Jason Beghe, a veteran of such series as Numb3rs, CSI: NY, and Cane, might soon find his biggest fame to date coming from a three-minute YouTube clip, in which he rails on Scientology as being "fucked up."

The Village Voice speaks to him for a story today, and Beghe capitalizes on his YouTube and Xenu TV fame, describing how he learned about Scientology from Jenna Elfman's husband (then boyfriend) Bodie Elfman. Elfman gave Beghe a copy of What is Scientology, which hinted at how to achieve super powers and achieve clarity, an idea that appealed to the actor at the time. "Give me some Scientology, man," he says he thought.

Beghe's epiphany came during a Scientology ritual that essentially involves holding still for 20 minutes. "I kind of left my body, and realized, in a new sense, who I was. And it was like, 'Oh, shit.'" Beghe says he probably had $60,000 to his name, but he plunked down $50k to move up the "bridge," the Scientology path to enlightenment. After 12 years in the church, he estimates he probably spent $1 million before extricating himself from Scientology seven months ago. The upshot: He was for a while one of its poster boys. He had his own private sauna at the Celebrity Centre in L.A. He shot up the ladder and ended up ranking higher (OT V) than John Travolta.

In the long piece, Beghe goes on to unfurl all sorts of insider secrets and travails he went through in his dozen years inside and ends with this nugget: "Scientology seduces you into thinking that it's a process through which you can truly become yourself. But ultimately, what it turns you into is a Scientologist—a brainwashed version of yourself."

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