Welcome to Castaway, the New Haven Independent’s new podcast series, hosted by me, Mark Oppenheimer, and engineered by fellow New Havener Lee Faulkner. Our first podcast will be somewhat unusual for the series. It’s an exclusive interview with John Carmichael, the president of the Church of Scientology of New York. In the past, Scientologists have been shy with the media, so an interview of this length and depth is rare.
This podcast is posted in conjunction with my article “The Actualizer,” which will appear this Sunday in the July 15 issue of The New York Times Magazine.
The article is about Milton Katselas, an acting coach in Los Angeles who is also a devoted Scientologist. Listen to the podcast now — read the article this weekend.
Scientology has been called a cult, a sect, a destroyer of families. It has been parodied on South Park, and it had to fight a lengthy legal battle with the IRS to gain tax-exempt status. It has also been hailed by celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Kirstie Alley as the religion that changed their lives.
I sat down with John Carmichael, a thoughtful, middle-aged Cornell alumnus who heads the Church of Scientology’s branch in Times Square, and he did his best — what Scientology’s opponents would call his biased, self-serving best — to help me separate fact from fiction. I found the discussion illuminating, a focused look at a Scientologist who is not a celebrity and clearly not a cultist either.
And you can subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode!