The Church of Fear: Inside The Weird World of Scientology

by Sweeney, John

  ‘Have you ever seen David Miscavige, or anyone…?’

  ‘That is none of your business,’ she said.

  ‘It is my business because I am a reporter,’ I said, cockily. ‘My business is everybody’s business. That is what reporters do. So the question is: have you ever seen David Miscavige…?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘The Xenu story? Is that true?’

  ‘It is a lie,’ stressing the last word with such vehemence that it was quite disturbing. Phonetically, it sounded like: ‘Eez a liiiiiie.’ Then Bill’s tape ran out.

  That Saturday, according to Sci’gy-Leaks, was the first day when Tommy and Mike were not fully ‘handling’ us and were able to engage with their campaign to persuade the BBC to pull our programme before it was broadcast. It was also the first day for the Leader’s Office to address their perceived multiple failures at length. Again, the reader should bear in mind that the Church and David Miscavige deny that Sci’gy-Leaks is genuine. Much of the to and fro is boring and repetitive; some of it is meaningless gobbledegook; some of it just plain crazy.

  The Communicator waxed long and loud about my failings: ‘He missed the JT [John Travolta] interview insisting instead of interviewing a nut. And it just continues. We told you COB wasn’t doing the interview and that if what you wanted was anything to do with Scn you would have approached him in UK where he was in plain view and greeting people as they entered the Church. COBs role is not to handle public relations and does interviews rarely, if at all.’

  Subject pronouns are words like ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘he’. In the above ‘He’ is Sweeney; ‘We’ is the Church; ‘you’ is Sweeney; ‘he’ is Miscavige. Muddling subject pronouns leads to confusion. This is the linguistic equivalent of a Dr Who episode featuring a disgusting scrambled egg style mess called The Brain of Morbius.

  Miscavige’s Communicator, in setting out why an interview was not on, referred to the ‘falsehoods BBC preseneted 20 years ago’ – homage to the 1987 Panorama ‘The Road to Total Freedom?’ of blessed memory.

  The Communicator babbled on for a bit: ‘-How come you haven’t nade it clear to him that you refuse to forward his request as Sweenys behavior is so bigotted, his conduct so irrational that you sonsider him unstable?

  -Are you actually hiding out and letting him screw aroundoutside our properties such as the complex as your handling?’

  What is unfair about this message from on high is that neither Tommy nor Mike could stop us from doing our jobs. It wasn’t their fault that none of the points the Communicator raised addressed the grave criticisms made by ex-Scientologists to us. This feels like a classic example of the failing of an organisation where top-down control prevents the lower orders from explaining to the bosses what is happening in the real world.

  Mike replied by demonizing me – the default position of the Church faced with scrutiny: ‘he is a bigot and has psychotic breaks. Tommy said that there is no way he is taking him inside one of our buidlings after he had his psychotic break on wednesday. A break so outrageous two of the female presenmt ran to get help as they were sure john wld get violent.’

  I did shout. I may like a drink. But I am not a violent man.

  ‘…he then said we had tried to brainwash him!’

  Yes. I believe they did try to brainwash me.

  ‘He also repeated request for interview w COB and Tommy told him he had not forwarded the request and wld nvr ever forward such a request in amillion yrs and wld do everything in his power to make sure sweeney never gets anywhere near cob as he is a bigot and abusive and we hv ansrd every false allegation and will answer to any others. Sweeney ended up hanging up and then geting back into his van and driving off as I am typing this and now heading up Virgil.’

  We had not told the Church where we were going. Virgil Avenue was en route between the Concrete Angel and the location of our next appointment, with another ex-Scientologist.

  The Communicator replied: ‘Your problem on COB is you didn’t fill the vacuum but just “da’s”. That’s due to your overts. Specifically hat dump.’

  That sounds like utter mumbo-jumbo but let’s try to break it down: ‘Your problem on COB is you didn’t fill the vacuum [deal with the BBC] but just “da’s”. [Dead Agents – knocking out critics with a file of black information.] That’s due to your overts. [Crimes against the Church] Specifically hat dump [a failure to carry out your mission – hat means post or job, dump means failure.] Translated, I think it means something like this: ‘You failed to do your job properly.’

  Lifton’s test number six, ‘Loading the Language’, springs up here and it is worth repeating the psychiatrist’s specific point, that ‘the effect of ideological totalism can be summed up in one word: constriction. He is, so to speak, linguistically deprived; and since language is so central to all human experience, his capacities for thinking and feeling are immensely narrowed.’ The logic of the language from the Communicator is as round and smooth as a billiard ball. It chokes communication and reduces language to a series of Druidic insults to which there is no possible answer. To me, it seems mad.

  The Communicator had a lot on her mind: ‘As for the stupid allegation of being “aftraid” to see Sweeny, anybody who actually knows COB knows what a joke it is… Afraid? He’s met individuals from 10 Downing not to mention the home office.’

  No-one in the British government could confirm or deny that Miscavige had met individuals from Number Ten or the Home Office. Who exactly in Number Ten? No-one knows; or no-one is saying.

  The Communicator went back to demonizing his staff: ‘You’ve just gone PTS [PTS=Potential Trouble Source, one step from Suppressive Person] and not filled the vacuum as the fact is he barely sleeps AND YOU KNOW IT and doing this BBC thing because he’s trying to blackmail with threats of what lies he’ll spread is as obscene as it gets and a virtual guarantee it wouldn’t happen.’

  The subject pronoun ‘he’ switches from Hero Miscavige – who barely sleeps – to Demon Sweeney – who blackmails and lies – in the same sentence. We are different. This is primary school English and the Communicator has failed.

  The Communicator drones on: ‘What the hell happened to the fill the vacuum however? You’ve got the usual treason…’

  Treason is a heavy word. The Communicator uses it with foolish abandon.

  ‘…and perfect excuse to do nothing because all of a sudden Tommys on the firing line and is worried he’ll choke a question when you idiots already knew if there was something he tommy didn’t know it would be the proof of what slime this idiot is…’

  What slime this idiot is? Thank you very much.

  The Communicator closes this message with a large dose of self-pity: ‘Cob will finish all the materials, all the courses, all the buildings and their contruction, singl hand every event, keep the show on the road, then do TV (which he’s tried to get to for a year but god forbid you 2 do anything to ease his lines) and THEN defend himself because you have every excuse not to.’

  Tommy leaps to set out his views on the Leader to the Communicator: ‘I have never seen anyone [Miscavige] work harder or more hours and is as well the kindest, most genuine caring individual I know.’

  In Lifton’s foreword to Singer’s book, he writes on cults that ‘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.’

  In the normal world, someone might reply to the delusional tone of the Communicator’s message by suggesting the real world difficulties the team was confronting. A supplicant in a cult would grovel.

  The Communicator swept the applause aside and got on to their version of the story on us: ‘Its time our documentary was put together as at this point it will probably be sensational.’

  It was.

  The Communicator changed tack, to reply to Mike who was ‘handling’ my knocking on the door of the Concrete Angel: ‘Thanks. You’d better make sure security is in at t
hose buildings. Obviously somebody is spreading more bs [bullshit] about the rpf but you neeed to double ensure secuirty is tight in those buildings as they could try to send somebody in with a hidden camera which is the last thing you need.’

  This appears to suggest that there might be something hidden inside the Concrete Angel the Church would not want the world to see.

  ‘Yes, his behavior sounds insane. Are you saying he LITERALLY said you guys brainwashed him (SWEENY)? And that this statement is on camera? If so, this guy should practically be under a restraining order… This dungeon bit is desperation and the same crap we’ve disproven a billion times. He’s been exposed as the bigot and dishonest journalist he is.’

  Mike replied: ‘Dear Sir. Security is on red alert at PAC and CC. They are now in Griffith Pk… They film every car that goes by as Sweeney accuses us of following and spying on him which at this pt is more of his paranoia.’

  He was dead right about the paranoia.

  We had said our goodbyes to the Concrete Angel and drove towards our final interview with a defector. Paranoid, hunted, I thought we were being followed again, one suspect driver a blonde guy, old, moustached, maybe the guy who followed us when we came to LA in the first place in the dark blue Kia, a second, I remember, a tall, dark-haired chap. I pulled our car into a car park and waited. The dark-haired guy followed us, parked, and got out of his car. An ordinary person going about his business? Or a smart private investigator, suspecting that he had been smelt out, pretending to be an ordinary person…

  ‘He’s looking back at us,’ I said, urgently.

  Bill: ‘I don’t think so. I think he was just sorting out his shit before he got out of the car.’

  ‘It’s because we’ve got a bloody camera in our car, that’s why he’s looking back at us,’ said Mole, boringly.

  I drove off, very slowly, the speed of a milk float, so slowly that anyone tailing us would have to crawl along at a suspicious snail’s space too. One of the suspect cars overtook us then turned down the far-side of a crescent, perhaps hoping to come back on our tail. I went down the near side of the crescent. We met mid-way, as he rocketed along, almost smashing into us. The guy was jabbering away into a head-set mobile phone, as if demented, but at the last moment he flicked his wheel and we did not crash. Pity. It would have made for a most interesting court case.

  Our next defector was ex-Scientologist Tory Christman who we met in Griffith Park. A Scientologist for three decades, she left in 2000, taking my tally of defectors’ time inside to 138 years. She, too, had a grim story to tell, of early infatuation turning into years of abuse before she quit. Tory had suffered from epilepsy but medication stopped her fits. However, when she joined the Sea Org, she said, she was told to get off her medication. The fits came back: ‘My mom started calling me, saying “Tory, they are going to kill you.”’

  When Tory started taking medication again, the fits stopped. Once she was utterly loyal. Now she hates the Church, and the Church seems to hate her. She said that she had been defamed by the Church, that its then spokesman Mike Rinder had called her a ‘wacko’ and her story ‘absolute bullshit’.

  The ‘Religious Freedom Watch’ website, keenly antagonistic to any effective critic of the Church of Scientology, says this about Tory: ‘a run-away housewife who abandoned her husband when some “new friends” she met over the internet promised her an exciting new life. Christman’s new friends are anti-religious extremists… Despite her lies, the media is getting wise to the tall tales of Tory Christman.’

  Well, I liked her.

  Tory explained the Church’s logic in attacking her: ‘Hubbard wrote a thing called “Black PR” where he said, “Lie, cheat, steal, destroy someone utterly if they are against Scientology.” Because I speak out trying to inform people about scientology they have to slander me, that’s what they feel. They have followed me, they have flattened my tyres when I tried to help a family get out. They have not only lied all over the internet about me, they have done all kinds of nasty things.’

  Private investigators?

  ‘They sent two private investigators to two of my best friends saying that they were looking for information, was I slandering Tom Cruise? Luckily, my two friends are ex-Scientologists.’

  What were you saying about Tom Cruise, I asked?

  ‘I said, I want to thank Tom Cruise for showing the world what an Operating Thetan actually looks like.’

  We had to wrap up the interview with Tory quickly and head to the airport.

  Back in the twilight zone of Sci-gy Leaks, Mike told the Communicator: ‘We are putting togther “greatest hits” clips for BBC execs and compiling everything we have shown, offered and made available and how they hv spent money getting crap and the same disproven crap they had in 87 and it is proven to be so. He is definitely desperate and now we hv to get this put together and have BBC shitcan him as well as our get our own documentary done.

  Thay hv checked out of hotel and hv flight at 945 tonite. ML Mike’

  We hadn’t shared out flight plans with the Church. Tommy rejoined the conversation: ‘we can cut together all the interviews he did and show these beautiful elegant women and dignified men he interviewed and cut to their facial reactions to his off the wal questions and then show photos of the psychotic degraded people he chauffered around CW and SFO (Hines, lonsdale, etc) and show how they are totally DB…’

  DB stands for Degraded Being.

  ‘…and weird and crim and gross. Juxtapositioned against anne archer? Fred shaw? Dr. Root?’

  Fred Shaw and Dr Root were the Scientology figures I had interviewed at the Celebrity Centre whom I had never heard of.

  ‘Sweeney,’ Tommy continued, ‘will look like the complete psychopath that he is and I haven’t even gotten to the footage of him screaming his head off and then explaingin it away as something to do with a high school play he did or that he was brainwashed. Just gonzo.’

  I’m rather proud of that description.

  Tommy sent another message immediately after that, referring to a phone conversation the previous day, seemingly with Miscavige: ‘Sir, I want to correct what I said yesterday on the phone with cob. I was and am ready for that interview. I have read every DA [Dead Agent] pack I cld get my hands on, went onto the net and saw every disgusting site and read everything I cld about hawkins, hines, donna shannon, lawnsdale and more. I had stacks of the religious expertises ready to literally throw at him and also the DA docs for the OT VII forgery on the net, the san Francisco crap on Narconon and more. I was very entubulated about screwing cob over on wed at cchr [when he told Mole that he reported to Miscavige directly] and kicking myself as every other time sweeny brought up cob I said no way and especially not an intervuew with you. I jsut went effect and it was inexcuseable. I have since talked to sweeney today and I went BALLISTIC when he brought up COB and made it very clear that it would be over my dead body that he would ever talk to cob ever. I was being temporarily defeatist when on the phone with cob.’

  The message suggests that they were planning an interview in which Tommy would endeavour to make me go tomato, again, but that his talking about his proximity to the Leader has scuppered it. The logic of that last point seems warped, but never mind: ‘I never had any questions a bout m ability to do that interview and was actually looking forward to it after having drivn sweenmey psychotic on wednesday as I figured I could do it againa d that I would get him to pop off with the most outrageous things. Well this is exactly what happend when I talked to him on the phone today and got him to say that we had brainwashed him!!! And I have this on tape and we are verifying we’re got it on video too. He has lost it and I am definitely the person who drives him more psychotic than anyone. He goes nuts around me. And I’m going to keep it up. Ml, Tommy’

  The boast that a member of a Church’s Holy Order can drive someone ‘more psychotic’ than anyone else seems an odd one for a member of a religious order to make. To put it mildly, it wants charity.

  T
he next message is also from Tommy: ‘Sir, I’m sorry about not briefing you on Donna. She is a nobody…’

  Donna is not a nobody, but a feisty woman of quality.

  ‘…Sweeney is nuts and we have it documented and he is such a psycho he’s the star of the exposé…’

  The very last message from the Sci’gy-Leaks hoard is also from Tommy: ‘Sir, he already told me he is leaving tonight. He and Sarah both told me that. However I was planning on calling him and saying, “hey what’s the deal? I spent the last two weeks of my life being available to you for your show and offered you everything. Now from what you told me you are probably leaving soon and you haven’t even called to say you are going? I have no doubt you called your good friends Shawn lonsdale, donna shannon and bruce hines. Didn’t you? Well good bye John. I can’t say it been a pleasure getting to know you but I have no doubt you’ll be hearing more from me. Cheers’

  We packed up and drove to LAX. After we had checked in, we went to a bar and drank mojitos. A suspicious-looking man with a briefcase sat extremely close to us and affected not to be interested in us. I stood inches from him and slurped my drink like a baby elephant sucking up water through its trunk, extremely noisily. He didn’t run away – proof, if proof were needed, that he must have been an agent. Mole noted: ‘We went to the bar and you made awful slurping noises next to some poor passenger.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘Panorama Exposed’

  The Church of Scientology’s ‘Psychiatry: Industry of Death’ exhibition turned out to be a moveable feast. A few days after I had lost my temper in its permanent manifestation on Sunset Boulevard, LA, it popped up on Westbourne Grove, just down the road from Notting Hill, West London. We decided it might be a bright idea to ask a shrink to go along and have a peek and then interview him afterwards about the accuracy of the exhibition. Patrick Barrie, our Assistant Producer, arranged to meet the psychiatrist in the Portobello Gold pub beforehand.