Speed Running Scientology
Mark Honeychurch - 13th April 2026
Yesterday my daughter told me about a recent trend on TikTok - Scientology Runs. For those not in the know, Scientology is very much a pseudoscientific self-help cult that has ruined many people’s lives and tries to legitimise itself by, amongst other things, convincing celebrities to join and then convince others in turn that it’s a legitimate organisation. If you want to know what Scientology teaches, check out this primer from South Park:
Beyond that, there are some great documentaries and TV shows from the likes of Louis Theroux, Alex Gibney and Leah Remini that are well worth watching - look for them online.
My first thought of what Scientology Runs might be was that it could be a weird flex of people boasting about how quickly they could get through certain parts of Scientology’s “Bridge to Total Freedom” (the roadmap Scientology uses to guide members towards becoming super-human).
There are several key milestones on this path, including completing your grades, taking the Purification Rundown (a dangerous health regime that is meant to be a detox), becoming “clear” (which involves a lot of “auditing” to clear your cellular-memory engrams), passing OT III (a level of the OT, or Operating Thetan, classes that L. Ron Hubbard called a wall of fire, telling people that the information they learned could kill them if they weren’t properly prepared) and finally graduating from OT VIII, the highest Scientology level currently available. I even remember having seen a video of actor Jason Beghe more than a decade ago, after leaving Scientology, where he was interviewed about his time in the cult, and boasted about how quickly he was able to progress through Scientology - a speed run of sorts - because he was able to pay them a lot of money:
But because all of these courses and levels in Scientology are expensive to complete (and get dearer as you rise through the ranks), I figured that taking courses quickly is unlikely to be what my daughter meant by “Scientology Run” - it would be a pretty expensive way to get a few thousand views on a TikTok video.
My daughter then showed me a few of the videos that had been posted online. All of the ones she found on TikTok started off outside the entrance to the same Scientology Centre, which turns out to be the Hollywood Boulevard centre at 6724 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The videos were all of people either filming themselves or being filmed by a second person as they attempted to run into the Scientology building and get as far as they could before someone stopped them - hence the term “Scientology Run”. Now obviously this is a nuisance for the staff working at the centre, but given how awful Scientology is I’m having a hard time feeling bad for the organisation as they deal with these pranks.
As seems to happen a lot on social media these days, endless people are jumping on the bandwagon of creating their own videos either reacting to these runs or giving context to them - and some of these context videos were really disappointing.
Scientology is so bad as an organisation that it’s not hard to find many, many horrifying and verified true stories of abuse and mistreatment. So it was sad to watch some of these third party videos where people end up making up nonsense about Scientology while they talk over the Scientology Run videos. In just three videos that I found and watched, one person claimed that the building that people are running into is where the celebrities are (which it isn’t, that’s the Celebrity Centre which is elsewhere in LA), that the back rooms of the building contain “scary stuff”, and that one runner has “disappeared” and not been heard of since his attempted run. Another claimed that the back of the building is like Area 51, holding unknown secrets (and this was accompanied by a short computer generated video clip of a human-bat hybrid in a cell). A third described the building as “super secretive”.
The Celebrity Centre in LA
In reality, given that the Hollywood Boulevard Scientology Centre is an outreach building, used to attract potential new members to the religion, there will be very little that’s secret inside - maybe some auditing records locked away, but that’s likely about it. The building will no doubt contain a book store and a cinema room, and likely some rooms for auditing (with e-meters) and some classrooms as well - all rooms that will be open to people who have done nothing more than express an interest in Scientology.
Rather than trying to keep people out, the Scientologists working at the Hollywood Boulevard building will be actively trying to convince people to walk through their doors - something known as “body routing” (physically routing someone’s body into the Scientology premises). All body routing events are recorded somewhere and reported to head office, where stats are compiled and every year the best stats from Scientology centres around the world are loudly proclaimed in videos telling members just how well Scientology is doing. I know this because I’ve been to a Scientology event in Wellington and sat with active members watching one of these videos as part of their annual celebration of L. Ron Hubbard’s birthday.
From what I can tell there have been a few of these “runs” that have been posted online in the last few weeks, with one being widely described as the “deepest recorded” where a couple of people get to what looks to be the back of the building, before being asked to leave through a fire exit.
Although the Runs are a recent phenomenon, YouTube has a lot of videos from the past few years of people vocally challenging Scientology’s recruitment efforts outside the Hollywood Boulevard centre (many of which are on the Scientology Audit (Streets LA) YouTube channel), so the staff are no strangers to this kind of combative behaviour. From the videos that I’ve seen the staff appear to be used to being hassled while they’re trying to “body route” people off the street and into the building, and staff will close the front doors as soon as they spot a known agitator - or I guess more recently someone recording on a phone as they approach. One runner managed to foil this detection mechanism by passing by the door on a skateboard, and then jumping off the skateboard at the last second and dashing under a staff member’s arms to get in.
I’ve been unable to find any videos of other Scientology buildings being run into, including our own local Ideal Org - an historic building in Grafton, Auckland that was originally Trinity Methodist Theological College, and then Whitecliffe College of Art, before being purchased and renovated by Scientology. If any skeptic wants to give this a go, please send me the video of your attempt! I suspect that this running fad is unlikely to become any more of a trend than it already is, especially if Scientology starts getting litigious (something they’re well known for doing) and dishing out trespass orders to these intrepid explorers.
If you want to actually get into a Scientology building and have a look around, simply walk in acting like you’re oblivious and interested, and ask if you’re able to be shown around - I’m pretty sure the staff will be keen to give you a tour. For the Auckland Ideal Org you can even book yourself in for a self-guided tour - at least for the “Public Information Center”. And while you’re there I bet the staff will be keen to show you their Auditing room, a short video about Scientology, and maybe even the Purification Rundown sauna room upstairs if you ask nicely. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology members are lauded internally for being able to attract new people in to their group, so many of them will try to be as polite and accommodating as possible if they think they might actually be able to hook you in (I’ve fooled them into thinking I was keen to join in the past, and had them eagerly phoning me up inviting me to events).
On a positive note, one of our new committee members, Tony, says that he’s seen some other videos online that are using this Scientology Run trend to spread factual information about the “Church” of Scientology. It’s good to hear that not all of the content being produced is clickbait nonsense.