Scientology doc reveals horror behind star-endorsed facade

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This article was published 14/08/2015 (4074 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TO the casual skeptic, the notion of getting sucked into the Church of Scientology’s belief system is a prospect as likely as a Sunday brunch date with galactic overlord Xenu.

But for the average Canadian, it helps that this film’s main liaison is filmmaker Paul Haggis, a practising Scientologist for 35 years before his explosive departure from the church in 2009.

The liberal Haggis’s break erupted for a few reasons, one of which was the treatment of his two lesbian daughters by scandalized adherents, coupled with the San Diego church branch’s support of California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 vote that outlawed marriage equality in the state but was ruled unconstitutional two years later. (For a supposedly enlightened prophet, church founder L. Ron Hubbard’s attitude to homosexuality was primitive and plainly brutish.)

Still, the breach was a long time coming. Haggis was an intelligent, spiritually searching Canadian kid from London, Ont., who recounts coming to the church with an open mind, comforted by its claim to reject dogma, allowing adherents to create a belief system tailored to their own spiritual needs.

He allows the church did help in the “auditing” process, the church’s version of technology-assisted psychotherapy (although fervent anti-psychiatry zealot Hubbard is offended by the comparison).

If Haggis had stayed an anonymous adherent, his eventual dissent wouldn’t have mattered. But he moved from struggling writer to Oscar-winning writer (Million Dollar Baby) and director (Crash), and in the process became one of the religion’s much-prized celebrities.

And therein lies this documentary’s most fascinating, disturbing dichotomy. Lots of celebs, including Haggis, willingly became the public faces of Scientology and were accorded preferential star treatment. This is especially true of Scientology superstar Tom Cruise, whom, this film says, was the beneficiary of hundreds of hours of grunt work involving customized motorcycles and airplane hangars.

And who was doing that work? Low-level Scientology “clergy” in what’s called the Sea Organization, paid a pittance for their toil.

Director Alex Gibney (Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God) interviews a multitude of ex-Scientologists (whom the church officially characterizes as lying apostates) with horror stories to tell. Some, like Spanky Taylor (a former aide to John Travolta), describe inhuman punishment meted out to members in the Rehabilitation Project Force, essentially a prison detail for Scientologists who demonstrated signs of rebellion.

Taylor’s testimony gives a chilling ring to current leader David Miscavige’s stated resolution: “We’re out to make every life extraordinary.”

These stories, coupled with the church’s history of attacking critics and its criminal activity in securing its tax-free status, make for a hair-raising, but all too credible, exposé.

Sadly, the people who really need to see this film probably never will.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca