As Bedhead reported last week, those of us who pay attention to Scientology and celebrity news weren’t surprised by anything in the new HBO documentary, Going Clear. We’ve heard all this information for years, and we know that Scientology uses slave labor, sucks members dry and abuses, isolates and intimidates anyone who tries to leave. We’ve heard how they cater to and manipulate celebrity members. We’ve also heard multiple firsthand accounts from high level defectors, and there are even videos on YouTube of Scientology goons harassing and yelling at ex members. To the casual gossip consumer, these stories are scandalous and shocking, though. Scientology can no longer be dismissed as some harmless wacky scifi “religion”, it’s a dangerous cult and just about everyone has heard about it.

In response to Going Clear, Scientology head David Miscavige has done just about what he’s always done – told members not to watch television, go online or read the news.

One-time high-ranking Scientologist Tom DeVocht tells RadarOnline.com exclusively that church leader David Miscavige has put members on “lockdown” mode in an attempt to stem the fall-out from recent explosive allegations.

DeVocht told Radar exclusively, “I have spoken with someone within the Church. This person is one of the higher-ups, and David Miscavige has ordered the Church to go on lockdown in response to Going Clear.”

“The order told members to not watch any television, read newspapers, or go online because the Church is under attack,” DeVocht claimed.

“Everyone is extremely paranoid that they are being watched or risk being tattled on if caught doing one of those things.”

[From Radar Online]

It’s possible that the latest media ban was to keep members from seeing this story about how Miscavige hired a private investigator to spy on his own elderly father. The PI told police that at one point he witnessed Miscavige’s father possibly having a heart attack. Miscavige told the PI over the phone not to intervene and that “if it was Ron’s time to die, to let him die.”

Tom Cruise’s former auditor and one of the most outspoken critics of Scientology, Marty Rathbun, has a new interview in Esquire following his appearance in the Going Clear documentary. Rathbun has worked tirelessly to help ex Scientologists reintegrate into society and make sense of their experience. Rathbun doesn’t think that Going Clear will have too much of an effect on the church or on current members. He does say that it will help outsiders understand what Scientology is up to. “What it’s going to do is let people on the outside who might have an interest in Scientology know what the consequences are.” So while it may seem idiotic for some cult leader to tell members not to go online or read the news at all, that’s pretty much what been happening all along. People who make the decision to leave do so, according to Rathbun, because they see the abuses of the cult firsthand.

Meanwhile US Magazine has an article in their print edition about Tom Cruise’s life inside Scientology. It’s largely based on Going Clear and it’s not new, but it reminds us that “Tom has minders with him at all times” and that “he’s rarely in touch with family members who aren’t Scientologists.” We just heard that Tom hasn’t seen his own eight year-old daughter, Suri, in over a year. I wonder if he’ll ever reach a point where he realizes that he missed his daughter’s childhood, and I wonder if he’ll ever regret it. If he does, it’s not like he can publicly break ties with Scientology. They surely have a ton of dirt on him.

US also has a quote from another former Scientologist, Karen de la Carriere, who confirms Radar’s story that members are being ordered not to watch the film. “Ethics officers told Scientologists if they see the movie, they’ll lose everything.” Just maybe some of them will be curious enough to risk it.

Tom Cruise is shown out in London on April 8. John Travolta is shown at the VF Oscar Party. Credit: WENN.com