|
The Village Voice Nov 12, 1991 And now, the next Walt Disney Studios--- the Church of Scientology!
That is, if enterpreneurs connected with the Hollywood
based cult can muscle into the film business with their proposal to
homogenize films by tailoring them to the tastes of the unwashed masses.
It all began last jJuly, when Future Films, a new, eccentric studio,
began running ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter
touting its revolutionary ideas. No one knew what to make of it all. The
grand concept, to ask the public what they want to see on the giant screen
and then give it to them, sounded like a refrain long sung in Hollywood
executive suites. Some, of course, shook their heads at the company's
unabashed zeal for reducing an art form to a reflection of our least
profound values. But the meat of the story, it appears, may be not
what the studio is proposing, but who the studio really is.
Future Films may be the latest, thinly disguised attempt by Scientology
to gain widespread acceptance and suck thousands more into the movement.
Cult watchers wonder if the upstart studio is related to a massive,
sophisticated ad campaign now underway, which is designed to imporve the
groups dismal reputation, the result of a decade long mass of lawsuits and inquiries by the IRS, the courts, and
governments around the world. Former members say the Church of Scientology
is no Church at all, but rather an enormous totalitarian pyramid scheme
whose bottom line is its bottom line, and whose modus operandi is fleecing
the gullible and vulnerable, then enslaving them in
the army under a sort of mind control.
Scientology officials insist that the church is law abiding and that their
critics are involved in an effort to discredit them. Many defecting
"parishioners" have settled suits alleging such claims as mental and physical
abuse by Scientology. Others have settled for larger sums, some
exceeding $500,000 according to Time Magazine
in a May cover story. Hence, whenever a new show opens with the same
old cast, the alarm bells go off. Such is the story with Future Films.
"If the people running the organization can be linked to Scientology,
then the sole purpose of this organization is likely to be to further the
cult," says Cynthia Kisser, executive director of the Cult
Awareness Network, a national organization, which has had a rancorous
relationship with Scientology. Kisser says CAN regularly hears from people
who were tricked into joining Scientology by related ventures. Alleged
front groups include the antidrug organization Narconon and numerous
business development seminars for chiropractors, dentists, and other
professionals run by Sterling Management Systems and Singer Consultants,
two Church associated operations. (Inc. magazine called Sterling
one of America's fastest growing companies.) All funnel cash back into
Scientology through a non-profit religious corporation, the World
Institute of Scientology Enterprises. WISE is dedicated to getting the
teachings of Church founder L. Ron Hubbard into the corporate workplace.
All related firms must pay WISE to use l ron Hubbard's technology, even
though WISE is a not-for-profit religious corporation. "How can you have
for profit companies paying a not-for-profit religious corporation to use
religious doctrine?" asks one critic. Many
people have described being hired by WISE-chartered companies, then
pressured to sign up for Scientology training.
Future Films, which certainly made no effort to flaunt its links with
Scientology, nevertheless drew the attention of some ex-Church members,
who found telltale signs in the companies general air of mystery (it paid
for its ads with cashier's checks), and in the ads' odd graphics and
stilted language. The studio's short history is a classic
tale of Scientology subterfuge. When the company first rode in on a
wave of innocuous publicity, their press releases ( which hyped Future
Films founder and CEO Robert Cefail as a "modern revolutionisy...[who]
trumpets in a new era of film making...") failed to mention that its
scientific method of gauging public film tastes was nothing more than a
900 number, costing up to $12 a pop. Back in August the Village
Voice received word that Cefail and one other investor were linked
to the Chuch; Future Films downplayed the fact, insisting that the
religious affiliation was coincidental. (Cefail told the St. Petersburg
Times that he was an Espiscopalian who takes Scientology training
courses.) But a two month Voice investigation shows otherwise. Not
only is Cefail a Scientologist, but so is virtually every identified
executive and investor in the company -- some straight out of the Church's
most elite circles.
Over the past two months, Future Films has beaten a path of retreat
from its original claims that it is not a church operation. after weeks of
delay, a faxed response from spokesperson Fred Cook admitted a connection
with the Church-affiliated WISE: "The administrative technology of L Ron
Hubbard, who is also founder of Scientology, has been used successfully in
businesses around the world. FUTURE FILMS uses this management technology
and it is licensed to use copyrights and trademarks of L Ron Hubbard."
Future Films executives failed to respond to repeated Voice
requests for interviews. CEO Robert Cefail appeared to be a phantom.
Employees at several of his ventured could not say where to find him or
when he would be reachable.
The company's concept, as advertised, lets the movie going public
contribute its ideas and -- as in all Scientology ventures-- its money.
Asking people to pay to gripe may be lucrative but it's a bit odd coming
from a man who paints himself as a market research kinda guy. Future
Film's visionary, Cefail, reportedly chose the movie biz on the rather
dubious assumption that celluloid purveyors did not adequately cater to
the public. In a 1986 survey, Cefail discovered that J. Q. public goes to
films 2.5 times a month, but would attend seven times a month if the
product were more appealing. Cefail claims to have found that moviegoers
want characters who are single and non controversial. "The American public
had a tremendous aversion to unusual sexual practices or even, maybe, a
married person going out with a single person," he told the Hollywood
Reporter. He said he intends to make "McMovies."
People want comedy, happy titles, and 1 hour and 52 minutes length.
"The No. 1 film people wanted at that time was a romantic comedy set in
the present during springtime. The place would be a big city (and the lead
actors) would be 28 to 32 years old." No Thelma & Louise,
please-- 91 per cent want upbeat endings; and nix on the film 9 1/2
Weeks-- 89 percent prefer stories with "good old-fashioned romance"
over casual relationships, and "unusual practices."
After Cefail takes the public pulse., he'll bankroll fiIms. He promises
audience-driven product for everyone---and for the really motivated
average American, a hierarchy of payoffs: T-shirts, tickets, casting
calls. and even the chance to submit scripts. In one early press release,
the studio touted its scientific methods and "capacity to interview and
survey over 700,000 people with the ability to expand to over 15 million."
It was not until weeks later that it became evident the primary vehicle
was to be a 900 number-hardly an accepted method of gauging public
opinion. Sometimes the company said the 900 number would give consumers a
chance to appear in a film for having made a phone call. (The publication
Communications Daily noted that if !he 900 numbers do only 50%
percent of the business MCI says they could, they would still bring in $2
million to $4 million monthly.) Future Films recently pulled the plug on
that service. Spokesperson Fred Cook said that it was "not really
efficient enough," and other surveying techniques are being planned,
though he wouldn't specify.
Despite the company's professed expertise, employees have been calling
around Hollywood seeking elementary advice typically offered in Film
Production 101. Hollywood public relations consultant Nan Herst Bowers
received such a query and said she was amazed at the naivete of the
caller. The woman didn't realize that Bowers was, until a year ago, a
fellow Scientologist. Bowers says when she told her caller about her
Scientology links, the woman became excited, telling her that everyone in
the company was a Church member. Cook, in a letter to the Voice, said he
could not verify his staffs religious affiliations or connection to the
Church of Scientology. He said, "it's not something we ask of prospective
employees when they are hired."
Tom Paquette spokesperson for the president of Scientology, says -there
is no connection between the Church and the company and wanted to know
what the "angle" of the story was. As for Future Films, Paquette was under
the impression that "it's a group of businessmen who have some business."
In a letter to the Voice, the Reverend John Carmichael of the Church of
Scientology of New York complained about efforts to report on links
between the two organizations: "It is offensive on its face that you would
choose to use the Voice to single out and attack a group of
businessmen strictly because they belong to a particular religion. Would
you accuse producer Barry Levinson of producing films as a `front for
International Jewry'? ... 1 have no doubt your sto- ry will omit the
numbers of people who say Scientology has improved their lives." Indeed,
despite court actions, media revelations, and condemnations from across
the globe, Scientology continues to feistily expand, and to rake in up to
$S l000 an hour in fees from each person, who takes the training regimen.
Although many devotees clearly believe in Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard,
the now deceased founder and would-be messiah of the group, which claims
connection to an 80-trillion-year-old intergalactic civilization, had more
pressing concerns than redemption. "Make sure that lots of bodies move
through the shop," Hubbard once wrote in a bulletin to lieutenants. "Make
money. Make more money. Make others produce so as to make money....
However you get them in or why, just do it."Hubbard, who started out as a
sci-fi writer developed a system, complete with outer-space jargon, that
purports to help people eliminate past negative experiences from their
psyches so they may realize their full potential, Hubbard turned his
talents at fiction to creating a personal make-believe resume, from false
World War II decorations and multiple death-and-rebirth sequences to a
sham doctorate. Hubbard finally died decisively in 1986, but his creation
lived on in 700 church centers in 65 countries.
Scientology promises that its trademark technique, called "auditing,"
can lead to a higher IQ, "more energy to make more money," better health,
and a longer life. The New York area newsletter says that officials "are
eager to get you in and on your next step to the Bridge."
They don't say: Auditing involves what the church calls self-inspection as a way to
purge hidden, painful experiences, known as "engrams," through guidance
from a trained "auditor." Auditing is defined as the "action of asking a
person a question (which he can understand and answer), getting an answer
to that question and acknowledging him for that answer." The Bridge is the
route to Clear, "symbolizing travel from unknowingness to revelation."
Clear is a state achieved through auditing; "A Clear is an unaberrated
person and is rational in that he forms the best possible solutions he can
on the data he has and from his viewpoint." While "clearing" people's
minds for greater productivity and success, trainers induce what Hubbard,
a skilled hypnotist, originally called a Dianetic
reverie. Experts describe it as a sort of spacey, pliant high that leaves
people craving more. "It's essentially a hypnotic trance;" says Dr. Louis
Jolyon West, the noted psychiatrist, who has been treating Scientologists
for many years. "It's a trancelike state, counting backwards from seven
over and over. Backwards into time, into the womb."
Key life events are reenacted and connected to current ills. Joylon
West relates a favorite Hubbard scenario: An audience would learn that his
mother had reied unsuccessfully to abort him with a wooden stick decades
ago; this would turn out to be his peptic ulcer.
To critics, Future Films is but the latest bid for influence in
Hollywood, where Scientology has already become something of a fixture.
The cult's headquarters and other properties dominate entire neighborhoods
around Sunset and Hollywood boulevards. A claque of celebs has signed on,
including Tom Cruise, Kirsty Alley, John
Travolta, Mimi Rogers, Anne Archer, Priscilla presley and her
daughter, lisa Marie, Karen Black, Sonny Bono, Chick Corea, and Al
Jarreau. Ironically, even the Voice for that skeptical free spirit,
Bart simpson, a woman named nancy Cartwright, has bought the company line.
Unlike the masses, these people get a less agressive form of treatment at
"celebrity centers" throughout the country, where they are helped through
the pitfalls of life in the fast lane.
The church claims 8 million members; Time magazine put it at a paltry
50,000 active members.
but it's not membership numbers that give Scientology its clout; it's the
group's all consuming nature, and the vast revenues from publishing,
business ventures, and the auditing fees paid by hundreds of thousands of
nonmembers who are drawn in through various ploys including free
Personality Testing carried out at card tables from Venice Beach to Times
Square. ( A tip of the income iceberg appeared when one small part of the
apparatus, the Church of Spiritual Technology, revealed to a court its
1987 income of 503 million, according to Time.)
Most people know Hubbard's book Dianetics: The Modern
Science of Mental Health, but don't realize that it's the Bible of
Scientology. Fist published in 1950, it is still a bestseller. Though
reports indictae that too is an illusion. Church followers reportedly purchased
large numbers of Hubbard's books to inflate sales figures and buy
respectability.
The counterpoint to its penchant for promotion is its combativeness
toward critics. Although the church complains of opponents' "Nazi-like"
tactics, it is widely known for engaging in its own psychological version
of the Inquisition, relying on a network of private eyes, lawyers, and
infiltrators. In the early '80's, Hubbard's wife and ten other church
members were imprisoned for burglarizing, wiretapping, or otherwise
infiltrating more than a hundred public and private agencies. several
former members and other critics who have come forward have fallen victim
to efforts to destroy their reputations, and to dirty tricks ranging from
altering their credit records to, in one case, setting up a false hit and
run accident. Church documents, released by a federal court, reveal that
15 years ago, a Scientologist gained employment at the Clearwater Sun in order to
spy on the paper's reporters who covered the church. Early on, founder L.
Ron Hubbard set the tone for reprisals, writing: "Don't ever tamely submit
to an investigation of us. Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way."
Not much has changed since his death. This year journalists who
investigated the church continued to be threatened, as was Richard
Behar, author of Time magazine's exhaustive look at the organization.
Behar writes in his article that "at least 10 attorneys and six private
detectives were unleashed by Scientology and its followers in an effort to
threaten, harrass, and discredit me." A recent notice in Scientology's
magazine, written in the cult's peculiar prose, reminds members: "If you
encounter any non-optimum situations or off policy actions occurring in
your org, mission or area, write a Knowledge Report to your local Ethics
Officer..."
In Hubbardesque fashion, Ken Lee, the vice-president of Future Films,
warned reporter Ann Rackham that her probing "could have unpleasant
ramifications" for her paper, the Los Angeles Business journal. "I'm sure
you've got skeletons in your closet," he told her. "Do you want yours to
come out? Lee told Rackham that he was not a Church member, a claim
reversed by Future Films president Darcey Hollingsworth, who confirmed
that Lee was a member. He was also a Scientology registrar. ("The
registrars are the really nasty ones," says Priscilla Coates, CAN's L.A.
chairperson. "Registrars have to squeeze every last penny out of you. And
of course you have to pay for all courses before you take them.")
Despite church disavowals, the Voice was able to follow the
strand from one Scientology orbit to another. Future Films (with officies
in Burbank, and production facilities in Garland, Texas) has its corporate
headquarters in a house in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, near the
Clearwater, florida, worldwide spiritual headquarters of Scientology,
where church pilgrims got for the ultimate auditing. the owner of the
house where Future Film's Florida office is located, James justice, told
the Voice he'd never heard of Scientology, although church records
list Mr. Justice and his wife, Karen as members. Karen Justice's company,
Tigre Lis Enterprises, which runs boutiques, is listed in a directory
of Scientology-affiliated ventures. Future Film's agent for incorporation
in California is Steve Hayes: his address in Glendale, California, is also
the address of the Citizens [for a] Alternative Tax system, a Scientology
project.
Future Films visionary Robert Cefail runs a consulting business, Robert
Cefail and Associates, located ina section of downtown Clearwater where a
preponderance of businesses are owned by Scientologists. Cefail has an
office in a building once owned by Feshbach Brothers, agressive big-time
stock speculators and Scientology [ line unreadable here, but could be -
'patron donors' (giving ] $250,000 and $1 million) to the church's Religious Trust also
self-dubbed the War Chest. Cefail's own consulting company is listed
in the WISE directory. Cefail and the Feshbachs are members of WISE's "CEO
Circle." "Members of the CEO Circle are leaders amongst leaders in
application of LRH
Administrative Technologies," according to a Church manual. When it
incorporated in California, Cefail and Associates used Wiseman and Burke
as their agent; that firm is also part of WISE.
Among Future Films funders is Douglas L. Gamette, who ran the Redondo
Beach, California, Scientology Mission in the mid '80s. Much of the
studio's money appears to come from a man named Walter Hegetschweiler, a
wealthy Swiss who donated vast sums to the church. Government agencies and
courts have tried to locate Hubbard/Scientology bank accounts in
Switzerland, Leichtenstein, and elsewhere ( former high-level church
officials estimate more than 400 million ), but there is no evidence that
Hegetschweiler was involved with those accounts. Following in the
footsteps of Whittle Communications, which places advertising-laden
programming in classrooms, Future Films claims to be soliciting local
school districts to preniere its first film in late spring-- and says 1500
schools are on board. Students distributing the greatest number of tickets
will win prizes, proceeds will be split 50-50 between the studio and
school districts.
Critics of Scientology worry that Future films is part of a concerted
effort to transform hubbard into one of history's great philosophers and
moral guides. A total remake of Scientology's image in now underway. A key
component of the new effort is widespread distribution of a small booklet,
"The Way to Happiness," a compedium of wisdom from hubbard, along the
lines of "take care of yourself," and "honor and help your parents." A
1990 investigation by the los Angeles Times found that the church was
succeeding at getting the pamphlet into schools all over America and
around the world. It's put out by the Concerned Businessmen's Association
of America, which like Future Films tries to downplay its connections to
Scientology. But Scientology's own publications call the campaign "the
largest dissemnation project in Scientology history" and "the bridge
between broad society and Scientology."
Interestingly, Robert Cefail and Future films president Hollingsworth
met when both were involved in distributiing "The Way to Happiness"
brochures in prisons and signing prisoners up for Scientology courses,
Hollingsworth told the Los Angeles Business Journal . The
Voice has learned that Cefail owns yet another information-oriented
company, American Inmate Communications, a firm that installs telephone
systems in prisons. (According to prison officials, inmates place collect
calls, which are routed through computers in cefail's San Antonio
offices.)
Among the legions of ex-Scientologists are a variety of theories on
Future Films's ultimate intent, some speculate that the studio's goal is
to build a nationwide mailing list of gullibles. Still others think this
may be the vehicle for a cherished Church objective: Get founder Hubbard's
message into theaters. The church has made dozens of films in the past,
many directed by Hubbard, on its own private set in the California desert.
Hubbard reportedly wrote a screenplay years ago based on the Star
Wars-like story behind the Scientology theology and wanted to use it to
recruit new members.
Whether Future Films ever makes a flick remains to be seen. but if it
does release its first film as promised in early '92, SEE IT. BUY THE
VIDEO. GET MORE PEOPLE TO MAKE MONEY. MAKE MORE MONEY, MAKE OTHERS PRODUCE
SO AS TO MAKE MORE MONEY. HOWEVER YOU GET THEM IN OR WHY. JUST DO IT.
-END
(c) 1991 Village Voice |
