Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(130)

Davis turned and walked away, trailed by Sweeney, who protested, “It’s your turn to listen to me! I’m a British subject.… ”

Another confrontation took place at the “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” exhibit in Hollywood. Davis once again moved in, nose to nose with Sweeney. “You’re accusing members of my religion of brainwashing!” He was referring to an earlier interview Sweeney had conducted with another Scientologist.

“No, Tommy,” Sweeney responded, his voice rising, “you were not there—”

“Brainwashing is a crime,” Davis said.

“Listen to me! You were not there! At the beginning! Of the interview!” Sweeney shouted in an oddly slow cadence. “You did not hear! Or record! The interview!”

“Do you understand that brainwashing is a crime?” Davis said, unfazed by Sweeney’s enraged screams.

Davis’s composure and his spirited defense of his church made quite a contrast with the sputtering and eventually deeply chagrined reporter, who apologized to BBC viewers on the air.

In March 2007, John Travolta’s new movie, Wild Hogs, a comedy about two middle-aged men who decide to become bikers, was scheduled to open in Britain. Concerned that Sweeney would confront Travolta during the publicity for the film, Rinder and Davis planned to travel together to London, but on the day of departure, Davis failed to show up. Someone went to his room, but he was nowhere to be found. Rinder had to travel to London alone. He learned from Miscavige’s communicator that Davis had blown. Sweeney immediately sensed that something was up and kept pestering Rinder about where Davis was. Rinder told him Davis had the flu.

As part of the film promotion, Travolta arrived at the red-carpet London premiere on a motorcycle. Sweeney was standing in the crowd in Leicester Square, well away from the star, crying out, “Are you a member of a sinister, brainwashing cult?” Travolta’s fans shouted Sweeney down.

Later, Sweeney asked Rinder if it was true that Miscavige had beaten him, claiming to have an eyewitness.

“Who’s the witness?” Rinder asked.

“He wishes to remain confidential because he says he is scared.”

“John, that is typical of what you do,” Rinder said.

“He says that David Miscavige knocked you to the ground.”

“Absolute rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, not true, rubbish.”

Rinder threatened to sue if Sweeney aired such allegations. When the BBC program ran, there was no mention of physical abuse. Rinder felt that he had spared the church considerable embarrassment. But, far from being grateful, Miscavige told him that Sweeney’s piece should never have run at all. He ordered Rinder to report to an RPF facility in England. Rinder decided he’d had enough. He blew.

Davis called the church and returned voluntarily from Las Vegas, where he had been hiding.5 He was sent to Clearwater, where he was security-checked by Jessica Feshbach. The aim of the check is to gain a confession using an E-Meter. It can function as a powerful form of thought control.

Davis and Feshbach subsequently married.


ON A RAINY MORNING in late September 2010, I finally got my meeting with Tommy Davis. The profile of Paul Haggis I had been preparing was nearing publication. Davis and Feshbach, along with four attorneys representing the church, traveled to Manhattan to meet with me; my editor, Daniel Zalewski, and David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker; the two lead fact-checkers on the story, Jennifer Stahl and Tim Farrington, as well as the head of the magazine’s fact-checking department, Peter Canby; and our lawyer, Lynn Oberlander. Leading the Scientology legal delegation was Anthony Michael Glassman, a former assistant US attorney who now has a boutique law firm in Beverly Hills, specializing in representing movie stars. On his website, he boasts of a $10 million judgment against The New York Times. The stakes were obvious to everyone.

The Scientology delegation brought with them forty-eight three-ring binders of supporting material, stretching nearly seven linear feet, to respond to the 971 questions the checkers had posed. It was an impressive display. The binders were labeled according to categories, such as “Disappearance of L. Ron Hubbard,” “Tom Cruise,” “Gold Base,” and “Haggis’s Involvement in Scientology.” Davis emphasized that the church had gone to extraordinary lengths to prepare for this meeting. “Frankly, the only thing I can think that compares would be the presentation that we made in the early 1990s to the IRS.”

[page]We sat around a large blond conference table with the kaleidoscopic lights of Times Square garishly whirling in the background. I particularly recall the Dunkin’ Donuts sign over Davis’s shoulder as he began his presentation. First, he ruled out any discussion of the church’s confidential scripture. He compared it to “shoving an image of the Prophet Mohammed in the face of a Muslim” or “insisting that a Jew eat pork.” He then attacked the credibility of some of the sources for the piece, whom he called “bitter apostates.” “They are unreliable,” he said. “They make up stories.” He produced a paper by Bryan Wilson, who was an eminent Oxford sociologist and prominent defender of new religious movements (he died in 2004). Wilson argues that testimony from disaffected members should be treated skeptically, noting, “The apostate is generally in need of self-justification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past to excuse his former affiliations and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates.… He is likely to be suggestible and ready to enlarge or embellish his grievances to satisfy that species of journalist whose interest is more in sensational copy than in an objective statement of the truth.” Davis had highlighted the last part for my benefit.