John Sweeney, a BBC reporter who worked on a Scientology documentary that's shortly to air, describes the way that the cult psy-opsed him, following him around (even at his wedding!) and calling on his family members and neighbors (I have a friend who did a Master's thesis on the "church" and got inept, threatening phone calls at 2AM for years afterward). Eventually, Sweeney "snapped" on camera and shouted at a Scientology leader he was interviewing.
Scientologists recorded the outburst and then complained that Sweeney had made a "terrorist death threat." Oh, puh-leeze. If there's anything worse than being a sinister, greedy, brain-washing cult, it's being a crybaby sinister, greedy brainwashing cult.
While making our BBC Panorama film "Scientology and Me" I have been shouted at, spied on, had my hotel invaded at midnight, denounced as a "bigot" by star Scientologists, brain-washed – that is how it felt to me – in a mock up of a Nazi-style torture chamber and chased round the streets of Los Angeles by sinister strangers.
Back in Britain strangers have called on my neighbours, my mother-in-law's house and someone spied on my wedding and fled the moment he was challenged.
I have met mothers who say they have suffered Scientology "disconnects" – meaning that their children have cut them completely out of their life so that they can spend more time with an organisation which a judge in 1984 characterised as "corrupt, sinister and dangerous".
(Thanks to everyone who suggested this!)
