14 DAY TRIAL // Scientology is one of the most controversial religions out there - or cult, depending on who you ask about it - but it’s also among the most covert. Whatever damning about it comes out in the media is quickly shot down by higher-ups as bigotry of the worst kind, and only (paying) members have access to the details.
They do only know very little, and only a handful is privy to actually important stuff. Scientologists call this ranking system The Bridge, as a new interview from Laura Prepon, which mistakenly ended up online, reveals.
Gawker has it in full. It’s for the Scientology publication Celebrity, which aims to spread the word to possible converts and to already existing members. It’s full of praise for the Church and might prove a bit too much to take to anyone who hasn’t had that much interaction with Scientology.
Laura Prepon says Scientology basically saved her life
In the interview, Prepon talks about The Bridge and how she moved up on the Scientology ladder after she became a member.
Word online has it that this ascension up the ranks isn’t so much related to how much an individual does since becoming a member, but rather to how much they’re willing to pay. The Church lives through donations from members, and it is said that auditing (a sort of therapy sessions that are recorded without a person’s knowledge) is then used as blackmail.
Basically, they invite you to spill your darkest secrets to them to be able to become “more” and they used them later against you, locking you in and draining your bank account. Allegedly.
“Honestly, I’ve become more me,” Prepon says. “The auditing has stripped away all of this charge, false ideas, decisions and mis-emotions that were affecting me. […] Another big realization I had in my auditing is that there is a bigger picture. This is my career but it does not define me. I am so much bigger than this career and industry. It’s my job and it’s very important to me, but, when I have huge wins in session, and when you really cognate that you are a thetan and you have a mind and body, and that the MEST universe does not control you - it puts things into perspective.”
Scientologists believe they can save the world - nay, they’re convinced that they are saving the world. The manner in which they’re doing this remains uncertain to the common folk.
Scientology has improved her acting
One of Prepon’s most publicized roles in recent years has been that of Alex on the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black.”
She credits Scientology for that one too, saying she could have never played a lesbian inmate had it not been for the preparation afforded to her by the Church, mostly through the stripping of said “mis-emotions” and by helping her become the best person inside. She did that through auditing.
Prepon says that her acting is now so “relaxed” that everyone who comes in contact with her wants to know how she’s doing it. She also boasts of converting a producer on one of the shows she recently worked on, even though he was a sceptic.
She ends what Gawker describes as an “exuberant gibberish sermon” by actually saying that Scientology is “magic, it really is,” and even though the world is already mocking her for it, she believes it wholeheartedly.