Scientology & Paul Haggis: 'It's a Cult' - NBC News, Part 1 of 2

tonight on Rock Center a groundbreaking look inside the Church of Scientology for the first time on TV Oscar winner Paul Haggis the highest-profile Scientologist ever to leave the church speaks out to Harry Smith does this concern you are having this conversation right now yes of course it does it's insanity this is incredibly stupid he's a nut people you wanna mess well and one family describes what they claim they endure to break free of the church well they separate us I'm asleep in a male dorm Lucy sleeps in a female gone on there's a guard outside do you know how crazy I do this son I know it was crazy to us as well good evening and welcome to Rock Center tonight we devote much of our broadcast to explosive accounts from former members of the Church of Scientology for the first time on television you will hear from the Oscar winner whose break with the church got a lot of attention in Hollywood where Scientologists famously include people like Tom Cruise you will also hear from Lawrence Wright the Pulitzer Prize winning author whose controversial new book on the church going clear came out just today he set out to understand why some members commit themselves so deeply to Scientology what he found adds a complicated often troubling layer to our understanding of the church Harry Smith has our report why did you finally leave the church I was ashamed of my own stupidity of how I've been can could have been so purposely blind for so many years Paul Haggis is the oscar-winning writer and director of crash and the most famous Scientologists to ever leave the church and speak out publicly everyone who's left has left quietly that was so scared all the well-known people cuz I can't do that if I leave I leave floud like we met haggis in Rome where he's working on a new movie the canadian-born filmmaker first joined the church when he was a troubled 21 year old looking for answers I was in love with a woman who I just couldn't get along with and they said we can help you with that and that's how it started did Scientology help you early on yes yes it did I think um it's like picking up any really good self-help book you're gonna get something out of it one of the fundamental principles of Scientology is that a person can improve his condition only if he is allowed to find his own truth about himself Scientology is based on the idea that everyone can achieve freedom from unwanted emotions and physical discomfort hagas like all Scientologists attended auditing sessions a form of one-on-one counseling than all it's like very specific mmm like a psychoanalysis they would kill me for saying everything I killed me anyways because they hate the comparison between the two but you are yeah it's like a therapy session what do you think it is about Scientology that gets ahold of people no I think they're things that actually help you they help you get along a little better with your wife your husband they help you you know understand your boss a little better if there's nothing it actually helped you in your life then it would never get ahold of you haggis went to Hollywood in 1977 and got his first break working as a writer for cartoon shows as he climbed the showbusiness ladder into primetime TV and movies many of his friends were Scientologists too it was an accepted even celebrated member of a community how do they convince people to be loyal it's just this long slow ah walk towards believing they DS the idea of being part of a group that is ostracized and hated it would bans you together against the outside world but then after more than 30 years in the church the outside world came crashing in it was around the time of Proposition 8 that things started to really get to a head proposition 8 was a California initiative to block gay marriage I was out my daughter is trying to do picketing and donating money to try and stop Proposition 8 and then I found out that a branch of the church was supporting it and I got very upset the church says it was merely one Scientologist who signed a petition and he was not representing the church long a champion of liberal causes hagas began to wonder what his church really stood for and for the first time began his own research what oh my god is this really happening he learned of allegations of abuse at the highest levels of the church from a series of articles in the st. Petersburg Times stories of physical violence and involuntary confinement hagas was particularly shocked when he read allegations on anti-scientology websites of children made to work 12 to 16 hours a day this horrible treatment these kids had terrible they're made to work so often and and this all day long and there's these terrible conditions of them for that yeah they should be taken down for that the church denies any of this abuse haven't they say hagas investigation was a sham and that there is no record no police reports no medical records no photos to support these allegations the church also says it adheres to all child labor laws hagas resigned from the church in 2009 and made his break public two years ago when the New Yorker published a controversial profile by reporter Lawrence Wright I expected I did this interview with Larry people would just go oh that's he's this is a stupidest man on earth isn't it and and I probably am I think that's the problem you are purposely blind I was purposely mind for the Shirelles two people cross with chicks anybody within a group like us has to choose to be blind haggis says he has been largely shunned by those in the Scientology community but has heard from others that his resignation gave them the courage to quit as well he is now part of the Pulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright's new book out today called going clear Scientology Hollywood and the prison of belief which is based on rights investigation of the church including interviews with more than 200 people mostly former members what I was struck by is the people that I met with initially were really bright and interesting people they were not freakish they were not crackpots they they had their own reasons for being drawn into this organization science fiction writer l ron Hubbard founded the church in 1954 and while the religion has been a positive transformative experience for some it has long been shadowed by allegations that people have been emotionally and sometimes even physically abused I don't think anybody would join Scientology in order to be abusive you know they want they go into Scientology because they want help but at the deeper levels as you go you know further and further into the church the distortions become more and more apparent and it's at those levels that I think Scientology has lost its way why do you think the church is so controversial it has a history of being very vindictive and litigious and has a history of infiltrating the government and spying on people and so it has created an atmosphere of fear that surrounds it in the 1970s the church launched a massive domestic espionage effort called Operation snow-white because the church believed the government was collecting information damaging to the church following an FBI raid eleven Scientologists including Hubbard's wife were convicted of infiltrating numerous government agencies and stealing documents does this concern you are having this conversation right now yes of course it does it's insanity this is incredibly stupid these are is enough people you want to mess with porous heresy the church has labeled haggis the hypocrite of Hollywood and says he has not been an active member for years while haggis says in retrospect that he was never a true believer he did tell us about going clear where a person clears his mind of negative influences before becoming what Scientologists called an operating thetan or OT the equivalent of an immortal soul it isn't something you have you wouldn't say of my Phaeton you'd simply say me there are many levels of spiritual enlightenment in Scientology after they claim I went to the top you might say the tongue ot7 and that was the top in the late 70s but by that time haggis says he was having serious doubts when he reached an earlier level called ot3 a crucial rite of passage that introduces Scientologists to key tenets of the church's beliefs including the notion that the human body is host to aliens from outer space you're introduced to the concept of body thetan that is alien beings those base aliens though that have infested your body by the scores or the hundreds and those are the things that are giving you all your problems in your life your neuroses your tears your phobias your anxieties and it may be your sexual confusion haggis was stunned when he reviewed the material for ot3 and I read the materials they're handwritten by Hubbard and I went what the hell is this I mean I could justify a lot of things in the past and I could say okay but this this does nothing to justify this is M this is insane this is madness this is absolute madness why do you stay then it's a part of your life at that point your kids are in school your friends your wife um that's what you know a Scientology a cop-out Christmas of course it is it's it's his assistant belief that they mean you've got these folks inside this fortress who who won't look out and won't look at any criticism and can't bear to there's any investigation and think that every one he goes against them what would you describe that it's a cult of course it is as seen in this church video there may be no more powerful marketing tool than the cult of celebrity and perhaps there is no more important Scientologist than actor Tom Cruise l ron hubbard known to his followers simply as LRH courted stars from the very beginning Tom Cruise has introduced loh technology to over 1 I think it's privileged for yourself Scientologists here Cruz is being awarded Scientology's first freedom medal of valor by church leader David Miscavige what moral responsibility do you think these stars have to know about the alleged abuses in the church these stars have been in my opinion exploited to advance Scientology and so people join it because of them and therefore I think they have a tremendous moral responsibility to know what actually is happening inside the church when you left the church you described it as an act of treason yes it was a tracer sector if you have an enemy who's declared self an enemy that's a bad thing but if you're a friend who's in stabbed you in the back that's worse and that's what they claimed I did and that's actually what I did strong words and after the break when Harry's reporting continues a family who devoted their lives as you heard to Scientology they're describing practices a lot of people would find inconceivable like parents separated from their own children that was with us nobody nobody cared about her at all she saw her mother even less than I did eight years old yeah she's eight I had to put it to bed every night crying asking for her parents

Channel: ReportsOnScientology

Views: 607,088

Rating: 4.7388849 out of 5

Keywords: Scientology (Religion), Scientology, Paul Haggis, Brian Williams, Rock Center, NBC, NBC News

Id: meN7Nb--q7w

Length: 12min 45sec (765 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 18 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/dmt_burrito]

Link to part 2 here