"I know the dark side of Scientology...I almost lost my friend to it"

Written for Herald Scotland by Jonny Jacobsen:

"I knew Scientology was in trouble when the media moved on from the usual silly gossip about its celebrity members to much darker, disturbing issues at the heart of the movement.

After a Paris court last month convicted several Scientologists and two organisations associated with the movement in France of organised fraud, and amid other investigations in France looking at a suicide and an alleged abduction, Oscar-winning film-maker Paul Haggis, a long-time member, quit Scientology.

Haggis, who wrote and directed Crash, denounced the practice of "disconnection", which sees members forced to cut off contact with anyone – even their loved ones – if they are deemed an enemy of Scientology.

In Edinburgh in the early 1990s, I found out just what the practice of disconnection could do to ordinary people when a close friend became involved in Scientology. It was an experience which marked me so profoundly that I have been tracking the movement ever since."

Full article here.