David Miscavige — ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion, Tom Cruise’s best bud and the star of “Going Clear” — in Irving for the opening of the Church of Scientology Dallas on April 11, 2009
Update at 1 p.m. March 30: Over the weekend, a reader emailed with one more significant Dallas connection to Scientology: Vicki Aznaran.
The former Mesquite resident, who still lives in Dallas County, was a higher-up in Scientology once upon a couple of decades ago — “President and Chairman of the Board of Directors in the Scientology organization called the Religious Technology Center,” as she explained. Miscavige, “star” of Going Clear, was her boss. She got her start in the Dallas org, but left in 1987, after which she got tangled up in litigation with Scientology.
Here, from 1992, is an affidavit she gave in Dallas County in which she detailed some of what she saw during her time there. An excerpt:
To my certain knowledge, David Miscavige conceived, planned and ordered the implementation of the basic strategic and tactical actions of the church against those whom he considered to be causing legal or public relations conflicts against any church or against his personal and absolute control of Scientology. He also ordered the allocation of and made available funding for the financing of these actions, which included the declaring of those whom he considered to be his “enemies’ as Suppressive Persons, the implementation of the policies known as “Fair Game” against these persons once so declared, the infiltration of private and governmental environments which he deemed hostile to his absolute control over Scientology, the organization of vigilante groups within the organizations of Scientology to be used against those individuals whom he deemed to be his enemies.
Word is she and her husband Richard settled their own litigation with the organization, recanted their disparaging testimony and opened a private-detective agency here. We’re looking for her. Maybe she’ll find us?
Original post at 5:55 a.m. March 28: Sunday at 7 p.m. Dallas time HBO will air Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney’s Going Clear, his Scientology documentary based on the book by Woodrow Wilson High School Hall of Famer Lawrence Wright, who’s chief among the talking heads talking the longest and loudest in the film. Maybe you’ve read the book; really, you should. Or maybe you played along last year, when it was our summer-reading selection. Or, maybe, everything you know about Scientology comes from Tom Cruise. Or perhaps you just drove by the old Celebrity Centre in East Dallas that one time.
Chris Vognar and I reviewed Going Clear for this week’s “Reel Genius” video chitchat, which you’ll find below. (And here, just because, is the Scientologists’ review.) By way of prep, I was curious: How deep are Scientology’s roots in Dallas? Pretty, pretty, pretty deep, turns out. They date all the way back to Scientology’s genesis.
According to The Dallas Morning News‘ archives, the first references to Scientology appeared in this newspaper on April 14, 1956: “New Church to Form Organization in Dallas.” The timing’s certainly right. That was the year L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought was published. It’s also the year Scientology was granted tax-exempt status and first considered a religion by the Internal Revenue Service. (Going Clear, the book and movie, are determined to get that status tossed.)
At the time members met at the downtown Dallas YMCA. And in short order, Scientology was deemed nothing more than the practice of “quacks,” per the Dallas Better Business Bureau; read the 1963 story below about Dianetics and other “menaces.” In 1969 — or, just four years after Lawrence Wright graduated from Woodrow — this paper even ran a highly critical series about Scientology. Even now it feels remarkably of-the-moment, explaining the E-meters and auditors at the heart of Wright and Gibney’s tale about a “religion” that turns its true believers’ confessions into the stuff of blackmail. And it too was built upon accounts offered by former members — the so-called “squirrels.”
Here, from January 19, 1969, the fall-out from that investigation.
Dallas Morning News on January 19, 1969
For the rest, dig in below.
Later, in the 1970s, it operated out of the Mission of the Southwest Personal Expansion Center at 4303 N. Central Expressway (currently the law offices of Randall B. Isenberg!). In 2000 it moved into that circa-1940s mansion at Buckner Boulevard and Dixie Lane. I thought they’d been there longer. But, no, just five years. The house burned down in 2013. Surely, the work of an angry LRH.
Then it was off to Irving, where at-the-time Mayor Herb Gears welcomed David Miscavige and the Scientologists to “the heart of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex” with open arms, as you’ll see in a video that looks like an excerpt from Going Clear.
Here’s a quick (and official) audit of the facility:
Wright’s a fascinating subject himself, as evidenced by our 2003 profile of the author and his family. His dad Don Wright “created Beautiful Dallas, led efforts to dredge White Rock Lake and was deeply involved in efforts to beautify roadsides with wildflowers,” for instance, per Bill Marvel’s story about the author. He told his own story in his second tome: In the New World: Growing Up in America, 1964-1984, which was recently reissued and remains the best book ever written about growing up in Dallas following the assassination of John Kennedy in Dealey Plaza. It merits its own documentary.
Before you see the Going Clear Sunday, or watch our video, you might also want to read some excerpts from Going Clear. Here’s one we ran last year; here’s another from Random House. A little taste will get you hooked.
Now, then, to the review: … [visit site to read more]