Second-generation Scientologists are typically far more at home with the language and culture of the church than their parents are. And yet they may find themselves a little lost when trying to deal with an uncomprehending society. The first time Alissa noticed that she was doing something different from most people was when she performed a Contact Assist. Scientology preaches that if you repeatedly touch a fresh wound to the object that caused the injury and silently concentrate, the pain lessens and the sense of trauma fades. If a Scientologist sees a person close his hand in a door, for instance, a church manual instructs the Scientologist to “have him go back and, with his injured hand, touch the exact spot on the same door, duplicating the same motions that occurred at the time of the injury.” There are other kinds of assists that will awaken an unconscious person, eliminate boils, reduce earaches and back pain, and make a drunk sober. Instead of crying when she hurt herself, Alissa would quietly redo the action over and over, until she had drained it of its sting. She noticed that non-Scientologists had no idea what she was doing. She was also surprised when she went to a friend’s house for dinner and the family said grace before the meal. It took her a second to realize what they were doing. In her opinion, God plays a negligible role in Scientology. “I mean, there’s a spot for it, but it’s sort of a blank spot.” So whenever her friends began to pray, “I would bow my head and let them have their ceremony.”
Paul was also scarred by the divorce—although, as would often be the case for him, he would mine the experience for his work. He created a television series, Family Law, that was based to some extent on his divorce from Diane. He always found more solace and meaning in his work than he did in his family. Each year he grew more successful, but the gap between him and his daughters grew wider. They knew him better as a writer than as a father, and they would puzzle over the fact that he was so cool to them, when his scripts were often full of emotion. Paul felt guilty about not spending time with the girls, so he would arrange to bring them to the set and assign them some small task. Alissa got to do nearly every job in the industry, from wardrobe to production assistant; she received a Directors Guild card in Canada by the time she was fifteen.
In 1991, Haggis went to a Fourth of July party at the home of some Scientologist friends. He met a striking actress there named Deborah Rennard. She had grown up in Scientology. In her early twenties she had studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse and had fallen under the influence of Milton Katselas, the legendary acting teacher and Hubbard’s former collaborator. They became lovers. Milton was spellbinding, but he was twenty-seven years older than Deborah, and their relationship was an exhausting roller-coaster ride. They stayed together for six years. When Paul met her, Deborah and Milton had recently broken up. She was a successful actress with a recurring role in the long-running television series Dallas—as J. R. Ewing’s loyal but always unattainable secretary.
Deborah Rennard and Milton Katselas in Silverlake, California, 1985
Paul was still going through his epic divorce. Early in his relationship with Deborah, Paul admitted that he was having a spiritual crisis. He said he’d raced up to the top of the Bridge on faith, but he hadn’t gotten what he expected. “I don’t believe I’m a spiritual being. I actually am what you see,” Paul told her. Deborah advised him to get more auditing. Personally, she was having breakthroughs that led her to discover past lives. Images floated through her mind, and she realized, “That’s not here. I’m not in my body, I’m in another place.” She might be confronting what the church calls a “contra-survival action”—“like the time I clobbered Paul or threw something at him.” She would look for an “earlier similar” in her life. Suddenly she would see herself in England in the nineteenth century. “It was a fleeting glimpse at what I was doing then. Clobbering husbands.” When she examined these kindred moments in her current existence and past ones, the emotional charge would dissipate. Paul would say, “Don’t you think you’re making this up?” At first, she thought he might be right. But then she wondered if that really mattered. She felt she was getting better, so who cared whether they were memories or fantasies? As an actor she went through an analogous process when working on a scene; she would grab hold of a feeling from who knows where. It felt real. It helped her get into the role. As long as the process worked, why quibble?
Deborah made sure Paul showed up at the annual gala and became involved in Scientology charitable organizations. Over the years, Haggis spent about $100,000 on courses and auditing and an equal amount on various Scientology initiatives. This figure doesn’t include the money that Diane gave to the church while she was married to Paul. Haggis also gave $250,000 to the International Association of Scientologists, a fund set up to protect and promote the church. Deborah spent about $150,000 on coursework of her own. Paul and Deborah held a fund-raiser in their home that raised $200,000 for a new Scientology building in Nashville, and they contributed an additional $10,000 from their own pocket. The demands for money—“regging,” it’s called in Scientology, because the calls come from the Registrar’s Office—never stopped. Paul gave them money just to keep them from calling.
* * *
1 A lawyer for Preston and Travolta claims that the couple “never put their son through a ‘Purification Rundown’ treatment and would never have engaged in any type of conduct that would have endangered their son’s health, welfare, or well-being in any way.” He maintains that Preston was referring to herself when she responded to Williams’s question.