The Church of Fear: Inside The Weird World of Scientology

by Sweeney, John

  All I know for certain is that an FBI investigation was running and nothing has happened. It turned out, my source said, that the Church had more money and more resolve than the FBI. The thing that may have killed the investigation was the FBI was afraid of taking on an official religion. If true, that does not sound good. Of course, all of the above may well be untrue and the FBI investigation may have failed for the simple truth that there was nothing to investigate.

  In my time as a reporter money and power always seem to get on sweetly; power and the poor, the wretched, even, perhaps, the ‘disconnected’ less so. So will the authorities, those in government, crack down on the Church of Fear? I doubt it.

  This is a personal account of my time inside the Church’s embrace and I have deliberately concentrated on my first-hand experiences of the Church, events I can report directly and confidently because they happened to me with our cameras running and even that seemingly simple task has not been easy. But outside that narrow focus the Church seems to have been very successful at emerging intact from what appear to be great scandals, in particular in the United States. The Church has reportedly got a billion dollar war chest. Its teams of lawyers are ready to fight tooth and nail.

  Take the tragedy of Scientologist Lisa McPherson. She was declared ‘Clear’ then dead in an embarrassingly short time frame in 1995 on David Miscavige’s watch as Leader. Florida’s medical examiner reported that Lisa had been the victim of negligent homicide and the Church was indicted on two charges, abuse and/or neglect of a disabled adult and practising medicine without a license. The case collapsed after the state’s medical examiner changed the cause of death to accidental in 2000. Ex-Scientologists say that there was a cover-up operation aimed at hiding Miscavige’s role. The Church and Miscavige deny that emphatically. Law suits related to the McPherson tragedy are still trundling through the courts but the Church has survived Lisa’s death – evidence, the critics say, of the power of the Church to block scrutiny. The Church denies that.

  Narconon – Scientology’s anti-drug therapy praised in the House of Commons by Charles Hendry MP and by the Church’s celebrities to me – is now in trouble after a series of young addicts have collapsed and died in the Church’s treatment centres in worrying circumstances. But again the Church’s legal teams are working hard to prove the Church has done nothing wrong. The Church, of course, says exactly that: these personal tragedies do not reflect on the good work that Narconon does in treating thousands of addicts. The ex-Scientologists say Narconon kills people. It is fair to say that addicts die in non-Scientology centres all the time.

  The evidence suggests that the authorities will not do very much to encumber the Church of Scientology. But that does not mean that ordinary people are powerless. Richard Behar, the Time magazine journalist who wrote ‘The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power’, once told me that in the long law suit between Time and the Church – which Time won – the thing the Church most seemed to be afraid of was the prospect of their celebrities being embarrassed.

  Katie Holmes’ divorce from Tom Cruise is a seismic event in the glitzy media world, but ordinary Scientologists may have noticed that while they have to disconnect from their family members declared ‘Suppressive Persons’, Tom Cruise has not disconnected from his daughter Suri after his divorce. ‘If you meet Tom Cruise,’ says Claire Headley, ‘ask him about disconnection.’ Here in this book, I repeat my request to interview Tom Cruise. He is an action hero and an Operating Thetan. He will have nothing to fear from me.

  In the mean time, the Church’s culture of celebrity endorsement could, the ex-Scientologists say, be reversed against itself. If Tom Cruise and John Travolta face public shame about some of the Church’s extraordinary conduct, then things might change, they say. Marc Headley, for example, does not choose to watch the latest Tom Cruise thriller. He would rather see his mother see his sons. The same goes for all the former members of the Church who have left: Mike Rinder is disconnected from his family, Amy Scobee from hers… The list is long and cruel.

  The critics say the next time Tom Cruise or John Travolta or Kirstie Alley pop up on the sofas of Jonathan Ross or Jeremy Clarkson or Oprah Winfrey they should ask three questions:

  ‘Why can disconnecting grannies from grandsons be good?’

  ‘Who is Lord Xenu?’

  ‘What kind of Church hires private eyes?’

  The answer is, of course, a Church of Fear.

  John Sweeney, December, 2012.

  THE END

  NOTES

  Introduction

  ‘John Sweeney is genuinely evil’ see: http://gettothechoppa

  .wordpress.com/2010/09/28/john-sweeney-is-genuinely-evil/

  ‘Exploding tomato’ see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxqR5NPhtLI and many other sites. Scientology & Me, the 2007 BBC Panorama documentary is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFRSt_viosc The Dalek impersonation is worth a watch, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLI1Al3S_pE

  ‘Hysterical rant’ from the News of the World, May 13, 2007. Five years later Rupert Murdoch changed his tune, tweeting: ‘Very weird cult, but big, big money involved with Tom Cruise either number two or three in hierarchy.’

  ‘Secret police interrogator’: Charles Moore was writing in The Spectator, May 25, 2007.

  ‘Whose bunny was boiled’: watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecWhXP2jM28

  ‘Create the new reality’: watch Tom Cruise espouse Scientology here:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAbxS0

  Chapter One: First Contact

  ‘Psychotic, a bigot and a liar’: for the Church of Scientology’s considered view on the author:

  http://www.freedommag.org/special-reports/bbc/panorama-exposed.html

  http://www.freedommag.org/special-reports/bbc/panorama-desperate-lies.html

  The first draft of this book was written before the Savile scandal engulfed the BBC in the autumn of 2012. What happened was wrong, and the failure of BBC Newsnight to broadcast the stories of Savile abuse in 2011 compounded that wrong. But the BBC did air programmes strongly critical of BBC management, including a Panorama made by my colleagues and a BBC News Channel interview in which I openly criticized the then Director-General George Entwistle:

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20024904

  Entwistle faced difficult questions about his conduct from the BBC on air. Commentators have noted the contrast between the BBC’s openness to effective scrutiny and Entwistle’s subsequent resignation and the reactions of many newspaper groups to accusations of phone-hacking.

  ‘How warm space is’: http://www.xenu-directory.net/practices/ot.html

  ‘Con man’: Bare Faced Messiah, Russell Miller, London, 1987.

  ‘Mark of the Beast 666’: L Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman by Bent Corydon and L Ron Hubbard Junior, Lyle Stuart, New Jersey, 1987, p48.

  ‘Star shape behind’: L Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman – illustration opposite p195.

  ‘Wog’: Saint Hill Briefing Course-82 6611C29.

  ‘The production of plant mutations’: Bare-Faced Messiah, p305.

  ‘Mental therapy’: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/

  Shelf/anderson/index.html

  ‘The other cheek’: Believe What You Like, CH Rolph, Andre Deutsch, London, 1973. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/

  Shelf/rolph/chr06.htm. Rolph, an former police officer, wrote about the Church and gave the warning about fatuous credulity at the start of this book.

  ‘Or destroyed’: HCO Policy letter of 18 October 1967, LRH directed: ‘Enemy- SP Order. Fair Game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.’

  ‘In 1984…’ http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/

  a1/breckenridge-decision.html

  ‘His autopsy…’ http://www.xenu.net/archive/hubbardcoroner/

  hubbard_toxicology_report.jpg

  ‘Discarded
the body…’ http://www.xenu.net/archive/hubbardcoroner

  /hubbard_toxicology_report.jpg

  ‘Disgrace to the German nation’: http://www.xenu.net/archive/

  hubbardcoroner/hubbard_toxicology_report.jpg

  ‘We’ll get them to them last’: http://www.sptimes.com/

  TampaBay/102598/scientologypart4.html

  ‘Scientology is not a religion’:

  http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Library/start/

  cosfulldoc.pdf

  ‘Smart thing to do’: “Celebrities are very Special people and have a very distinct line of dissemination. They have comm [unication] lines that others do not have and many medias[sic] to get their dissemination through” L. Ron Hubbard, from Flag Order 3323, 9 May 1973 http://www.xenu.net/archive/celebrities/

  ‘Brief fling’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKYn5xAfHKQ

  ‘I don’t think Scientologists get a fair deal’: Why do I say these things? Jonathan Ross, Bantam Press, London, 2008, pp269–271.

  ‘What is brainwashing?’: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, first published in the USA, 1961. The page numbers I will refer to for this book are from the Lifton edition published by Pelican, London, 1967.

  ‘Supplicants and recruits’: Cults In Our Midst, Margaret Thaler Singer, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2003, pxii.

  ‘Eliminated’: Lifton, p482.

  ‘Posse of vindictive liars’: http://www.freedommag.org/

  special-reports/bbc/panorama-desperate-lies.html

  ‘Total villain’: http://gettothechoppa.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/john-sweeney-is-genuinely-evil/

  ‘Is not a cult’: Hansard, July 11, debate on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill; http://www.publications.parliament.uk/

  pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo050711/debtext/50711-

  29.htm#50711-29_spnew4

  ‘Hotly deny’: Vanity Fair: What Katie Didn’t Know by Maureen Orth, October, 2012.

  ‘I am the baddie.’ Panorama Exposed: http://www.freedommag.org/

  special-reports/bbc/panorama-exposed.html

  Chapter Two: What do my socks have to do with spiritual freedom?

  Panorama, 1987: ‘The Road to Total Freedom?’

  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3608301463793011770

  Chapter Three: Ill-met at midnight

  ‘The man in black is the Scientology cameraman’: http://

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R5KqNG9HLo

  ‘Now you listen to me’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?

  v=0HGM8DSnYh0

  Chapter Four: One man against the crowd

  ‘Cult Watch’: http://www.youtube.com watch?v=K4uwcB2uZBs

  ‘He is crazy’: A piece on Shawn in the St Petersburg Times by Robert Farley brilliantly captures his lonely courage – http://www.sptimes.com/2006/09/

  17/Floridian/Scientology_s_scourge.shtml

  ‘A singular American’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v

  =YDHXu1PjoRA

  Chapter Five: Your needle’s floating, Tom

  ‘An astonishingly successful drug therapy’: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/

  Stop-Narconon/sfusd-articles.html

  While checking a few details with Nanette Asimov over the phone in my study in 2012, Bertie, our dog, ate my dinner, a dish of microwaved lasagne. I report this to give readers a true flavour of the glamorous nature of investigative journalism.

  Charles Hendry MP on Narconon: http://www.publications.

  parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo050711/debtext/50711-29.htm#50711-29_spnew4

  Scientology confession: Abuse at the Top, Amy Scobee, Washington, 2010, p32.

  Hemet on Google Earth: dial in Golden Era Golf Course – and to the left Gold Base straddles Gilman Hot Springs road.

  The Church on Bruce Hines:

  http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/anti-religious-extremists/bruce-hines/

  Panorama in 1987 on David Miscavige: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65nU9YIizPM

  The Church on Tom DeVocht:

  http://www.freedommag.org/special-reports/cnn/tom-devocht-the-consummate-con-man.html

  Marc Headley’s book: Blown for Good: Behind The Iron Curtain of Scientology, BFG Books, LA, 2009.

  ‘Most disgusting experience’: Blown for Good: p231. The Church on Marc and Claire Headley: http://www.freedommag.org/special-reports/sources/mr-and-mrs-headley-anonymous.html

  The Church on Steve Hall: http://www.freedommag.org/special-reports/sources/steve-hall-the-man-who-tells-it-straight-from-the-straitjacket.html

  Amy Scobee’s book: Abuse At The Top

  http://www.amazon.com/Scientology-Abuse-Top-Amy-Scobee/dp/0692008012

  ‘Mind-glue’: Combating Cult Mind Control, by Steve Hassan, Park Street Press, Vermont, USA, 1988.

  The Church on Amy Scobee: http://www.freedommag.org/special-reports/cnn/amy-scobee-sex-lies-and-the-blogosphere.html

  Debbie Cook’s testimony: District Court, Bexar County, Texas, 9 February, 2012, CAUSE NO. 2012-CI-01272

  CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION, INC. v DEBRA J. BAUMGARTEN, AKA DEBBIE COOK BAUMGARTEN, AKA DEBBIE COOK, AND WAYNE BAUMGARTEN.

  http://markrathbun.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/

  baumgartendayone.pdf

  Lifton’s eight tests for brainwashing: Thought Reform, pages 477-497.

  Marty Rathbun’s blog: http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/

  The Church on Marty Rathbun:

  http://www.freedommag.org/special-reports/cnn/the-rathbun-family-madness-mayhem-and-mysterious-death.html

  Richard Behar’s report in Time Magazine, 1991: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/time-behar.html

  Amy Scobee’s book on abuse of confession: Abuse at the Top, p80, p121

  Chapter Six: This is the word of the Church of Scientology

  On Eugene Ingram: http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/ingram.htm

  Brent Sampson: http://www.webpronews.com/navigating-the-amazon-sales-ranking-2006-06

  Scientology speak: easily the best glossary of Scientology terms is available here: http://www.xenu-directory.net/glossary/glossary_a.htm#A

  Hubbard on Dead agenting: L. Ron Hubbard, Board Policy Letter, PR Series 24: Handling Hostile Contacts/Dead Agenting, May 30, 1974.

  Cults In Our Midst, Margaret Thaler Singer, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2003

  For more on Singer, she was a former board member of the Rick Ross Institute: http://www.rickross.com/groups/singer.html

  Press archive on Singer: http://www.csj.org/infoserv_profile

  /singer_margaret.htm

  Chapter Seven: Do I look brainwashed to you?

  For the Church’s take on my interviews with the celebrities, watch:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3ecx_6xOaU

  Chapter Eight: They want you to be afraid

  Rick Ross: http://www.rickross.com/

  The Church on Rick Ross:

  http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/religious-experts/false-experts/rick-ross/mental-instability/

  Chapter Nine: The Industry of Death

  ‘They lie so truly’: Lifton, p169.

  ‘Extortion, mayhem and murder’: http://freedom.lronhubbard.

  org/page080.htm

  Harold Wilson and the psychs: http://solitarytrees

  .net.silver.alphamegahosting.com/cowen/misc/psywar.htm

  William Battie: ‘Treatise on Madness’: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F6JbAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&re

  dir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

  George III and the Mad-Business by Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter, London, Allen Lane, 1969. The authors were mother and son, and psychiatrists, and the grandmother and father of the publisher of this book, Humfrey Hunter, an accident of history I only learned this summer. Their book was turned into a play and then a film by Alan Bennett.

  On Benjamin Rush, see Brodsky, Alyn. Benjamin Rush: Patriot and Physician. New York: Truman Talley Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2004.

  The Church is also a dark critic of the pharmace
utical industry. But you can be that, and not be a Scientologist. See Ben Goldacre’s excellent Bad Pharma: How drugs companies mislead doctors and harm patients, Fourth Estate, London, 2012.

  For more on Rivers, read Arthur Anderson, 25 March 2006:

  Anxiety and Panic History, 1900-1930 and Judith Herman, MD, “Trauma and Recovery; The aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror,” BasicBooks, New York, NY, 1997

  On the Church’s operation against Paulette Cooper, see:

  http://www.holysmoke.org/pc/pcof1.htm

  Chapter Ten: The Tethered Goat

  http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Fishman/time-behar.html

  The Church v Channel Four: see

  http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/focus-why-channel-4-is-haunted-by-scientology-1293089.html

  http://www.lermanet.com/persecution/tv4harrass.html

  Gumbel on the Industry of Death:

  http://web.archive.org/web/20060427102908/http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3137&IssueNum=136

  Chapter Eleven: The Concrete Angel

  The Church on Jeff Hawkins:

  http://www.freedommag.org/special-reports/cnn/jeff-hawkins-sympathy-for-the-devil.html

  See Counterfeit Dreams by Jeff Hawkins, 2010. http://www.

  amazon.co.uk/Counterfeit-Dreams-ebook/dp/B008228CX0

  Chapter Twelve: You Suck Cock On Hollywood Boulevard

  The pooch that can detect an overt: Miller, p456.

  Chapter Thirteen: Is There Anybody There?

  Lifton’s preface to Singer’s book: Singer, pxii

  The Church on Tory Christman:

  http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/anti-religious-extremists/tory-christman/

  Chapter Fourteen: Panorama Exposed

  The Church’s filming of the Wild Hogs premiere:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80sxnBfja9M

  The Church’s clip of me going tomato: