It's interesting to see the reaction of Scientologists when they're asked about this. They almost all deny it publicly. Journalists really shouldn't let them get away with it. It's universally reported to exist by ex-scientologists who have reached the training level, it's come up in public court documents, and it's seen in copies of L Ron Hubbard's notes.

In the past, the Scientology celebrity center had a nice african women as a public spokesperson. She would deny all the claims about Xenu whenever she was asked about it. But someone eventually figured out that she was not even at the training level of operating thetan. You only learn about Xenu at operating thetan level 3. So sometimes even their public speakers don't really know anything about the church.

In Tommy Davis's case, I'm pretty sure he knows about Xenu. According to wikipedia, he's both denied it in the past, and also referenced Xenu's existence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Davis

Tory Magoo is lying as usual. Per her own affidavit of 2001 she says that it was officials of the Church of Scientology that told her to stay/go back on medication after she took herself off. I am so sick and tired of these attention whores who try to use a dead boy to push their agenda. It should not be necessary for people like Tommy Davis to explain what Scientology is. All the information is online and easy to find on the Scientology websites, like Scientology.org or ScientologyToday.org.

Tommy Davis single-handedly destroyed like a 50 year effort by Scientology to establish themselves as normal and not weird.

He says people don't have a soul.. And that the Travoltas are doing "great".. and she sets him up with the do you grieve, do people cry, what is the proper thing to say.. "he goes on"... inhabit someone's body but we don't know who or when..

LOL, why isn't Tom Cruise out here answering this stuff?

Looks like I'm not the only one who sees you for what you really are, gwaan. You remind me of Scientology's Tommy Davis from this video. Unfortunate that you've got so many here fooled. Don't upvote videos such as this as it might upset the resident Muslim, and we don't want to do that, do we. Might make one look ill-informed , or, egads, an intolerant little bigot. The only intolerant one here is the person who downvotes every video critical of his religion and tries to justify it in some lengthy accompanying dross. Of course, the same person claims to be against censorship, but somehow manages to rationalize every downvote.

You are insane, gwaan. No doubt.

The Panorama programme showed the museum to be apparently using images of the Holocaust to sell its message which Sweeny said had upset him before he was confronted and harrangued by Tommy Davis - not that it excuses the outburst but it makes it a little more comprehensible. I also like Sweeny's comment in the Panorama programme: "I apologised then and I apologise now. I lost my voice, but I didn't lose my mind" - sadly it gave them enough ammunition to slur him once he rose to their bait.

I have an ambivalent attitude to this Scientology stuff - I consider all religion to be a cult, it is just that some have the weight of thousands of years (and millions of lives) behind them forcing certain beliefs and attidutes on those in their thrall.

I also feel that societies are similarly 'cult based', and people have no choice in where they are born or how they are brought up, just in their preferences and groups they join later. It makes this battle between the BBC and the Scientologists a kind of a clash of culture as well, between who can utilise the media better.

Similarly the shouting fit thrown by John Sweeny and the intimidation techniques used by Tommy Davis are the kind of nasty nose-to-nose confrontations that occur between people every day of the week on the street, in bars, in offices etc.

However, having said all that, watching the Panorama programme showed Scientology to be extremely creepy. I have nothing against people, much less Hollywood stars, giving all their money away to a cult if they want to, and even have some sympathy with the Scientologists getting upset at being investigated but listening in and then interrupting interviews with people with dissenting opinions by walking up to an interview in progress and relating the interviewees faults and criminal convictions in lurid detail is incredibly rude and insulting as well as creepy.

They just seem to be incredibly insecure - if you have to follow people around and confront them if you see them speaking to 'undesireable' people then you must be worried about what they will say and perhaps even have something to hide that you might be worried about them talking about.

Surely the best way is to let people with dissenting opinions talk - even if they have a good point there is a good chance a lot of people will still sympathise with the Scientologists! The confrontation however just makes the Scientologist look weirder for acting up, and Davis immediately lost any sympathy from me when I saw him get upset at Sweeny just trying to conduct an interview. It is also interesting to see from the Panorama programme that Sweeny shouts at Tommy Davis after Davis has already tried to shout him down (and we have been shown two other incidences of Davis shouting Sweeny down and Sweeny backing off and letting him have his say previous to this)

I'll be very interested to see whether Anne Archer, Juliette Lewis "and the rest" who were interviewed for the Scientology cause but then withdrew their comments have any influence in preventing the BBC from showing their films or programmes etc or whether they will still turn up on the BBC in the future - i.e. whether their 'beliefs' are stronger than the almighty dollar.

I'm also surprised the BBC didn't have a little ticker at the bottom of the screen ticking off the number of times they used the word 'cult' in the programme! That would have lightened the tone while still pissing the Scientologists off! I counted around 14 uses of the word (15 if you count that one that described Tommy Davis, but I might have heard a 'l' instead of an 'n'!)

In all fairness to him, they'd been following him and telling him he was a bad person since he first arrived in the country. Tommy Davis is a nutcase, rose his voice first, it was only so long till John Sweeney cracked.