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Mother's Day with the Scientologists - and a Glimpse Inside
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31073 Reads
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The Celebrity Centre
(click to enlarge) |
Well, the Scientologists put on a hell of a spread today. Chocolate-dipped strawberries, prime lox, steamship roast beef - we gorged at their annual Mother's Day Brunch and then toured (some of) the inner sanctum at the Hollywood Celebrity Centre on Franklin.
No, this is not a softball feature on Scientology.
Nor is it the velvet-fist lede to a hit piece; I'm happy in my own religious beliefs, and by the same token, I don't need the kind of grief the Church notoriously reserves for critics (although I'll be warily watching the comments field after posting this). It's just a peek into the physical machinery of another world meticulously crafted by a science fiction writer and his determined followers, who just happen to have secured a lot of Hollywood real estate and the hearts and minds of some of its biggest celebrities:
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The Mother's Day brunch is an admirable bit of marketing: Blanket-advertise a lush buffet with extensive print and direct-mail. Bring folks into a family-friendly social setting. Show off the magnificently restored 1926 Chateau Elysee Hotel that now hosts Scientology seminars for and overnight stays (and longer detox visits) by celebrities. Give 'em a tour of panoramic rooftop views of Hollywood and a peek at the airconditioned gym in the basement detox center; And along the way, introduce your tour "guests" to philosophies, practices and dogma of Dianetics.
We get a taste of the hard-sell even before we're seated, an earnest young greeter who shakes our hands and hands us a printed invitation to a tour of the building. He comes around once more during brunch - after the roving magician doing card tricks but before the badge-wearing greeters with the clipboards.
But once we embark, the proselytizing by our tour guide, a slender, clear-eyed young woman of 28 or so in pastel skirt and blouse - is actually no firmer nor more intimidating than on the tour of any other religious edifice like, say, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
At each turn, though, there is a quote on the wall from church founder L.Ron Hubbard, a helpful set of framed posters describing the "auditing" process, a loaded literature table or a benignly labeled door. And lightly as she describes them, each feels like a chute deep into the church, down which she would happily but firmly push us if we showed the slightest hint of interest.
It is at this point that I think of the entertainingly brazen Celebrity Centre visit by professional impostor/infiltrator Harmon Leon.
Leon plunged into the Celebrity Centre as wasted rock god "Dieter Lieterschvantz" for a few days in 1995 and somehow escaped without any of his paranoid fantasies about getting pummeled by truncheon-wielding goons coming true. I'm glad I have no agenda here beyond observation: "Just a writer taking objective mental notes and benign photos here, no need to notice me, no, you go ahead with your fascinating tour ..."
First stop inside the door after pleasantries is a heavily retouched portrait of Hubbard gazing wistfully off to starboard, over an inspirational quote about artists and dreamers - (no, not the one where he is reported to have said, "Writing science fiction for about a penny a word is no way to make a living, If you really want to make a million, the quickest way is to start your own religion." - it's actually something rather lyrical about dreamers shaping society.)
Founder's "desk" |
Next is a peek at Hubbard's "office:"
Every Scientology center has one, the guide tells us, decorated in a way he would have liked. It is, I suppose, like setting a place at Seder for the prophet - a quaint devotion - although the room is a fairly sterile wood-paneled affair that feels like a set-dresser's portfolio piece rather than a tribute to a valued founder. There is a wall of books on screened shelves, brass lamps, leather furniture and minimalist nautical decorations including the crisp model of a schooner.
Trompe l'oeil lobby ceiling |
On to the lobby, a sort of French-aristocratic sitting room with plenty of gilt, a white grand piano, a trompe l'oeil ceiling and a sludgy-looking impressionist bronze bust of Hubbard.
The lobby, like most of the ground floor, is positively a-crawl with young men and women in various Scientology uniforms. The youngest lounge or hustle (depending, I suppose, upon their duties for the day) in naval-look - cobalt-blue shirts and ties for men and white blouse/navy skirt ensembles for women.
There are clipboard-toting program-touters with winning smiles, and ready handshakes, their belt-lines jauntily adorned with Scientology logo badges; And then there are the older jacket-and-tie types with serious looks, having serious conversations, their eyes constantly flicking over the people moving through the hotel.
Not one lacks a cell phone.
Our guide ushers us upstairs with the promise of seeing some of the rooms where the celebrity guests once stayed in the hotel's heyday, and still do now that it's a mecca for famous Scientologists and those soon-to-join. But just off the elevator, before moving down the dark wood-paneled hallway, she stops to describe the first of what looks like a dozen posters outlining the Scientologist "auditing" process meant to examine and clear "obstacles" from one's life.
Steps to ... auditing. |
I take a deep breath and say as brightly but firmly as possible, "We're pretty familiar with the church, thanks - we're more interested in the building," and she smoothly shifts gears into the "architectural" tour. Breezily, she ushers us into the room where the posters were meant to lead us anyway - "Would you like to see one of our hotel suites? This is the suite where Greta Garbo used to stay."
The door opens, and we see not a waiting hotel suite, but a full-on auditing center, packed to the gunwales with reams of literature, instructional posters and a desk fitted with electronic gear. Behind the desk is an older, balding man in shirt and tie whose suddenly beaming, expectant grin at us wavers somewhere between shark and puppy.
I peer in, feigning interest at the draperies and fixtures and making sure our escape route remains clear, that no one else has come in behind us to gladhand us into a chair for a "free personality test."
And to her credit, our guide lets us look around a bit, answers questions about the draperies and fixtures, and then ushers us onward, obviously persuaded by now that we're mere tourists rather than potential paying converts.
The Premier Suite |
After a heady trip to the rooftop deck overlooking the 101 and the Hollywood Hills, we get a peek inside the Premier Suite one floor up - the penthouse aerie reserved for "anyone who wants to stay there," she assures us. Antique silver, white brocade canopy bed, ancient silk carpet. It's "nice," I suppose, in the way that the luxury suite at the end of 2001 is nice.
Then a sheer elevator plunge into the bowels of the building, for a quick peek into a "Toastmasters" meeting, where earnest-looking people are watching an earnest-looking speaker try his skills.
The rest of the basement has been decorated as "a street scene," she says. But its mock cobblestones and bricks and countless drab informational posters about upcoming in-house theatrical productions and seminars on how to break into show business make it feel more like some sort of catacomb.
The sensation is heightened suddenly when we're almost bowled over by three sweaty young Scientologists-in-training jogging hurriedly around the corner wearing logo'ed t-shirts and startled looks. We get a look at the well-used detox gym, where a solitary bleached-blond man is doggedly working the stair-stepper.
We are shown the white-tiled sauna reception area, labeled by a faux-weathered brass plaque that says "Purification Rundown" and decorated with stacked white towels and stern posters admonishing against poisoning oneself with drugs.
And then it's back out into the sunlight, fresh air and a sense of having somehow escaped something.
If you were looking for any conclusions on all this, I'm sorry to disappoint.
As I said, the Church isn't for me, for a lot of reasons I'll keep to myself. There are plenty of critics out there who have much more time and energy than I to evaluate Scientology from the outside, and obviously the Church itself takes care of its own point of view.
I just wanted to give you a visual picture of the physical interior of one ultra-prominent Church center - an unusual view of another L.A. landmark that most of us have only ever had the courage to wonder about.
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Sunday, May 09, 2004 - 10:46 PM
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