I wonder how long before Cruise invites Becks to partake of Scientology's hospitality and Celebrity Centre ....?
When I lived in that neighborhood I used to frequent the cafe across the street from the Celebrity Centre. (The entire adjacent comercial block was rumored to be owned by the Church, but the businesses were strictly civilian, as far as I could tell)
One day a friend and I decided to explore the Celebrity Centre grounds, since it had once been a famous old Hollywood hotel before the Scientologists took it over. We crossed the street and went in the main entrance, then wandered about unattended for several minutes before being approached by a very attractive young woman in what looked to be a vaguely Naval uniform (they all wore Naval uniforms [i.e. "dress blues"], something to do with a sub-cult called "The Sea Org"). She was very friendly to the point of being flirtatious, and offered to take us on a tour of the place, which, my friend and I (being a couple of horny young dogs at the time) accepted.
She showed us a couple of the luxury suites on the top floor which appeared comparable to Four Seasons/Ritz Carleton style accomodations, explaining that celebs like Tom Cruise often stayed there. While walking through the gardens we spotted a half dozen people wearing jeans and t-shirts raking the grass, their heads shaved bald. When we asked about it, our guide explained very matter-of-factly that they were being punished for some transgression, but the punishment was accepted voluntarily on their part.
At one point she led us into the basement of the building, which the Scientologists had modified to go down an extra few stories into sub-levels (I think there were 3, and one of them included a health club). All the electrical, heating and climate control equipment looked brand-new, and there were stacks of emergency supplies lining the corridors.
The whole thing reminded me of a Bond film where he's being shown around the mad villain's underground lair, (and indeed, there were various uniformed people scurrying around with clipboards, etc.) and as we went deeper into various sub-levels my friend and I began to joke that perhaps we'd never see the surface again.
But eventually we did go back upstairs to the ground floor and ended up in an office where she sat us down and gave us "the pitch", the highlight of which was a demo of the E-Meter. (I remember thinking "THIS is their highly-touted scientific instrument?". It was made of cheap red plastic!) You held the two sensors in your hands, and when the needle of the meter went up it was supposed to be measuring something (which she explained using a lot of ridiculous mumbo jumbo). When I said, "But this is just measuring the electrical resistance of the skin" she did not like it too much and quickly terminated our little tour. Needless to say, we did not convert that day, and some weeks later we noted they put up high fences around the Centre to prevent idle wanderers from wasting their time.
