Paul Haggis will tell his Scientology tale before P.T. Anderson

I have to say, I was a little spooked when P.T. Anderson’s exceptionally promising Scientology-ish film THE MASTER up and disappeared out of nowhere, with the reason given being a mysterious “wall” Anderson couldn’t overcome. The “church” has been notorious in squashing anything trying to portray them in a negative light (South Park has probably done the greatest hit job on them and gotten away with it to date), but now another major Hollywood player is entering the fray.

CRASH director Paul Haggis was a member of the church for 35 years before publically defecting in 2009. Currently, Scientology boasts a roster of stars like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Giovanni Ribisi, Isaac Hayes, Jason Lee and many, many more. Haggis is about to showcase his thoughts on the church in an upcoming New Yorker piece, but that article has already spawned a book called The Heretic of Hollywood: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology. And it’s going to raise some hell.

The Academy Award winning writer and director, Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash), spent three decades in the Church of Scientology. Haggis was one of the church’s Hollywood trophies, along with Tom Cruise and John Travolta, whose paths cross with Haggis’s. His resignation from the church in August of 2009 was a crushing disappointment to the organization. This is the first time Haggis has spoken about his experience.

The roots of Scientology are explored in this book, particularly the life of its eccentric founder, L. Ron Hubbard, whose flashes of brilliance and insanity are woven into the fabric of this elaborate belief system. Through Haggis’s eyes, we discover the appeal of Scientology, especially to talented and ambitious members of the entertainment industry. Haggis conducted a personal investigation of the church, in which he was told about the wanton physical abuse on the part of its current leader, David Miscavige, of senior members of the organization. He was told that young volunteers in the Scientology clergy, called the Sea Org, are subjected to conditions approaching slavery or imprisonment, and that many female members have been forced to have abortions.

The most profound reckoning to date with this powerful and secretive organization, The Heretic of Hollywood is also a moving human story of the lure of extreme faith and the price of leaving it.

So can we get THIS made into a movie instead? This is going to cause quite a stir, unless the church figures out some way to make the book disappear, which seems to be something they’re quite good at.

Is Scientology a threat to be exposed, or a legitimate religion to be left alone?