that is what scientology really is. when you enter the church of scientology. it's like a breadcrumb trail in to his mind. the further you go in to the church, the deeper in to his mind you be -- go. on the crazy question, one way i look at him, if we were in another culture, say an ab aboriginal culture. they talk of schizophrenia being the shaman disease. people who have, you know, these experiences sometimes they in our culture we would say they're crazy and need to be on medication. but in other culturals, and other times people who have had extraordinary mental break downs or journey come back and have feel like they healed themselves and they are the people that people go to to be healed. their mission is to heal their in their community. i think he somehow saw himself that way. he had a theory of his life that he propagated as the truth. he said that he was an heroic veteran of world war ii. he said that after the war, he was so badly injured that he was blinded and crippled and that medicine couldn't help him. he developed his own technique of healing a

you know, tom cruise is the most visible scientolog scientology-- scientologist ever. the number one box office star in the world, makes it real impression on young people that might be wanting to go into, might be wanting to find out more about it. if you have a star like that saying this works. this works for me, then other people are going to be interested. >> rose: has he brought other people in? >> oh, according to the church-- oh, i'm sure that he has. but according to the church, you know, billions of people have heard his message. and no doubt a lot of people have. >> rose: and the abuses people talk about are what? >> inside the church hierarchy, at the very highest levels, people have been, a number of people have been beaten. i've had 12 people tell me they have been physically beaten by the leader of the church, david-- and 20 people have witnessed those things. he wasn't the only one doing it. but there seems to be a culture of violence inside the church, more over-- . >> rose: a fear, do you think, of going -- >> discovered or being misunderstood? or unde

if you saw the initial reporting, you know this facility is linked to the church of scientology and after seeing harry smith's report, two former executives have stepped forward and making some powerful claims. >> i personally would never recommend to anybody that they should send their loved one to narcanon. >> they go to great length at quieting people. they aren't going to do that with me. >> that does it for this week. for everybody who worked so hard on tonight's broadcast, thanks for being with us. >> next at 11:00. his heart stopped four times. how this firefighter ended up on the other side of a 9-11 call. the news starts in 30 seconds. >> from what i understand, my heart stopped at least three or four times. >> a veteran firefighter finds himself in need of saving. tonight, he's talking only to nbc bay area news. >>> good evening, everyone. >> one moment he's responding to an emergency. the next, he's found himself in the middle of one. a san jose firefighter is set to go back to work on monday. cheryl herd is live in san jose with this story. cheryl? >> reporter: well, frank rya

it's fascinating on tom cruise, known for his scientology. the day, he was very, very close to even potentially thinking about becoming a catholic priest. this is according to a buddy of his who was a devout catholic. cruise back in 1981 was very much interested in becoming a catholic priest. according to his friend. >> seminary school. >> he went to seminary school and hung out with the priests ask exchanged stories with them and very interested in all of this. learning latin and greek and german, joining the drama club. but it was apparently the two who got booted that sent him on a different track, because his buddy apparently broke into the liquor cabinet of one of the priests and threw out the window a bottle to tom waiting below and they got busted for it. so the dream of becoming a priest went out after that. but it's a good article in the "new york daily news." >> now he's very deeply vested into scientology. so it would be interesting to see -- >> clearly he was a searcher. >> oh, my goodness, tom cruise could have been at the concla

the people of california with a lot of money from the church of scientology, so-called church of scientology the roman catholic church and the mormons put prop 8 on the ballot, overturned marriage equality in california. that's now up in front of the supreme court today. the arguments for and against. so a couple of things. they could rule several different ways on prop 8 right? >> there are lots of different options. if you look at the composition of the court, you can kind of guess one way or another and most folks are saying -- so let's go through the options. on one hand, they could say major equality is legal in all 50 states. this proposition violence equals protection. it is unconstitutional. we're going to throw it out. all 50 state really applies more to doma. california proposition. but they could say that these kinds of laws that can use a heightened constitutional analysis called heightened scrutiny. they can say that for discriminatory laws -- >> bill: be like a brown versus board of education. >> could be a big moment. you have a pretty conservative court. so historically when