LOS ANGELES –  Just a few months ago, high-profile Hollywood Scientologist John Travolta was embroiled in a major intercourse scandal whilst a few masseurs accused the actor of sexual harassment and abuse.

Around the similar time, rumors began to emerge that Scientologist Lisa-Marie Presley will have parted techniques with the Church and penned a music approximately it on her new album, “Storm and Grace.” Elvis' daughter reportedly got rid of point out of Scientology on her web site and used the organization’s jargon within the observe “So Long,” with lyrics like “Those are the entire other folks with out eyes… Churches, they do not have a soul.” 

During an interview with FOX411’s Pop Muffins column, Presley mentioned she moved to the desolate English geographical region to do a little soul looking. “I went via an enormous transition in my lifestyles the place the whole lot and everybody I knew and depended on did not become that way," she instructed us. "PEOPLE WHO had been in my lifestyles for a very long time grew to become sinister and attempted to regulate me and a wide variety of strange stuff happened.” 

Then ultimate week, probably the most well-known Scientologist of them all, Tom Cruise, was stunned by spouse Katie Holmes’ divorce submitting and request for sole custody in their daughter Suri, 6, reportedly as a result of she doesn’t need their daughter being raised as a Scientologist.

Is all this drama an indication of a rift within the Hollywood/Scientology union?

“I assume we're going to see much more defections, and many celebrities are beginning to get up to it,” Jefferson Hawkins, a former senior advertising government for the Church of Scientology for greater than 30 years and creator of “Counterfeit Dreams,” instructed FOX411's Pop Muffins column. “You don’t see the massive celebrities selling it anymore. Even Tom have been lovely quiet at the topic during the last few years.”

Hawkins mentioned “there is not any query that their club base was decreasing,” and a end result there may be greater power on high-profile individuals to dig deeper into their pockets.

Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Paul Haggis hit headlines in 2009 while he deserted the Church, after 35 years, denouncing the San Diego department for having supported California’s ban in opposition to same-sex marriage previous to the 2008 election. Haggis, who has overtly homosexual daughters, additionally cited in his resignation letter that his spouse were ordered to disconnect from her oldsters “because of one thing completely trivial they supposedly did 25 years in the past after they left the church.”

Scientology knowledgeable and founding father of the long-running, Norway-based web page Operation Clambake that seeks to “undress the Church,” Andreas Heldal-Lund, flew to the States in 2008 at the side of Mark Bunker and videotaped actor Jason Beghe speaking out candidly towards Scientology, calling it “dangerous,” and a “rip-off.” 

Heldal-Lund began an internet site on Scientology in 1996 at the subject, and spotted that on-line details about the enigmatic group could continuously disappear. Proceedings have been filed in opposition to a few Web newsgroups publishing both private or unflattering details about the Church, stirring debate over censorship.

“But over contemporary years, the group turns out to have misplaced a large number of its members, and it misplaced the conflict towards the Internet,” Heldal-Lund defined. “We are actually seeing so much my empty church buildings all over the world. They purchase those stunning buildings, and but there's no one inside.”

Attorney for the Church of Scientology, Gary Soter, strongly disregarded such tips that the group was whatsoever struggling financially, or that its dating with Hollywood was in trouble, calling the critics “self-promoters and apostates looking to disparage the Church of Scientology for his or her personal self interests.”

“These folks have been excommunicated years in the past and understand not anything approximately Scientology present practices. They make up stories, and self corroborate them,” Soter informed FOX411 in  a commentary. “Scientology is a world faith whose participants are rising in numbers.”

Soter stated Scientology is “enjoying a renaissance, no longer uncoincidentally, for the reason that departure of those anti-Scientologists.”

“You will in finding this in image and written shape on scientologynews.org the place it presentations greater than 25 new Church buildings opened and their congregations in prime towns across the world, with 5 new Church buildings opened within the remaining 5 weeks,” he introduced. “These Church buildings are each and every playing a surge in new members."

The Church, which was granted tax-exempt standing as a non secular establishment in 1993, can nonetheless depend a couple of Hollywood heavy-hitters in its ranks. But even so Cruise and Travolta, actors Danny Masterson, Giovanni Ribisi and Jenna Elfman are members, as is the singer Beck, whilst actress Kirstie Alley has mentioned she “would be dead” with out the religion’s affect in her life.

But consistent with Marty Rathbun, a former high-ranking scientologist and writer of “What is inaccurate With Scientology?”, the terrible consideration surrounding its Tinseltown poster kids may perform a little critical PR damage.

“It is hurting them because the international discusión the problem at the same time as they continue to be mute,” he mentioned. “I be expecting their leader, David Miscavige, have been pushed in to his bunker and we aren't more likely to see the rest efficient or yes emanate from the Church.”