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From this secondhand knowledge, Hubbard saw the need for creating a special vocabulary, which would allow him to define old thoughts in new ways (the soul becomes a thetan, for instance); or invent new words, such as “enturbulate” (confuse) and “hatting” (training); or use words and phrases in a novel manner, such as turning adjectives or verbs into nouns, or vice versa (“an overt,” “a static,” “alter-isness”); plus a Pentagon-level glut of acronyms—all of which would entrap his followers in a self-referential semantic labyrinth.
“However many billions America spends yearly on institutions for the insane and jails for the criminals are spent primarily because of attempted abortions done by some sex-blocked mother to whom children are a curse, not a blessing of God.”
The fields of psychotherapy and religion have bled into each other on many occasions.
For both the shaman and the schizophrenic, the boundaries between reality and illusion are soft, and consciousness slips easily from one to the other.
It was a matter of puzzlement to Hubbard’s closest associates, given Hubbard’s disparagement of homosexuals in his books, that he would enlist a person to serve as the church’s representative who was obviously gay. “He was very pronounced in his affect,” one of Hubbard’s medical officers remembered. But Hubbard’s relationship to homosexuality was apparently more complicated in life than in theory.
He felt a kinship with the republic’s dashing and flamboyant founder, Cecil John Rhodes, who also had red hair and a taste for swashbuckling adventure. Hubbard believed he might have been Rhodes in a previous life, although it’s unclear whether he knew that Rhodes was homosexual.
Nothing in American history can compare with the scale of the domestic espionage of Operation Snow White.
There are further questions asking if the respondent has ever sold drugs, committed adultery, practiced homosexuality, had sex with a family member or a person of another race.
Kelly Preston has promoted Narconon in her native Hawaii. “Starting in the schools, we’ve delivered to over ten thousand different kids,” she said.
She was one of nine Scientologists who had died under mysterious circumstances at the Clearwater facility.
Inspired by a new sense of activism, a group of Scientology actors turned against Milton Katselas, the gray eminence of the Beverly Hills Playhouse.
The long line of protégés that Katselas left behind cemented the association between the church and the Hollywood acting community, but in the end he was ostracized by the very people whose careers he had nurtured.
In 2009, Nancy Cartwright’s fiancé, Stephen E. Brackett, a contractor, had taken a substantial construction advance to renovate a restaurant. The company that insured the project later sued Cartwright, claiming that she and Brackett had diverted the money to the Church of Scientology. Brackett, an OT V, had been featured in a church ad for the Super Power Building, identified as a “key contributor.” “Mankind needs your help,” Brackett was quoted as saying in the ad. He later took his life by jumping off a bridge on Pacific Coast Highway near Big Sur.
She was told she would be on the ship for two weeks. She was held there against her will for twelve years.
Miscavige called Cruise “the most dedicated Scientologist I know” before an audience of Sea Org members who had spent much of their lives working for the church for a little more than seven dollars a day. Then he hung the diamond-encrusted platinum medallion around the star’s neck.
she burned her eyes because she wasn’t wearing the protective glasses correctly. She got no medical attention at all.
McKinstry was dismayed when he went to a screening of the movie and watched people walking out or booing. His wife could see that he was upset and asked what was wrong. “Why didn’t anyone watch this movie before it was released?” he said. She reported to the church what he had said, and he was ordered to RPF.
At the dinner, Lauren talked about her friendship with Katy, and how she had decided to break off their relationship when Katy said she was a lesbian. Naz was shocked, not just by the comment but by the fact that everyone agreed with her decision.
With his characteristic intensity, Cruise himself later explained the seriousness of the situation: “You don’t get it. It goes like this.” He raised his hand over his head. “First, there’s LRH.” He moved his hand down a few inches. “Then, there is COB.” Bringing his hand down to his own eye level, he said, “Then there’s me.”
Other actresses were invited to the Celebrity Centre to audition for what they believed was a role in the Mission: Impossible series. The names included Kate Bosworth, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Scarlett Johansson—and Katie Holmes.
“No, you see, here’s the problem,” Cruise said. “You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.”
“Matt, Matt, Matt, you don’t even—you’re glib. You don’t even know what Ritalin is.”
There are numerous examples of Scientologists who have considered or actually committed suicide, or engaged in violence, who might have been helped if they had taken psychotropic medicines.
In 2007, Kyle Brennan, twenty years old, who was not a Scientologist, went to stay with his father, a member of the church, in Clearwater. Brennan was taking Lexapro, an antidepressant heavily promoted by its manufacturer, Forest Laboratories. He was also under the care of a psychiatrist. According to court records, Brennan’s father, Thomas, was ordered to “handle” his son. Thomas Brennan’s auditor was Denise Miscavige Gentile, David Miscavige’s twin sister. She spoke on the phone to Kyle’s mother, who was not a Scientologist, and urged her to enroll her son in Narconon, the church’s
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Tragedies such as the suicide of Kyle Brennan demonstrate the danger of dogmatic interpretations of psychiatry, such as those offered by Tom Cruise and other Scientology celebrities on the subject. The American Psychiatric Association felt so threatened by Cruise’s statements on the Today show that the president of the organization issued a statement affirming that mental illnesses are real medical conditions.
A. O. Scott, who reviewed it for The New York Times, was less infatuated. It was a “frustrating movie,” he wrote, “full of heart and devoid of life; crudely manipulative when it tries hardest to be subtle; and profoundly complacent in spite of its intention to unsettle and disturb.”
IN JUNE 2006, Shelly Miscavige disappeared.
One of the guests referred to the waiter as a faggot. It is difficult to imagine such open bigotry in Hollywood, a liberal stronghold, but especially in the home of John Travolta, who has dodged rumors of his sexual orientation since he first became a star.
it is also common to assume that homosexuality is handled at the OT III level, where the body thetans that cause such problems can be audited away.
Travolta reprimanded his guest, saying that such remarks were not tolerated in their home.
“The sudden and abrupt deletion of all individuals occupying the lower bands of the Tone Scale from the social order would result in an almost instant rise in the cultural tone and would interrupt the dwindling spiral into which any society may have entered.”
Two years later, when social attitudes toward gays were slowly changing, he declared, “It has never been any part of my plans to regulate or attempt to regulate the private lives of individuals.”
What is so striking about Haggis’s investigation is that few prominent figures attached to the Church of Scientology have actually looked into the charges that have surrounded their institution for many years.
Dan Sherman, the church’s official Hubbard biographer and Miscavige’s speechwriter, recounted a scene in which he observed Miscavige talking to an injured sparrow. “It was immensely tender,” Sherman told the reporters.
Now the star had a favor to ask. He wanted to gather a group of top Scientologists in Hollywood—Kirstie Alley, Anne Archer, and Haggis—to go on Oprah or Larry King Live to denounce the attacks on Cruise as religious persecution.
He also advised the star to have a sense of humor about himself—something that is often lacking in Scientology.
“Look at Martin Luther King, Jr.,” he said, referring to one of his heroes. “If you look at his personal life, it’s been said he has a few problems in that area.” “How dare you compare Dave Miscavige with Martin Luther King!” one of the officials shouted. Haggis was aghast. “They thought that comparing Miscavige to Martin Luther King was debasing his character,” he said. “If they were trying to convince me that Scientology was not a cult, they did a very poor job of it.”
In about 1994, he was involved in an embarrassing cover-up when a well-known spokesperson for the church was captured in a video having sex with several other men. Amy Scobee says that church executives were frantic that their spokesperson would be exposed as being gay.
And the reason you kept repeating it is ’cause you wanted a reaction like you’re getting right now. Well, buddy, you got it! Right here, right now, I’m angry! Real angry!”
(The book reveals that Heinlein’s second wife, Leslyn, had an affair with Hubbard. Interestingly, given Hubbard’s condemnation of homosexuality, the wife charged that Heinlein had as well.)
“The extent to which the references to homosexuality have changed are because of mistaken dictation?” I asked. “No, because of the insertion, I guess, of somebody who was a bigot,” Davis replied. “The point is, it wasn’t Mr. Hubbard.” “Somebody put the material in those—” “I can only imagine,” Davis said, cutting me off. “Who would have done it?” “I have no idea.”
“Yeah, I can only assume that’s what happened,” Davis said. “And by the way,” he added, referring to Quentin Hubbard, “his son’s not gay.”
I believe everyone on The New Yorker side of the table was taken aback by this daring equation, one that seemed not only fair but testable.
In the 1980s, Prouty worked as a consultant for Scientology and was a frequent contributor to Freedom magazine.
There is a Notice of Separation in the official records, but it is not the one Davis sent me. The differences in the two documents are telling.
Eric Voelz and William Seibert, two longtime archivists at the St. Louis facility, examined the church’s document and pronounced it a forgery.
A few months after this meeting, Davis and Feshbach stopped representing Scientology, even though they continued to be listed as the top spokespeople on the church website. Rumor from former members is that Davis blew but was recovered and once again subjected to sec-checking. Then Feshbach became seriously ill. According to the church, they are on a leave of absence from the Sea Org for medical reasons. They are now living in Texas. When I last spoke to Davis, he said, “I think you should know my allegiances haven’t changed—at all.” He added: “I don’t have to answer your questions anymore.”
In much of the world, this religion, which was once tormented because of its perceived anti-American values, is now thought of as being the most American of religions; indeed, that’s how many Mormons think of it as well. It is a measure not only of the religion’s success but also of the ability of a faith to adapt and change.
In 1966, the Joseph Smith papyri were discovered in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was soon shown that the passages that Smith “translated” were common funerary documents with no reference to Abraham or Joseph whatsoever. This fraud has been known for decades, but it has made little difference in the growth of the religion or the devotion of its adherents.
The Amish suffer none of the social opprobrium that Scientologists must endure; indeed, they are generally treated like beloved endangered animals, coddled by their neighbors and smiled upon by society. And yet they are highly schismatic, willing to break off all relations with their dearest relatives on what would seem to an outsider to be an inane point of doctrine or even the question of whether one can allow eaves on a house or pictures on a wall.
