Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(86)

“You have affidavits?”

“From them? Of course not. You think they’d admit it?” Miscavige said. “We put in a call to Eli Lilly. Their response was, ‘We can neither confirm nor deny.’ ”1

In Sawyer’s report there was a brief clip of Hubbard telling his followers, “I was up in the Van Allen Belt. This is factual. And I don’t know why they’re scared of the Van Allen Belt, because it’s simply hot. You’d be surprised how warm space is.” Koppel observed, “When I hear about a man talking about having been taken out to the Van Allen space radiation belt or space ships that were essentially the same thing as the DC-8, I’ve got to tell you, I mean, if we’re talking about this man’s credibility, that certainly raises some questions in my mind.”

Miscavige said that Hubbard’s quote had been taken out of context.

“Take a minute, if you would, and see if you can put it into context for us so that it does not sound ridiculous,” Koppel said.

“Okay,” said Miscavige. “I want you to take the Catholic Church and take right now and explain to me, to make sense that the Virgin Mary was a virgin, scientifically impossible, unless we’re talking about something …” He trailed off, then said, “Okay, I’ll be like you, I’ll be the cynic. If we’re talking about artificial insemination, how could that be? If you’re talking about going to Heaven, except we have a space shuttle going out there, we have the Apollo going out there, you do that. I’m not here—” He was obviously confused and uncomfortable.

“You were a Catholic as a child, right?” Koppel asked helpfully.

“Yeah.”

“So you know full well that those issues are questions of faith.”

Miscavige wouldn’t accept the life raft that Koppel offered him. Scientology is sold as an entirely rational approach to understanding and mastering existence. “No, no,” Miscavige replied. “Talk about the Van Allen Belt or whatever, that forms no part of current Scientology, none whatsoever.”

“But what did he mean when he was talking about it?”

“Quite frankly, this tape here, he’s talking about the origins of the universe, and I think you’re going to find that in any, any, any religion, and I think you can make the same mockery of it. I think it’s offensive.”

“I’m not mocking it, I’m asking you a question,” Koppel replied. “You turn it around and ask me about Catholicism. I say we’re talking about areas of faith.”

“Well, it’s not even a matter of faith,” Miscavige insisted, “because Scientology is about you, yourself, and what you do. You’re bringing up something that isn’t part of current Scientology, that isn’t something that Scientologists study, that is part of some tape taken from, I have no idea, and asking me about it and asking me to put it in context, that I can’t do.” Later, Miscavige told Koppel that he had never heard the Hubbard tape before. (It was a part of a lecture Hubbard gave in 1963, in which he talked about the between-lives period, when thetans are transported to Venus to have their memories erased.)

After the show, Miscavige returned to the greenroom, where Rinder, Rathbun, and Norman Starkey, another executive, were waiting. “How’d I do?” he asked.

“Gee, sir, you kicked ass,” one of the men said.

“It was a home run,” Rathbun assured him.

“Really?” Miscavige asked doubtfully. “Jesus Christ, I was just there and I don’t know. The guy was pissing me off so much.”

Koppel won an Emmy for that show. Miscavige took credit for it, saying, “I got Ted the Emmy.” He even had a replica of an Emmy made and placed in the Officers Lounge at Gold Base. But he never went on television again.


THE TIME STORY WAS a turning point in the church’s history. The embarrassment for Scientology celebrities undercut the church’s strategy of making the religion appear to be a spiritual refuge for the show-business elite. One of the chief appeals of the religion to prospective recruits was the perceived network that Scientology provided its members, especially in Hollywood, awarding them an advantage in a ruthlessly competitive industry. With the Time article, affiliation with the church became an embarrassing liability.

Tom Cruise was one of the stars who appeared to be backing away from Scientology.2 He stopped moving up the Bridge. He and Nicole adopted two children, Isabella and Connor, and began spending more time in Sydney, Kidman’s hometown, where she could be close to her family. He hired a powerful publicist, Pat Kingsley, who was able to enforce rigid control over the content of the interviews the star granted. Although his affiliation with Scientology was generally known, there was no more fuel for the media mill. He seemed to be putting as much distance between himself and the church as possible.

The church began to plot its counterattack. The Cult Awareness Network, besieged by more than fifty lawsuits brought by Scientologists, went bankrupt in 1996. An individual Scientologist purchased its name and assets at auction. Soon after that, the reorganized Cult Awareness Network sent out a brochure lauding the Church of Scientology for its efforts to “increase happiness and improve conditions for oneself and others.” The church also began a $3 million campaign against Time, placing full-page ads every day in USA Today for twelve weeks, charging that the magazine had “supported” Adolf Hitler, for instance, by naming him the 1938 “Man of the Year” because of his dominance in European affairs. A lengthy supplement was placed in USA Today titled “The Story That Time Couldn’t Tell: Who Really Controls the News at Time—and Why,” in which the church claimed that Time was actually under the sway of the pharmaceutical industry—specifically, Eli Lilly and Company, the maker of Prozac. The church had charged that Prozac caused people to commit mass murder and suicide. The Time article was the drug company’s revenge, the church alleged.3