Scientology Interviews John Travolta: Oddly, Massage Therapy Not Discussed
Boy, could actor John Travolta use some good publicity about now.Scientology’s Celebrity magazine obliges with a particularly friendly look at the Pulp Fiction star in a new issue our tipsters passed along to us.
The magazine reviews Travolta’s film-making career, calling him an “icon of the silver screen,” and in a six-page piece manages to avoid anything remotely redolent of rubdowns going terribly awry, or other revelations that have been the stuff of lawsuits, news stories, and endless Internet sniggering.
Celebrity, in fact, managed to come up with just about the safest question possible to put to Scientology’s troubled icon. Asked several different ways, the story’s unnamed author tries to pin down Travolta and get out of him just which of L. Ron Hubbard’s many books is his absolute favorite.
The suspense, we know, must be killing you right about now.
“The truth is, I can’t pick a favorite LRH book,” Travolta responds, taking a brave stand in the face of such a hard-hitting question.
JT goes on to deliver insights about several of Scientology’s essential texts.
On The Way to Happiness…
“If a person looks at The Way to Happiness, they will find out that dressing well, eating well and getting good rest makes a difference to others!”
On Scientology: A New Slant on Life…
“The Two Rules for Happy Living, ’1. Be able to experience anything. 2. Cause only those things which others are able to experience easily.’ That data alone could change your life. What if you were able to enlighten people with just that piece of information?”
On Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health…
“Once you understand the erasure process of an engram and you experience the relief that comes about by confronting the painful incident and not withdrawing from it, you’ll never be the same again.”
Travolta also relates a spell-binding tale of his powers of faith healing…
“I was in Shanghai recently at a work event and the Master of Ceremonies’ best friend had recently gotten into a car wreck. He had broken his ankle and was in constant pain. I asked him permission to do some Scientology assists and he said, ‘Okay, sure.’ People were standing around watching as I did them. You could actually see him confronting the pain and after a while he looked up at me and said, ‘I feel better.’ So I said, ‘Okay, end of assist.’ He had gotten noticeably better and was chomping at the bit for more. So I did another series of assists with him before I left. I gave his friend a booklet to show him how to do them and they both promised to continue until he was better. That’s my version of helping someone on the street.”
And finally, he is somehow convinced to endorse the magic of Scientology itself…
“Scientology performs miracles every day and it’s so authentic, it’s so real, that sometimes it’s too incredible for people to believe. But when they see the results, they know it’s real.”
Scientology’s wizardry too incredible for some to believe? We can’t imagine where JT got that notion.
Anyway, Celebrity‘s Scientologist subscribers will no doubt be heartened to see their bruised film star provide such hearty endorsements of Hubbard’s bedrock teachings as he attempts yet another comeback.
And thanks again to our tipsters: the sheer amount of stuff coming our way these days is amazing!
Scientology’s Unorthodox Healing Missions
Saturday, April 16th, 2011
After Cyclone Nargis left a trail of corpses along Burma’s coast in May 2008, foreign aid workers clamored to enter the military-controlled backwater.
Despite the world’s pleading, Burma’s paranoid generals forbade most foreign relief workers from entering the disaster zone. A frustrated U.K. threatened unauthorized air drops. The U.S. Navy was forced to float vessels loaded with life-saving supplies offshore.
But among the few who managed to access Burma’s worst-hit areas included adherents of the California-based Church of Scientology.
According to the church, miracles ensued after Scientologists touched down. Their team sought out traumatized Burmese for Scientology’s touch-healing techniques, professed to revive the spirit.
The infirm recouped strength, they said, and Burmese kids who’d lost their families regained their smiles. As the church tells it, even the surgeon of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s revered pro-democracy icon, wanted his personal relief troupe to adopt Scientology techniques.
“He goes, ‘This is amazing! I’m a doctor and I can’t even do this!’” said Andy Ponnaz, 57, a Bangkok-born Scientologist of mixed Thai-Swiss blood.
“I said, ‘Sir, I can teach all of your crew tomorrow. How many? 40? OK!’”
The far reach of Scientology
Those who know of Scientology through media exposes, or South Park’s stinging cartoon parody, may wonder what interests Scientology could possibly have in one of Asia’s most remote jungles.
The Western media has largely focused on Scientology’s celebrity followers, its secret scriptures and its costly hierarchy of enlightenment. Defectors’ tell-alls have shaken the religion’s public image. An internet campaign known as “Anonymous” vows to do much worse: destroy the church entirely.
But while Scientology endures scrutiny in America, the faith’s influence is quietly expanding in countries that lie beyond the Western media’s glare. In Burma, there is no South Park. Nor does the din of criticism reach non-English speakers in Indonesian cities ruined by earthquakes. Or poor hamlets in Ghana. Or crumbling city blocks in Chile.
Scientologists reach all these places and more. The faith has dispatched its yellow-clad “Volunteer Ministers” to almost every major global disaster in the last decade: from the 2001 World Trade Center attacks to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to Japan’s earthquake-ravaged coast.
Ten years ago, this relief brigade was estimated at 6,000 people. Now, according to church stats, it’s up to 350,000 and growing. Within the past 12 months, the church’s volunteer ministers claim to have treated 3.1 million people in 185 nations and territories.
Scientologists call their volunteer ministers “the largest independent relief force on earth,” an assertion that rivals the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies claim of 97 million volunteers. But this is hardly the two groups’ only point of distinction.
What is an “assist”?
Scientology relief work is largely focused on delivering “assists,” a menu of touch-healing techniques said to reconnect ailing bodies with immortal spirits.
The healing promised by assists is radical: limbs purged of aches in minutes and minds freed from trauma on the spot. Using only their hands, and instructions from the Scientology Handbook, ministers swear they can even render a drunk man sober in minutes. Is this tent revival-style faith healing? According to Scientologists, no. It’s described as a spiritual science, developed by their founder, the sci-fi novelist-turned-religious leader L. Ron
Scientologists Use Bullshit to ‘Heal’ Haitian Quake Victims
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Amid the mass of aid agencies piling in to help Haiti quake victims is a batch of Church of Scientology “volunteer ministers”, claiming to use the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems.Clad in yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the logo of the controversial US-based group, smiling volunteers fan out among the injured lying under makeshift shelters in the courtyard of Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital.
“When you get a sudden shock to a part of your body the energy gets stuck, so we re-establish communication within the body by touching people through their clothes, and asking people to feel the touch.”
Some doctors at the hospital are skeptical. One US doctor, who asked not to be named, snorted: “I didn’t know touching could heal gangrene.”
When asked what the Scientologists are doing here, another doctor said: “I don’t know.”
Do you care? “Not really,” she said, wheeling an unconscious patient out of the operating room to join hundreds of others in the hospital’s sunny courtyard.
Scientologists ‘heal’ Haiti quake victims using touch (Yahoo News)
Scientologists in Haiti: A Firsthand Account (Gawker.com)
Scientologists in Haiti: A Firsthand Account (Gawker.com)
Intriguing questions about the Scientologist wedding photographer who was the main carer for John Travolta's son
By SHARON CHURCHER, MAIL ON SUNDAY CHIEF AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT and CAROLINE GRAHAM, MAIL ON SUNDAY LA CORRESPONDENT
Created 10:40 PM on 10th January 2009
Created 10:40 PM on 10th January 2009
John Travolta and his wife Kelly stood vigil for four hours over the body of their 16-year-old son Jett on the tiny island of Grand Bahama.
The poignant scene was described by neighbour and family friend Obie Wilchcombe, who said: ‘They didn’t want to leave.’
The teenager’s premature death from an epileptic fit last weekend was as unexpected as it was tragic.
The Travolta family: John with (left to right) Ella, Jett and Kelly
Although Jett had suffered serious health problems since early childhood, the Hollywood actor believed his son would be as well cared for on a New Year’s vacation in the Bahamas as he always had been.
Jett’s suite at the family’s seafront holiday home was specially designed for him, and two carers were due to tend to his needs 24 hours a day. But although the cause of the teenager’s death is not in dispute, the police files on the case remain open amid a welter of conflicting information about the nature of Jett’s illness, its treatment and the timing and circumstances surrounding his death.
Central to the picture is the role of the boy’s 29-year-old male ‘nanny’ Jeff Kathrein, a man who caused raised eyebrows a few years ago when he was seen being kissed on the lips and hugged by Travolta on the steps of a private plane.
Although Kathrein appears to have been given a key role in Jett’s wellbeing, he seems only to have been referred to as nanny from last weekend. By profession he is a wedding photographer, and was one of the last people to see Jett alive.
Four hour vigil: Actor John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston at a premiere in 2007
Intriguingly, The Mail on Sunday has learned that accounts from police and family friends differ from the ‘official’ version put forward by those who claim to speak for Travolta, 54, and his wife, the 46-year-old actress Kelly Preston.
Jett’s death certificate issued by the Bahamas authorities lists the cause of death as ‘seizure disorder’ - another name for epilepsy. But some questions about the boy’s last moments remain unanswered, such as exactly when he suffered the fit, how long he lay sprawled on a bathroom floor, what injuries he suffered and who first went to his assistance.
There is also an issue over whether Jett suffered, as many suspect, from severe autism and what role his parents’ devout adherence to Scientology may have played in his treatment.
What is clear is that the Travolta family spent Christmas at their £3.5million mansion on Isleboro, an island off the coast of Maine, New England.
Then on Tuesday, December 30, Travolta, piloting his Boeing 707 airliner, flew his family to Grand Bahama in the Caribbean to celebrate the New Year.
Travolta, Kelly, Jett and his eight-year-old sister Ella Bleu arrived on Grand Bahama that evening and drove to the family’s spacious, lemon-washed villa, which has stunning views over a marina.
They were due to be joined a few days later - at Travolta’s expense - by 49 staff, friends and their children.
As was customary, Jett occupied a downstairs suite in the villa. Travolta and Kelly shared the master bedroom upstairs next to Ella Bleu’s bedroom. Jett’s two nannies, Kathrein and a man identified only as Eli, shared a ground-floor suite that connected to Jett’s room.
Late that first evening, Travolta took Jett for a ride around the villa’s grounds in a golf cart. The following day - Wednesday, New Year’s Eve - the Travoltas and some of the staff went to the beach and had a quiet meal with friends who live on the island.
Kathrein, far left, with Jett, Ella Bleu and Kelly
On New Year’s Day, the group had a lazy morning before an afternoon boat ride. When they returned, Travolta said good night to his son at about 6pm and Jett retired to his bedroom. Next day he was found dead.
The police report states that Kathrein informed them he had been watching television in the suite next to Jett’s and that the nannies (they don’t make it clear whether it was Eli or Kathrein) last saw the boy at about 11.30pm.
According to the police, Jett may have been left unattended for more than ten hours.
A police spokesman said: ‘We stand by our initial report but we cannot make any further comment about the discrepancies between our report and other versions of the event that have been put out there because the investigation is on-going.’
Another version of events was released over the following 48 hours by Travolta’s lawyers Michael Ossi and Michael McDermott. They said Jett - who regularly slept for up to 16 hours a day - was closely and constantly monitored by Kathrein, who is married and a devout Scientologist, and Eli.
The lawyers said the boy’s bedroom was equipped with a baby monitor and a chime that sounded every time he went to the adjoining bathroom.
Furthermore, the lawyers - who were both on the island as guests of the
Travoltas - insist Jett was alive and well until ‘very shortly’ before Kathrein discovered him crumpled on the floor of his bathroom at about 10am on Friday, January 2.
Travoltas - insist Jett was alive and well until ‘very shortly’ before Kathrein discovered him crumpled on the floor of his bathroom at about 10am on Friday, January 2.
Tragic events: Kelly with Ella and Jett
Ossi told reporters that Kathrein performed cardiac massage in an attempt to resuscitate Jett and acknowledged that Jett had a history of seizures.
McDermott added: ‘Jett was not left alone. He had a nanny present at all times. Short of holding [Jett’s] hand 24/7, they had everything in place.’
The two lawyers said Travolta had heard Kathrein’s screams on discovering the prone Jett, rushed to his suite and took over the resuscitation attempts until paramedics arrived.
‘Jett may have died in his dad’s arms,’ the lawyers said in a joint statement. ‘We’d like to believe John had a chance to say goodbye.’
It is unclear where Kelly was while the drama unfolded. In the lawyer’s version of events, she is not mentioned until Jett reaches hospital.
The discrepancies in the accounts raise questions about what possible motive the family would have for obscuring any details of Jett’s death.
Of course, the Travoltas have always fiercely guarded their privacy, both because of their devotion to Scientology and because of the long-term health problems of Jett, who they have long maintained was damaged by Kawasaki Syndrome, a rare circulatory problem that is seldom fatal and affects only infants.
They have repeatedly rejected the observations from a variety of experts who believe Jett suffered from autism. His clumsiness, inability to speak and tendency to walk on tip-toe are said to be classic symptoms of autism - which is also often associated with epileptic seizures.
The day after Jett died, another lawyer travelling with the Travoltas admitted that Jett suffered seizures as regularly as every four days. But he insisted that the Travoltas had not ignored the problem and Jett had been treated in the past with an anti-seizure medication, Depakote.
He said medication had been stopped several years ago because it had ‘ceased to work’ and Kelly feared it might be damaging Jett’s liver.
An Isleboro neighbour of John Travolta last night said the actor was a devoted father: ‘Jett was his life. John was devoted to him. He would spend hours with him watching television. John would go for walks around the estate with Jett, always with his arm around Jett’s shoulder.
'Sometimes he would take the boy down to their private stretch of beach. But he would never take him out in public.
‘They had a 24-hour nanny for him. He was never left alone. He was never left unsupervised. He needed full-time care.’
The tragic events on Grand Bahama turn the spotlight on Kathrein and his role in the Travolta family’s life.
When the photograph of him kissing Travolta on the lips was published around the world in 2006, Travolta’s highly paid PR men instantly retorted that the star’s wife was on the plane, that Kathrein was married and that Travolta always kissed friends goodbye in that way.
Fond farewell: John Travolta kisses Jeff Kathrein on the steps to his jet in 2006
It was a particularly testy response from an actor who has long been dogged by rumours of homosexuality. Several years ago a former gay porn star, Paul Barresi, claimed he had enjoyed a lengthy affair with the actor, only to later recant the accusation.
Travolta has always described rumours that he is anything other than a happily married heterosexual male as ‘stupid and ludicrous’.
A friend of the actor explained Travolta’s friendship with Kathrein, saying: ‘Jeff has known John for years. I think they met through Scientology. Jeff always travels with John and then when Jeff met his wife Ana, she started travelling with John and Kelly too. But I never heard Jeff referred to as a nanny until Jett’s death.’
Kathrein's website reveals that he and Ana, who is pregnant with their first child, run a wedding photography business in Clearwater, Florida, the home of the American headquarters of Scientology.
It appears he enjoyed the absolute trust and confidence of the Hollywood star. And he was the man who, according to the lawyers, would have been listening - if he had been on a formal shift - to the baby monitors.
According to one long-term friend of Travolta, it is out of the question that Jett could have lain unnoticed overnight on the bathroom floor. He said: ‘Jett was 6ft 2in and weighed nearly 18 stone. Even if everybody was asleep, surely someone would have heard him fall.’
If there are questions about the hours before Jett was found, there is no doubt that every effort was made to save him.
One of the most dramatic accounts comes from paramedic Marcus Garvey, who was in charge of the three-person emergency medical team dispatched from the island’s capital Freeport, 26 miles and 45 minutes away by a twisting island road from the Travolta villa.
Garvey said that when he arrived at the villa, a local doctor - who has not been identified - was performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) while Travolta and his wife looked on helplessly.
He said Jett had been moved from the bathroom into the villa’s hallway and had a large swelling on his forehead.
Garvey said: ‘We had been told he had fallen, hit his head and had a fit and was unconscious. The doctor told me he thought he’d had something like an epileptic fit and that he had a history of seizures.
‘John and Kelly were standing over him like they were in a daze. John was shaking. Kelly was crying and trying to comfort him. I took over from the doctor.’
Jett was worked on for 25 minutes at the scene. Later, as paramedics loaded him into an ambulance, they asked the Travoltas to follow. Garvey said: ‘John cried, “No! No! I’m coming with my son.’’
'John was holding his hand in the ambulance saying, “Come on Jett, come around.’’
'Kelly was tenderly rubbing Jett’s hand and saying, “Come on baby, come on Jett.”’
At the hospital, Jett was put on life support while his parents waited in an anteroom. When all attempts to revive him failed, the body was moved to the hospital morgue where Kelly and John said their goodbyes.
The final mystery surrounds the injuries Jett suffered. Paramedics and police say there was a large bruise on his forehead. Glen Campbell, an assistant director at the funeral home that dealt with Jett’s cremation, denied there were any signs of head trauma and insisted Jett’s body was ‘in perfect condition’.
The Travoltas were today due to fly back to Maine, where they plan to spend time with Scientology friends, including former Cheers actress Kirsty Alley.
One Maine neighbour said last night: ‘The last time they were here at Christmas, I saw John walking in the grounds with his arm around Jett’s shoulder. Regardless of all the questions surrounding Jett’s death, the one thing that can’t be questioned was that John loved that boy with all his heart.’
Last night a spokesperson for the Travolta family said: ‘This is not something we are going to bother the Travoltas with right now as they’re mourning the loss of their son.’
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