Back in the Celebrity Centre I asked a question.
‘That’s insane,’ said Tommy.
‘That is nuts,’ said Mike.
‘That is insane,’ repeated Tommy.
I tried to think of putting what Bruce Hines had told me about David Miscavige in the most diplomatic way I could think of. ‘He’s a thug,’ I said, ‘going around hitting people?’
‘OK, good,’ said Tommy. ‘You broadcast that you’re going to suffer the consequences because it’s a gross, gross lie. And every time you come up with these lies I put you on warning and it’s on tape.’
Could I interview Mr Miscavige? I asked, expecting the answer no.
Mike started talking, a rare event: ‘John, that’s the same allegation that they made in the 1987 Panorama programme, that took those allegations and laid them all out… Everyone on them was found completely and utterly not just untrue, totally without basis. The court threw that complaint out, the…’
Which complaint?
‘The complaint that was the subject…’ Mike was interrupted.
‘From the 1987 Panorama show that you seem to be patterning this show after,’ said Tommy.
‘…it was exactly the same pattern,’ continued Mike, ‘there is a bunch of people who have these wild, outrageous, untrue allegations…’
‘They found…’ said Tommy.
‘…comes along and says well, let’s hear what you have to say…’ said Mike.
‘And it’s thrown out,’ said Tommy, ‘and found to be frivolous, after five, it was thrown out five times!’
Did the BBC apologise, I asked.
‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘even after the Internal Revenue Service investigated every single allegation made in that show there were all found to be unfounded and not true.’
I do not believe, I said, that the Internal Revenue Service of America has got any regulatory role whatsoever to do with the BBC, so that programme stood.
‘We’re not talking about regulatory role,’ said Mike.
‘We’re talking about the facts,’ said Tommy.
I get the point, I said.
‘The facts are…’ said Tommy.
So, no, the facts are… The fact was we were talking over each other.
‘Wait, wait, so the point you…’ said Tommy.
So David Miscavage is not a bully, I wondered, nonchalantly.
‘Absolutely not!’ said Tommy.
He doesn’t hit people? I asked.
‘Unequivocally not,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ve never seen him engage in any behaviour that could be remotely characterised as such, it’s a bald-faced lie!’
Are you sure? I asked.
‘One hundred percent! Without question. I have no doubt whatsoever. He’s a personal friend of mine, I’ve known him for 16 years, I’ve worked with him closely for many and most of those years as has Mike and we know him and we couldn’t even begin to conceive of anything that even remotely resemble what you’ve just described. It’s such a disgusting mischaracterisation.’
He never hit Bruce Hines?
‘Absolutely not, he’s never hit anybody. Did Bruce tell you that?’
Tommy and Mike, according to Sci’gy-Leaks, knew full well that I’d spent time with Bruce Hines but I did not know that they knew. But Bruce had been happy to talk to us in public on camera so it was not a secret so I said: yes.
‘Bruce Hines told you that?’
Yes.
‘This is the Donna Shannon syndrome,’ chipped in Mike.
Tell me about Bruce Hines. Is he a nice man? I asked.
They told me he was removed from the Church for gross dereliction of duty.
Bruce said there were a number of reasons why he left the church of his own volition, I said. One was that he had problems after falling out with Tom Cruise because it took him too long to say “your needle’s floating, Tom”.
‘He never knew Tom Cruise, he’s never met Tom Cruise,’ said Tommy.
He has met Tom Cruise, he told me, I said.
‘Oh really? Oh really? OK, good,’ said Tommy.
You don’t believe him?
‘It’s not a question of believing him,’ said Tommy. ‘He’s just lying. I know it’s not true.’
OK, I said. Bruce also said that Mr Miscavige fell out with him, Mr Miscavige came into the room and said ‘where is the motherfucker?’ and then hit him. That’s what he says.
‘You know John…’ started Mike
Is that true? I asked.
‘No,’ said Mike, ‘that’s a lie and I know that it’s a lie because I was already with Bruce Hines once before when I was on the TV show where that was brought up and similar type allegations were made and I asked Mr Miscavage. He never had that conversation, that incident, that run-in, whatever Bruce Hines claims, it never occurred. Now you think that this is very strange, this is what we are telling you John, we have seen these people for years, I have heard the most outrageous outlandish statements about myself, things I supposedly did that never happened, ever, ever happened and they will just make them up because what’s the downside for someone like that? To make statements like that. What, are they going to get sued?’
That was probably the most thorough denial of an allegation I had ever heard. We carried on like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, for a bit, trying to bash each other’s brains out, verbally I hasten to add, then Tommy introduced me to his mother.
I sat down opposite Anne Archer. Apart from having her bunny boiled in ‘Fatal Attraction’, Anne has appeared in the films ‘Patriot Games’ and ‘Clear and Present Danger’, and on TV in Little House on the Prairie, Falcon Crest and Hawaii Five-0. Outside, the Californian sun did its duty, but its light was shrouded by lace-effect drapes. She took one look at me and shuddered, a medieval martyr, about to be tormented by a witch-finder wielding a ret-hot poker. Or something like that. All of the celebrity interviewees the Church presented for me to interview were, as far as we were concerned, volunteers. They did not have to talk to me but elected to do so.
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.’
‘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.’
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.
I don’t think I am brainwashed, I said, weakly. I went on to say that was because my mind is open to stuff, for example, I read the internet, blah blah.
‘It is not that I am not open to criticism,’ she said. ‘It is that there is so much crap in the world, why would I want to open myself up to being in a bad mood or why would I want to open myself up to reading nasty stuff about something that has helped me? We are not hurting anybody, we are doing just the opposite. We are helping people.’
Some people say that is not true.
‘Well, that is bullshit, Baby-doll,’ – I do wish she hadn’t called me that.
She spoke about the success of Narconon, Scientology’s drug treatment programme questioned by the doctors in San Francisco, and defended the Church to the utmost: ‘We really don’t give a crap. We know that we are helping people. Do you understand what I am saying to you? You don’t have to say it is a brainwashing cult. Is there any other religion that would put up with this kind of talk? This kind of bigotry.’
I queried the number of Scientologists the Church claims, worldwide: 10 million people. I’ve looked through the windows of more Church of Scientology buildings than anyone else I know, and they always seem empty: a few souls, workers, hanging around the entrance. But no flood of people, coming to and fro.
‘OK, there isn’t 10 million in the building.’
I still looked sceptical.
‘Oh, you caught us, you know, it’s nine [million].’
She was playing with me. We batted on for a bit.
One last question, I said.
‘OK, make it good. You haven’t even got me riled up yet.’
I am not here to rile people up.
‘I thought you were a little spicier,’ she was taunting me.
I am very tame, I said. What is your view of L Ron Hubbard?
‘As a man who cares. A man who cared about mankind. He has given me a gift.’
We carried on some more. I mentioned the c-word and she cut in, gently: ‘Stop calling it a cult, it is just not nice. It is disrespectful you know.’
But they say it is, I said.
‘I hear what you are saying. But as a journalist and as an Englishman I think it would do you better to stop using that word. It is just disrespectful. I would never say it to somebody. I would just hope that we as human beings would respect each other’s beliefs. And it is just not something to say over and over again and it just pushes someone’s buttons and that is really not the purpose of doing an interview.’
It is a criticism that the Church of Scientology does not want made, I said. It is a word you don’t want the word used.
‘Baby, it is not that. It is just about respect. You can call it whatever the hell you want. I personally don’t give a shit. But what I am saying is it is about a respect. I would never say that to another person.’
Leah Rimini was the most subtle defender of the Church of Scientology I met.
They had filmed us continually. Mole, Bill and I were desperate to have some time to think alone, to work things out, to process stuff. But they never gave us a break. Somewhere in a gap between interviewees I set off towards the loo, but signalled for Bill and Mole to come with me. I sat down on the toilet seat and Bill and Mole crammed into the rest of the loo. Bill framed me perfectly, looking up from the toilet seat, whispering in fear, directly into the camera: ‘We’re just having an editorial conference in the loo because it’s the only place where we can escape from them.’
That’s all I had time to say because Tommy had sniffed us out: ‘Are you guys OK in there?’ He was up against the door, the proximity of his voice adding an extra dimension to our sense of dread. It was as if we were in ‘Jurassic Park’ when the Velociraptor sniffs out the humans hiding in the kitchen.
‘Yes,’ I replied, quietly despairing.
‘All three of you in the bathroom together?’ To say his tone was mocking was an understatement. ‘Is this like BBC policy or something?’
‘It’s a BBC requirement,’ I said, po-faced. The Church of Scientology is the Church that hunts you down, even on the toilet. And then it was back to work.
Five million dollars is a bob or two in anyone’s language. That’s reportedly what Kirstie Alley gave to the Church of Scientology in 2007, the very same year I interviewed her at the Church’s Celebrity Centre. Five minutes was the time, off-camera, Tommy said I could have with her. Kirstie sat down in the ‘are you a member of a brain-washing cult?’ hot seat opposite me, and treated me to a look of amused contempt, a tigress surveying a mouse dropping. She has a $1.5m waterfront property in Clearwater. Her fame rests on the hit TV series, Cheers, set in a bar in Boston. She is a big woman with big hair and big attitude and, had I encountered her in a different setting, we may have become big friends. But not that day.
Is Scientology a force for good? Or a brainwashing cult?
Her snort of derision could have been heard in Moosejaw, which I suspect is somewhere far away from Florida. ‘I am just so glad you are asking me something other than why do I get so fat?’ (The American media are obsessed with Kirstie’s weight, which yo-yos around somewhat.) ‘So I am glad you are asking me about religion. Here is the deal. I chose my religion because for me it gives me the most workable tools to handle life.’
The critics say that if you are a practising Scientologist then you must be brainwashed?
Enter the Nazis. ‘They assassinated millions of Jews, and their view was that these Jews had horns, they told their children they have horns, they are spawns of the devil. And they created such chaos, and such hatred and such fear that camps were actually built to murder millions of people. So what a human society can do when it is under fear is mind-boggling…’
Fair enough. From there, she changed tack: ‘People have the right to believe what they want to believe. And no matter how much you persecute them, no matter how much you beat them into submission, they will not give up what it is innately true to them.’
People who have been in Scientology say that there are effectively dungeons of the mind, I said, places where people that have annoyed the management, David Miscavige…
‘…People say there are Martians. Look, I am the tabloid queen. It is….
It is not true, I asked?
‘That there are no Martians?’
That Scientology has got punishment camps?
‘John, I can’t take you seriously…’
That is just not true, you have never heard of it?
‘To my knowledge it is not true, but I can’t take you seriously. It is like me asking you when was the last time you saw a Martian. Because I know some people in Oklahoma who told me they see Martians in their backyard. And there are those people. Not all Okeys.’
Kirstie is originally from Kansas, immediately due north of Oklahoma. I’m guessing, but presumably Okeys are a byword for credulity and foolishness in Kansas.
Let’s talk about aliens, I said. Her first film role back in 1982 was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, playing the half-Vulcan/half-Romulan Starfleet officer Lieutenant Saavika, but that wasn’t what was on my mind.
Which level are you on?
‘Scientology level or which alien level?’
Operating Thetan…?
‘Thetan… Does the audience know what Thetan means? Because it means a spirit.’
I am worried that we have only got five minutes, I said. So Operating Thetan…?
‘You are not really worried, we can help you with your anxiety.’
Thank you. What level are you?
‘I am on OT7, which is an upper level in Scientology.’
So let’s talk about aliens, I said. Is it true that Scientologists are told at OT3 that Xenu, the galactic warlord banished souls, alien souls, banished them to earth and then blew them up next to volcanoes?
‘That would be not true, John, that would be not true. Now I have heard other interviews because I have been sitting upstairs and everyone has told you that is not true.’
It was good of Kirstie to confirm that the celebrities had been able to watch the previous interviews. Nothing wrong with that, but until now, no-one had explained that was what was going on.
Kirstie continued, echoing my question: ‘“But is it true?” This is what I am asking you, this is why I find this fascinating. You guys as journalists keep doing the same story. You have the same ten Scientology defectors and I know their names. They are like the ten Scientology celebrity defectors. They run around the world, they probably make money off it, they certainly get all the attention that they would ever get in their life off it. It is not like there is millions…’
What is not true?
‘It’s not true. I have already told you it is not true. Leah told you it is not true. Every person is telling you it is not true. Do you still beat your wife, John? Do you still believe in aliens? Do you still keep slaves in your basement, John? Because I heard people say you do. It is not hard to poison people’s minds and make them afraid of things. It is the easiest thing in the world. And as far as religion goes it is the super, the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is to say something sort of freaky about somebody’s religion and suddenly you can get people up in arms, oh my God, we are so fearful. And then you have things happen like the Holocaust.’
I had, if you recall, asked her a question about Lord Xenu. With great energy and passion, Kirstie seemed to me to be suggesting that I might have a penchant for singing the Horst Vessel song and heel-clicking my shiny black boots. I don’t think being sceptical about Xenu makes me a Nazi, but that seemed to be the implication. Still, she was on a roll.
‘…I could go on and on about religion through history and show you where people like to incite fear so that people will attack. So I can’t say that I see that you are doing anything other than trying to incite fear. Because if you wanted a real story, that’s Scientology. Look if I wanted a real story about what Christianity was, I would read the Bible. And then I would go talk to ministers, and I would talk to parishioners. I would not go interview Judas.’
Well, I would you see, I said. Because it [an interview with Judas – Why I Betrayed My Friend Jesus] is a good story.
Tommy: ‘Seven minutes.’
Kirstie: (to Tommy) ‘I’m fine.’ She turned her attention back to me: ‘It is not a good story, John. I tell you what, a thousand people have done it.’
I would interview Judas.
‘You might and you might fall in love with Judas but if you want to find the upside of Judas, would you be trying to find the upside of Judas because he doesn’t exist.’
Never mind Judas, I said, thoroughly confused. I would like to interview David Miscavige. You are an actress. You are happy to talk to me. Why can’t the leader of Scientology talk to a journalist on camera. Not since 1992?
‘Because they see crazy things like you. You may not be a bigot but the question is, would you ever ask a Jewish person, would you ever sit with a Jew and say what was…?’ We were talking over each other.
‘… less than half a century ago there was a whole group of people and you would have been over there interviewing. Right now, you would be researching the Nazis to find out about Judaism instead of reading the Torah.’
Are you saying that I am an equivalent of…
‘I am saying you are the equivalent of a bigot yes. Because this is what bigots do.’
Are you calling me a Nazi?
‘I am calling you a bigot. Did you not hear me? I am calling you a bigot. You are a bigot. Would you ever sit with a Jew and tell them that their religion was a cult?’
She sounded very angry. I did not raise my voice, but I found what she seemed to be implying offensive.
No.
‘Why?’
Because Judaism, I said, is bigger than that.
I went on to raise with Kirstie the case of the Kabbalah Centre, which critics say is a sinister religious cult, a kind of ‘Jewish Scientology’, a charge it strongly denies. Kabbalah’s most famous adherent is Madonna. In 2005 a TV investigation found the Kabbalah Centre selling Zohar books and bottled water at very high prices. They claimed they could cure cancer with their water. One undercover investigator was told how the Kabbalah water worked, with a devotee explaining: ‘We start with the purest artesian water and then we do the various meditations, injecting energy into it.’ The Kabbalah Centre website explained that a process called Quantum Resonance Technology ‘restructures the intermolecular binding of spring water’. The investigation discovered the water actually comes from CJC Bottling, a bottling plant in Ontario, Canada, which was the subject of a public health investigation in 2002 into how its water was tested. CJC was ordered to improve manufacturing techniques, though there was no suggestion that they ever sold polluted water. The investigation was shown in a BBC documentary called Sweeney Investigates: The Kabbalah Centre, directed by Nobel prize nominee Callum Macrae. One of our undercover investigators was Mole, allowing me to broadcast the following line: ‘so we decided to send in a Mole…’
I left all of that out, but I did put to Kirstie that the Kabbalah Centre was, its critics said, a cult.
‘I am not a Kabbalist,’ she said, ‘but I can tell you it is not, and I can tell you some of the finest people I know are Kabbalists. So why do you think it is a story? Journalism isn’t about the finding the most hideous things in life. You should go to prison,’ – I guess that was a verbal slip – ‘you should go into a prison and you should interview people of different religions and ask them if they have anything to do with why they are in prison, that would be a better story.’
My job is to ask questions, I said. People who spent many years of their lives in Scientology have told me that it is a rip-off, it tells people rubbish and it warps their minds.
‘Are you really concerned about that, does that bother you?’
And I am asking you as a public face of Scientology why is it that the leader of Scientology, David Miscavige is so terrified of that question that he won’t give an interview?
‘See the way you say this, this is how bigots…’
It is a question, I said.
‘No, it isn’t a question. It is like: “do you still beat your wife?” Listen John, “I know that you molested children for three years, is that still going on?” Is that a question? No. It is a loaded gun, and you know exactly what you are doing.’
The argy-bargy continued. We did brainwashing cult; Miscavige’s reluctance to be interviewed and then we got onto the Scientology critic with the sign in Florida.
What is his name, I asked her.
‘The guy from Clearwater? Dennis…’
She had not been paying proper attention. No, I was thinking of Shawn. It was like a mad, mad parlour game.
Why are you so terrified of criticism, I asked?
‘Do I look terrified to you?’
She did not. I had meant the Church as a whole, but never mind.
We did the Church’s Volunteer Ministers at Hurricane Katrina, her admiration for British people, the BBC and The Vicar of Dibley – she was prepping up to do the American version of the BBC comedy about an Anglican woman vicar; the series was never broadcast – and then it was back to me: ‘talk about immoral, and talk about creepy…this is creepy.’
Talk about creepy? I hadn’t talked about creepy with Kirstie at all. The last mention of the word ‘creepy’, I think, had occurred much earlier when I had challenged Tommy about the car chase and he had flung the ‘creepy’ word back at me. Kirstie could only have picked up on ‘talk about creepy’ from the celebrity real-time screening upstairs, so when Tommy had a go at me earlier he was very much on display mode. At the time I was so punch-drunk I didn’t properly understand the game they were playing with me and just carried on.
OK, I said. What is the RPF?
‘I don’t know.’
You haven’t heard of it? Do you use the internet?
‘No, I don’t because I am a little bit stupid on the internet. I am a little bit in the 1940s. I can’t do the internet.’
Had I known about it then, I would have ticked Lifton’s test number one for information control.
We did Narconon; she thought it was great and had seen the real effect it had on improving people’s lives; I reported what the doubting doctor had told me, that heroin was not fat-soluble, that there was no scientific basis to Narconon’s claims. Then we discussed the founder of the Church. To Kirstie, Mr Hubbard was ‘a very intelligent man who really cared a lot about mankind and really wanted to help people and I believe that his goals were, which are the goals of the Church of Scientology, a world without insanity, a world without criminality, and a world without war.’
There is stuff on the internet…
‘I am not on the internet, John remember?’
Scientology in my experience, I told her, is the first ever ‘religion’ that I have ever dealt with which the moment I am talking to a critic rushes out, finds me, hands over a copy of a criminal record. The Church of Scientology seems to be uniquely a religion – or it claims to be a religion – that is so incredibly damning of people who criticise it.
‘Where did you get that?’
My own observation.
‘Your own observation. I am probably damning of you because you are calling it a cult. You are doing nice polite things like calling it a cult, money-mongering, I don’t remember your other terminology. You have called me brainwashed. So am I supposed to sit here with manners? I don’t know, do brainwashed people behave like this? I always thought that brainwashed people behaved like sort of like zombies. That’s what I thought. Because I thought actually if you read that research on brainwashing which they used during wars, they deprive people of sleep, food and they administer torture. Isn’t that how you brainwash somebody?’
And that is exactly what some ex-Scientologists say happened to them inside Scientology.
‘Is it possible that those ten people who do this as a living, is it possible that they are the nuts? And not the millions of people who just go on about their lives and try and do better in their lives and then the ten dudes are the weird asses? Isn’t that possible?’
Yes, it is possible. So if that is possible, then why spend so much energy attacking them?
‘I don’t spend one ounce of time in my life attacking or vilifying them. You are doing a show for the BBC. If this shows airs in front of millions of people, so if you decide to take a slant which I think you already have that this is a whatever it is, a mind-warping thing that you have got going, I would just love the opportunity to say to the British people y’know that is not me, and if you care to know about my religion, read a damn book, read a book. That will teach you what Scientology is and you can decide to do it or not do it, I don’t care.’
I brought up Xenu, again.
‘The guys that are telling you these crazy alien things, they are nuts. Do you think the guys who see the aliens in their backyard… Look, John, I wish there were aliens. I wish we had an ET or two around. I would hope that some place in all of the stars and all of the planets and all the galaxies there is some other form of life, because we are destroying this planet. And I would love to have another planet to go to.’
Money came up. It is a pay as you go religion?
‘No. You can do a lot of things in Scientology for free. You can’t build churches for free. And I don’t know any other religion where you can. Do you?’
The difference is that say, for example, Christianity, the scriptures are open and freely available. Not with yours. Your religion is different.
‘I don’t know that Christianity that they are all open and available. I don’t know that.’
The bible is.
If you don’t hand over the cash, you don’t get to know, you don’t go up a level?
‘That is a lie… You are so loving the gossip and the bad news and the creepy little things of life, don’t you? It makes me wonder about you personally because you love such creepy little creepy things that I wonder what you are up to really on your weekend off.’
Her implication hinted at some inner darkness I might possess. On my weekend off, I go to the pub, walk the dog, watch Dr Who, spend time with my family, snooze over the Sunday papers, go to the pub.
Why should the rest of the world think that Scientology is a religion, I asked?
‘Because the IRS does.’
The American tax man?
‘Because it acknowledges the religion in most countries in the world. Because it deals with the spiritual being, because it deals with the here and now and the hereafter and faith, I don’t know. I think that is the definition of a religion, John. So I think it is a religion. It doesn’t have one element to it that does not make it a religion.’
Then the tape ran out. Alleluia. The interview with Kirstie was supposed to have lasted five minutes. It felt like five years.
They fielded four more celebrity Scientologists that day, Megan Shields, Bob Adams, Bobby Wiggins and Michael Duff, none of whom I’d ever heard of, all of whom said nothing different in substance from what Anne, Leah and Kirstie had told me. It was as if I had spoken to not Scientology’s Magnificent Seven but one person alone.
Of the four also-rans Bobby Wiggins stood out a bit as an expert on Narconon. He asked me whether I had any problems with addictive drugs. I told him alcohol. Knowing how the Church works, I reckoned that telling them something everyone who knows me knows was the better policy than absolute denial or a blank refusal to discuss the matter. He suggested I take up Narconon to solve my problems with alcohol, advice which, I fear, I have yet to heed.
Interviews over, it was time to get out of there. It wasn’t just a question of feeling mentally exhausted, although I was, deeply. There was an extra dimension to how I felt, a kind of spiritual exhaustion, too. My soul, if I have one, was burnt out. Tommy had different ideas. He launched at me, yet again: ‘And that you sit in this room across from these esteemed women and treat them disgustingly.’
‘I don’t think you understand the nature of journalism, with respect,’ I said.
‘No, no, no. I understand the nature of you as a person.’
‘Very good, thank you,’ I said.
‘You have no objectivity whatsoever - zero. Because Shawn Lonsdale, convicted sexual pervert, is your pal that you are chauffering around Clearwater?’
I told Tommy that Shawn was not my pal. He attacked me for asking the interviewees whether they were in a brainwashing cult. I told him that I am a reporter, and we interview people who are critical of things, and I will talk to anybody on the planet about anything if I think it necessary.
‘Have I ever complained about you talking to them?’ asked Tommy with a mind-warping lack of self-knowledge. He had done nothing but complain about them.
He told me that I had been far more ‘lenient and forgiving’ with Shawn than with their celebrities. I batted that away politely, and told him, yet again, that we were making our film on our terms.
‘No, you are making this film with no objectivity, from a bigoted, slanted, pre-conceived already determined idea of exactly how it is going to go because you decided what Scientology was the day, long before you ever even called us.’
‘OK, that’s it. We need to go.’
As we took the lift down – I can’t be sure this happened at this moment or another time at the Celebrity Centre – Tommy carried the camera tripod. In the lift, with no cameras running, he was charming, polite, chatty, convivial. The switch from Tommy Nasty, ranting, preposterously in-yer-face thug, to Tommy Nice, was mind-bending. Is this the same person? Am I really seeing this? Is this happening? Am I going mad?
We got in our car and drove away. One block, two blocks, three, four, five. And then I started to scream, a long roar of frustration, fuelled by fear that I was losing my grip on reality. Collectively and cumulatively, they were doing my head in.
And them? How had our day at the Celebrity Centre gone for the Church? According to the Sci’gy-Leaks messages between Tommy Davis and Mike Rinder and the Leader’s Communicator, Lou Stuckenbrock, who speaks on his behalf, rather well. Last time we looked inside the mind of the organization it was the evening of Wednesday, 21st March, after I had interviewed Anne Archer, Leah Rimini and Kirstie Alley and the other chaps I had never heard of. The Communicator had wanted to know whether there were any areas they should avoid and how many ‘new (torn wall to wall) assholes’ my body now had.
Mike answered: ‘Dear Sir. They are staying in best western hotel on sunset at sunset plaza.’
The location of our hotel was information we did not share with the Church.
‘They definitely have many new assholes and more to come tmro… Kirstie, anne, leah, bobby wiggins, bob adams, michael duff, megan shields all went after him today. He was repeatedly exposed as a bigot and tabloid bottomfeeder. Anne and kirstie in particular went for the jugular on his bias.’
What is so striking is that those two phrases, bigot and tabloid bottom-feeder, were thrown at me again and again. Were the Scientology seven rehearsed in their responses to me? Who knows?
‘He was demolished on NN [Narconon] and didnt know how to handle the facts when confronted with them as had been relying on assertion that heroin doesnt lodge in fatty tissues. We are right now briefing CCHR [The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a Scientology front group that campaigns against psychiatry] ppl for tmro. They headed west on sunset from their hotel. Ml Mike.’
It wasn’t a good enough answer for the Leader’s Communicator.
‘The only specific you give is on Heroin in fatty tissue. Screw that. Not that it doesn’t, but people get off drugs!!!!!!!! I guess he doesn’t care about that????
Were these ass rippings on camera? What did he think when Anne went after him for saying her son is brainwashed. Any other details you Generality infested CSMF?’
The ‘ass rippings’ Miscavige’s Communicator was concerned about were filmed on five cameras. Generality means waffle. CSMF stands for ‘Cock Sucking Mother Fucker’, not a phrase normally associated with say, His Grace, The Archbishop of Canterbury.
Mike replied: ‘He got flustered when anne said he was a bigot and had accused her son of being brainwashed. he even said that ‘some ppl say u (anne) r brainwashed… He was v upset and tried to argue with her that he isnt a bigot.’
‘Kirstie derided him… Leah disarmed him entirely as she was very polite…
‘He asked anne, kirstie and leah why we were afraid of critics in general and why wld david miscavige be afraid of being interviewed by the BBC. This was stuck up his ass that this was ridiculous and that cob [Chairman of the Board: Miscavige] fear’s nothing…
The Leader’s office even got to hear about our team trip to the toilet: ‘Sweeney, Sarah [Mole] and the cameraman all going into the bathroom together to talk (which we have on. Video with tommy at the door asking why they are hiding in the bathroom together).’
How this can be written us as victory for the Church I do not understand. It was an elephant trap of a joke at the Church’s expense, and they fell for it, tuskers and all.
‘Throughout the day we hammered him with the majority of the 120+ questions we had put together…’
It felt like 120,000.
‘Bobby got sweeney talking so much that he told bobby that he is an alcoholic and does himself abuse alcohol and that it is a problem for him. Bobby told him how narconon cld help him with that.’
I like a drink but I’m not an alcoholic. But as far as Narconon goes, I’d rather drown, like the poor Duke of Clarence in Shakespeare’s Richard III, in a butt of malmsey.