Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief (2015)

[bunniefuu]

We will begin the session now.

You will remain aware
of everything that goes on.

Okay.

We're going to find
an incident in your life

you have an exact record of.

Then by sending you through it
at the time it happened,

we're going to reduce it.

We will reduce the pain.

Go to the beginning
of that incident.

Tell me what's happening.

Well, these things get all so...

I joined in 198...

It was a bunch of young kids,
like I was young...

We were all very heated,
very excited about this.

Can you recall a time
when you were happy?

- I think the first time I saw
- Hubbard, and I was in awe...

We did, because you thought
we were doing good.

I mean, so you had
some gratification.

I felt a tremendous amount
of relief.

I got the answers for everything

within the religion.

What are you most afraid of?

- It was dark.
- 3:00 in the morning,

there's a knock
on the hotel-room door.

Stop! I'll say whatever
you want,

I'll write up anything
that you want.

I flipped out. I started
punching holes in the walls.

Things didn't seem quite right.

And you just feel
so foolish at that point.

Do you have a secret
you're afraid I'll find out?

Yes. Yes.

Go to the beginning
of that incident.

Okay, all right.

Tell me about it.

I was 21 years old,

living in London,
Ontario, Canada.

I wanted to be
a documentary filmmaker.

And someone had told me

about what they called...
They said, "There's this cult"

"in New York
called Scientology,"

which I'd never heard of.

"And if you give them
all your money,"

"they'll make anything
possible in your life."

And about six months later,
I was walking down the street.

This guy was there
selling books.

And I realized
they were all the same book...

"Dianetics,"

which again,
I had never heard of.

He handed me one
and asked me to look at it.

He was talking. I wasn't
really listening to him.

I opened the cover
and it said...

Stamped on the inside page,
it said "Church of Scientology."

And I said,
"Take me there."

- All right.
- All right, here we go.

I'm not a great multitasker.

You know, and if I feel like doing
something, that's what I do.

And, uh, I was into this sh*t,

and I was becoming an auditor.

Like, I was in Scientology
probably four months,

and I had done more
than John Travolta had done,

and he'd been there
for 85 years or some sh*t.

My agents called, you know,
"You got an audition."

"Eh, f*ck it, I don't really..."
You know what I mean?

I was on...
I'm on a spiritual adventure,

and this was like, "Whoa,
this is an interesting road."

You know?

So, uh, what was the question?

So tell me, how was it you first
got involved in Scientology?

Well, I was introduced to it
by some friends.

I don't know if they said it
or if it was just talked about

by others that
they had super powers.

And I... I was, like,
really young,

but I thought, "I'd like
to have super powers!"

But also I had done so much...

political-social work.

So this really looked like...
That it was a solution

to handling a lot
of the world's problems.

Instead of trying
to handle things en masse,

you could deal with it
person by person,

make each person better, and thus the
world would get better and surer.

Well, thank you very much,

and welcome
to our Whole New World.

It's a world where
the operative phrase reads...

"Exceeding all expectations,"

"transcending all parameters,"

"extending the boundaries
beyond any boundary,"

"not to mention
Godspeed, lightning speed,"

"and a quantum leap in sheer
rapidity of progress up the Bridge."

We're out to make every life
extraordinary.

And if by chance it ever seems
laborious or a sacrifice,

then you are looking at the
offramps instead of the highway.

You are missing
the signpost up ahead,

the one that reads,
"Next stop, infinity."

Probably my favorite concept
of Scientology

is a world without criminality,

a world without w*r,
and a world without insanity.

And I know of no other group

that their goals are that clear.

Look, I don't...
You name me another philosophy,

religion, or technology

that one of its main goals... besides
the three I mentioned earlier...

Where joy
is the operative concept.

These are the times now, people.

Okay? These are the times
we will all remember.

Were you there?

What did you do?

So what do you say?
Can we clean this place up?

Yeah!

Okay.
Because we're counting on you.

Okay?

All right?
To LRH!

Hip-hip...
All: Hooray!

Hip-hip...
All: Hooray!

Hip-hip...
All: Hooray!

Scientology is such a subject
of fascination for people.

How did you get engaged
in the story?

Well, I've always
been interested in religions

and why people believe
one idea rather than another.

I've studied Jonestown,
radical Islam.

They're oftentimes
good-hearted people...

Idealistic, but full of
a kind of crushing certainty

that eliminates doubt.

You know, my goal
wasn't to write an exposé.

It was simply
to understand Scientology,

trying to understand
what people get out of it.

You know, why do they
go into it in the first place?

I was interested in intelligent
and skeptical people

who are drawn
into a belief system

and wind up acting
on those beliefs

in ways they never
thought they would.

The Church of Scientology
turned out to be

two offices
above a Woolworth's store.

He asked me,
"What's ruining your life?"

I said, "Oh, I'm in love."

"I'm in love with this woman.
It's impossible."

"I don't know what to do.
I need some help."

And he said,
"We can help you with that."

I said, "Really?"
"Yes."

And I ran home and got her, and I
said, "We have to sign up for this."

"It sounds really good. It
could save our relationship."

So we both signed up
the next day to do a course,

which I think cost $50.

The thing that absolutely got me

and stayed with me forever

was the very first thing I read
when you open the course pack,

and it said...
I'm paraphrasing...

"Don't believe any of this.
If it works for you, great."

"If it doesn't, discard it."

I was troubled by the fact
that they called it a religion,

but I figured, "Oh, it's some tax scam.
It's fine with me."

"I don't really care about that
as long as it works."

The first exercise, after you do all
this reading and stuff like that,

is this thing called

which is basically,
you stand... you sit

just like this, eyes closed,

three feet away from somebody
who's doing the same thing,

and you basically confront them.

You know?

And in Scientology lingo,

I went exterior.

Exteriorizing
is what they call it.

You know, you leave your body.

So it was a... transcendent
experience for me.,

and that made me go,
"Holy f*cking sh*t,"

"this is... wow."

I was reading books, going to
lectures, and going to things...

Different events at the mission...
at the local Santa Clara Mission.

And then I knew
I wanted to join the Sea Org

and get really involved
as soon as I could,

which would
be right out of high school.

Sea Org is the most fraternal
order of the organization.

It's people who really,
really believe in the cause

and sign
a billion-year contract,

which I did when I was...
You know, as soon as I could.

I left skid marks getting
to that billion-year contract.

You thought
you were doing something good,

to have a positive effect
on all of mankind.

That's what Howard says.

Everything you do for endless
trillions of years

depends on what you do here
and now within Scientology.

I began to ask this question,

"What is man?"
And I found, oddly enough,

that nobody could tell me
what man was.

What did he consist of?
Where was he going?

What was he doing?

To really know life,
you've got to be part of life.

You must get down and look.

You must get into the nooks
and crannies of existence,

the... you have to rub elbows

with all kinds and types of men

before you can finally
establish what he is.

And you in fact did this?

Yes, I've slept
with bandits in Mongolia,

and I've hunted with, uh,

pygmies in the Philippines.

Matter of fact, I've studied
21 different primitive races,

including the white race.

And my conclusions were

that man is a spiritual being

that was pulled down
to the material,

the fleshly interests,

to an interplay in life
that was, in fact,

too great for him to confront.

And I concluded, finally,

that he needed a hand.

To understand Scientology,

you have to understand the
life and mind of its inventor,

L. Ron Hubbard.

Hubbard was a prolific writer.

He actually holds the "Guinness
Book of World Records"

for the number of books
published...

More than 1,000.

Hubbard got his start in the
Depression writing pulp fiction,

named for the cheap paper used.

Writers were paid
a penny a word,

so hey had to write a lot
to make money.

Hubbard hammered away so fast

on long rolls of butcher paper

that he used to drop sweat
on his typewriter.

Hubbard's career took off when
he began to write for a magazine

called "Astounding
Science Fiction."

Along with authors like Isaac
Asimov and Robert Heinlein,

Hubbard wrote stories
with a sense of mission...

To get man to the stars.

He found his true métier
in science fiction.

And a lot of what Scientology is

he had previously written about
in the form

of his science fiction.

He had the ability to fabricate
these amazing tales,

and he transported
those imaginary stories

into his theology.

After Pearl Harbor, Hubbard
took command of a sub chaser,

but he was still a man
prone to invention.

He would write that he sunk
two Japanese subs,

but, in fact,
just off the coast of Oregon,

he opened fire on what
turned out to be a log

and dropped most of
his depth chargers

on underwater magnetic rocks.

When he accidentally shelled
a Mexican island,

he was relieved of his command.

After the w*r,

Hubbard ended up in Los Angeles

where he settled in with a small
group of seekers and visionaries.

A guy named Jack Parsons,
a fascinating man,

was one of the founders of the
jet-propulsion laboratory.

And there's actually a crater
on the moon named after Jack.

He was a significant
scientific figure,

but he was also the head honcho

in this black magic cult.

It was called the O.T.O.,

or the Ordo Templi Orientis.

They followed the teachings
of Aleister Crowley,

a famous sexual magic figure
in England.

Parsons had a mansion
in Pasadena.

They would have ceremonies,

and they were seeking
some sort of goddess figure

that he could impregnate

in order to create
the Antichrist.

Hubbard moved in
and became Parsons' assistant.

One night,
this beautiful redhead

named Marjorie Cameron
showed up at the door.

She was perfectly willing to
engage in this sexual ritual

in order, supposedly,
to produce the Antichrist.

She and Jack
eventually got married.

That happened after Hubbard
ran off with Jack's girlfriend,

Sara Northrup.

Scientology and Hubbard

would later refuse
to acknowledge

his relationship with Sara.

But we uncovered
Sara's own recollections

of her time with Hubbard.

He was 13 years older
than I was.

I thought
he was a great w*r hero,

a captain of a ship that had
been downed in the Pacific.

And he was weeks on a raft,

and he'd been blinded
by the sun,

and his back had been broken.

All these things
were complete lies,

but I didn't know it
at the time.

I believed every word of it.

- If only Sara had seen
- Hubbard's m*llitary records.

In a 900-page file,

Hubbard's activities are laid
out in extraordinary detail.

Hubbard told people that he
had been blinded and crippled

during the w*r, and the
practices that would form

the basis of Scientology
had cured him.

But his records show
that his only wounds

were mild arthritis
and conjunctivitis.

We had this terrible fight,

and he told me he was going
to commit su1c1de

if I didn't marry him.

I really believed him,

so we got married.

We spent the winter in that lighthouse
on the lake in the Poconos.

I remember one awful night,

when I was asleep
and he was out typing...

and he hit me
across the side of the head

with a .45...

because I was smiling
in my sleep,

and he said I was thinking
about somebody else.

I got up, left the house,

and walked
on the ice of the lake.

I was terrified.

He always said
that he would k*ll me

rather than let me leave him.

The only good thing
I got from Ron

was my baby.

We moved
to Elizabeth, New Jersey,

and he started
writing "Dianetics."

The book was conceived

and he started
working on it in 1950.

He said many times that the
only way to make any real money

was to have a religion.

That's essentially what he was
trying to do with "Dianetics"...

Get a religion where
he could have an income

and the government wouldn't
take it away from him

in the form of taxes.

"Dianetics" was
an immense success.

From the moment
it was published in 1950,

it swept through America and other
countries around the world.

This book... that's the
background of all of this.

That's what started
all the trouble.

We expected this to sell
about 6,000 copies,

and it hit the top of the bestseller
list of "The New York Times"

and just stayed there,
month in, month out.

It was like
I started an avalanche.

"The Modern Science
of Mental Health"

is considered to be
the fundamental text,

which is the foundation
upon which all else is built.

One of the theories
of "Dianetics"

is to discover these things
that are very traumatic

or have been very upsetting
to you,

and if you can observe

exactly what happened,

the power of that incident

to influence you today

is removed.

The concept of "Dianetics"

is that you have
two sides of your mind.

There is the analytical side,

which is a perfect computer.

It remembers everything.
It's flawless.

It never makes a mistake.

And then there's
a reactive side.

And this is where
all your neuroses, anxieties,

and fears are stored.

And where do they come from?
They come from engrams.

An engram is like a memory.

A man has
an automobile accident.

He has a picture
of an automobile accident.

He has all the sensations
of having been hurt

in the automobile accident. It
takes him a long time to recover,

because he's still wearing
the automobile accident.

If you said,
"Hey, why don't you take"

"this automobile accident
and throw it away?"

Well, all of a sudden,
he recovers

from the automobile accident,
naturally,

because the thing that's
keeping it impressed upon him

and his body is his mind.

An auditor is a practitioner
in Scientology.

He listens and he computes.

We have a meter.

A meter simply shows

where an individual
is aberrated.

The E-meter is
a very powerful instrument.

It's one-third
of a lie detector.

A lie detector would also measure
your respiration and pulse.

There's two cans

and there's electrical wires

carrying an undetectable
amount of current

into a meter
with a needle on it.

According to the Church
of Scientology,

it actually detects
the mass of your thoughts,

although there's no evidence
that thoughts have mass.

The current
passes through your body,

and as your mental mass
increases,

so does the resistance
to the circuit.

So the auditor will
ask you a question,

"Tell me about
an upset with your mother."

"What's truly bothering you
about being with, you know,"

"with your wife's behavior?
What is it?"

"Why are you upset today?"

"Well, I had a fight
with my wife."

"Well, I can see."

"That there...
Was that the same thought?"

"Say that again."

And gradually, the needle
will have less response.

And in that manner,
you discharge the emotion.

Then you're asked to go back
to earlier incidents

that were like that.

And you might say,
"Well, my mother spoke to me"

"in the same
scolding tone of voice."

And you recount that story,

and eventually,
you discharge the emotion.

And that's very much
like Freudian therapy.

But with Scientology,

then they'll ask further.

"Well, that's as far back
as I go."

Well, maybe not.

"The auditor might say," Something
just registered on the meter.

"What was that?"

"I had an image
in my mind."

"Well, what was the image?"

"It was a barn."

"Are you inside the barn?
Go back to that image."

"Okay, open the door.
What do you see?"

"Well, it looks like
19th Century France."

You walk outside and you see

the people dressed
in their costumes,

and the E-meter is
saying this is real.

This is a real memory.

It's just as real as those
other memories that you had.

Beautiful little soft needle,
and everything's good.

Needle's rising, which means
he's getting, you know,

thinking a lot. The needle
just, like, goes "pfft,"

like a lot of sh*t blows away.

The theta bop, which is a very quick
little thing like, "doo doo doo,"

which means exteriorization.

When you come out
of an auditing session,

you feel euphoric.

That confessional nature
makes you feel better.

Somebody would say, "Oh, you're
going to have a session."

I would feel better
just hearing that.

Man is asleep.

He is hypnotized.

Now in Scientology,
reverse the process,

and you'll make him wake up.

Such a man becomes
un-brainwashed, you might say.

He becomes unhypnotized.

This sounds, Mr. Hubbard,
in a sense,

like an extension of
psychology or psychiatry.

Oh, no, psychiatry
has to do with the insane,

and we have nothing to do
with the insane whatsoever.

Is this is a form
of psychoanalysis?

No, psychoanalysis,
they lay back and...

Don't associate Scientology
with such people.

That's terrible.
That's bad manners, you know?

When L. Ron Hubbard
first wrote "Dianetics,"

he thought it was a tremendous
psychological breakthrough,

so much so
that he would be recognized.

He wrote letters to the American
Psychological Association.

They couldn't make heads
or tail of his ideas.

To them, it was like
psychological folk art.

For instance,
he would talk about "clear."

That means that the individual

has erased his reactive mind...

His unconscious mind is gone...

And he is totally alert

and totally capable.

Once you've taken away
all these traumatic memories,

from this life
and previous ones,

then you are clear.

Someone who had
a perfect memory,

who was never ill.

Your eyesight would be better.

We tested people
before Scientology processing

and after
Scientology processing,

and uniformly found
that their IQ had raised.

We are making such individuals,

we're making them regularly, and
we're making them routinely.

An overt act
is an effort to individuate.

It is a withhold of oneself...

Ron gave lectures everywhere

for large amounts of money, and
money just started pouring in.

I mean, these people were paying

$500 apiece in the 1950s

for training
in "Dianetics."

I felt that he was stealing
from people

and that he was
hoodwinking them.

All the business of sitting,
holding hands,

and putting all these false
memories into people's minds...

then they would finally
come along and say,

"Oh, yes,
I can remember it all."

We were surrounded
by sycophants.

He began to believe
that he was a savior and hero,

that he really was
this God figure.

He was absolutely convinced

that he had the cure for the
psychological ills of mankind,

and that the only reason that it
wasn't being propagated far and wide

was that the medical profession
had a vested interest

in keeping people sick.

I think he was afraid
that some psychiatrists

would pop him
into an institution.

He degenerated into
a really paranoid,

terrifying person.

Sara threatened to leave Hubbard

unless he got psychiatric help.

He responded
by kidnapping their baby

and taking her to Cuba.

He was incapable
of taking care of her,

so he put her in the charge
of a mother and daughter

who were both mentally Ret*rded.

And they apparently kept her
in some kind of cage.

He called me and told me
that he had k*lled her.

He said he had cut her
into little pieces

and dropped the pieces
in a river,

and it was my fault.

Then he'd call me back and say
that she was still alive.

And this went on and on and on.

When Hubbard came back
to the U.S.,

Sara persuaded him
to agree to a divorce

and give her custody
of their daughter.

When I left him, he cleaned out

all the joint bank accounts

so that I wouldn't
have any money.

Hubbard soon lost
all his money, too.

"Dianetics" proved to be a
passing fad, like the hula hoop.

But Hubbard still had
his imagination.

So he repackaged the ideas
of "Dianetics"

into a religion
called Scientology.

Hubbard added more science
and more structure.

Along with the E-meters
came a payment plan.

Every step to "clear"
had a price tag.

How would you describe
your business model?

Rapacious.

It's all about making money.

Hubbard, from the beginning,
knew that

people would pay for this
counseling at a pretty good clip,

and so he continued to come out
with more and more levels.

The real money was in paying for
these higher and higher courses.

They were getting
into thousands of dollars.

Those prices
kept going up and up.

That's really
where Scientology begins

to create this indoctrination,

is, "It's Hubbard
that came up with that",

"only Hubbard, and you have
to be a part of our group"

"to get that spiritual satisfaction
you were looking for."

The Hubbard College
of Scientology,

Qualifications Division, Department
of Certifications and Awards

does hereby certify
that Anthony A. Phillips

has obtained the state of clear.

As more members paid for Hubbard's
Bridge to total freedom,

the church's coffers swelled with
hundreds of millions of dollars.

From the beginning, Hubbard
tried to shelter that revenue

from any government taxes.

The founding Church
of Scientology

attempted in 1967 to get
a court determination

that it was exempt
from federal taxation

on the basis that it was a
nonprofit religious organization.

A federal court denied the
founding church tax exemption,

saying that some of the church's
earnings from 1955 to 1959

were used for the personal
benefit of private individuals...

L. Ron Hubbard
and family.

"ABC News" has repeatedly requested
interviews with Mr. Hubbard.

We have been told
that he is unavailable.

It was very exciting.

It was that heady mix
of emotion and belief,

and it's...
You get stuck to it.

It's so strong
that it sticks you like glue,

and there's no way
you can get away from it.

I was deeply convinced

that we were going
to save the world.

I considered myself
tremendously fortunate

to be in that position.

Out of the blue one day,

I received this envelope

with an invitation
to join the Sea Project.

It was completely confidential.

I wasn't to tell anyone
about it,

and I was so ecstatic.

Here was a chance
to work with Hubbard.

And I signed, "Yes!"

I was on my way to the
greatest adventure in my life.

We had an overnight flight to Las
Palmas in the Canary Islands,

where we found,
at about 6:00 in the morning,

we were taxied down to a dock.

We had to climb up
this rickety ladder,

all the way up to the ship,

and we couldn't believe
this was where we were going.

This ship was a rusty hulk.

I was given a dirty
old jumpsuit to get into,

missing one arm and the other
one was almost half torn off,

and put to work. We had to scrub
the ship and clean out the ship,

which was arduous,
strenuous work,

in the heat.

Hubbard came
to the ship every day,

smoking cigarettes
and surveying his kingdom.

After dinner,
he'd come and join us

on the well deck.

There he was, you know,
right amongst us,

talking to us.

He would be
his most magnificent self

at those times.

He'd lean back,
he'd look up at the cosmos,

and he'd point out galaxies

and constellations,

"and he'd say," The Fifth
Invaders are up there,

"and this is how they dressed
and this is how they talk."

"And see that blip
across the sky over there?"

He'd point it out, and we were
all, "Yes, we see it, we see it."

He'd say, "And that's one
of their space vessels..."

- And there was... the Fourth
- Invader force was here.

The Fifth Invader Force came in.

And the name of this solar
system is Space Station 33.

The Fourth Invader force
had been there

for God knows how many
skillion years,

had been sitting down...

and we'd sit there, spellbound.

You could hear a pin drop
on that ship.

He had us emotionally
captured and held

right there in the palm of
his hand where he wanted us.

He had us right there.

In the early '60s,

Hubbard was under investigation
in various countries.

His solution was to take
to the high seas.

He made himself commodore
of a fleet of three ships,

a Scientology navy.

To crew the vessels,

he created the Sea Organization.

The members of
this so-called Sea Org

would become
the church's clergy.

They began going
from port to port

in the Mediterranean,
show up for a few days,

and then go off... sail off
in some other direction.

And a very enterprising reporter

for Grenada Television
in Britain

tracked him down...

Slate one, take one.

That's one
of the very few instances

where Hubbard has actually
appeared on camera.

What are you actually doing

on this ship now?

I am studying
ancient civilizations,

trying to find
what happened to them,

finding out why they went...

into a decline, why they d*ed.

Hubbard believed that
he had lived various lives

in the Mediterranean area
as a Venetian prince,

as an Italian prince.

As a matter of fact,
it's quite interesting

that exercises can be conducted,

which demonstrate conclusively
that there are memories

which exist prior to this life.

He had buried treasure
all around the coastline,

and he wanted to go find
all these caches of treasure.

We were all very heated,
very excited about this.

Whatever was his whim, we did.

We would have d*ed
for the old man.

Don't you wake up sometimes

in the middle of the night
and think to yourself,

"Well, I've been on this ship
with a whole lot"

"of Scientologists
who believe I'm fantastic..."

They don't believe
I'm fantastic.

If you saw the number of times
they don't follow my orders...

LRH started to devise

a system of penalties
or punishments

or what he called ethics.

And one of the penalties
for the auditors

making mistakes
in their auditing sessions

was to be tossed overboard.

"You have done such and such
and such and such,"

"and we commit your errors
to the deep."

And then just pushed overboard.

30 feet, 35 feet,

Do you ever think that
you might be quite mad?

Oh, yes!

The one man in the world
who never believes he's mad

is the madman.

So we got married a year
and a half after we joined

and moved to California.
I wanted to be a writer,

and my wife...
She was studying Scientology.

We had a baby right away,
and the only people

we knew there
were Scientologists.

I was working as a furniture
mover during the day

and writing spec scripts
at night.

Then on the weekends, I'd be,
you know, doing some auditing.

Can you recall a time
when you were happy?

There was
a social aspect to it too.

You got to hang out with people.

And there were some interesting
people, nice people.

These are all people who are
looking to improve their life.

♪ I tripped on a cloud
and fell eight miles high ♪

♪ I tore my mind
on a jagged sky ♪

♪ I just dropped in ♪

♪ To see what condition
my condition was in ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, oh yeah ♪

♪ What condition
my condition was in. ♪

While Hubbard was hiding
from public view,

he was very active in directing
the operations of the church,

particularly in Hollywood.

This was just after
the Haight-Ashbury era.

And what Scientology
was selling itself is,

"Get high
without dr*gs."

It was a place where people
went and explored ideas,

and you would often see
famous people...

Leonard Cohen,
members of the Grateful Dead,

Rock Hudson.

So they built
the Celebrity Centre.

The idea was to draw in
these famous entertainers

and use them as pitchmen
for the religion.

In an industry like Hollywood,

where stardom is such...
Such an illusive quality,

Scientology would offer a route to
maybe feel a little bit more secure.

And when you're trying to break
in, you're also dealing with

relentless rejection.

And something
that helps you stay focused

and feel that
you're improving yourself

and becoming more clear,
you can see the appeal of that.

The beliefs and practices that
I have studied in Scientology

have been invaluable to me.

Have you ever met Ron Hubbard?

I'd love to. I'd be honored,
because I think he's so brilliant.

So when I worked
at the Celebrity Centre,

I would just, you know,
recruit various people.

Like Priscilla Presley
and of course John Travolta.

Johnny... he came,
he started on course,

and he was so fun
and outrageous.

And he just made a party
wherever he was.

John Travolta was a young actor

in his very first movie.

He was a troubled young man,

and he was looking for help.

A fellow actor gave him a little
bit of Scientology counseling.

She gave him a copy
of "Dianetics,"

and he was transported by this.

He would go out
on his auditions,

and no matter
what he went out for,

he would get it.
♪ I am stuck on Band-Aids... ♪

A Band-Aid commercial,
right away he booked that.

Now the Army starts you...

He was booking everything,

and then he went up
for a series.

Of course, he books it.

And it's a big series...
"Welcome Back, Kotter."

Up your nose with a rubber hose!

♪ Welcome back...♪

In the late '70s and early '80s,

John Travolta was
Scientology's biggest star.

Spanky was assigned to be Travolta's
key contact with the church,

and she helped out with
producers, fans, and the press.

They became close,
and when Spanky got married,

Travolta was there.

When Johnny first
got into Scientology,

he didn't even believe in
himself that much.

But he got injected
with a lot of confidence,

and then you get
this phobia inducement

that "If I leave, it's all
going to go down the tubes."

When you're in the organization,

all the good that happens to you

is because of Scientology,

and everything that doesn't,
that isn't good, is your fault.

They sell it all in the beginning
as something quite logical.

Everything makes sense.

And you're going up
what they call the Bridge,

you're dong this auditing,
and this is good.

And the next one,
well, it's not quite as good.

It didn't quite make sense
to you, but...

you know, you've already paid for the
next one, so you'll do that one.

The Bridge...
It's a metaphor.

You start here
at the bottom of the Bridge

and then you go to the top,
so where it is...

It's an awareness scale.

You start down here and
you're not aware of anything,

then you go up here
and you're a lot more aware

of who you are,

your spirituality,
your relationship to others.

A person is supposed to
become more able

as they go up the Bridge.

And then there are
the OT levels...

Operating Thetan.

And a thetan
is a spiritual being.

That's the soul of the person.

And what level, over time,
did you achieve?

OT eight.
That's the highest there is.

You can't get any higher
than OT eight.

From the beginning,
you hear these stories

people tell of these abilities
they've been able to gain.

It was always talked about, the people
who were OT could read your mind,

and they could
move objects at will,

and they could... they were cause over
matter, energy, space, and time,

so it sounded damn good to me.

I mean, I thought,
"Wow, this is great."

I finally get to OT three,

and they give me
the secret materials,

which I've been hearing about
all this time.

They're handwritten by Hubbard.

You have to keep them
in a locked briefcase,

be very cautious,
because they always said,

"If this gets out,
it's dangerous to people."

"It could actually do them harm if
they are not adequately prepared."

And I read it.

And...

it doesn't make any sense.

This gobbled story
that didn't make sense.

I remember for one fleeting second
thinking, "Maybe it's an insanity test."

"Maybe if you believe this,
they kick you out.

"You know, maybe that's it." That,
of course, is not the case.

They talk about, you know, the
fact that the earth was created

in such-and-such trillions
of years ago,

and this guy...
Space Guy...

Galactic Overlord...
This was a prison planet,

and people being
caught, captured,

and being brought
to planet Earth...

And put them in volcanoes and
blowing them up with A-bombs.

Whoa!

I studied geography in school.

Those volcanoes didn't exist
75 million years ago.

And we have these lost souls
all over us

and we have to get rid
of them, and I'm going,

"What... the f*ck
are you talking about?"

"I mean, I'm down
for the self-help stuff."

"I'm down for...
Okay, I can be clear."

"I can get rid of
the negative emotions."

"But what the f*ck is this?"

When you get to the upper
levels of Scientology,

the creation myth
is explained to you.

The story is that
75 million years ago,

people lived in a world
very much like the world

of America in the 1950s.

People, at that particular
time and space,

were walking around
in clothes which looked

very remarkably like the clothes
they wear in this very minute.

And the cars they drove
looked exactly the same,

and they walked down streets
that looked like these streets.

It was a very similar world

and similar problems,

one of which was overpopulation.

They had elected a fellow

by the name of Xenu
to the supreme ruler.

There was a tyrannical overlord

of the galactic confederacy
named Xenu.

In order to resolve this
problem of overpopulation,

he called people in,

ostensibly for tax audits,

and had them frozen
with injections

of glycol to their heart.

Boxed them up in boxes,
threw 'em into space planes...

DC-8 airplane
is the exact copy

of the space plane of that day.

They were flown to
the prison planet, Teegeeack...

It's actually
the planet Earth...

And these frozen bodies were
then dropped into volcanoes.

And then they set off
hydrogen bombs

on the top of each volcano.

And their disembodied spirits...

These are called thetans...

Floated out,
and they were captured

and forced to sit
in front of movie screens.

With a 3D, super colossal,
motion picture.

They were shown images...

Implants,
as Hubbard would have it.

Every man is shown crucified,

so is the psychiatrist
shown crucified.

And that's how he gets away
with what he gets away with.

He electric-shocks people.

And when a child is born,

a thetan will leap inside
the child's body

at that very instant, and it
becomes like the child's soul.

More than one thetan
might crowd into the body...

Hundreds, or thousands, might.

They're the source
of all of our neurosis,

fears, and anxieties.

Then you are
on the E-meter,

by yourself, now.

You're soloing.

You're supposed
to scan, mentally,

from your top of your head
to your toes,

to see if you can locate
any alien beings.

And when you do,
you tell them to go away.

I kept on trying to audit.

I could not figure out
how I could have

all these spirits of dead
people attached to me,

inside me, on me.

I was clear.

For God's sake, I was clear.

People actually have breakdowns,

you know, nervous breakdowns,

because they spend
so much time thinking

about being infested
by these creatures.

If you're really believing
that, it can drive you crazy.

Those years of introspection

eventually led me
to sincerely considering

that I was so bad,

that I couldn't confront
how bad I was.

I didn't know it at the time,

but a depression set in
that was with me for years,

and the worst thing was

that LRH kept ordering me
to more auditing.

I had to find swords
that were stuck in me...

Hypothetical swords,

imaginary swords that
were causing all this pain.

This auditing went on and on.

It wasn't doing any good.

I should have been left alone.

But everything
that I took offense with,

I rationalized
almost immediately.

I had to.

I could not continue
in this game of Scientology

without explaining away
what he was doing.

It got to be a way of believing,

and every one of us
got into that.

It was part of the mind control.

It was part of
the cultic manipulation.

He was the master
who did it to us,

and we took it on and then
we did it to ourselves.

And I learned from it,

that I would never ever again,

you know, go...
Do the bidding of a tyrant.

Hubbard questioned
his own sanity

and actually wrote a letter
to the Veteran's Administration

asking for psychiatric help

that he seems
never to have been given.

I think that his whole
creation of Scientology

really was a form
of self-therapy.

If he were just a fraud,
then at some point,

he would have
taken the money and run,

but he never did that.

He spent much of his day
on the E-meter,

trying to understand
what was going on

inside his own mind.

Hubbard became
increasingly paranoid

that a powerful thetan
had infected his body

and that regular auditing

wasn't strong enough
to make it leave.

When Larry Wright
was researching his book,

he videotaped an interview
with a Scientologist

who was asked to help
Hubbard expel the thetan.

He was having, uh, problems

getting rid of a BT...
Body thetan...

So he wanted me
to build a machine,

and basically
blow the thetan away,

just get him out of there.

Blow him out.
And also k*ll the body.

Basically, yeah.
Yeah.

But I didn't want to k*ll him.

I just wanted to scare him.

So I had read some books
about Nikola Tesla and stuff,

and I figured maybe
buildin' a Tesla coil

would probably be
the best route to go.

I had little electrodes

that you hook it up
to the E-meter,

so when he's on the cans,

then, uh, he would
just flip the button,

and it would do its thing.

As far as I know.
He blew up my E-meter.

b*rned it up.

Scientology really is a journey

into the mind
of L. Ron Hubbard.

And the further you get into it,

the more like L. Ron
Hubbard you become.

Thank you.

In 1980, LRH moved off the lines

so that he could
continue his writings

and researches
without any distractions.

He has now moved on
to his next OT...

Level of OT research.

This level is beyond anything
any one of us ever imagined.

This level is in fact done

in an exterior state,

meaning that it is done
completely exterior

from the body.

At this level of OT,

the body is nothing more

than an impediment
and encumbrance

to any further gain as an OT.

Thus...

thus, at 2000 hours,

Friday, the 24th of January,

L. Ron Hubbard
discarded the body

he had used in this lifetime

for 74 years,
10 months, and 11 days.

Although you may feel grief,

understand that he did not,
and does not now.

Hubbard d*ed
of a stroke in 1986,

but he left no plan
for succession.

The ambitious David Miscavige
stepped forward,

and by bending arms
and making deals,

took control of the church

and installed a new
generation of lieutenants.

We want to make sure

that all of us end cycle
on this completely,

so we can get on with the job

that is ahead of us.

- The first time I met
- Miscavige was in '83.

He was a guy
running back and forth

between Hubbard and the
property in Hemet in a van...

Back and forth,
delivering messages.

Worked my way
through the organization.

Miscavige would
come down to Florida,

where I was running the place,

and we slowly
but surely became friends.

By 2001, I was working
directly for Miscavige.

We'd sit and drink
a bottle of Scotch,

and I'd hear everything he
had to say about the church,

and about the people involved,
from his perspective.

And honestly, it was... it was,
uh, horrifying. It was scary.

In Scientology,
there was a concept

that 98% of the people
are good and 2% are evil.

Well, he worked very hard
to convince me

that it was
the other way around.

2.5% were okay and the rest
were very evil and bad.

And somehow, they'd all
been dumped on that base

so they could be around him.

He was...
He was extremely paranoid.

So, Marty, is Miscavige
a true believer?

Uh, yes.

He has to continue to believe,

because if he looks
at it rationally

and he sees that it is as I say,

it will destroy him.

You know,
he'll just realize that...

Because he's done
a lot worse than I've done.

He's abused people
on a personal level,

um, as a... as a...
That's how he got to the top,

and that's how
he stayed at the top.

At the age of 11,

David Miscavige joined the
church with his parents.

As a child, his ambition
caught Hubbard's eye.

So when Hubbard wanted
to become a filmmaker,

Miscavige was
his assistant cameraman.

An auditing prodigy,

he claimed Scientology
cured his asthma.

He became a sort of general
contractor for the church,

and was soon named
action chief...

The man who did whatever
needed doing for a church

that developed
a scary reputation

for attacking its critics.

Scientology has been
in the headlines

off and on for 25 years now,

almost since the time
it was founded as a religion.

Scientology's story
is one of a church

embittered by what
it perceives as harassment.

We're talking about att*cks

from multi-billion dollar
media conglomerates,

world governments...
Real powers of the world.

They take enemies
very seriously.

This comes right out
of Hubbard's own policies

from the '60s, saying, "We never
defend, we always att*ck."

And they have followed it
ever since.

They call it "fair game,"

and anybody who criticizes
Scientology is fair game.

Whatever you're told,

whatever needs to be done,

if it's against the law,
it doesn't matter.

The best example is,
in the mid '70s,

Scientologists were walking in to
these Department of Justice offices

and IRS offices and taking
documents out by the yard.

The FBI raided
the Church of Scientology...

The largest raid in FBI
history at that time.

Oh my god. The building
is filled with FBI,

and they're...
They're taking things.

It was craziness.

Clearly, L. Ron Hubbard
was in charge of all of that,

but he was only named
an unindicted co-conspirator.

And Mary Sue Hubbard,
Hubbard's wife,

she went to prison,
10 others went to prison.

This was where I cut my teeth.
I was in my early 20s,

Miscavige was in his early 20s.

We were taking over
for this group

that had created the largest
domestic espionage operation

in the history
of the United States.

They were breaking into offices,

framing people. This is the
activities of a church?

There was a guy who,
uh, you know,

was a reporter
for "The LA Times,"

whose dog was poisoned

while he was working
on a Scientology story.

Again and again
while reporting the story,

we met many former members
who describe Scientology

as a dangerous and deeply
paranoid organization.

They hired private detectives
to harass people.

I have been sued twice.

Financial ruin.

Years of harassment.

Their homes broken into,
have them beaten.

We chased her around. We
followed her to the airport.

Gotten ahold of
personal phone records.

Slashed their tires,
break their car windows.

I was locked
in a chicken wire cage.

Dangerous, horrifying,
terrifying fraud.

A nightmare.

Many of their stories
are corroborated

in sworn court testimony
by up to a dozen other people.

Are they all lying?

They sat in a room,

they figured out
what they were going to say...

My position,
as the spokesperson,

was to evade the question,

or sleaze around some way,

or give what
was an acceptable answer,

or something
that I believed at the time.

Please welcome
Mr. Mike Rinder.

Because Scientology is perceived

and conceived by Scientologists

as being the salvation
for mankind,

you can have people that lie

with a very straight face

if they believe
that what they are doing

is protecting
the Church of Scientology.

L. Ron Hubbard says,

"We do not find critics
of Scientology"

"who do not
have criminal pasts."

Do you believe that?
Sure.

People who oppose you
are undoubtedly criminals?

I believe that, yeah.

You know, there isn't
and hasn't been

any effort
which has been taken to,

quote,
"silence critics."

"No, that doesn't happen."

"Oh, we would never do that."

But according to many insiders,

Hubbard was growing
more and more vindictive

toward those
who stood in his way.

He created what he called the
Rehabilitation Project Force.

The RPF was what we called it.

It was the prison camp,

where you'd go
for re-indoctrination.

It was on the 7th floor

of the Hollywood headquarters,

a confined space
to rehabilitate members

who might be harboring
subversive thoughts.

Spanky was sent to the RPF

when she objected
to the way the church

had denied medical treatment
to her boss.

I went thinking, of course,

this is a big mistake.

And then I got there, and
there were like 200 of us.

So much of the exec strata
of the organization there

hit the skids simultaneously.

- RPF stands for
- Rehabilitation Project Force.

It is a program
that is exclusively

for the benefit
of Sea Organization members.

If they are stressed out,

if they're not doing well
on their job,

have them do
menial-type work,

and five hours a day of auditing

and Scientology training.

It's a fabulous program.

We were working...
Cross my heart...

30 hours on, three hours off.

Doing, like, hard labor,

like having wire brushes
on windowsills,

and sanding
and sanding and sanding.

Breathing paint fumes.

The regular crew
would eat first,

and then we'd get what was left.

It was kinda like table scraps.

There was mattresses
out there on the roof,

and they were wet
and soggy and gross.

And if you got to sleep
for three hours,

sometimes you'd just have to
up there and crash out.

And I had a young child
at that time,

who was 10 months old
when I went to the RPF.

She got taken
and put in the Cadet Org,

the organization
for the children.

And then I...
I got pregnant

when I was in the RPF.

So now I'm sanding walls,
eating table scraps,

pregnant, and worrying
myself sick about my child.

In Spanky's time, the children

of Sea Org members
were separated

from their parents
and raised in the Cadet Org

to remove all distractions

from their parent's
ultimate responsibility,

to clear the planet.

Sea Org members were often
pressured to have abortions,

because the church
viewed "getting children"

as an unpractical burden.

- Initially, you're like,
- "This is absurd.

"This is nuts."

And then you kinda
settle in and go, "Well..."

"obviously, I need
to deal with something"

"that I'm not facing."

"So perhaps this is..."

"they're doing this
to make me better."

There are so many
bizarre stories that you...

Just hard to believe stuff.

They asked if I could
arrange a private screening

of "Saturday Night Fever."

And I was like, "What?"

"I had disappeared
from this man's life."

"I abandoned him,"

"and now you want me to
arrange a private screening?"

"What are you..."

I said, "Is there anything else?
Maybe a Beatles reunion?"

♪ Well, you can tell
by the way I use my walk... ♪

Travolta had been wondering
where Spanky was.

When she was sent to the RPF,

she was not allowed to
contact him or anyone else.

But now,
under the watch of a guard,

she was permitted
to call Travolta's assistant.

She said we could use John's
personal print of the film,

under one condition...
That you will see John.

I was so excited.

I hadn't had dialogue
with him for many months.

We had the screening
of the film,

and on the next night,

I was supposed
to have dinner with Johnny.

And after the screening,

I was abruptly told
I wasn't going to see him,

and I needed to call and cancel.

He was truly angry
at me for... for...

For having allowed this abuse
of myself, you know,

and for having that...
So little of myself...

that I would allow
this degree of degradation,

and, and um...
And...

And he was my good friend,

and I knew that he was
telling me the truth.

Those words were
such a wakeup call for me.

And I went over there,
to the Cadet Org.

There were so many
sick children in there,

and my daughter
was very, very ill...

Burning up with fever,
completely neglected,

in a urine-soaked crib.

Her eyes were
so filled with mucus,

they were welded shut.

She had fruit flies on her body.

And I just...
I couldn't bear it.

I just went,
"No, mmm-mmm, I'm done."

I mean, I just knew I could
make these choices for me.

I could decide
to give up my life

and do this to help the world,

but I couldn't make these
choices for my children.

I just had to get her out.

I told them that I was having
problems with my pregnancy,

and I needed to use the phone,

so they sent
a bodyguard with me.

I called one of the few
non-Scientologists I knew,

a wonderful woman who happened
to work for John Travolta.

I said,
"Meet me at this address."

I gave her a time and I hung up.

I go up to my daughter's room,
and I wrapped her up.

And there's
that bodyguard with me.

"I said," Oh, my sister-in-law
is in that car

"and she's gonna
take the baby to the doctor."

He said, "Well,
has this been approved?"

"Of course
it was approved!"

She's in my arms,
and I got in the car.

My friend,
she just nods her head.

Boom! With that, I pull my
leg in, shut that door.

She hits the locks,
and we drive.

And people are yelling my name,

saying, "Spanky, no! No!"

I mean, just freaked out.

"I'm thinkin'" I'm a dead person,

"something terrible
is gonna happen to me."

I was just so frightened

that they would come
to fetch me up.

One of the turning points

in Travolta's relationship
with the church

is when he understood
what was happening to Spanky,

he didn't do anything about it.

I know that
he certainly got exposed

to the fact that not everything
was on the up and up.

Why that wasn't sufficient
for him to leave,

I don't know.

I often wonder what... what
could possibly keep him there?

Can you recall an incident

which occurred when your
mother looked younger?

An auditor learns to
keep notes contemporaneously

as he is doing a session,

about every detail
of the person's life,

back to birth and beyond.

If you do the whole program,

you end up with
up to a file cabinet full

of pre-clear folders
on notations about your life,

your thoughts, and your
considerations about your life.

It's the most intimate detail.

You're always encouraged,
you're always threatened,

to disclose more and more and more.
And all of it's recorded.

All of this material,

which is represented to you
to be held sacrosanct...

In fact, any information

that might do some harm
to the organization,

gets unclassified automatically

and gets reported to another
branch of the church

that deals with "ethics."

Travolta was down in Clearwater.

We'd finished the renovations.

Every auditing room
had two cameras...

One on the meter, and one on
the guy getting auditing.

Miscavige would sit
in this 15x15 room,

cameras of every session.

You can flip in between 'em,

and he was watching
these things.

And it was
for "training purposes."

Well, Travolta saw that,

and he said,
"I will not be videoed."

So I was there when
they were setting it up,

and Miscavige was directing it.

"Get him into a hotel room,"

"hook up secret,
private videos."

There were rumors

that he was
threatening to leave,

and another Scientologist
told me that he was delegated

to create a black PR package...
All the damaging material

they could use against Travolta,

which came
from his auditing sessions.

I know this
because I used to do it

when I was the head of the
Office of Special Affairs.

We would put a team of people

onto going through
all of these PC folders

and finding things
that they believe.

By exposing them
or threatening to expose them,

they will cower the person

that they're worried about
into silence.

There is a particular writing

where Hubbard is training these
Office of Special Affairs people

on how, when you use
private information

to control somebody to do
what you want them to do,

and to silence them from speaking
out against Scientology,

it's really not blackmail, because
you're not asking for money.

But you're holding
this secret information

over the person's head
to silence them.

As far as Travolta is concerned,

people say, well, he... there's all
these things that we know about

that have been rumored
in the tabloids.

But in fact, it's more
of a two-way street.

You know, he's provided
with an auditor

whose shoulder he can cry on,

but he's also provided with
the muscle of the church,

in the form of myself
and Mike Rinder.

On many occasions,

we were sent out
to get with his publicist,

to get with his lawyer,

and to help squash
or intimidate these people

that are making accusations
against him.

Once that happened,

I think he was really
the church's c*ptive.

Mr. John Travolta!

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday,
dear Ron ♪

♪ Happy birthday ♪

♪ To you. ♪

When they were facing lawsuits
and stuff like that,

he'd be brought forward,

and make his testimony about
how great Scientology is.

He had the opportunity

to affect the behavior of the
church, and he chose not to.

Now I've been a Scientologist
for 23 years.

I've felt like a pioneer
in many... in many ways,

and I've... I've seen my
efforts come to fruition...

in various ways.

I think very few people
can say that.

I've... I'm part of a...
Of a frontier in a way,

you know, that, that very few
people ever get to be part of.

Thank you.

Welcome to church!

It was the biggest event
in Scientology history,

and of course, Miscavige wanted
to milk it for everything he had.

It's this grand, produced thing,

where it's all a single
person on a gigantic stage,

all this sort of n*zi symbolism.

I clearly recall getting
prepared for the event

and Miscavige up in that office,

you know,
going 18-20 hours a day

writing this speech,
and thinking to myself,

"My God, you know?
This is not just"

"a victory celebration,"

"this is a...
This is a coup."

What we are going to talk about

is the w*r to end all wars.

When you are in Scientology,
you are in all the way.

There's no half in and half out.

- A decade into
- Miscavige's leadership,

a simmering crisis
finally came to a boil.

For years Hubbard had insisted
that Scientology was a religion

and should be tax-exempt,

so he had refused
to pay any taxes.

We were facing a tax bill

of over a billion dollars,
and the total assets,

liquid and material,
and property of the church

was about a quarter of that
at the time, in the '80s.

And so just from a real
simple accounting basis,

it was life and death.

If we don't
get exemption, we die.

If we get it, we survive.

As LRH said,

"One certainly
couldn't contest anyone

"as holy as the commissioner
of the IRS,

"whom I believe gives God
his orders." LRH.

Faced with this crisis,

David Miscavige
formulated a strategy.

Think of the nerve that it takes

to decide to take on a w*r
with the IRS.

The Church of Scientology

has been crucifying
the federal agency

for its sins on a regular basis,

both in and out of courts.

Thousands of Scientologists
all filed lawsuits,

not just against the IRS,

but against
individual IRS employees.

2400 total lawsuits,

all going at the IRS
at one time.

It was a litigation nightmare.

Being Miscavige's
right-hand man,

I was in charge
of all those efforts.

We were not only suing them in every
possible jurisdiction there was,

we were investigating
the IRS for crimes generally,

or things that would
offend the public.

These hearings
into IRS integrity...

In the late '80s,

there were hearings
about IRS abuses

that had nothing to do
with Scientology,

had nothing to do
with nonprofits,

had nothing to do with churches.

They had to do
with Joe Taxpayer.

And they we were publishing
these glossy,

expensive magazines.

In fact, the exposés
of IRS crimes

were so hated that possession
of "Freedom" magazine

was banned by IRS officials
in the IRS building.

There is going to be a IRS
conference in the Catskills.

Right?
And so we would send a PI,

find out which hotel
it's gonna be at,

get down there during
happy hour, socialize.

And this guy's tallying
who's drinkin' what.

And so we go through
Freedom of Information Act

to find out that the taxpayers
are paying the bar bill,

and it's so much money.

And of course, you know,

in the scheme of things,
it's nothing.

But from a PR perspective,
it's everything.

IRS officials told me to my face

they weren't interested
in hearing anything

I had to say
because, and I quote,

"You are a Scientologist."

"You are a mindless robot."

Well, those who know me
can imagine my response.

It was short,
but certainly made the point.

A negotiation
began to take place

between the IRS and the
Church of Scientology.

How do you define a religion?

It's not so easy.

Why is one body
of thinking a religion

and another body not?

The only organization entitled
to make those distinctions

is the IRS as an agency...

Very poorly equipped to do that.

I mean, they're mainly
accountants and lawyers,

they're not theologians.

But it's the only opinion
that matters.

Once the IRS has decided
that you are a religion,

then you are protected
by the vast protections

of the First Amendment.

And, as the saying goes,

the rest is history.
On October the first, 1993,

at 8:37 PM
Eastern Standard Time,

the IRS issued letters
recognizing Scientology

and every one
of its organizations

as fully tax-exempt!
The w*r is over!

The w*r ended

because the IRS surrendered.

It forgave
the billion-dollar tax bill

and granted Scientology
its tax exemption.

Even Hubbard's novels
were declared religious texts,

their sales exempt from taxes.

What happened
is that Fred Goldberg,

who was the IRS commissioner
at that time...

Miscavige let Goldberg know
that if we could find a way

to get tax-exempt status,

all those lawsuits
will go away overnight.

And as we were going
out the door,

Fred Goldberg goes,
"Is he serious?"

And I said, "Yeah."

And he sort of breathed
this sigh of relief,

kind of nodded, and smiled.

At the Church's victory party,

Miscavige projected photos
of the church's executives

celebrating with IRS officials.

It created
this tremendous juggernaut

of tight conspiracy of the
membership that then existed,

but what it really did
was enable Miscavige

to milk every last dime

out of that core membership.

I am proud to announce
the discrimination is over.

Your tax dona...

Deductions on donations
to Scientology

will no longer be disallowed
by the Internal Revenue Service.

In the '80s,
while Hubbard was in hiding,

Scientology was going through
some very severe litigation,

in particular,
a lawsuit in Oregon,

and one in Los Angeles.

One of them did produce
a $30 million judgment.

This scared Scientology.

They realized
they were vulnerable.

And so they
asked Scientologists,

"Okay, give us
a few thousand dollars.

"You'll get a nice ribbon
or something.

"You're not gonna get any courses
from it." And this was new,

the idea that you would
give them money

just to defend against lawsuits.

And that grew and grew.

Now Scientologists
are constantly

under intense pressure
just to hand money over.

They pitch themselves
as being the underdog,

as being the victim.
And you identify with that.

But then they start
hitting you up

for bigger donations, and bigger...
and I got a lot of pressure.

And I think I donated another
$250,000 to them under pressure.

They really know how to do it.

They really know how to do it, and
he just was after me and after me.

And they said,
"We're under att*ck, Paul."

This one guy who donated
$25 million,

for no... you know,
just straight donation,

to this...
To the Scientology w*r chest.

Churches are tax-exempt

because they're supposed
to provide a public good.

To prove that good to the IRS,

churches aren't supposed
to hoard their money.

They're supposed to spend it
on services for the faithful.

Under this pretense, the church
had made massive investments

in tax-free real estate
all over the world.

And when it comes
to labor costs,

they are almost free.

The max I got paid, you know,

on a weekly basis was 50 bucks,

um, for 28 years.

Sea Org workers
take home something

between six and 40 cents
an hour.

So if you've got
very low labor costs,

no taxes to pay, and wealthy
people giving you donations,

you can see why Scientology has
amassed huge piles of money.

How much are they worth?

This was a bit of a mystery,
but just recently,

I obtained tax records
that Scientology

does have to turn in.

Three of the main entities
of Scientology...

And there are 20
or 30 of them...

But the top three,
just on their own,

have a book value
of $1.5 billion.

It's stunning how much money
a nonprofit

has been able to amass.

It is a crime that we've given
them religious recognition

and that
they can hide behind it.

Meanwhile, you got
very good people in there,

and their lives
are being destroyed.

When I started this story,

I stumbled across an FBI
investigation of the church.

They were investigating
human trafficking.

It seemed that people were being
confined against their will.

There were lots of reports of
people being physically abused,

and the exploitation
of labor and child labor.

All of these things were
questions that the FBI had.

While that investigation
was going on,

a case was being heard
in Colorado...

The Headleys,
who were suing the church

for many
of these same violations.

And the court ruled in that case

that these are all
essentially practices

that are protected
by the religious clause

of the First Amendment.

Once that ruling came out,

the FBI dropped
its investigation.

I think it was an indication
that the church is protected.

Before ending cycle
completely on the IRS,

there is one thing
I do wish to do.

Sir. Done.

♪ Knowing the truth
will set us free ♪

♪ And take us from clear
to eternity ♪

♪ To a future we thought
would never be ♪

♪ We stand tall ♪

♪ Hey la di la,
hey la di ♪

♪ We stand tall ♪

♪ Oh, yes ♪

♪ Everybody,
hey la di la ♪

♪ Hey la di,
we stand tall... ♪

The "We Stand Tall" thing...

This again was part
of this whole IRS thing.

And Miscavige kind of
had this song composed

by the musician group
they had up at the studio.

He was trying
to turn this into...

This was a result of the power
of this movement...

♪ Hey la di la,
hey la di ♪

♪ Hey la di,
we stand tall ♪

♪ Oooh ♪

♪ Whoa oh... ♪

which was such bullshit,

because it was
all about control.

When he got absolute control,
he went absolutely bonkers.

♪ We ♪

♪ Stand ♪

♪ Tall. ♪

You know, most religions
are tax-exempt

and many have beliefs
and practices

that in the modern context
would be considered strange.

Is Scientology any different?

I mean, if you go to a Christian

or a Jew or a Muslim,
and ask them,

"What do you believe?",

they can basically describe

the most important parts
of their religion

in a minute or two.

Well, what does
a Scientologist believe?

You need to be in Scientology
for seven or eight years,

and in for a couple hundred
thousand dollars,

before you finally
learn this backstory

of Xenu the Galactic Overlord.

Now, if you were told that
on day one,

how many people would join?

But if they were
upfront about it,

I'd have more respect for them.

But it's that sort of
bait and switch

that people are told,
"Oh, it's an applied philosophy"

"to help you
with your communication."

Oh, yeah?

So why is Tom Cruise
paying 1,000 bucks

to have invisible aliens
pulled out of his body?

What happens when
your zone of influence

is the global stage?

How much must one do to call
themselves a Scientologist?

How much so that when their
head hits the pillow,

they can live with themselves,

knowing they did
all they could do?

That is our final story
this evening.

It's a story that affects
every Scientologist,

for all of us are the beneficiaries
of what he presents.

Tom Cruise was the guy.

Miscavige and Cruise
had been pretty buddy-buddy,

way back
to "Days of Thunder."

He was on the set with him,
he went skydiving with him,

was hangin' out with him
all the time.

And that was when
Tom first met Nicole.

He had really fallen for her.

They got married,

and this posed
a dilemma for the church,

because her father

is a well-known psychologist
in Australia.

From the church's perspective,
he's the enemy.

He's a suppressive person.

How could you ignore me
like this?

Because Nicole is still

in a relationship
with her father,

that makes her dangerous.

She's a Potential
Trouble Source, PTS.

And because Tom
is related to her,

this all causes trouble
from the church's perspective.

You have to break that dynamic.

Nicole... her biggest beef

was that Tom was becoming
increasingly like Dave.

She really got him
to drift away from the church,

and Tom was not really actively
involved in Scientology

between '92-ish
all the way up until 2001.

They were away
for more than a year

sh**ting "Eyes Wide Shut"
in the UK.

And Cruise was not in touch
with Miscavige,

and this drove Miscavige crazy.

I was assigned to, um,
get him back in.

And that was coincident with,
and... and I was to facilitate

the breakup with Nicole Kidman.

And how'd you do that?

Uh, well,
through a lot of auditing.

And every session
I ever gave to Tom Cruise...

And there was dozens upon dozens
of them over a three-year period...

I had to write detailed reports

and send them directly
to David Miscavige.

I would sit there every night
with our Scotch

and watch and listen
to Miscavige comment

about Cruise's sex life,
and what... yeah,

how perverted he was.

Why is he gettin'
daily reports on Cruise?

Miscavige really wanted
to get him back

into being somebody
that he could use

to lure people into Scientology
and increase his own status.

And I was also involved
in the legal team

and actually hiring investigators
to investigate Nicole.

Men have to stick it in
every place they can,

but for women...
Women, it is just about

security and commitment...

Tom wanted to know exactly
who she was talking to,

and so he wanted
to tap her phone.

If you men only knew.

When I reported that day
to Miscavige,

I reported it, like, "I mean,
he wants to tap her phone."

He said,
"God damn it, get it done."

And so I arranged, through the
Scientology's consigliere,

to get a private investigator

who physically installed
a wiretap on her home.

And those tapes would come in,

and I forwarded them
to Dave Miscavige.

The church then turned
its attention

to their adopted children, to
turn them against their mother

and make sure
that the custody went to Tom.

Tommy Davis, he was my liaison

who had to do all the things
that are required

to please Tom Cruise

while he was being put through
the Scientology hoops by me.

He also was part of this
whole reeducation program,

so that they would conclude
that their mother

was a suppressive person.

And that was successful.

It was all going
according to plan.

And of course,
Miscavige would really

pump the oxygen into that
little fire, you know.

Miscavige was brilliant
at flaming people's fears,

and building up their egos.

So you were
being audited by Marty

at the same time
he was auditing Cruise?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I was...
Yeah, Tom Cruise.

Tom would go in, and I would
go in, and Tom would go in,

and I would go in,
and so, you know...

And I had been audited by the
best auditors on the planet.

The best auditor, hands down,

I mean, like...
Like kinda Michael Jordan,

Wayne Gretsky,
kinda auditor is Marty.

They stole him, you know?

Tom thinks he's supposed
to be David Miscavige.

By 2004, Tom Cruise was the most
gung-ho Scientologist in the world,

and Miscavige wanted
to recognize him for it.

He called it
the Freedom Medal of Valor

and they put together
this 35-minute video.

IAS Freedom Medal
of Valor winner, Tom Cruise!

In it, they just
pump up this idea

that Tom Cruise is the ambassador
of Scientology to the world.

He's known as
the biggest movie star ever.

Tom Cruise travels this world,

meeting with ministers,
ambassadors,

and the American
State Department,

advancing LRH technology straight
into the corridors of power.

It's about improving conditions.

It allows you to find out
for yourself.

There's things
that we can do to help.

They even did a calculation,

where they figured
between his films

and all the "opinion leaders"
that he had met

and all the travel
he had done...

- Tom Cruise has introduced
- LRH technology

to over one billion people
of Earth.

No question, he has been
a huge asset to them.

Which is why the story
of Tom Cruise,

Scientologist,
has only just begun.

I think it's a privilege to
call yourself a Scientologist,

and it's something
that you have to earn.

Scientology loves to use
this word "end phenomena."

Every level
has an end phenomena,

you know, that you attain,

and Tom Cruise shows that.

That video with him in the
black turtleneck sweater?

A scientologist is someone
who can look at the world

and really see what it is.

Not only look at it and see
it, but be able to go,

poof, and be effective,
and do something about it.

And he's as arrogant
and as untouchable

as could possibly be.

At the same time, he looks
like an utter crazy paranoiac.

And, uh...
I know... you know, she...

They, said, "So, like
have you met an SP?"

And I looked at her,

and I thought, "Oh,
what a beautiful thing,"

because maybe one day,
it'll be like that.

You know what I'm saying?
Maybe one day,

it will be that...
"Wow. SP's?"

Like, they'll just
read about those

in the history books, you know?

That's where it takes you.

That's the end phenomena
of the Scientology Bridge.

All Scientologists
are full of sh*t.

You know, they lie.
"Aw, I'm doing great!"

"You gotta get on seven."

You know, and they're f*cking...

"I've got a f*cking migraine
right now,"

"and I've never
felt so shitty!"

You know,
that's the f*cking life.

There's nothing
part of the way for me!

It's just... whoo!

He drank the Kool-Aid.

And in the eyes of Miscavige,

Tom Cruise is the perfect
Scientology celebrity.

And nobody's benefited more
from his membership.

I mean, the amount
of free Sea Org labor.

- Sea Org members make
- 40 cents an hour,

and I don't think
there's any way

Tom Cruise is not aware of that.

The church
has done so much for him.

They tricked out all his cars
and his motorcycles.

"Oh, I want a new limo."
"We'll build it for you."

Decked out Tom Cruise's hangar
in Santa Monica.

Installed all the audiovisual
stuff in Cruise's home.

Tom Cruise had expressed
this fantasy

of wanting to run through a
meadow with Nicole Kidman.

And so everybody had to work,
and till the soil.

And then David Miscavige
didn't like it,

and so the whole thing
had to be ripped up again.

This was at the Gold facility,

which is this desert facility,

where this is all kinds
of great stuff,

if you're Tom Cruise, you know?

Wonderful living quarters
and a gym.

When Cruise comes up,
everyone's told in advance,

"You better have
a f*cking smile on your face."

Everyone had to
call Cruise "sir."

♪ Just take those old records
off the shelf! ♪

♪ I sit and listen to 'em
by myself ♪

♪ Today's music
ain't got the same soul ♪

♪ I like that old-time
rock and roll! ♪

Thank you.

It's this
side-by-side world.

There are celebrities
like Cruise and Travolta,

and then, you know,
there are people

who tell terrible tales of what
happened to them in the church...

Being imprisoned and really
horrible psychological games.

Tom was in Spain.

They were opening up a new
Scientology church in Madrid.

And he was overheard to complain

that he needed a new girlfriend.

Soon after that, a young
Scientologist premed student

named Nazanin Boniadi...
She was told

that she was going to get
a special assignment.

Number of transactions
increase...

Years later, Nazanin became
a successful TV actress

and she would have a small
part in a Paul Haggis film.

But at the time, she was a
dedicated young Scientologist

who believed
in the Church's claims

for its humanitarian mission.

In fact,
she set a monthly record

for selling books
for the church.

Nazanin may not speak publicly
about her experiences

because of an NDA the church
pressured her to sign,

but I discovered details
from FBI testimony

regarding her ordeal.

David Miscavige
assigned Nazanin's case

to a key church official,
Greg Wilhere.

He put her through
a one-month program

of on-camera interviews, intensive
auditing, and security checks.

She was moved
into the Celebrity Center,

separated from her family, and
certain problems were addressed

during this period of time.

One was, she had a boyfriend.

She is handed a transcript
of his auditing session,

in which he admitted
that he had an affair.

And so she broke up with him.

Then Wilhere took her
to an orthodontist

to have her braces removed.

At Burberry and other stores
in Beverly Hills,

he bought her $20,000
worth of clothes.

At the Celebrity Centre,
a man who worked

for Cruise's hair stylist

colored Nazanin's hair
to Cruise's liking.

Nazanin was told
that her makeover

was a part of the church's
humanitarian mission.

She had to look her best for
conferences with world leaders.

Only after she was flown
first class to New York

did she discover the actual role

that the church
wanted her to play.

She was to be the girlfriend
of Scientology's biggest star.

Within a month, Nazanin
was living with Cruise.

While at his house in Telluride,

Miscavige came to visit.

Overcome by a severe headache,

Nazanin had a hard time
understanding Miscavige,

which infuriated him.

The next day, Cruise,
inches from her face,

pounded his fist on the table
and screamed at her

for insulting the head
of the church.

Two weeks later,
church henchman Tommy Davis

delivered the news to Nazanin...

The relationship with Cruise
was over.

And they, according to her,

came to her apartment
with her mom

and found every photograph
of the two of them together,

and took them away. Every scrap,
every letter, everything,

they...
as if it never existed.

And she was really upset,

because she had been really
hurt by the whole thing.

And she made the mistake
of telling her friend,

who immediately went to tell
someone in the church.

She agreed to do punishments,

like cleaning out
the public bathrooms

on her hands and knees
with a toothbrush,

while other people she knew
were stepping over her.

She did nothing wrong,
other than tell her friend

that she was heartbroken, and
this is the way she was treated?

- The church claims that
- Miscavige has no involvement

in Cruise's personal life

and that the search for Cruise's
girlfriend never existed.

I wanna tell you something.

I have never met
a more competent,

a more intelligent,
a more tolerant,

a more compassionate being,

outside of what
I've experienced from LRH.

And I've met the leaders
of leaders.

Okay? I've met them all.

And so I say to you, sir, COB,

we are lucky to have you
and thank you very much.

While Miscavige
would do anything

for the Church's
most famous celebrity,

Miscavige began to turn against

the Sea Org's
highest-ranking executives.

He pretty much had international
management shut down.

He was into
this deep paranoia thing

about everybody is
out to get him.

He very definitely

wiped out
that organizational pattern

in order to be able
to have ultimate power.

In 2004,

Miscavige ordered the top
officers of the Sea Org

to the Scientology's Gold Base

in southern California.

He forced them to live in a
pair of double-wide trailers

that came to be called
"The Hole."

The doors had bars put on them,

the windows all had bars
put on them,

and there was one entrance door

that a security guard
sat at 24 hours a day.

They had to stay there,
sleep there.

It stunk and, you know, there
were ants crawling around.

You'd sleep about an hour
or two hours a night.

Um, you were
in such a mental state

that you're very controllable,
very suggestible.

We were told
we needed to come up

with what
each other's crimes were

against Miscavige and Hubbard,

so that we could eventually
get out of the Hole.

Scientology is really good

at making you think
that you are a scoundrel.

"Confess your crimes! Confess your crimes!
What have you done?"

Fights would break out.

Miscavige would get me
all riled up.

And I remember one time,
Mike had done something,

or not done something,
I don't remember,

and I was supposed to
go b*at him up.

One executive was made to mop up

the bathroom floor
with his tongue.

Another was put into a bucket,

and pummeled by some of the
women, and called a lesbian.

There was a very powerful
air conditioner,

which blew straight down,

it was set on maximum cold,

and a guy was
made to sit in a chair,

and had water poured on his head

until he literally turned blue.

Miscavige slapped me
across the face,

knocked me on the ground,
kicked me a couple times.

Flailing fists,
kneeing him in the stomach,

getting him on the floor.

And you think, you want
to get up and retaliate,

but you also think,
"I got 75 other people

"who are all likely
to tackle me if I did"...

and then you got
the sheer shock of it.

Here's the equivalent
of the Pope

suddenly knocking you
on the ground,

and you're thinking,

"I must have
really screwed up."

It was a poisonous environment.

People were really frightened.

And this went on for years.

This isn't a couple of days.

The nominal president
of the church,

this man named Heber Jentszch,

he was in there for seven years.

What is the statement?

"God helps those
who help themselves."

Well, in Scientology,
we're engaged

in helping people
help themselves,

so they can fully comprehend
and understand God.

♪ Is this the real life? ♪

♪ Is this just fantasy? ♪

One night,

Miscavige comes
into the Hole with a boom box.

"He said," I'm gonna
teach you all a lesson.

"We're all gonna play
musical chairs."

And musical chairs
is a Scientology

administrative term
for when you move people

from different posts rapidly,
and you create instability.

They played the damned music.

♪ Mama ♪

♪ Just k*lled a man... ♪

"He said," We're gonna play it

to 'Bohemian Rhapsody'
by Queen."

And he emphasized the line...

♪ Nothing really matters... ♪

"nothing matters anymore."
And that's your whole attitude,

that's where you live,
that's who you are.

Playing that music, and stop it,

and everyone would
have to grab a chair.

And there's one person
left standing.

♪ Too late ♪

♪ My time has come... ♪

What Miscavige has warned them

is that the last person
who remains gets to stay.

"Everybody else,
you're expelled."

"You're going to be thrown out
of the Sea Org."

These people were fighting
to stay in the Hole.

Throwing people around,
scratching, kicking.

They're tearing chairs apart,
they're ripping clothing.

And whatever it took.

♪ So you think
you can stone me ♪

♪ And spit in my eye... ♪

But then nothing happens.

♪ Nothing really matters
to me. ♪

"Out of the goodness
of my heart, you can stay."

"But you better come clean.
You better..."

"I better have some good
confessions out of you."

I... I mean, you...
You know...

as much as they get into everything
that you ever think or do,

they never got into my think
on this score,

that I would never go to prison.

And so it was inevitable,
when I got... when I...

He literally created
this prison camp.

Um, it was inevitable that
I wasn't gonna last there.

It's embarrassing to have
ever been involved with,

to think about it.

"God, I can't even believe
I'm talkin' about it."

But it was bad.

- Let's say the FBI
- showed up at the Hole,

and said, "This is the FBI.
We're lettin' everyone out."

Do you think everyone would have said,
"Oh, thank God, the FBI's here"?

No. I think that everybody,
one for one,

would have gone,
"What do you mean?"

"We... we're doing this
voluntarily."

"We like living
in these conditions."

Over the past week,

we've been reporting on
allegations of physical abuse

inside
the Church of Scientology.

We spoke with the ex-wives
of some of the men

making the claims of abuse.

I read all of your affidavits.

Obviously, your ex-husbands
have made charges

against David Miscavige,

saying that they have seen
repeated acts of physical v*olence

perpetrated by Mr. Miscavige.

Is... Is any of that true?

No. No.
Not one ounce of it.

That's not the character
of Mr. David Miscavige.

My ex-wife,
Marty Rathbun's ex-wife,

Tom De Vocht's ex-wife,
that were on "Anderson Cooper,"

they all came out of the Hole!

They were all sent there
to do that.

They went back to the Hole!

It's just ridiculous.

This line
that my ex-wife said...

I lived with Mike Rinder
for over 35 years.

I know every square inch
of Mike Rinder's body.

She said it because she was
told to say it by Miscavige.

And the proof of that is,
when Tom De Vocht's ex-wife

then repeated the same thing
over again...

I know every inch of him.

You gotta be kidding me!

Everything that happens

from the Church of Scientology
is scripted.

Don't ever turn
the other cheek and acquiesce,

hit 'em back.

Marty Rathbun suddenly went and
leapt on top of Mike Rinder

and fought him to the ground

and started choking him
and b*ating him.

And nothing seems
to have been done about it.

Mr. Miscavige was not
at the property at the time.

Do you not have telephones?

Of course we have telephones.

I think you're being quite
rude and quite insulting.

Here's the bottom line.
Here's the bottom line...

There is no history
of v*olence in the church.

As somebody who ran PR
for the church for a long time,

do you have any regret for anything
that you did in that capacity?

Well, I think the biggest regret

is when John Sweeney at
"Panorama" was doing his program,

it was the culmination
of a lot...

I mean, I'd been
in the Hole for a year.

And I ended up
being sent to England.

Hi, Mike. He was
constantly going,

"Well, why do you have private
investigators following me?"

I'm like...
That never happened!

Ever, ever happened!

And of course there were.

I was following John Sweeney.

Oh, there it is.

Okay, there we are.

He's got his camera,

he's standing there
and he's saying,

"I want a response.
I have credible witnesses."

"Did David Miscavige
physically as*ault you?"

And I said...

Those allegations
are absolute, utter rubbish.

Absolute, utter rubbish.

You have been assaulted
by Miscavige?

Many times, many times.

Perhaps more than anybody else.

I was now sort of

at the end of my rope.

It was a real moment
of clarity for me...

"I don't want
to be doing this anymore."

"This is nuts!"

That was actually the last thing
that I did before I left.

So I'd been in Scientology
about two and a half years.

I am kickin' ass.

I felt like I had gotten out
of the f*ckin' trap.

I didn't have to have a problem.

I said,
"I'm done with auditing."

But they insisted
on gettin' me back,

and said just, "Believe us,
believe us, believe us."

I got so f*cked up.

I mean, they... they...
I went insane.

I was, like, stuck somewhere

in a tiny spot
behind my eyeballs,

looking this way.

I mean, I... I'd never
experienced anything like it.

10 f*ckin' years!

I was worse than the day
that I walked in.

It was by design,
'cause they needed to...

To keep me in there.

So basically, they had to

put a whole new case on me,
so they could run it.

And they just kept tryin'
to f*ckin' keep me stuck in.

It was crazy!

So I finally said, "I'm going my way.
You guys go yours."

I was pissed. I was sad.
I was disillusioned.

"And I thought," Maybe
somebody could interview me,

"ask me some questions
about Scientology."

How I got into Scientology,
and why I got out.

Post this two-hour thing,

and it was the ♪1 thing
on YouTube for two days

before
it "mysteriously" disappeared.

The best traps...

You get a guy to just
keep himself in jail.

Right? And that's
what Scientology does.

I started getting
all this communication

because of that video.

You know,
"You saved my family."

You know, "You've...
I finally had the courage"

"to leave
after I watched your thing."

You know? I mean, like,
there's blood and tears.

And then I started to find out,

you know, all the stuff
that was really happening.

You know, I lost money,
I got f*cked,

but then I found out about
the abuse in the Sea Org.

And I felt like, "f*ck me,
I gotta do somethin' about it."

And I finally
tracked down Marty Rathbun.

Everybody thought he was dead.

He was in f*ckin' Mexico.
And I went down there,

and I basically
convinced him to talk.

And, like,
"We gotta do somethin'."

And then he started his blog.

There was a b*ating every day.

And if it wasn't him doin' it,

it was from him inciting others
to do it to others.

I think that it's a cult.

I'm doin' my own thing,
I want to get on with my life.

I am telling the truth.

Suddenly I heard
senior members of the church

were speaking out,

so I started to look,
and I started to read.

And then I started
to reach out to people.

Two of my daughters are gay,
and told me

how they'd been treated within the church.
I didn't know.

Paul Haggis's daughters
were openly harassed

by church members for being gay.

Investigating further,
Haggis discovered

that church doctrine viewed
h*m* as a disease

that only Hubbard's teachings
could cure.

And a California
chapter of Scientology

had supported a ban
on gay marriage.

I can't be part
of an organization

that doesn't support

human rights for everyone.

So I sent a letter
to 25 friends in the church

that I was resigning.

And I'd hoped
they'd read this letter

and be horrified
by the things I'd found out.

A few days later, I drive home.

There have to be 10 people
standing in my front yard.

I recognize them.
They're my friends.

They said, "Paul, we need you
to tear up this letter."

"And we need you to get all
the copies and tear them up,"

"and resign quietly."

I said, "I don't do that."
You know?

"I'm sorry.
I don't do that."

I sent a copy to Marty Rathbun.

He put it on his blog,
one page on a day,

and didn't reveal my name
until the Friday.

Monday morning, I woke up.

600 of the top newspapers
of the world had it.

You know, it was in Bulgaria.

I mean, it was reprinted
in seven languages.

I went, "Oh my God,
what have I done?"

I mean... it did garner
a lot of interest.

People will judge you,
one way or the other.

I figured people would
judge me as really stupid.

But then, I was really stupid.

I was a part of this for 30
years before I spoke out.

I felt deeply ashamed.

Why didn't I do it earlier?
Why didn't I look earlier?

People are so indoctrinated,

and have been in Scientology
a really long, long time.

Or they've grown up in it, and
they don't know anything else.

It's so scary to them
to have to start all over,

and it takes
a really strong person

to stand up to them and say no.

In 2009,

my son was on staff
at the church.

And "The Truth Rundown" came
out in the "St. Pete Times,"

exposing what was going on

with the beatings,
people in the Hole.

The church was very mad
at my son,

because he knew
it was going to happen,

and he didn't tell them.

And he didn't tell them
because he had a good friend

that became friends
with Mike Rinder

and Marty Rathbun,

and he believed what they were
saying in "The Truth Rundown."

The church was threatening,

that he was gonna get declared
a Suppressive Person

if he didn't disconnect
from his friend.

My son, he was raised
a Scientologist,

you know,
and he'd been on staff.

He made 30 bucks a week.

He headed up
their Boy Scout troop.

He was like this consummate
youth of Scientology.

The continental justice chief
called him on the phone.

And it was after that
the declare came down,

and he was just devastated.

The church told his friends
everything they could find

in his PC folder
to ruin his reputation.

I wrote this petition.

I tried to put in everything
good that my son had done.

"Dear Sarah,
Thank you for the letter"

"that you sent regarding the
situation with Nick Lister."

"I cannot approve that you continue
your connection with Nick."

No one's gonna tell me when I
can and can't speak to him.

No one, but me.

"Your committee of evidence
findings and recommendations"

"recommended you
be labeled suppressive,"

"engaging in malicious
rumor mongering"

"to destroy the authority
or repute of higher officers"

"or the leading names
of Scientology."

My husband
was charged with that one,

because he was telling me

what he read on the Internet
about David Miscavige.

They say, "Don't go on the
Internet, don't read."

"Don't go to these sites."

From the time that I got in,

for 30 years, I never read one
critical thing about Scientology.

When I finally decided
to open my eyes and look,

I was shocked, just shocked.

But if you're a member
of the Church of Scientology,

and someone in your family,
or a friend, or your spouse,

is skeptical or critical
of the Church of Scientology,

you are supposed to disconnect
yourself from that person...

Tommy Davis, who was the
spokesperson for the church,

he's being asked about
the policy of disconnection.

Anything that's characterized
as disconnection

or this kinda thing,
it's just... it's just not true.

There isn't... I
confronted him about this.

And I said, "Tommy, I don't need
to search outside to ask for..."

"to check research
and see if other..."

"this has happened to other people.
This happened to my wife."

"You asked her and me
to disconnect from her parents"

"because of something trivial
they did years ago."

My wife disconnected from me,

my daughter, my son, my brother,

my sister, my mother,

all of my nieces and nephews.

And that is the only family
that I have.

You know, you label
these people suppressive

so that, you know,
everybody automatically...

They're discredited, and they
must disconnect from them.

And that's how you keep
people in a bubble.

And that's what they do.
I mean, my son was declared

because he wouldn't disconnect
from his friend.

I was declared,
and my husband was declared

because we wouldn't
disconnect from my son.

And now guess what happened?

Everyone connected to us
just scatters to the wind.

Through all of this time,

I have a daughter who's
very much into the church.

I have a granddaughter

who's the love of my life,
and who loves her nana.

I was planning on talking
to my daughter,

and trying to tell her
what was really happening.

She hugged me,
she told me she loved me.

She said, "I have to
disconnect from you."

So, um...

I just was concentrating
on smelling her hair

and seeing the way she felt,

touching her skin on my face.

That's the last time I saw them.

It really is the crux

of how controlling
is any religion

over its adherents,

and Scientology has perfected

a lot of techniques of control.

There is no logical explanation

as to why, other than faith.

Your future, your eternity,

all depends on
you going up the Bridge.

It's scary. It's kinda like
Christianity with hell.

If they don't have the Bridge,
they can't go free.

They don't believe
they can get it anywhere else.

It's like brainwashing.
Really simple.

I mean, that's a scary word,

and it took me a long time

to come to that conclusion,
that that's what's occurred.

You take on

a kind of a...
A matrix of thought

that is not your own.

I think that's how I
and other people got involved

and stuck through it
for so long.

Because when you're out,
you look at it,

and you go, "What the crap
was I thinking," you know?

It's such a hard thing
when you do wake up.

You go, "Oh my God."

Because you have this wave
of regrets.

I just started to think
that maybe my entire life

has been a lie.

You just don't see it
happening to you.

You justify so much.

Cults, they prey on people,
suggesting that, you know,

you should be able
to think for yourself

and then tell you exactly how
you have to think, or get out.

And if you get out,
there will be consequences.

Come on, Marty.
Got anything to say?

What's your name? Why don't
you answer his question?

b*at it. I said get off
my property, boy.

The real sustained campaign

began in early 2009

when I spoke to
the "St. Petersburg Times."

And I'd been hounded
and hunted like wild prey.

It's a policy of
the Office of Special Affairs

authored by L. Ron Hubbard.

When somebody's speaking out
against Scientology,

investigate to find out
who the instigator is.

I started getting calls
from the church,

and they're... they're really,
uh, comin' after me.

They showed up
at my mother's house.

The feeling in the pit
of your stomach

knowing that Scientology's
chief dirty-tricks PI

was just
on my mother's front step.

They've tried to destroy me,
there's no question.

They create
anonymous websites about me,

and smear me
with a lot of garbage.

"Paul Haggis,
the hypocrite of Hollywood."

"This guy is a sex pervert,"
or "This guy's a drug dealer."

In the meantime,

survey carefully to find out what
he most values and protects.

Immediately draw up
a three-prong program

to thr*aten it effectively.

I don't value anything
more than Monique.

That's why this campaign
ended up on our doorstep.

Was she there?

I knew they had
their g*ons around.

And then the guy rolls down in
window and I saw the truck.

And he starts filming, and I go,

"Okay, this is not good."

What's goin' on?

Oh, we're just doing
a documentary.

A documentary?

Oh, a former Scientology deal.

But it would probably be a good
idea if y'all went ahead...

Now that you've gotten
what you need,

go ahead and leave the area.
Sure.

Okay?

I don't know
who these people are.

I don't know
what they're capable of.

And now that I have my son...

I have a little Louisville
Slugger I keep next to me.

It's been a nonstop onslaught,
for five years.

- I told you to leave.
- Get out of here.

Oh no, I'm leaving.

You can't even defend
yourself on this can you?

What's your name?

I gave you my name, Marty.
What's your name?

Marty, I gave you my name.

The people on Marty's doorstep
were sent by Scientology

because the church
had branded Marty a "Squirrel,"

a term invented by Hubbard
for former members

who threatened church teachings.

David Miscavige had you
come all the way from...

Marty.
San Jose.

- Marty!
- You can't do that.

- You can't do that, Marty!
- I just did it.

No, that's my
personal property, Marty.

Yeah, that's right.

I got arrested, man.

I got arrested for grabbing
this guy's glasses.

I said, "Don't look at her."
You understand that?

Yeah.
I heard her.

Of course, the guy had been
stalking Monique for two years.

He looks like a leering pervert,

like Norman Bates
from "Psycho."

I didn't break his glasses.

I just removed them
from his... from his face.

They got it all on videotape
from their surveillance house

that was filming 24/7, 365,

for five years,
across the street from us.

This lawsuit
with Monique Rathbun...

It's a brilliant legal strategy.

If Marty sues,
the church just says,

"This is
a First Amendment fight."

"This should not be
in a court of law."

But Monique
was never in Scientology.

She's suing David Miscavige
and asking to depose him.

And Scientology will do anything
to keep him out of that situation.

And the point is, Judge,

if you let me
make my presentation,

on First Amendment law

that comes from the United
States Supreme Court...

For every court date,

the church hires a bevy
of high-priced lawyers.

They are determined to use
every legal trick in the book

to keep Miscavige
from having to testify

about church abuses or whether
the religion of Scientology

is actually operated
like a business,

controlled by the whims
of a single individual.

In 2014, Miscavige celebrated

the ongoing expansion
of the church,

but he was hiding
a terrible secret.

Good evening!

The church's active
membership has dropped

to fewer than 50,000 people,

yet the financial value
of Scientology is soaring.

How about we just say,

2013 is the year
we went stratospheric?

The church is making investments

and buying valuable real
estate all over the world.

That financial clout gives
Scientology enormous power.

It's a kind of
tax-free shell company

growing past $3 billion
in assets.

The church now
no longer has a public face.

There's no spokespeople,

they don't do media interviews,

and that suits Miscavige.

There is nobody
that he is willing

to have be the face of
Scientology other than himself,

but he's afraid to
be interviewed by anybody

for fear that they're
gonna ask him questions

that he can't answer,
or doesn't want to answer.

Where are the checks
and balances on his power?

There is none.

So there are two things
that could happen.

One is, the IRS would
reconsider its tax exemption.

The only other thing is that some
of these celebrity megaphones

could turn against the church.

And Tom Cruise should
be leading that chorus.

Is there anything
that you look back on,

in terms of your own career
in the church,

and think, "Wow,
I wish I hadn't done that?"

You know, we talked
about karma earlier.

And, you know, it still happens
that it's like it's just this...

I constantly get presented
with who I was,

and, you know, and I constantly
don't like what I see,

and I sort of constantly
keep dying deaths.

Um, and...

I don't know how many
more deaths I have left,

but I... but I...

But I regret

and I'm ashamed of, uh...

the entire experience, you know?

What I take away from it
is that we...

We lock up a portion
of our own mind.

We... We willingly
put cuffs on.

We willingly avoid things

that will...
Could cause us pain,

if we just...
If we looked.

If we can just
believe something,

then we don't have to really
think for ourselves, do we?

And so I can't damn these
people who aren't coming out,

or who are hiding once they come
out because they're ashamed.

You know, I...

I... I feel the same shame.

And I just...
I'm fighting back

by communicating, you know?
It's a peaceful protest.

I want the truth to be known,

and...

Thank you.

You're welcome.