The Church of Fear: Inside The Weird World of Scientology (4 page)

And yet ex-Scientologists say Cruise is a recruiting sergeant for a brainwashing cult. What is so strange about the world of the Church of Scientology is that evidence for Cruise being both a charming and thoughtful man and a cult’s recruiting sergeant co-exists. Throughout this book, you will come across examples of black-white conflicts, again and again. The Church and the middle ground do not flourish.

Wikileaks shows that American diplomats regularly took foreign governments to task for failing to respect the religious entitlement of the Church. Tom Cruise led Scientology meetings with the then French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, in Paris and reportedly at Downing Street, pushing home the message that Scientology was a religion like any other.

To that end, Miscavige embarked on a multi-million pound building spree, opening new Orgs or churches across the world. The new London org was yet another example. He was still at it, still speechifying: ‘A day when the moment we pull down that ribbon it goes down in history… In this city L Ron Hubbard… … defined the human spirit …an immortal being… technology… the root of our religion…’

He cut the ribbon and everyone cheered. The London drizzle drizzled on.

What is the secret of the Church of Scientology’s success? One answer is, critics say, brainwashing. It may have been a coincidence but when I lost my temper with the Church’s Tommy Davis, we had been arguing about brainwashing inside the brainwashing section of an exhibition that says that psychiatrists are brainwashing humanity. As I holler, Tommy says, over and over again: ‘Brainwashing is a crime.’

The Church of Scientology denies brainwashing.

What is ‘brainwashing?’ is the title of the opening chapter of Robert Jay Lifton’s classic study of mind control,
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China
. I was introduced to Lifton’s work by Bruce Hines, at one time an auditor – Scientology’s word for confessor – who used to minister to Nicole Kidman, Kirstie Allie and Tom Cruise. Bruce is now out, neither a member of the Church, nor a Scientologist.

Lifton, an American military psychiatrist, interviewed Allied ex-prisoners who had been captured during the Korean War and held in North Korea and then Chinese and European victims of Chairman’s Mao totalitarian state. He explains that the term ‘brainwashing’ was first used by the American journalist, Edward Hunter, as a translation of the colloquialism
hsi nao
, (literally, ‘wash brain’) which he quoted from Chinese informants who described its use after the Communist takeover. In his book, which everyone seriously interested in understanding the Church of Scientology should read, Lifton quotes the Indian philosopher Radhakrishnan: ‘When religion becomes organised, man ceases to be free. It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority and not violation of integrity.’

Later, Lifton set out three defining characteristics of a cult: firstly, ‘all cults have a charismatic leader, who himself or herself increasingly becomes the object of worship, and in many cases, the dispenser of immortality. Spiritual ideas of a general kind give way to this deification of the leader.’ Secondly, in cults there is some kind of ‘thought reform’, popularly known as brainwashing. Thirdly, ‘there is a pattern of manipulation and exploitation from above, by leaders and ruling coteries, and idealism from below, on the part of supplicants and recruits.’ To sum up Lifton’s definers for a cult: one, the Leader is God; two, brainwashing; three, harm.

In his book Lifton sets out eight tests for brainwashing. The third test is ‘The Demand for Purity’: the ‘world is sharply divided into the pure and the impure, into the absolutely good and the absolutely evil… All “taints” and “poisons” which contribute to the existing state of impurity must be searched out and eliminated.’ A follower of a thought control cult can off-load his inner guilt by hitting out at the outside world: ‘one of his best ways to relieve himself of some of his burden of guilt is to denounce, continuously and hostilely, these same outside influences.’

Let’s apply Lifton’s test number three to the Church of Scientology. Does it by any chance denounce the impure? Are there any subtle signs of that? The Church’s Freedom Magazine produced an attack video which described ex-Scientologists I had interviewed and me as follows:

‘Disgraced. Liar. Perjurer. Callous. Insulting. Bullying. Notorious. Shameful. Laughing stock. Poor work ethic. Can’t hold a job. Failure. Known drunk. Disaffected. Angry. Vengeful. Malcontents. Disgraced. Incompetent. Serial sexual misconduct. Sells soul. Abhorrent. Deranged Abuser of women. Wrecks of men. Posse of vindictive liars.’

Thank you. One of the Church’s official spokesman, Mike Rinder, called me ‘an utter lunatic’ and ‘an asshole’ in 2007. Five years on, he still stands by both judgments, although there is a twist to that tale, more of which later. Tommy Davis, the other, more senior spokesman, called me ‘psychotic’, a ‘tabloid bottom-feeder’ and repeatedly, a ‘bigot’.

One Scientology blog calls for my permanent end: ‘Growing up on a diet of things like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, one gets a chance to see a fair number of good guys & bad guys. In the movies, the bad guys are commonly depicted as being so low, so loathsome, that by the end of the movie even the most sweet and innocent housewife is picturing in her mind the most violent, grisly and permanent way for the bad guy to meet his end, because there’s no question at all that the bad guy is just plain bad for everyone, and has just
got to go
. But in real life, you seldom come across such a bad guy that can be as utterly loathsome, so low, so cowardly and yet so holistically evil that they can be agreed upon as a total villain. Well, I think our wait is over. Enter BBC Panorama’s John Sweeney.’

The title of the blog? ‘John Sweeney is genuinely evil.’

Brainwashing is a heavy word. It’s also a serious charge to make against a multi-billion dollar entity like the Church. In 1984 British High Court judge Mr Justice Latey said: ‘Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious …It is corrupt, sinister and dangerous. It is corrupt because it is based on lies and deceit and has its real objective money and power for Mr. Hubbard… It is sinister because it indulges in infamous practices both to its adherents who do not toe the line unquestionably and to those who criticize it or oppose it. It is dangerous because it is out to capture people and to indoctrinate and brainwash them so they become the unquestioning captives and tools of the cult, withdrawn from ordinary thought, living, and relationships with others.’

Language, grammar orders the mind. Subvert language and you subvert sanity. George Orwell, that great enemy of totalitarianism, knew and feared the power of that subversion when he witnessed it done by Stalin’s men in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. That’s the substance of his invented language,
NewSpeak
, in
1984
. The charge against the Church is that it confounds meaning and minds while presenting an artificial front to the world, a charge it denies.

The Chinese Communist torturers, and before them, Stalin’s men, and before them, the Spanish Inquisition had brutal force to fall on if the wretches in their hands did not mentally submit. What is so strange is that we are considering people in fundamentally free societies who, it is said, have submitted to mental enslavement. They could just walk away. This is a conundrum raised in the TV series ‘Homeland’, just as it was in Richard Condon’s 1959 novel,
The Manchurian Candidate
– how can the brainwashing be so strong that it keeps its spell even when you are free to leave?

One month after the opening of the London Org, November 2006, Tom Cruise married his third wife, Katie Holmes, in one of the most beautiful castles in the whole of Italy. The happy couple were conjoined according to the Scientology wedding rite scripted by L Ron, calling on all those present to note, ‘girls need clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat.’ The Book of Common Prayer it is not.

Miscavige, the Leader of the Church, was Tom Cruise’s best man. The word is that he came along on the honeymoon too, a story the Church denies.

In the spring of 2007 we engaged with the Church. So that’s how I ended up in Saint Hill. Mole and I approached the front door. Mole is the BBC producer some believe best able to keep me on the professional straight and narrow. Mole (first name: Sarah) is so quietly spoken you can barely hear a word she says and she looks completely harmless. Don’t be fooled: she combines the attributes of Mother Theresa and J.V. Stalin.

Hundreds, perhaps even a few thousand Scientologists, live in the East Grinstead area. This patch of Sussex, some of the most lazily beautiful countryside in England, is served by two Conservative MPs, Nicholas Soames (grandson of Winston Churchill) and Charles Hendry – the political heir to Geoffrey Johnson-Smith, who was unsuccessfully sued by the Church in 1970. Soames once threatened to sue the Church after it used images of his grandfather in their publicity material.

Hendry, a government minister from 2010 until the summer of 2012, is a different kettle of fish. In 2004 Hendry went to the premiere of Cruise’s film Collateral. Tom Cruise chatted to the MP and his wife and phoned up Hendry’s step-daughter to wish her happy birthday. The MP told the East Grinstead Courier: ‘“Clare thought it was the coolest thing ever.” Mr Hendry said he and Mr Cruise spoke about Saint Hill, an L Ron Hubbard detox centre the actor set up in New York for victims of the September 11 terrorist attack and a bit about the film. “It was a very special evening and a real treat to be invited. I thought Tom was absolutely amazing for spending so much time speaking to people who had waited for him for hours and the film was full of suspense.” Graeme Wilson, public affairs director at the Church of Scientology, said: “The premiere of Collateral was quite an experience and it was a real pleasure to be able to invite many of our friends from the East Grinstead area. It is a really excellent movie.”’

In 2005 the House of Commons debated an amendment to a controversial bill protecting religions from hate speech which some, including the comedian Rowan Atkinson, feared threatened free speech. The amendment proposed that the following groups should not be covered by the law: Satanists, Nazis, cannibals, believers in female circumcision and Scientologists. Up popped Charles Hendry: ‘I hope my honourable Friend will understand that although Scientology may be very controversial, people who are Scientologists find it profoundly offensive to be included in that list. As he may be aware, Scientologists in this country are based in East Grinstead, which is just outside my constituency, and many hundreds of my constituents are Scientologists. They will be mystified by their inclusion in such a list, particularly as many other groups, such as those who practise voodoo, are not included. This debate has already caused Scientologists offence. On Second Reading, my right honourable Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) said that “it is…a dangerous organisation that preys on people with mental illness”. That is a characterisation that many people in my constituency would find peculiar and to which they would not relate. I am not familiar with the details of Scientology as a religion or as a set of beliefs, and having heard the Minister’s comments earlier, it would be hard to decide on which side of that boundary it would fall. Those who practise Scientology would say that it is a religion, but many others would contest that. Undoubtedly, as human beings they do a great deal of good.’ Hendry praised the Church’s drug treatment programme. He went on to say: ‘Certainly, as an organisation, Scientology has gone through serious hoops in terms of ensuring that it has the right to broadcast on television by satisfying the Independent Television Commission [ITC] that it is not a cult. It is a not-for-profit organisation, and that is well recognised.’

The bill became law but the clause Atkinson objected to was dropped.

In 2012 I raised Hendry’s ‘not a cult’ stance in the
Independent
newspaper and Hendry wrote a letter to protest: ‘Mr Sweeney quotes me as saying of Scientology that, “It is not a cult”. The actual words I used in Parliament were that Scientology has been able to broadcast on television by “satisfying the Independent Television Commission that it is not a cult”. To say he was quoting selectively was an understatement.’

The ITC no longer exists but a spokesman for the British agency that regulates advertising, the Advertising Standards Authority, told me: ‘To be clear there are no rules in the Broadcast Advertising Code relating to cults. So neither the ITC nor the ASA today would have a role in judging whether an organisation was – or was not – a cult.’

Hendry was the only MP to stand up for Scientology and his enthusiasm for the Church contrasts strikingly with Soames and his late predecessor, Johnson-Smith. Hendry’s constituents who fear the Church may perhaps be assured that it is a not-for-profit organisation.

Mole and I got to Saint Hill’s grand door and were met by a lawyer and three Scientologists – an interesting ratio I had not come across before in a House of God. They all wore suits and gave off a whiff of corporate power, as if they were from a multinational commodity broker or a mining company. The lawyer was Bill Walsh, a near-silent American who said that he was not a Scientologist but a Human Rights Counsel – that’s fancy talk for a lawyer. The Englishman was an ex-London fireman called Bob Keenan. He, too, didn’t say that much. Bob and Bill were flower-pot men, nodding their heads but contributing little theatre.

The two others were to be our ‘handlers’, we later realised: an Australian-American called Mike Rinder, a spooky, sallow-faced and hollow-cheeked man, and Tommy Davis, son of film actress Anne Archer. Tommy was younger than Mike but by some unspoken corporate osmosis more senior. Teeth gleamed, dark hair flopped, the nose aquiline, the smile cherubic. Nattily attired in what looked to me to be a $2,000 suit, crisp white shirt and dark tie, Tommy not only physically resembled Tom Cruise, he acted like him, intense, passionate, smiley, weird. In the idiom of American TV cops shows like
Starsky and Hutch
or
Hawaii Five-0
that used to wallpaper my childhood, Tommy was the smart, rich guy who almost certainly was the baddie; Mike had all the hallmarks of the bloke who gets gruesomely murdered in the first five minutes.