course, some sucked up to other celebrities and were rude to the staff who worked there. All in all, it was a mixed bag of attitudes—as varied as the celebrities who frequented it. According to Dallas, John Travolta, at least, was very appreciative of Sea Org staff members at the center and their hard work. On one occasion, he met Travolta, who praised him for his service.

Hearing all this, it was hard not to be curious about the most famous celebrity Scientologist of them all, Tom Cruise. Dallas told me how, during the time he worked at the Celebrity Centre, Tom was not coming there. Tom was still a Scientologist; he just wasn’t actively involved at that time. Dallas was told by members of the CC staff that because of Tom’s marriage to Nicole Kidman, who was not as committed to the Church, Tom had been labeled a “Potential Trouble Source,” which had interfered with his progress in Scientology.

Because Nicole’s father was in the psychology field, this made perfect sense. We were taught that those in the mental health field were bad and evil. We believed what LRH had written about them was true, that they were the reason behind people like Adolf Hitler and everything else bad that had ever happened on the “whole track,” the whole record in our minds of things that had happened to us over trillions of years.

When Dallas told me all this, it reminded me of something Aunt Shelly had once said when I was at Flag. At the time, Tom Cruise had just been getting back into the Church, and it was being mentioned in magazines. I said something to Aunt Shelly about it, and she proceeded to go on about how similar Tom Cruise and Uncle Dave were, in that they were both very intense. Apparently, people called them by the same nickname, which had something to do with the word “laser.” I told Aunt Shelly how it seemed to me that Nicole wasn’t really into Scientology, and she seemed surprised that I had figured that out, saying I was exactly right and it was a problem they were trying to solve.

No matter what level of star they were, one of the big draws for the celebrities was the Communication Course offered at the center, which claimed to get people comfortable for auditions and helped them to network effectively. Another attraction was the fact that the auditing sessions had a priest-penitent privilege stamp of secrecy, meaning that the contents of each session were guarded, similar to the way that a priest would guard secrets heard during confession. This level of security made celebrities comfortable with relating their problems and the oddities that they wanted fixed.

While the facilities and the hospitality that celebrities received at the Celebrity Centre went far beyond that which regular public Scientologists encountered, the differences weren’t just superficial. There were also numerous financial and course-related benefits that celebrities received. Money and the art of selling Scientology were crucial differences that the ordinary public Scientologist experienced compared to celebrities. For one thing, celebrities didn’t have to endure the constant “regging,” the harassment from the Church to give money for projects or further services. They were still asked to give donations and pay for next services, but they dealt with one designated person, instead of being solicited by various staff members, like the normal public Scientologists were. In addition, celebrities were allowed to do Scientology at their own pace, whereas everyone else would begin that way but soon get pressured and pushed constantly for the next level, which meant they’d also have to pay more money.

For other Scientologists, these requests for money weren’t limited to course work. Dallas’s parents, for example, were always pressured to give money and sign up for more courses, even if they’d already paid for their next three courses. This sort of thing was never allowed with celebrities. Similarly, when Scientologists would travel to San Diego to fund-raise for the church projects, they would often go to Dallas’s parents’ house late at night to try to get his parents to donate. Not surprisingly, that kind of house call would never happen to a celebrity.

The end result of all this was that the celebrity experience of Scientology was vastly different from what most Scientologists experienced. It was never entirely clear whether the celebrities knew the full extent of their special treatment, or if they had any idea what life was actually like for the Sea Org members who waited on them hand and foot.

In many ways, the Celebrity Centre was the perfect stage for the act that Scientology put on for the celebrities. The accommodations were gorgeous, and the beautiful grounds made the experience enjoyable. Everything was tightly controlled and orchestrated, and if the celebrities themselves took things at face value, they’d simply see the act and never witness what went on behind the curtain. There was never a risk that they would get exposed to child labor or something similar that the Church didn’t want them to see. Sea Org members at the Celebrity Centre appeared happy because it was their job to do that, so celebrities wouldn’t know from talking to them or watching them whether they’d been paid their forty-five dollars that week, or if they missed their families.

This act of the Celebrity Centre was crucial to how the Church reached out to celebrities and encouraged them to join. Simply put, it operated almost identically to any other Church where people take courses and get auditing, but it focused on the famous. You didn’t have to be famous to go there, but they targeted up-and-coming artists or forgotten artists trying to rebuild their careers. There were numerous policies about celebrities that explained how celebrities are good PR for the Church since their wins will be in the public eye.

In the end, all this amounts to one of the most powerful recruiting tools that the Church has, offering celebrities a chance to mingle with other like-minded Scientologists and enjoy their time in Scientology outside public scrutiny. In that way, it plays to many celebrities’ sense of entitlement and selectivity. To that end, even non-Scientologists find themselves there on occasion. When my mom was originally working on the Celebrity Centre, she saw Brad Pitt there because he was dating Juliette Lewis. On other occasions, I heard stories of people like Bono and Colin Farrell attending galas there despite not being Scientologists themselves.

The morning of my Sunday brunch with Dallas and his mom, the restaurant wasn’t particularly crowded. The décor was in a very flamboyant Renaissance style. We sat at a table in the garden. Dallas’s mother Gail was small, cute, and always smiling. I could tell she and Dallas had great affection for each other. She was very nice to me, despite my being extremely shy and saying very little.

At some point in the conversation, she asked me my last name and discovered I was David Miscavige’s niece. “I’ll be sure not to do anything bad in front of you,” she joked.

I
N THE NEXT FEW MONTHS, THINGS WITH
D
ALLAS STARTED GETTING
serious. I met the rest of his family, who were every bit as kind as he and his mother. Dallas soon became my best friend. He was my boyfriend, which meant I could marry him one day. Sometimes, on Sunday mornings, his parents would come to visit the two of us, treating me like I was a member of their family. Whenever I felt down, Dallas made me feel better. I could talk to him about anything and vice versa.

One night on the fire escape, Dallas proposed to me. We had been together only a couple of months, but in the Sea Org, it was not unusual to date for such a short time before a proposal. I hadn’t expected anything out of the ordinary that particular night, but I was hoping a proposal would come soon.

That night, in the neon-lit darkness of Los Angeles, on the old iron fire escape bolted onto my building, Dallas got down on one knee and pulled out a ring. He was stuttering and jumpy, as he usually was when he was nervous. He prefaced the proposal by telling me that he hadn’t been able to ask my father first, because he had no idea where he was. Then he asked if I would marry him.

Every important line of the conversation was interrupted and punctuated by a honking horn, a siren, someone yelling, or a rattling shopping cart being pushed by a homeless person. We also had to talk over the constant music blasting from the Pig ’n’ Whistle restaurant right next door to my building. But I was beyond noticing or caring, and I screamed out “Yes!” in overwhelming happiness. Finally, I was going to be in a family of my own.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
IX

A SECRET ENGAGEMENT

W
HEN
I
TOLD
M
R.
H
ABOUT
D
ALLAS AND ME GETTING ENGAGED,
she didn’t know whether to be excited or worried. The next day, she told me that I was not supposed to tell anyone the news. I wasn’t sure who had asked her to relay this information to me, but I assumed it had come from Uncle Dave or Aunt Shelly or Mr. Rathbun. Mr. H didn’t say I
couldn’t
get married; she only said I shouldn’t tell anyone. I had no idea why, but it was too late. We had already told just about everyone, including all my friends at Flag.

I didn’t believe that Dallas was my fate or destiny. I didn’t believe in that stuff. I just felt like he was the best one in the whole world for me. He was fun, adventuresome, and extremely kind. I was attracted by his nonconfrontational attitude. He always took the time to hear all sides of an argument, and respected everyone’s position equally. Despite everything I had been through, I was going to be with the man I loved. I would finally have a happy ending. My ring was gorgeous, too, thanks to Dallas’s father owning a jewelry store. It was simple and classic, two smaller diamonds on either side of a bigger one, and it represented every dream of mine coming true.

I was eighteen and Dallas was twenty-two. The majority of the people in the Sea Org married at a young age, for a couple of reasons. For one, you were not allowed to have sex before marriage. Also, married couples were allowed to have their own room, as opposed to sharing with up to seven roommates. I knew lots of people who had married at fifteen. Any younger than eighteen, you had to go to Las Vegas, because in California you were required to meet with a mental health professional if you were under the age of eighteen.

As things stood, Dallas and I weren’t going to be able to have children, because of the Flag order. However, Dallas actually believed the current rule in the Sea Org would change again and the ban on children would be lifted. I thought this was unlikely, but being with Dallas and being a part of his family was easily enough for me.

Christmas came and everybody was given a day off. The downside was that Dallas went to San Diego to see his family, and I was forbidden to go with him, so I went out to dinner and a movie with the rest of the crew. I did get some presents in the mail from my parents: a stuffed animal, a watch, and some books which I loved. I was not aware that as a goodwill gesture my uncle had allowed them to communicate with me without restriction. I think he was just trying to keep them calm and happy so that the Church didn’t suffer legal ramifications if they decided to sue. However, this was still the only time that I had heard from them since our last meeting.

A
WEEK OR TWO AFTER
M
R.
H
HAD GIVEN ME ORDERS NOT TO
announce my engagement, I was called to meet with Mr. Rathbun in his office on the twelfth floor. He said he had heard I was getting married and was delighted to see me so happy. However, he needed to advise me to hold off a little bit on the wedding and telling people we were engaged, as it seemed that someone in Dallas’s family, specifically his uncle Larry, was under suspicion of looking at some anti-Scientology websites. I was told that the last thing the Church needed was Larry, who might be a PTS, meeting my parents, whose status was anything from declared SP to some version of SP. The fear was that Larry, Mom, and Dad might work together to bring down the church.