The Arts & Entertainment (A&E) cable TV network
Inside Scientology
Transcript part one - 14 December 1998
RealVideo files of the program
From: Xenubat@primenet.com (Bat Child (Sue M.))
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Part 1, transcript, A & E show on Scientology
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 08:01:59 GMT
Description of video is in [brackets]. VO=VOICEOVER s=========================================ANNOUNCER: On December 14, 1998, this is "Investigative Reports". BILL KURTIS: Hello, I'm Bill Kurtis. It is America's most controversial religion. Some, in fact, say it's not a religion at all. For 40 years, the Church of Scientology has flourished in this country, while under constant attack by the government, the media, and the psychiatric profession. It's been perceived as an organization interested only in money making, which brainwashes its members and then bankrupts them; all untrue, say its leaders and its many high-profile believers, including John Travolta, have drawn hundreds of thousands to its cause. In this edition of "Investigative Reports," a rare in-depth look into a group that says it is paying the price for its revolutionary ideas. [title--"INSIDE SCIENTOLOGY"] [aerial shots of various Scn churches] VO: Scientology is one of the fastest growing new religions in the 20th century. Its impressive edifices and glittering parishioners have put the 48-year old organization on the map of global emerging philosophies. [Scn IAS ad with John Travolta, Kelly Preston and their son Jett with caption saying "Lifetime Members] JOHN TRAVOLTA (on set of a movie in Army camouflage uniform; caption--"John Travolta, Scientologist actor"): You name me another philosophy, religion or technology where joy is the operative concept. JENNIFER ASPEN (at Celebrity Centre party; caption--"Jennifer Aspen, Scientologist"): In this community where you learn that you want to be part of all kinds of other communities and help the rest of the world. ISAAC HAYES (at Celebrity Centre party; caption--"Isaac Hayes, Scientologist musician"): It brings a lot of good will, it influences wonderful things out of people. It helps people. KIRSTIE ALLEY (outside AOLA on L. Ron Hubbard Way, caption--"Kirstie Alley, Scientologist") So I think that's pretty spectacular. I think everybody should see this. [Scienos marching; footage of Anne Archer, Travolta, unnamed singer, Jenna Elfman; outside Scn church; montage of Scn course rooms, auditing sessions, Bridge chart; man standing on the top of a hill] VO: Scientology provokes emotion. Hollywood celebrities are often seen raving about the religion they say has changed their life. Through a series of complicated self-help courses and a confessional process known as auditing, Scientologists strive to rid themselves of negative past life memories and reach a state of "clear." KELLY MORAN (caption--"Kelly Moran, Scientologist): It was just like someone had removed a gauze around my head, you know, and I could think and everything was really crisp and clear, and, and it was just really great. [Scientology sign lighted up; newspaper article titled, "Scientology bizarre plot to get official"; part of British newspaper article title "In Court as 'Evil Cult'"] VO: But despite the positive testimonials many assume that the church is an evil and dangerous cult. HAYES: I said, "But Scientology, I heard y'all were a cult, I heard you were a cult. I heard y'all take folks' money, y'all brainwash people. I mean, I said what was on my mind, you know. [Aerial shot of Scn church; picture of Lisa McPherson; Fort Harrison Hotel; legal papers in Lisa McPherson civil lawsuit; autopsy report; picture of candlelight vigil with picket sign with Lisa McPherson's picture and the caption "Lisa McPherson, 1959-1995"; autopsy photo of Lisa's hand with cockroach bites and bruises; picture of Lisa holding her Clear Certificate, morphed into the same picture when it was on the front page of the New York Times with the headline, "Death of a Scientologist Heightens Suspicions in a Florida Town"; Scienos taking pictures; footage of December 1997 Clearwater picket (including Xenu holding sign saying "www.xenu.net", other signs saying "Scientology Hates Free Speech" and "Hubbard Was a Fraud"; Scieno rally; newspaper article titled "Psychologists Rally Against Dianetics"; cover of Time magazine Scientology issue "Cult of Greed"; Scn ad for "Dianetics with exploding volcano] VO: Why the deeply rooted suspicion of Scientology? The church has often been linked to conflict, most recently when longtime Scientologist Lisa McPherson died after convalescing for 17 days in a Scientology-owned hotel. Her family believes her death was unnecessary and the fault of Scientologists who refused to take her for medical care. After a two-year investigation, Florida prosecutors have filed charges of abuse and neglect of McPherson, the first criminal accusations brought against the U.S. church in over 20 years. Scientology vehemently denies responsibility for the ugly death and faults a scandal-hungry media for savagely transforming a personal tragedy into exploitative headlines. The organization says negative impressions about the church are the result of a 40-year-old assault by world governments, psychiatry and the media; all part of an establishment threatened by a breakthrough faith. ARON MASON (caption--"Aron Mason, Scientologist"): It's just a classic case of, you know, you've got to have sensationalism, and I think it's why the public are fed up with the media today, is that they've finally seen, as we have, that it's just, it's never ending, and it's a self- fulfilling prophecy. You say it's that way and then you make it that way so you can run the story. [shot of someone getting a newspaper out of a newspaper rack; outside a government building] DAVID MISCAVIGE (caption--"David Miscavige, Ecclesiastical leader of the Church of Scientology"): We are talking about attacks from multibillion dollar media conglomerates, governments, world governments, real powers of the world. The fact that Scientology has continued to expand, and is in the position it's in today in the face of those attacks, well, that says there really must be something to this subject. [newspaper articles--"Church Claims U.S. Campaign of Harassment", "5 Scientologists Get Jail Terms In Plot on Files", "Scientology--Menace to Mental Health", (from the "National Enquirer") "Bizarre Brainwashing Cult Cons Top Stars Into Backing Its Drug Program" (with pictures of Charlene Tilton and Gregory Harrison), "Ex-Member Cites Abuse By Church", "Scientology: A Judge's verdict--'CORRUPT IMMORAL SINISTER'"; photo of L. Ron Hubbard giving a lecture demonstrating an auditing session; LRH auditing a tomato; promotional picture of LRH; pictures of LRH as a child and teenager; combat footage; LRH diaries] VO: Amidst the flurry of tales, it's difficult to decipher the truth. To really understand Scientology it's necessary to go back in time to the genesis of the religion and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born in 1911 in Tilden, Nebraska. An adventuresome spirit, Hubbard made trips to Guam and China as a teenager, described romantically in his teenage diaries. [pictures of LRH in aviator uniform and in adventurer's uniform] DAN SHERMAN (caption--"Dan Sherman, official Hubbard biographer): You are talking about a young L. Ron Hubbard, you are talking about someone who shot sharks, who scaled erupting volcanoes, who explored the jungles of Asia. I mean, you're talking about Indiana Jones, but for real. [picture of a young LRH blowing a bugle; painting of a skull] JON ATACK (caption--"Jon Atack, former Scientologist"): He did some small thing and that just blew up in his own mind. He had a very dangerous imagination. Even when he was 19, he was starting to inhabit a fantasy world. [cover of "The Kingslayer" by LRH; picture of LRH by a typewriter; cover of "Unknown" magazine with "Slaves of Sleep" by LRH; cover of "Fear" by LRH; cover of "Fantastic" magazine with "Masters of Sleep" by LRH; Lyle Stuart in his office] VO: That fantasy would be put to use in the 1930s when Hubbard dropped out of college and began to write for a living. Unusually prolific, Hubbard moved to New York and became a popular writer of adventure and science fiction stories. But those who knew him recall that Hubbard had other ambitions. [shot of city street] LYLE STUART (caption--"Lyle Stuart, publisher"): I knew Ron Hubbard before he ever started Scientology. I was in a writing group with him in Greenwich Village and he kept saying, "You know, the only way to make any money, you can't do it with pulp writing, you got to, you start a religion." And nobody took him very seriously. [LRH in Navy uniform; cover of "Magick in Theory and Practice, the Master Therion" by Aleister Crowley (and "The Beast, 666"; picture of Aleister Crowley] VO: In 1945, after a four-year stint in the Navy, Hubbard became involved in ritual magic with a protege of British Satanist Aleister Crowley. [black-and-white footage of a fire burning] JON ATACK: They started performing ceremonies to find a woman who would be willing to be the mother of an incarnation of the Antichrist. Babylon. Sexual ceremonies were performed between Parsons and Cameron, with Hubbard watching, and telling them what to do, and observing things on the astral plane, and this was meant to, you know, she would become pregnant, and they would control this elemental destructive force. I can't emphasize this too much. Hubbard was trying to incarnate pure evil so that he could control it to his own ends. [Dan Sherman at his desk] VO: But the church insists that Hubbard's participation in the alleged rituals was part of a government mission. DAN SHERMAN: We know about L. Ron Hubbard. He was sent in by one of the American security forces, with a brief to shut the thing down, which effectively he did. [picture of LRH giving an auditing demonstration; picture of LRH standing next to a car shaking hands with another man; cover of "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine; original edition of "Dianetics"] VO: Government agent or not, Hubbard was destined to become the pop therapist of his era. In 1950, at the age of 39 he wrote an essay in "Astounding Science Fiction," detailing discoveries he made about the human mind in a "science" he called Dianetics. The essay became the foundation for "Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health. L. RON HUBBARD (from Scientology video): Dianetics through mind, and this book, that, that's the background of all of this, that's what started all the trouble. [aerial footage of suburbs in the 1950s; song "Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes,--" playing in the background; more footage of scenes from the '50s; magazine pictures from the '50s; picture of a sunset; Bridge chart with "Clear: in big letters] DAN SHERMAN (voice of and on camera): The world into which Dianetics was released in may of 1950 was overall a world of conformity. You had soldiers returning to the United States, and they were effectively told this: You get yourself a good job, you get yourself a tract home, and you live a conformed life. And if you are lucky, you will get yourself a swimming pool after, of course, you've dug your bomb shelter. You will have children, and they in turn will have grandchildren, and then you will die, and you will become nothing. All of a sudden here comes Dianetics. And Dianetics is saying, wait a minute, what if you can really rise above this state of a human being into something more special. Into what ultimately became a Clear [picture of LRH; footage of a bunch of airplanes and war footage; newspaper article with pictures of LRH and title, "Dianetics: A study of the mind--fastest growing 'movement' in America"] VO: Hubbard claimed to have uncovered the cure of virtually every ailment known to man and professed to have healed himself from partial blindness caused by an alleged war injury. Hubbard promised his book could work wonders on anyone who tried it. [pictures supposedly of PCs being audited] JON ATACK (voice of and on camera): He said that he could take anybody who was not brain damaged, and in less than 1,000 hours of therapy, which could be done by somebody completely untrained other than having read the book, you could take this person to a state called Clear. [picture of LRH holding copy of "Dianetics"; picture of LRH from magazine article; blue plastic model of a human head] VO: Hubbard claimed that all illnesses were psychosomatic and could be cured by eliminating painful past experiences from the brain. HUBBARD (from video): The brain is a sort of a switchboard. [video graphics of red circle with the words "reactive mind" inside it and blue circle with the words "analytical mind" inside it] ISAAC HAYES (voice of and on camera): Engrams is mental image pictures that consist of pain, where there is mental or physical pain. It's there. We have two minds. We have the analytical mind that doesn't make mistakes at all. We have the reactive mind. hat's the culprit. [apparently a page of a book or magazine with cartoon drawing of a human head with diagram of parts of the brain and the caption, "A critical appraisal of a best-selling book that originated in the realm of science-fiction and became the basis for a new cult--Dianetics"; Scn promotional video of auditing session; picture of LRH on the phone] VO: Hubbard said the troubling reactive mind could be forever discarded through auditing. During an auditing session, one confesses his innermost thoughts to another, all the while monitored by an electrometer, a tool similar to a lie detector. Auditing, said Hubbard, allowed one to relieve his mind from troubling past life traumas. Hubbard was eager to share Dianetics with prominent mental health experts. MIKE RINDER (caption--"Mike Rinder, Director, Church of Scientology International"): He said, "Yeah, you take it, use it, help people with it. They rejected it; they were afraid of it. [picture of New York Times bestseller list with "Dianetics" #4 on the list] VO: But the book was an instant best seller. [picture of printing press; newspaper article titled, "Hubbard's disciples vary but they've all read THE BOOK" with picture of LRH] L. RON HUBBARD (voice of and on video): We expected this to sell about 6,000 copies and, uh, when this textbook was published, and it hit the top of the best seller list of the New York Times and it just stayed there month in, month out. [picture of Sigmund Freud] VO: Hubbard's open contempt for the field of psychiatry and the popular theories of Sigmund Freud also caused a ripple. INTERVIEWER (on video): Is this a form of psychoanalysis? L. RON HUBBARD (on video): No, psychoanalysis, they lay back...Don't associate Scientology with such people. That's terrible, that's bad manners, you know. I mean, that business about sex and all that sort of thing. That's for the neurotic or the person who is insane or something like that. That has nothing to do with Scientology. [newspaper articles--"Dianetics: Noted doctors attack new treatment", "Doctors snipe at Dianetics as 'quack' mental therapy"] MIKE RINDER (voice of and on camera): The psychiatric institutions and the prominent psychiatrists kept attacking Dianetics. It became clear that what they were engaged in had nothing to do with helping anybody. It had nothing to do with making someone more capable, of making someone happier. [footage of patient getting gag put in her mouth, doctor and nurse nearby] NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Electroshock therapy may be recommended for other disorders. MIKE RINDER (voice of): It only had to do with keeping them quiet, giving them drugs, performing electric shock treatments on them. [footage of nurse holding a teapot under a patient's nose; patient is in some odd get-up where only her head is sticking out with a rubber sheet stretched out; picture of LRH] NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Hydrotherapy is useful in calming disturbed patients. MIKE RINDER (voice of and on camera): Those sort of things are barbarities. And I think that Mr. Hubbard was one of the first people that stood up and said, wait a minute, this is wrong, something needs to be done about it. We're going to take responsibility for making sure that people are not being turned into vegetables at the hands of psychiatry. [picture of people doing auditing; picture of someone in a Scn bookstore; picture of LRH and another man standing in front storefront of the Hubbard Association of Scientologists; "Hollywood" sign; picture of someone writing at a desk; Food & Drug Administration building; newspaper article with headline "Controversial E-Meter Takes Aim On Impurities"; official carrying out boxes] VO: Glowing testimonies to Hubbard's "technology," led to the creation of the Hubbard Association of Scientologists. Based in Hollywood, the organization taught Hubbard's courses to those willing to pay the $25 an hour for the therapy. The Food and Drug Administration was suspicious. The FDA, which believed Hubbard was making medical claims for the e-meter, paid a visit to the D.C. Organization in 1963. MIKE RINDER: They hired a bunch of longshoreman, sent them into the church in Washington, and cleaned the place out. They took the books, they took the e-meters, they took the vitamins, they took everything out. [picture of LRH; magazine article titled, "Number One Fraud of the Year: Dianetics"; picture of the White House] VO: Hubbard, furious, was convinced that psychiatry professionals had tainted the U.S. Government against him. [magazine article titled, "100 atom bombs can knock out the U.S."; footage of J. Edgar Hoover; magazine article with title "Hoover's Files Haunt Congress"; footage of Martin Luther King, Jr.; picture of LRH BILL WALSH (caption--"Bill Walsh, tax attorney, Church of Scientology"): When L. Ron Hubbard started Scientology, and created Scientology in the '50s, he did it at the height of McCarthyism and he came across with new ideas and a whole new way of looking at things in a new perspective. And J. Edgar Hoover at the time wasn't exactly fond of new ideas. And the whole approach of the United States government was to be suspicious of new leaders who were coming at the time. Martin Luther King was a great target of the FBI, L. Ron Hubbard was a target of the FBI.
