going-clear-scientology-hollywood-and-the-prison-of-belief-by-lawrence-wright-2

of his early scripts when he was still trying to break out of cartoons. From the
beginning, she had seen his talent; her own talent was helping others realize theirs.
“Spanky” was a schoolyard nickname for Sylvia, but it had such a teasing twist that
she could never escape it. She was the child of Mexican American laborers in San Jose.
When she was fourteen, she became a fan of a local cover band called People!, which
included several Scientologists. She began helping the group with concert promotion,
and soon she was working with some of the other great bands coming out of the Bay
Area, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Scientology was just another expression of the political and cultural upheaval of the
times. Even members of the Grateful Dead were drawn into Scientology, which promised
mystical experiences without hallucinogens. Albert Ribisi, the keyboard player for
People!, introduced Spanky to the church. She joined the sta at the Santa Clara mission
when she was fifteen.
She was a cheerful young woman with warm brown eyes who called everyone
“honey.” Because of her experience with promotion, she was posted to the Celebrity
Centre. The place was constantly buzzing with activity—tie-dyeing, fencing, poetry
readings—and she loved it. Famous people were always passing through, which added
to the sense that something fun and important was happening here.
Spanky inevitably came to the notice of Yvonne Gillham, who had created the
Celebrity Centre in 1969, after gaining Hubbard’s permission to go to LA and escape the
tension of his romantic pursuit of her. Gillham came to look upon Spanky almost as an
extension of herself, with the same easy, natural air for dealing with people. Even
though Spanky was still a teenager, Gillham arranged for her to take care of some of the
most important figures associated with the church.
One celebrity quickly took precedence. John Travolta was in Mexico making his rst
lm, The Devil’s Rain, a cheap horror movie starring Ernest Borgnine and William
Shatner. He got to be friends with Joan Prather, a promising young actress and dancer,
who was one of the few cast members his age. “He glommed onto me from day one,”
she said. “He was extremely unhappy and not doing well.” Prather began talking about
how much Scientology had helped her. Actors are often asked to get in touch with
feelings that can be quite devastating. “Dianetics oered a tool to get to one’s raw
emotions without going completely bonkers,” she observed.
“It sounded really interesting, so I brought up certain things about my case and asked
if that could be handled,” Travolta later recalled. “And she said it could. I said, ‘Come
on … could THAT be handled? You know, I couldn’t believe it.” Prather gave him a copy
of Dianetics. It helped with his bouts of depression and insomnia. “Sometimes people say
the most incredible things in the world to me that last year would make me suicidal,” he
observed. On another occasion he remarked, “Before Dianetics, if people said negative
things to me or about me, I would cave in easily. Being a man, that wasn’t a very
appealing quality. Some people would say, ‘The boy is too sensitive.’ But many times I
had suppressive people around me who would cave me in on purpose. I was sort of like
a minefield.”
Prather also counseled him using some of the basic processes of Scientology. “I went