To download a podcast about Tessa Mayes's experiences with the celebrity Scientologists, click here.
‘A culture is only as great as its dreams and its dreams are dreamed by artists,’ wrote L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre in 1969, 15 years after he formed the church itself. So, in a sense, the Scientologists have only been true to their founder’s intentions in the ever greater emphasis they now put on the famous.
If you’ve seen the ordinary-looking Scientology shopfront on the Tottenham Court Road, the London Celebrity Centre comes as a pleasant contrast: it is an impressive, six-storey, cream Victorian building in Bayswater, adorned with balustrades. There is a small street sign advertising a ‘Free Stress Test’ with a background image of an exploding volcano and the words ‘Church of Scientology