Are we Clear on This? The Door Magazine, July/August 2002

The Door Magazine
July/August 2002

SCIENTOLOGY
Are we Clear on This?

Tory Bezazian Interview

By: Bob Gersztyn

We don't have to tell YOU about L. Ron Hubbard, his book Dianetics, and the religion it spawned - Scientology. In fact, until just recently, most media outlets WOULDN'T tell you about it given Scientology's well-deserved reputation for litigation. Instead, let us tell you about Tory Bezazian.

In 1969 Tory hitchhiked from Chicago to L.A. to become a disciple of Dianetics. She invested untold tens of thousands of hours and dollars in it (the annual price tag for membership in the International Association of Scientologists is a cool $1 million at the Gold Patron Meritorious level). In time, she rose to the level of OT VII, Scientology's all-powerful "auditors" said the evil alien thetas still clung to her body. Oh yeah, and she had epilepsy.

Still, Tory joined the Scientology Parishioners League (sort of a Scientology Anti-Defamation League) where she spearheaded ferocious attacks against any imagined media slight of L. Ron or Dianetics. She became the indefatigable "Magoo," nemesis of the Internet newsgroups at.religion.scientology and http://www.xenu.net

Eventually, Tory was an ordained "minister" and worked as a trainer of new Scientology initiates, like John Travolta.

Today Ms. Bezazian spends her time informing as many people as possible that the abuses of Scientology can destroy lives and that it is built on lies told solely for the purpose of enriching a small elite group who run the organization.

This seemed like a radical change that merited further investigation. Convinced that this would lead to a chance to photograph John Travolta or Tom Cruise, bob Gersztyn, The Door Magazine's staff photographer and Interviewer of Choice for things related to the Left Coast, agreed to engage Tory Bezazian in a phone interview.

THE DOOR MAGAZINE: Exactly what is Scientology?

TORY BEZAZIAN: Well, there's the Scientology answer, and then there's my own personal answer. What Scientology says it is, a study of knowing how to know. They say they're a religion and they're there to basically help people get free.

DOOR: Free of what?

BEZAZIAN: L. Ron Hubbard wrote a book called Dianetics. And from Dianetics, you can erase painful moments or moments of loss. That's what he says.

DOOR: And so he built a religion based on eliminating painful moments.

BEZAZIAN: Originally, that's what Dianetics was and then he came up with a state of mind called "CLEAR" which was supposedly where you had a perfect memory and a perfect I.Q. However, the truth is, through his own definition, there isn't a CLEAR.

DOOR: So he realized that he was wrong and recanted and gave everyone back their money?

BEZAZIAN: No, he found out it'll make money and as he says in his own words, in order to make money you've got to start a religion. So that's what he did. He started Scientology.

DOOR: Did you ever meet L. Ron Hubbard?

BEZAZIAN: I didn't know him personally, although many of my friends did. From knowing him via his tapes and from my friends, my best description is "a fabulous intern of P.T. Barnum's. He knew how to entertain an audience and gain their trust. From there, he used them for many things. Some laughed, some cried, some died... including him. He forgot it was just a show.

DOOR: When you originally got involved in Scientology what drew you to it?

BEZAZIAN: I was really looking for a higher state of consciousness and a way of helping people. And I read Dianetics and I felt "WOW this is it!" You know, "I can help people go CLEAR." And I literally hitchhiked from Chicago to Los Angeles to study Scientology.

DOOR: But this state of CLEAR is touted as being where you achieve almost superhuman ability.

BEZAZIAN: Supposedly. In the early '50's, Hubbard did a big event at the shrine auditorium, in L.A. They actually tried to demonstrate CLEAR and people in the audience got up and asked various questions. And the lady couldn't even remember the color of Hubbard's tie that he was wearing. It was sort of a farce and it still is, really.

DOOR: So you've never met an actual 100% CLEAR?

BEZAZIAN: Oh sure. I know they say they're CLEAR by one further definition Hubbard gives, but in reality no, I haven't. Not one that has perfect memory and a super high I.Q. and, you know, absolutely no illnesses, absolutely no pain. You know, no upsets. No I haven't.

DOOR: How did the ones that claimed they were CLEAR achieve that level.

BEZAZIAN: There's a whole thing Hubbard designed called "The bridge to total freedom." And you basically do these different steps. They start you out on a little teeny gradient. Just like something you'd like to improve. There's a chance Scientology can fix that. So you know, then you're on the train. Now you've done that, here's the next thing. And even if you don't want to do it, you're surrounded by so many people who're saying, "Yeah, do the next thing." So it's impossible to say I don't want to, or almost possible.

DOOR: The website www.xenu.net calls Scientology "...the most expensive religion on earth." Why?

BEZAZIAN: Because Hubbard was trying to make money and the execs in it basically live very well.

DOOR: But how would that be any different than some televangelist who is balking people out of their welfare and Social Security checks?

BEZAZIAN: There's definitely a similarity. The difference in those religions and Scientology is (that) you have a choice. In Roman Catholicism, for example, you don't have to go to church. You're welcome in their church at any point.

DOOR: We take it this isn't the case with Scientology?

BEZAZIAN: In Scientology, you cannot do most of their stuff without paying a definite price. It's already pre-planned. It's very much like a business.

DOOR: So everything has a set price on it?

BEZAZIAN: It's a set price. There's no negotiation. They call it a donation. It's basically a service they're selling. They call it a religion so they don't have to pay taxes.

DOOR: So how much is the total sum a person must pay to achieve CLEAR?

BEZAZIAN: You know, I'm really bad at this, 'cause I did that so long ago. It's in the tens of thousands. Probably would be $100,000 at this point.

DOOR: So then you were CLEAR?

BEZAZIAN: I attested to CLEAR, but they ended up invalidating it while I was on OT VII.

DOOR: CLEAR has levels?

BEZAZIAN: Yes there's CLEAR and there's OT.

DOOR: So it's CLEAR, OT I, OT II, OT III, OT IV, OT V, OT VI, & OT VII?

BEZAZIAN: OT VII is the highest level. And I was on OT VII for seven years.

DOOR: And they took it away?

BEZAZIAN: Which was totally "Out Tech" for what they do. But they did it anyway.

Out Tech is their slang term. Technology is tech. (If) it was out tech, they did something wrong, which invalidates someone's state of anything. It's very wrong in their group.

DOOR: So you were invalidated for the position that you had attained even after all your years of working on it?

BEZAZIAN: Yeah. I'd been on OT VII for seven years and then an auditor said: "Well, you're not really CLEAR."

DOOR: And here I thought "Once saved, always saved" was a neat dogma. What was the reason they gave you for doing it?

BEZAZIAN: They didn't. They just said: "You couldn't of gone CLEAR then, so when did you CLEAR?" I was just in the middle of OT VII and an Auditor was doing a very weird thing that shouldn't have been done. That's one thing.

The other thing was, I was an OT VII for seven years and then David Miscavige, who runs the church, had a huge event. And basically the truth of the matter -- and I really think this -- that their beginning levels are empty and they can't get a lot of new people because they read the Internet and find out what's going on. So I think they ran out of money and decided, "Well, we'll just make all the OT VII's redo OT VII." And all the auditors redo their training.

So David had a huge event and said "Oh, we found out everybody's not doing well. They haven't drilled you enough. So for everybody they have to restart from the beginning and do it all over again. It's like doing college over again. I was ready to graduate from college and it's like "Whoops. You didn't really drill it right. We want you to go back to the beginning and pay $25,000 and redo it."

I though, "Wait a minute! I've been doing this for seven years. I've been writing you saying something's wrong. I've been telling you it's not going well. And then to charge $25,000 to pay and redo it again? I don't think so."

DOOR: So was that when you first began to see holes in their philosophy?

BEZAZIAN: No. No. Really the beginning of the holes was getting on OT VII, because I really thought it was going to be this real neat level. And it was just more of what they call OT III -- which has to do with these alien beings that you're supposedly surrounded by called BTs and Clusters. BTs (Body Thetans) is a whole different thing.

Basically they say: Seventy-five million years ago, this real evil dude called Xenu decided to handle the galactic overpopulation problem that existed by putting these excess people into volcanoes and blowing them up with hydrogen bombs, and their spirits were stuck on these electronic strips. I think that somehow he put the strips in these DC 8s, which is really weird.

DOOR: Wait a minute. You mean the DC 8 the old airplane? They had DC 8s 75 million years ago? Does the Smithsonian know about this?

BEZAZIAN: No, of course not. So that's really weird. Plus he (Hubbard) lists the actual sites of different volcanoes and many of them geographically weren't even in existence at the time. Then they went under these electronic strips and then they flew them in the DC 8s over to these theatres and implanted them with all these pictures about religion, and Christ, and God, and everything else. And then... I forget what they did then, but they end up being glued on to all of us. So that's the cause of all your problems in your life.

DOOR: Wow! At least Ron had the decency to invent his own religion from scratch. How did these strips get glued onto us when we were born?

BEZAZIAN: I can't remember the whole thing, but it's called OT III and they can read it on the Internet, they have the whole story posted. Hubbard was a science fiction writer and it is very science fiction. When you read it you're like, "Come on!" However, part of Scientology is that you are not allowed to say a word about these OT levels to another person. OT stands for "Operating Thetan." So it's the highest of highest crimes to ever say anything.

Just to give you an idea, one time I was in an apartment with another woman who was OT III and I just said "BT" and she immediately wrote it up. I got in huge trouble for it. They said, "If you ever do this again, you'll never do anything in Scientology again." So it's pretty heavy. So of course you might read it and go, "This is a bunch of you know what," but because you can't say it to anybody else around, instead, you're saying "Wow! Isn't this cool?"

To Hubbard, Theta equals spirit, so you were originally Thetan and he's moving you closer to the state of Theta with what he calls auditing or counseling. Entheta is the opposite of Theta. It's all the bad things.

DOOR: For example?

BEZAZIAN: Anything critical of Scientology was considered and is considered Entheta. Nobody wants to hear the bad side of things, but they go to such an extreme that they literally start cutting people's critical thinking. Where you'll see something that's really bad, it's almost like, "I didn't hear that. I know Scientology's so right, they would only do what's the right thing."

DOOR: During the 30 years you were in. Scientology must've done some good things for you, or you wouldn't have stayed with it.

BEZAZIAN: There's a lot of nifty people in it. And that's probably more than anything what I stayed in it for. And there's a huge hope factor. And once you get to OT, you will be able to do X, Y and Z. And a lot of people stay for that very reason.

DOOR: One of the most famous cases linking a name to Scientology negatively was the death of Lisa McPherson.

BEZAZIAN: I wasn't there, but from what I've read and understand, she wanted to get out of Scientology. She had an accident, got out of the car and took off her clothes in an attempt to look insane and get to a mental institution so she could say, "I don't want to go back to Scientology." Instead, they took her to the hospital, and the Scientologists zoomed over there, and said, "We'll take care of her." They did what they call a "Type 3 handling." Which means, "You're so flipped out, no one's going to talk to you." That's what they do. They just keep you in a room. Very quiet. Nobody'll talk to you. And force vitamins down you. You can go on the Internet and look at her autopsy pictures and story and make up your mind on it yourself. She died of dehydration.

DOOR: Why didn't she go to the authorities or to the people at the hospital and say that she didn't want to go with them?

BEZAZIAN: I wasn't there, man. I don't know. Read the story. Go read it yourself. I'm not going to say I'm the expert on Lisa McPherson. And this isn't an interview about her.

DOOR: Um, yeah. Thanks for reminding us. You worked for Scientology's Office of Special Affairs. What exactly did you do for them?

BEZAZIAN: Mostly public relations stuff. They asked me to be in charge of the Scientology Parishioners League, which handles "Black PR" in the media. Black PR is anything critical of Scientology.

I was a volunteer for them for 20 years, but I was only in Scientology Parishioners League for four months. Shortly after that, I left. I mainly organized it and we had an A & E special on cults and we asked them to take us out of that, saying "Scientology isn't a cult."

DOOR: Were you involved with the South Park episode where Cartman soils his drawers and uses a Scientology personality test to clean himself?

BEZAZIAN: Yes, but they were going to have it be Dianetics. I thought we got it changed to the personality test, but now I'm not sure how that was, 'cause that's what OSA told me. I don't know if it's true or not.

DOOR: Didn't you also work on negative publicity in Florida, to help defeat an anti-Scientology politician?

BEZAZIAN: Yes, Richard Tenning. What I worked on there was not to get him to lose the election, although that was the intention of Scientology, but mainly to raise the awareness of the people of Clearwater. I guess it was to get rid of him. He was trying to prevent Scientology from setting up its headquarters in Clearwater and they didn't want that happening. Obviously.

DOOR: You quit Scientology and you were going to Florida to meet with Stacy and Bob Minton who could help you out, then Scientology operatives followed you, or met you at different airports to convince you to go with them.

BEZAZIAN: How did they know I was going to the airport at that time? I had told three friends that I was leaving the church, but I didn't say I was going to Clearwater and I certainly didn't say what time. So how did they know I was going there? When I got there, the vice president was there and she wouldn't leave me alone. She was there with piles of information about how bad Stacy and Bob Minton were and how I shouldn't go. She followed me for an hour until finally I called Bob Minton. He said: "Look, I'll just get you a first class ticket. You can go into a private lounge and she can't go in there." And that's how I got rid of her. Then I went to Chicago and there were more people there. We finally had the police get me out of Tampa at 1:45 in the morning. That's pretty weird. I was really amazed.

DOOR: By how had they wanted to keep you?

BEZAZIAN: I really thought it was my religion. I was leaving, but I really thought these were good people. And I just can't believe how they turned on me. How they ratted on me. They've broken in my house. They've done some unbelievable stuff. One year ago I was a part of them.

DOOR: You left the church July 18, 2000. And you have no regrets about leaving?

BEZAZIAN: None. Are you kidding me? When people do that kind of *** to you?

DOOR: After you invest 30 years of your life in something, isn't it hard to a 180 degree turn in your attitude towards it?

BEZAZIAN: First of all, I don't believe in regrets. I really don't. I think it's a waste of time and energy. And I've always felt that way in my life. I just believe you're kind of on a path, and you're doing what you're doing, and that's the right thing to do. I really do believe in higher powers and higher spirits, and they're helping me.

I had been watching Oprah Winfrey and she kept saying: "All I did was give my life up to God." So I thought, "Here's this woman who's so successful and she says it over and over. I gave my life up to God. My life is a rut. It's a total mess and I don't even have God in my life.

On the New Years Eve of the new millennium, I was in the Shrine Auditorium, they were having a big event, and I thought, "All right. I'm gonna do it. I give my life up to God. Do whatever you want with my life. I'm willing to totally 100% transform my life. This year it' s gonna change. I don't know how."

I thought it was going to be all with Scientology, but then I got on the Internet and yadda. You know, this is just too incredible. It was an amazing transformation.

It wasn't a huge turning point. The huge turning point was getting on OT VII and seeing that it didn't work, it was a bunch of ***. That was a huge turning point for my entire life. The thing with Oprah was just a very small thing that just happened in a long sequence of events of things that have occurred.

DOOR: So, where are you today as far as religion or anything of that nature goes?

BEZAZIAN: I believe very much in religion. I believe in faith, and I believe in people believing in whatever they believe in that makes their lives better. Whatever that is. I don't have any particular group that I'm a part of. If that's what you mean, no. I do believe in higher spirits, yes.

DOOR: How many people are there in Scientology worldwide, at this point?

BEZAZIAN: Here's the truth of it: They count every single person who even buys books. But actual fact is that there's a few thousand that are active. I don't know exactly how many there are. It's in thousands. I'm not saying two thousand. I'm saying there may be thousands. But there are not millions and millions that are active. There are thousands that are active. But not millions. What they say is that there's eight million.

DOOR: So they use somebody like John Travolta or Tom Cruise as kind of a marketing tool to draw new converts. Do you know how either of them got interested in Scientology?

BEZAZIAN: No, I don't, but I helped train John Travolta.

DOOR: Really? Then you must know something about his involvement.

BEZAZIAN: People generally talk to other people. and they say: "Wow, this things really cool and I think it could help you out." The truth of the matter is that in Los Angeles, artists are not very cared for until they're big. Like you're nothing until you're big. And then you're everything. And a lady named Yvonne Jentszhe started a group called Celebrity Center. The intention is to get them into Scientology, just like Travolta. Travolta wasn't much when he first came to the Celebrity Center. He was their first big star, because he got "Welcome Back, Kotter."

DOOR: What did you train him for?

BEZAZIAN: He was on what was called the HQS course. The Hubbard Qualified Scientologist. It's just their second course after the communication course.

DOOR: Is a trainer like a minister?

BEZAZIAN:Not necessarily. They just call them Supervisors. I later became a Minister of Scientology, but at the time I was not. Many of the supervisors are not. They're just trained in how to run a course room.

DOOR: How do you go about becoming a minister? Are you ordained and able to perform marriages and other legal services?

BEZAZIAN:Yes. They sort of did a group thing. What happened is that they realized that they had to become a religion. And they had to get certified for the IRS so they didn't have to pay taxes. So they did this massive thing overnight. This is real typical of Scientology, where they are just BOOMF! -- overnight something will happen. So BOOMF! "We need to be ministers. Okay everybody's on this ministers course." This mass group of people and "Okay you're all ministers." We did one week-long course and then BOOMF! now you're a minister. And that's typical of Scientology. I believe the IRS was their big reasoning on it.

DOOR: BOOMF?

BEZAZIAN: They had the Guardians Office. Did you ever hear about the Guardians Office?

DOOR: That was the one that broke into the IRS wasn't it?

BEZAZIAN:They broke into somewhere. Did illegal things and eight or nine people went to jail for it. Including Mary Sue Hubbard. And because of that, it may have been after that, they were worried about them getting their folders. So they BOOMFED and made everybody ministers. Then they really had to become an official religion where we stamped all the folders, Priest Penitents, Privilege, and everything like that.

DOOR: What year was that?

BEZAZIAN:July 8, 1977, when the raid happened.

DOOR: You said that you first became suspicious that everything wasn't what it seemed to be when you hit OT VII. Didn't any of this make you suspicious earlier?

BEZAZIAN: The first clue was 1972. I got in in 1969. In '72 I joined the Sea Org. After a few months of being in the Sea Org -- which is the highest you can be, as far as working with them. That was Hubbard's big elite team. They said, "You've got to get off this medicine." I take medication for gran mall seizures. "We're anti-medicine. You can't be on medication and be a part of this OT group."

So I started trying to get off this medication and I was having seizures all around town. It was a nightmare. It was a living hell for me. I was losing my memory. Really bad things were happening to me, and my mom was begging me daily saying, "Tory, take your medication, this is not right."

And I'd say, "No, no, Dianetics will handle it." And she'd say, "No, no it isn't! This is a medical situation. You need to take your medicine."

I finally did have to look at whether or not they are 100% right. Finally, I realized that they're not 100% right. That was the very beginning of me looking at it. I realized that I can't do their 100% path. I can't because I need to take this medication. I'm going to have seizures, and they want me off it.

DOOR: Then after you hit OT VII, that was pretty much when things really started to fall into place for you. Then I would imagine you went into denial.

BEZAZIAN: Scientology is built on denial. It isn't like you go into denial then. It's built on denial from day one. You read a thing called Keep Scientology Working. And Hubbard basically says you have to stay on this path. And if you get off of it, you could not only lose your freedom, but you could lose your freedom for eternity. Life after life after life. That's a lot if you buy into that. That's a big denial right there. That's a bunch of ***. Once you buy that, and it's in the very first course that you read that. And every course after that, they have Keeping Scientology Working and this whole six-page paper about how you have to stay on the path. If you see anybody off the path, you have to write them up. And they can pull them in and correct them. Get them back on the path.

DOOR: And the path is agreeing with Scientology's point of view?

BEZAZIAN: And believing what they say and debating it and not listening to anything that disagrees with it. They never want you to get on the Internet. Have you ever heard of the Net Nanny?

DOOR: Like an anti-pornography program for computers?

BEZAZIAN: They covertly put something on your computer so you cannot get to a critical site. I don't know another group that does that.

DOOR: That is a little extreme.

BEZAZIAN: A little? No wait. Let's get something straight here, man.

DOOR: Calm down, I didn't mean...

BEZAZIAN: A LITTLE TOO EXTREME? They're hounding people. They took TIME magazine to court for 15 years. That's a little more than extreme.

By the way, TIME Magazine won. We're not talking about a little bit of hounding here. We're talking about a group that will do whatever Hubbard says. You can lie, you can cheat, you can do whatever Hubbard says. You can do whatever you have to do to put these people out of business. WHATEVER! And they do.

DOOR: How does such a small number of people wield so much power, especially financial power?

BEZAZIAN: They had a lot of people at one point, and remember, they charged everyone massive amounts of money. So they've amassed a lot of real estate. And they made people donate millions. I mean millions. A friend of mine had to donate a quarter million on just one visit. That's a lot of money just to donate, to write a check for. Is she in Scientology? No! Guess why not! Because they hounded her every time she came there, making her donate more and more money.

She finally said: "You know what? Screw you!" And so did a ton of other people. Because they just don't deliver what they say. They hound people. They hurt people. They don't follow their own policies and they screw themselves. And they're going to screw themselves more and more. So now they have less and less people because they can't follow their own policies that are good. They have some good ones, but they are stuck in those harmful ones. They're putting themselves out of business. I told them that when I was in there. I told them just the things they did were so harmful (that) it was going to come up and hurt them. They wanted me and other people to go to people's houses, and picket them on their block, saying that they we/re a bunch of child molesters. And I said: "No, I'm not going to do this." They do that a lot. Like I just said, you can lie, you can cheat, you can do whatever you have to do.

DOOR: And that's openly taught?

BEZAZIAN: Well, no. It's not openly taught at all. No. It's a thing called "Fair Game" that Hubbard wrote. And they swear right now that's cancelled, but they Fair Gamed me for a year. So I can tell you from experience, it ain't cancelled, man! They tried to arrest me in Clearwater, Florida, for sitting in a red Santa's chair. Now, that's insane. They had over a 100 cameras posted on people in a four-block area, trying to trap us -- now that's an interesting religion. It's a Mafia. That's what it is. And it's a small Mafia within a large group of people that nobody knows about. Members don't know what's going on in there, and they're not allowed to read. And they're not allowed to see. So they think it's The Truman Show. It's great. "Everything's fine, everything's wonderful. We're following the plan and we're helping everyone."

DOOR: So there's an elite group within Scientology that calls all the shots? How big would you say this group is?

BEZAZIAN: Tiny, very tiny.

DOOR: Less than a dozen?

BEZAZIAN: I really don't know, but I'd say, yeah probably.

DOOR: Have they invested all the money that they've amassed over the years, or have they squandered it all?

BEZAZIAN: I'm not one of their financial people so I can't really tell you. But I know they have money overseas. I know that they have money in buildings. I know that they are milking people on a daily basis to get more to donate more money. And they also work very hard on getting businesses milked into it. Because they really can't get the average person any more because most people are computer literate. And they all type in "Scientology" and they read the stuff from www.xenu.net and they go, FORGET IT! The truth is out there and they can't really stamp that out.

For years, people couldn't get to the truth. So if you laughed, they declared you a "Suppressive Person."[1] You're not allowed to talk to a Suppressive Person. So no one could ever hear what those bad people had to say. Which was actually factually a lot of truth, but because you're not allowed to talk to them, nobody hears what they were saying. Well, now they're on the Internet. They're posted on the Internet. Most people can get to 'em and even now most Scientologists have read about this Net Nanny and they don't really like it. So more and more people are reading the Internet and finding out the truth about it.

DOOR: The Internet is probably one of their biggest problems?

BEZAZIAN: Without the Internet, you can't ever get to the truth. They'll never tell you, so how could you ever find out anything? You can't. At times there's been information that would come out, but you can't read it, or you'd get in serious trouble. When I say trouble, I don't mean like Catholic Church trouble where you have to go to confession. In Scientology, you have to pay thousands of dollars if you get in trouble.

DOOR: They'll fine you for your sins?

BEZAZIAN: They have this thing called Security Checking. Which is why I really didn't like some of your questions, because they sound very much like a SEC (security) Check. It's like, "Wait a minute? Are you a Scientologist just SEC Checking me?" They very much want to know, and ask things like, "Why did you leave? What happened?" You know they're interested in it. They want both sides of it. Whereas the people that work for OSA (Office of Special Affairs) want to know why didn't Scientology work? What happened? What happened to you? How come you're not CLEAR? It's a different kind of question. It's a different thing they're interested in. That's why I thought you were OSA, because you're asking more of those kinds of questions. Which makes it sound like it. Now you're sort of gone into both of them, so you must be OK. I'm willing to talk to you.

DOOR: Does that mean we can turn on the tape recorder now?

BEZAZIAN: ???

DOOR: Please continue.

BEZAZIAN: It's just when it gets into this kind of Mafia stuff it's a little bit different. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think other religions have this real Mafia kind of stuff. Scientology does, and the key thing that I really want to say to people is that they should look for themselves on the Internet and read these sites.

There's tons of really good sites -- www.lermanet.com, www.mcpherson.org, www.Warrior.offlines.org.

Read Scientology and read the other stuff, then make up your own mind on it.