In 2009, Paul Haggis, the Hollywood screenwriter with credits including such acclaimed films as “Crash” and “Million Dollar Baby” and a devout follower of the Church of Scientology for thirty four years suddenly left the Church.
After reading his story in The New Yorker this week titled “The Apostate”, I realized there could have been many reasons for Haggis to quit the Church. First, achievement and growth as a Scientologist is directly tied to study or “auditing” which according to the article’s author Lawrence Wright, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Next were the alleged claims of forced child labor in Scientology’s “Sea Org” and the claims of physical abuse from some members. Then there was the practice of directing its members to “disconnect” from family and loved ones who were considered by the church to be P.T.S. or S.P. (Potential Trouble Sources or Suppressive Persons) as well as the use of polygraph tests on aspiring Scientologists.
Finally, if those weren’t enough, there was the unauthorized publication of the Church’s sacred scriptures written by the creator of Church and the author of its foundational book “Dianetics”, L. Ron Hubbard. This one convinced me that Scientology was nothing more than a lunatic cult.
In 1985, the Los Angles Times printed the Church’s secret scriptures – which the Church allows only the highest ranking Scientologists to read because they could “cause severe damage if read by the uninitiated” – and described them as follows:
“A major cause of mankind’s problems began 75 million years ago when the planet Earth, then called Teegeeack, was part of a confederation of ninety planets under the leadership of a despotic ruler named Xenu.” Overpopulation was a serious problem so Xenu decided to take radical measures and shipped surplus beings to volcanoes on Teegeeack for destruction using H bombs on the volcanoes. The Times went on to say that “this destroyed the people but freed their spirits called “thetans” which attached themselves to one another in clusters. These clusters were “trapped in a frozen compound of alcohol and glycol” and were “implanted with the seed of aberrant behavior”. Finally it said, “when people die, these clusters attach to other humans and keep perpetuating themselves.”
It seemed like there were a host of reasons to choose from in deciding to leave this Church and this lunatic genesis story was certainly at the top of the list. But Haggis stuck around for twenty four more years. He didn’t seem to have a problem with a religion based on despots killing excess people and causing spirits to be locked in antifreeze. It turns out that he quit the Church because of a statement made by one of its California San Diego office made a public statement of support for California San Diego office did not officially speak for the Church of Scientology Church of Scientology
We expect great screenwriters to be creative sorts and you would have to be to believe the genesis story of Scientology wouldn’t you? He could live with Hubbard’s H bombs in volcanoes on Teegeeack but not with his Church’s support for Proposition 8. To Haggis, he was asking the Church to take a position on a moral issue not a political one. His decision to quit was the personification of the highest ethical standards. Haggis’s actions demonstrated that he had a firm grasp of his moral compass, if not his senses. There was one fact that made his decision to quit the Church easier; two of Haggis’s daughters are gay.
Considering the impact Proposition 8 would have on his daughters, tossing away a religion that Haggis had spent thirty four years studying had an air of righteousness. He had reached Scientology’s highest level of achievement – he was an Operating Thetan VII – and had spent over three hundred thousand dollars paying for the courses and audits to achieve that level and yet he threw it all away in a moral act of unselfish love for his children.
I’m still left with the question of why Haggis and other celebrity Scientologists like Tom Cruise, Anne Archer and John Travolta didn’t run like the wind when they heard the Church’s genesis story. Aren’t we all sure that if we heard such as story from a religious group that we would prepare strait jackets for all? Imagine a religion based on a crazy science fiction like Scientology’s, say, a story of an invisible omnipotent spirit being named Elohim who resided in a black void of nothingness before time began who decided to wave his hand and create an infinite universe of fiery hot stars and chemical infused planets.
Strait jacket anyone?
