The Church of Fear: Inside The Weird World of Scientology (17 page)

Bill and Mole filmed from our side. The Church’s main cameraman was a tall, thin, German chap with a shock of white hair called Reinhardt; their number two camera woman was an exotic woman – Argentinian? – and I think they had a third plus a soundman, who looked Spanish or South American. They wore black and said next to nothing. Tommy and Mike settled down to watch from the sidelines, like line call umpires at Wimbledon or vultures waiting for a free carcase.

Anne told me she’d been a Scientologist for 30 years, and that it had helped her become a more able, sane, more responsible person with a very high sense of ethics, and that no-one she has been around with has ever been critical of Scientology, especially in Hollywood.

I took a deep breath. Some people say that Scientology is a sinister brainwashing cult.

Anne had no truck with that. It is, she said, a very intelligent, wonderful, highly ethical organisation, and the people in it have had wonderful success and wins in their life from utilising the Scientology technology. And then she went on to the attack: ‘The thing I don’t understand is why you are not talking to people who have benefited from it and why you are not giving a fair point of view to the other side.’

This was more than a little ironic. Four or was it five cameras – and who knows there might have been some hidden somewhere – were recording me doing exactly what she was complaining I was not doing.

She told me I was ‘extremely bigoted’ and not balanced as reporters are supposed to be. I told her that I had spoken to people who said that Scientology had ruined their lives, like Mike Henderson, and she told me that man had a criminal record. No, that was Shawn Lonsdale, I told her. She questioned why I talked to criminals, and I said Shawn’s record was for sexual misdemeanours but the Church, he said, attacked and intimidated him and reacted out of all proportion. I didn’t twig to the fact that she knew I had been spending time with a criminal.

‘It is not out of all proportion. First of all, it doesn’t happen,’ Anne said, nonsensically. ‘There aren’t that many critics, and I have never come across those people in my life, it has never been my experience and you are putting on the air these very few who have whatever they have going on in their lives. Who are discreditable people and you are putting them on as credible people, and that to me is very offensive.’

I told her about Mike Henderson, who says that Scientology breaks up families.

‘Scientology brings families together. Scientology, using L Ron Hubbard’s technology, understanding, how to make relationships better, has without question saved more marriages, made more marriages happier, than any other technology or approach that I have ever seen in life. Otherwise I wouldn’t be a Scientologist.’

Black and white; light and shade. There was no meeting of minds between us, whatsoever.

Had she ever been on a RPF course?

‘An RPF course? No…’

Tommy interrupted: ‘That’s for Sea Org members.’

‘No, I am public,’ she said. The distinction is that ‘public’ means parishioner, Sea Org means a member of the Church’s Holy Order, like a nun or a monk.

I put to her that the RPF is a dungeon of the mind.

‘You know what? You are talking to the wrong person.’

Point to her. It was odd, though, that she had never heard of the complaints of ex-Scientologists: ‘No. No. No… You have completely the wrong understanding of what Scientology is. Scientologists come and do courses, get auditing services because they are trying to grow as human beings. And the individuals that work within the organisation are the most ethical, fair, understanding and loving group of individuals I have ever met in my life. Who really care about helping people and not tearing them down, that has been my experience.’

I asked her about ‘ripping your face off’.

‘You are making me laugh. You know you so obviously have this bigoted point of view towards something, you are trying to drag that point home. And it is not reality. This is not truth for me.’

She had never heard of that phrase?

‘No. Absolutely never heard of that phrase. It is ridiculous.’

No one has ever ripped her face off?

‘Are you kidding me?’

You could have cut the atmosphere with a blunt implement.

I put to her stories of abuse and psychological torture. She denied it absolutely: ‘There is certainly no mental torture, there is certainly no abuse, there’s certainly nothing like that that exists in Scientology, believe me.’

I told her that we have spoken to somebody who said they had seen Tommy on one of these course being punished, humiliated, having his hair and his ear pulled about…

‘I guarantee you that would never happen. And I happen to be back in Florida the time Tommy was there and we had many wonderful, lovely conversations and it is just not true.’

Some people say that David Miscavige is a bully, he goes round hitting people?

She laughed out loud.

Just for the record, is David Miscavige a bully? Does he go around hitting people?

‘Of course not. He is a very intelligent and fair and kind, he is one of the kindest people I have ever met.’

Our relationship was not getting any better. ‘You are a bigot,’ she said.

Some people would say that she is brainwashed.

‘Do I look brainwashed to you?’

I looked up to the heavens, but said nothing.

‘How dare you!’ she hissed. ‘You know what? You are brainwashed.’

Is there any criticism that you would fairly level at your own organisation of the Church of Scientology?

‘None whatsoever… You won’t put that on the air.’

She was right about that, but for a different reason.

The verbal ping-pong carried on. She called me a bottom feeder, a tabloid reporter. More ping-pong or as Boris Johnson dubs it, wiff-waff.

‘You obviously have an agenda here and this whole interview is kind of a waste of time.’

Indeed, why are you talking to us?

‘Because you attacked my son.’

I didn’t attack your son.

‘Oh yes you have,’ Anne said.

‘Oh no I haven’t,’ I replied. ‘Are you familiar with pantomime?’

And that pretty much was that.

Anne left, her place replaced with a strikingly attractive woman, I guess, in her early thirties. She sat down in front of me with an air of the lioness entering the den, the better to eat up the Christian. I liked her, or at least wanted her to like me. Bill attached the radio-mike to her, which always seems to involve asking people to slip this thingy through their undergarments. He was particularly charming with all the Scientologists, and all the Scientologists were charming back to him. I was beginning to suspect he was working for the other side, Traitor Bill.

My lack of charm did not help me resolve my immediate problem, which was embarrassing.

You have got to forgive me, I said, I am not a Hollywood reporter. I have been to all sorts of weird places but I don’t know who you are. In LA there is no greater sin.

‘Oh really?’ She was actually quite sweet about it. ‘My name is Leah Rimini and I am on a show called “The King of Queens”’. One of the biggest American sitcoms of recent times, the show often rated around 13 million viewers. The wreckage of our small talk out of the way, it was time for business. She told me that Scientology had offered her the ability to be a happy person, Scientology has given her those tools to try to be a good person.

I asked her about the auditing process, questions about all sorts of things, including your sex life, things that are embarrassing?

‘It is confidential.’

But they record it, I said.

‘Do they record it? No.’

Three years later we asked that very question of the Church. It said it does film auditing, but that this is not a secret and has been announced publicly.

Cameras are fitted within walls to stop them being intrusive and unsightly.

The Church also says that auditing secrets are sacrosanct, protected by priest-penitent confidentiality and never revealed.

I told Leah I have heard the allegation that David Miscavige has used some of the stuff which had been said in confidence. In Catholic terms, that would be a violation of the sanctity of the confessional?

‘I mean that is so, so ridiculous because if that were true there would be a lot of law suits. There is nothing about me or about any Scientologist that I know has anything in their past that someone could use against them.’

There are stories out there, people say that they have been punished, in particular, on the Sea Org RPF. Have you ever heard that?

‘Aha.’

What is RPF?

‘I think Tommy has already explained that to you, right.’

Leah’s interview took place immediately after Anne’s. My deduction would be that Leah could have only known that Tommy had given me an answer on RPF if she had been watching a live feed of the interview in another room in the Celebrity Centre. I didn’t work that out there and then, but just had a sense of an extra level to the game they hadn’t told me about.

I pressed on. Are you aware of any criticisms that it punishes people?

‘No, I haven’t heard the criticism.’

We spoke to one guy who said that he has effectively spent six years in the RPF.

‘I have to tell you that he has to be a complete idiot because the programme doesn’t take six years.’

No, he was punished for six years.

‘Well then, I think he is a complete idiot. Six years is a long time to try to get with it.’

Because he fell out with David Miscavige.

‘Well, thank God. Six years is a long time. I’m glad we got rid of him.’

Have you met Mr Miscavige?

‘Of course.’

Some people have said that he has hit them.

‘That he has hit them?’

Yeah, physically.

She laughed: ‘I don’t know what to say about that, I mean it is so silly. That David physically hit them?’

Yeah.

‘OK. I don’t know what to say about that. He never hit me. Should I consider myself insulted? I mean, I’m a friend of his and he’s never hit me.’

I batted on.

He hasn’t given a TV interview since 1992. What is he afraid of?

‘What’s he afraid of? Oh I think if you met Mr Miscavige you would see that he is really not afraid of anything. But I just think it is…’

Well, I said, he appears to be, because he is afraid of for example giving a TV interview.

‘No, I don’t think he is afraid.’

Some people would say that Scientology has got an unfortunate image.

‘What?’

People out there, for example, on the internet.

‘I don’t go on the internet.’

As Bruce Hines had explained to me, the Church has an aversion to the internet, this, the single greatest expansion of human knowledge in modern times, and, if you watched the opening of the Olympics, invented by a Briton, for free.

Why not?

‘But I just don’t go to the internet for my source of information. I don’t search the internet for any information on anything. This is a building you can walk in and you can see what Scientology is.’

Are there any down sides to Scientology?

‘What?’

Apart from being interviewed by me.

‘You seem quite pleasant.’ She must have been kidding.

‘Downsides, yeah? It’s not easy to be a Scientologist because the ethic level of this group is very, very high.’ She made no criticism of the institution. Being an Operating Thetan Level Five, the ex-Scis say she would know about the ‘Wall of Fire’.

You know about Xenu?

‘I don’t know… I have been in it for 25 years and I have no idea what you are talking about.’

So OT3, I heard, was Xenu, was the galactic war lord who 75 million years ago, sort of, put peoples, aliens…?

‘I have already answered this,’ interrupted Tommy. ‘None of us know what you are talking about. It makes you look weird talking about it.’

Time froze. Donna Shannon and Bruce Hines had confirmed Xenu to be true.

So either Donna and Bruce and the Panorama 1987 team and everybody on the internet were mad, or the Church of Scientology, its representatives, Tommy and Mike, and this feisty, funny and beautiful actress sitting a few feet from me, were mad. This made my head hurt. Tommy had a simple solution to my dilemma.

‘I think what the problem is,’ said Tommy, helpfully, ‘you must have talked to some lunatic… I mean I am not calling you a lunatic…’

I appreciate the distinction, I said. So it is wholly untrue, Xenu? 75 million years ago?

‘Sweetheart,’ said Leah, ‘you are talking to me and it is like you are talking another language to me. It is, like, I have no idea of what you are talking about.’

I have spoken to a number of ex-Scientologists who have said yes, the Xenu story is part of the religion, I said.

‘OK, so therein lies the problems. You are talking to ex-Scientologists and I don’t know how much, I mean you are talking to crazy people, I mean I don’t know. If that is what they told you then I go…’

‘Yeah,’ said Tommy. ‘I mean here is the thing John, you are insisting on levelling to Scientologists things that you’ve heard, things that you find on the internet. We are the ones who are the Scientologists. We know what Scientology is. And what you are talking about plays no part in Scientology. It is just utterly bizarre. It is just bizarre.’

Is it possible you might be brainwashed, I asked Leah.

‘What do you think?’

Oh, I ask the questions, I said.

‘I know but you are sitting here looking at me. I mean what do you think?’

I don’t know, I said.

‘So I really couldn’t really answer that question. “Are you brainwashed?” I could ask you the same thing.’

Of course she could. In 2012 I now realise that as an Operating Thetan Level Five she would have been taught that I have been brainwashed by Xenu into thinking that he doesn’t exist. This is, then, a conversation between two people, one of whom suspects the other might be brainwashed; the other who knows the other has been brainwashed. The one who suspects doesn’t know that the other who knows can’t tell the first one he’s been brainwashed because if she does he may die. Simples.