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By Root 1273 0

a targeted form of counseling that addressed a person's failures or weaknesses—their "evil purposes." Promoted as clarifying—somewhat akin to making oneself "right with God"—the process, said Hines, gave a person a new sense of power and control, as well as a conviction that Scientology, which had helped him or her achieve this state, "worked." At which point, the star "would not only feel born again, but also feel a pressing need to make up for the damage" he or she had caused. Travolta, by Hines's recollection, was given the False Purpose Rundown several times during the 1980s, during which time he began to show renewed commitment, most publicly by testifying from the audience during the Larry Wollersheim case in Los Angeles. "It is very important for me to express my satisfaction with the results of being involved with Scientology these last eleven years," Travolta later told the press gathered in front of the Los Angeles Criminal Courts building. "It works one hundred percent for me."

"When you look at that statement, it is very telling," noted Karen Pressley. "He offered a defense of the church, and of the tech, which 'worked' for him"—not coincidentally, at around the same time Celebrity Centre began issuing to members bright yellow T-shirts with bold black lettering on the front, stating SCIENTOLOGY WORKS, as a form of advertising. "Travolta linking Scientology to his success steered the subject away from Scientology being all about spirituality or mental health and toward the idea of its being something that could deliver measurable career results," she said. "That was the way he and other celebrities recruited other actors into the group."*

Pressley, who'd written the pop song "On the Wings of Love" with her husband, the composer Peter Schless, was considered a "celebrity Scientologist" when she joined the Sea Organization in 1986. Her mission was to bring more celebrities into the church, and the pressure to do so, she said, became increasingly intense after Miscavige assumed leadership of the RTC in 1988. A special org board was set up in Celebrity Centre with the names of individual targets and where they stood in the recruitment process. As church officials were compiling these lists, David Miscavige was refining a much larger strategy: to establish the Church of Scientology as the alternative religion of the stars. Central to this plan was Celebrity Centre itself, which had long ago moved from its low-rent quarters in downtown L.A. to a far more elegant address at 5930 Franklin Avenue, in the shadow of the Hollywood Hills.

Celebrity Centre's new home was an ornate, cream-colored Norman revival castle with fanciful turrets and balustrades; built in 1929, it was known as the Chateau Elysee. Its original owner, Eleanor Ince, the widow of the silent film producer Thomas Ince, had built the place as a luxury residence for her friends, many of them retired movie stars. By the 1970s, however, the Chateau had fallen on hard times and was scheduled for demolition when the Church of Scientology bought it, and the surrounding three-acre property, in 1973, for $1 million in cash. Over the next twenty years, the church poured millions from its own reserves into renovating the Chateau, newly landscaping the formal gardens, and transforming the entire property into a kitschy Versailles.

Inside the manor, crystal chandeliers sparkled against a rococo tableau heavy on the gold leaf, trompe l'oeil paintings, and ceiling frescoes. In the lobby, decorated in Louis XIV style, a bronze bust of L. Ron Hubbard stood opposite a white piano that would have made Liberace feel at home. In addition to these ornate finishes, Celebrity Centre boasted thirty-nine hotel rooms, several theaters and performance spaces, a screening room, an upscale French restaurant, a casual bistro and coffee bar, tennis courts, and an exercise room and spa done in elegant black and white tiles. On the roof of the Chateau, an enormous neon sign, visible from the Hollywood Freeway, proclaimed SCIENTOLOGY in large gold lettering.

Into this gaudy palace, a