Entertainment Tonight Cover Story on the Church of Scientology (aired 11/3/99)
Bob Goen (Entertainment Tonight reporter): The Church of Scientology has attracted some of Hollywood’s most powerful stars. Now, we can take you inside as a whole new generation of celebrities has joined the controversial religion in the Entertainment Tonight Cover Story.
Goen: John Travolta says it has been the key to his success.
Travolta: I know that’s a lot of the reason that I am where I am today.
Goen: Lisa Marie Presley credits it with her very survival.
Presley: Scientology entered and saved my life and my sanity many times.
Goen: For these and other stars Scientology has long been a way of life, but its list of famous disciples is growing as some of Hollywood’s fresh new faces are also joining the flock.
Catherine Bell (“Jag”): The main thing is it is a religion and it is a spiritual way of looking at life.
Goen: On “Jag,” Catherine Bell plays a tough marine lawyer who fights for justice, but before Jag, she was fighting for auditions. Until, she says, a course in Scientology completely changed things.
Bell: I was a little insecure and every time I would get to the callback I would freak out and not get the part. And I went in and within 12 hours I handled this problem and 2 days later I had my final callbacks for “Jag” and I that’s why-I know that’s why I got it.
Goen: Danny Masterson of “That ‘70s Show” is a second-generation practitioner, following in the footsteps of his parents.
Masterson: The main thing for me about Scientology is that, it, it’s kept me off of drugs and um, I’ve never done drugs, I’m really, really happy I haven’t, I’ve seen a lot of my friends really go down the tubes.
Goen: Other second generation Scientologists include Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi, while Leah Remini of “The King of Queens” is a relative newcomer.
Remini: To know that you can go somewhere, that people are there for you, to just help, is amazing.
Goen: The increasing number of celebrities joining mirrors the Church’s growth. According to its figures there are over 8 million members worldwide in over 120 countries. Despite its global appeal, it seems particularly well suited to the entertainment community.
Goen to Bell: Is there any reason why it is such a force in Hollywood?
Bell: I know that I have become more free as an artist. I’ve become more able to express myself as an artist and more creative in my acting and so many different areas. So, that’s probably why.
Part Two
Goen: Few nonbelievers have ever seen what goes on behind the walls of the Church of Scientology until now. We have a rare glimpse inside their controversial compound and one star’s personal account of the mysterious rite of purification. It’s part two of our Entertainment Tonight Cover Story.
Goen: To outsiders, the Church of Scientology remains largely a mystery, but for its members, particularly its high-profile ones, the spiritual center of the universe lies less than a mile from Hollywood and Vine, in this one-time hotel, now an extravagant showpiece called the Celebrity Centre.
Remini: The Celebrity Centre is really geared for the artist, so there really isn’t a place that you can go as an artist and really expand yourself.
Goen: But just what is it that goes on within the walls of this ultra-exclusive compound? In this video provided by the church, members take a variety of courses and undergo a series of drills, both physical and mental. One is auditing, where members sit through one-on-one counseling sessions hooked up to an electrical device known as an e-meter.
Masterson: It helps register thoughts, it helps find painful moments or incidences and then you run them out until they’re no longer painful.
Goen: As a member of the church for 16 years, actress Kelly Preston has been audited countless times.
Preston: It’s really amazing. The further you go into it the better you are; it’s like breaking though something.
Goen: But it’s in the basement of the Centre where perhaps one of the most controversial practices takes place: the rite of purification.
Masterson: It, um, gets drugs, toxins and radiation out of your body.
Goen: Under supervision by church medical personnel, members come for weeks at a time to detoxify their bodies.
Church doctor: The person takes a precalculated measure of niacin, he does some aerobic exercise and then he intermittently goes out of the sauna.
Goen: Kelly Preston’s purification lasted 26 days. Danny Masterson has undergone the treatment twice.
Masterson: Oh, you feel like a million bucks. So you’re sitting there and you’ve got sunburns coming out, you know, like my brother wrote “dork” on my chest, you know, at the beach when we were kids and I’m sitting there, this is ten years later, and I’m turning bright red getting this radiation out and you see the word “dork” across my chest, you know. That was from a suntan oil ten years before.
Goen: While the world of conventional medicine may scoff at purification and e-meters, Scientologists hold fast to their beliefs. Despite being recognized by the government as a religion, many still criticize the Church as nothing more than a cult.
Goen to Bell: Have you ever felt discriminated against because of your affiliation?
Bell: No, and in the beginning I was maybe a little worried that I might.
Goen to Bell: It’s always called a cult. Is there any kind of, “you have to give fifty percent of the income to the church” or any of that stuff that would make it feel like they’re controlling your life?
Bell: No, not at all. In fact, someone just asked me this yesterday. You take the courses you want. One course might be $50, one course might be $30, one course might be $500, and you pay based on that.
Masterson: What is a cult? A cult is a secret society, right? There’s nothing secret about Scientology. Um, Scientology does nothing but help mankind.
Goen: Right now John Travolta is making a movie based on a book by the Church of Scientology founder called “Battlefield Earth.”