ARTICLE LINK: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/05/scientology-recruitment-videos-tiktok-instagram/

On TikTok and Instagram, the controversial church is looking for a youthful audience—and a new way to battle critics.

If you go on TikTok looking for information about Scientology, you’ll likely encounter a young man named Gunnar Scharf, leading impassioned tours of church buildings and holding holy texts aloft. Scharf has blue eyes, spiky dirty blonde hair, a trim black vest, and an abiding passion for telling the youth just how cool, normal, and approachable his faith really is. 

“Inside Scientology,” one video begins, with Scharf leaning against a set of swinging doors, “what do we have that benefits all religions? Come with me.” He hikes a thumb over his shoulder and leads viewers in.

Scharf is the online face of Scientology’s Twin Cities church, and since the beginning of 2025 he has starred in dozens of videos on its TikTok and Instagram pages, inviting curious outsiders to check out what the church has to offer. He shows off personality tests and e-meters—the tools that Scientology uses to “audit” the curious and faithful alike—and answers common questions, like “Do Scientologists pray?” (The answer is no, unless, in addition to Scientology, they also belong to a religion where prayer is practiced.)

The account has over 10,000 followers and generates a lot of discussion—much of it either focused on Scharf’s looks (“I could fix him,” one Redditor declared) or witheringly critical (“So do I cut ties with my friends and family before or after joining?” one commenter asked on a recent video). 

Scharf is just one of the young people at dozens of Scientology centers around the world who have begun making videos online, often using popular songs and trending audio, presenting a more approachable, amiable, and youthful face for the church. Many of these Instagram and TikTok accounts became especially active starting in early 2025 and have kept up an intense pace since. 

A TikTok account for Scientology’s San Francisco chapter shows a younger male staffer leading tours. A less-active account called “Life Improvement Centre” shares TikToks from a Scientology mission in London, where youthful staff members brandish copies of the core Scientology text Dianetics to camera or answer questions about the church while standing near informational displays. In Las Vegas, an account presents two beaming women with long hair doing synchronized dances as onscreen text lists the “top three books to read in Scientology.” And the Los Feliz mission has been especially busy; there, a group of young female Scientologists star in a series of pop psychology-flavored videos about how Dianetics can support readers through self-discovery, mental health challenges, and even breakups. 

“Stop stressing, you silly little goose,” one Los Feliz post declares, over a video of three female Scientologists jumping up and down in a kitchen. “You have a good heart, you’re not your intrusive thoughts, and Scientology exists. The universe is on your side… You’re going to be just fine.” 

According to Tony Ortega, a veteran journalist and former Village Voice editor in chief who has covered Scientology for decades, the videos are part of an evolving social media strategy. “They’ve been attempting to project a different impression for the past few years,” he says. “Now we have this online presence on TikTok and Instagram.” 

A public relations pivot was arguably necessary, and even overdue, Ortega says, as Scientology is in need of new members. “They’re desperate right now,” he says. “It’s gotten really difficult for them. It’s so hard to recruit for Scientology.” 

The videos come after years of bad press. The commenter who joked about cutting ties, for instance, was referring to just one controversial Scientology practice that became public through journalists and ex-members. They range from that concept, “disconnection,” where people in the religion are said to be pressured to sever contact with those who leave, to the financial and physical abuse former Scientologists say they experienced. High-profile defectors like actor Leah Remini and investigative projects like the book and documentary Going Clear have presented narratives of control and physical abuse that people allege having suffered during their time with the church. 

Scientology has denied all reports of abuse, and accuses critics of harboring anti-religious bias, or worse. The STAND League, a Scientology-backed organization that says it fights discrimination against Scientologists and other religions, has, for instance, called Going Clear a “bigoted propaganda video,” and maintains webpages devoted to denouncing its critics, including Ortega, who they label as “an anti-religious hate blogger.”  

In December 2025, however, the new, more lighthearted social media strategy was on full display in a Christmas-season TikTok. Scientology staffers from several different cities and countries were edited together in a video depicting them throwing a copy of Dianetics to each other. The last to catch the book is Scotland’s Amir Essalhi, a young man shown beaming in a red sweatshirt.

Essalhi, who is no longer in the church, first got interested in Scientology when he was an 18 year old film student with a love of Tom Cruise and dreams of acting. He heard Scientology had a library. “I like learning about philosophy and theology and life in general,” he told me recently. “They had mental health books and books claiming to have the answer about life. They sell themselves an applied philosophy. It’s not like you’re joining a religion.”

Essalhi was soon tapped to work without pay managing money for the Edinburgh Scientology center. Essalhi, who lived at home with his parents, says he dropped out of school and took on gigs helping fellow Scientologists with their various businesses: “Ads, social media, party businesses, cleaning, admin,” he says. (The church has for years faced, and denied, allegations it exploits members for money and forced labor.) It was challenging, he adds. “You don’t sleep.” Essalhi ultimately became the Edinburgh center’s public contact secretary, another unpaid executive role tasked with “getting new people through the front door and creating as many new Scientologists as possible.” 

“We’re all in a WhatsApp group—or I was—called Social Media Warriors,” says Essalhi, who is now 21 years old. “Its purpose is to get Scientology out there on as many social media platforms as possible.”

“You basically get given full creative control,” he says. 

Late last year, Essalhi decided to use his perceived autonomy in an unusual way by agreeing to appear on a podcast with Alex Barnes-Ross, a UK-based ex-Scientologist and prominent critic of the church’s alleged abuses. 

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Essalhi first encountered Barnes-Ross as he protested outside a 2025 Scientology conference in East Grinstead, where the church keeps its UK headquarters. His curiosity was piqued, and after a few weeks of cautious communication, the two agreed to speak on Barnes-Ross’ show. Essalhi hoped not only to defend Scientology, but to demonstrate the church’s commitment to free speech.

During the January recording, Barnes-Ross predicted their conversation would have negative repercussions for Essalhi. Essalhi disagreed: “I thought I was free to speak to this guy.”

“It was a great conversation,” Essalhi now says, a little ruefully, “that opened up Pandora’s box. The next two weeks after that I was subjected to all sorts of punishment.” 

According to Essalhi, he spent that time being interrogated by senior Scientology officials before being ordered to do what he describes as “hard manual labor” renovating a new Scientology building. “And for what reason?” he asks. “For talking to somebody? For talking to a critic of the organization? For encouraging open dialogue and free speech?”

After one day of construction, Essalhi decided he was done: “I grabbed a grocery store bag, I grabbed all my awards, everything I was commended for, all my belongings. I went out the emergency exit, and I never returned.” (A Scientology spokesperson acknowledged a request for comment for this story, but did not provide any on the record response, including to questions about Essalhi’s account.)

Barnes-Ross says he joined the church at 15, and by 2014 was director of public sales for its London branch, charged with hawking copies of Dianetics and paid courses based on the tenets of its author, L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who founded Scientology. Today, Barnes-Ross tells me that his podcast is part of his efforts to give former Scientologists “a platform to share their stories and campaign for legislative changes in the UK to hold Scientology accountable for their abusive practices.” He maintains a YouTube page, Apostate Alex, with over 10,000 followers. 

Before leaving in 2016, Barnes-Ross had a similar role in London as Essalhi did in Edinburgh. He recalls pushing his supervisor in roughly 2011 to “start using social media, set up a page on Twitter and Facebook and show people what Scientology really is, because there’s all these people talking rubbish about it online.” Barnes-Ross says that while Scientology’s central offices then had bare Facebook and Twitter pages, they mostly just offered links to the main Scientology website and basic videos. Barnes-Ross recalls no city-specific social media accounts—and nothing on social media that he thought did justice to what he then saw as the benefits of Scientology texts like Dianetics. 

According to Barnes-Ross, his supervisor said that if they asked for permission from Scientology’s American headquarters, they’d likely be told no; instead, they should just launch some London accounts and see if they worked. 

“’Do it,’” Barnes-Ross remembers the supervisor telling him, “‘but make sure you get results. If you do it and you don’t sell books, we’ll be in a lot of trouble.’”

“Trouble,” Barnes-Ross says, could have meant being subjected to “interrogations on the e-meter in the form of what’s called a ‘sec check’, a security check” or potentially being “put on hard manual labor and forced to confess my ‘crimes.’ The stakes were very high.” 

The London accounts began “pumping out content like I’ve never seen before. It was like a post every single hour,” Barnes-Ross said, leading a few potential recruits to come in for introductory stress tests. With the rise in that closely tracked metric, he says “we were able to justify” the posting as a so-called “successful action” which, according to church doctrine, cannot be stopped.

The posts were a forerunner of videos that were later produced by another Barnes-Ross supervisor, a fellow London Scientologist named Charlie Wakley. According to Barnes-Ross, Wakley’s video content showing “how cool” it was to be a young Scientologist in the city made him a global figurehead, and “ultimately led to the social media campaigns we’re seeing today.” Wakley’s social media pages have been inactive since 2021 and he did not respond to a request for comment. 

While Scientology has had an online presence since the earliest days of the internet, the web has always been a bit of an unfriendly neighborhood. Its most boisterous opponent has been Anonymous, the decentralized activist group, which in 2008 launched Project Chanology, which sought to raise awareness about Scientology’s practices, troll the organization, and banish it from online spaces. 

“Your organization should be destroyed for the good of your followers, for the good of mankind, and for our own enjoyment,” declared a video Anonymous posted announcing the campaign. “We shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form.”

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The church has also been an object of online mockery and pranks. Today, groups of young people on TikTok are filming themselves “speed-running” Scientology buildings—seeing how deep inside they can get before being thrown out. The creator of the first speedrun video, targeting a Los Angeles church, told the Hollywood Reporter that it racked up more than 90 million views. Several of the most viral such videos have since been deleted, although it’s not clear if they were taken down by TikTok or by their creators. The church, meanwhile, told the Los Angeles Times that this behavior is a “hate crime.” 

On a more practical level, the web has been a challenge for Scientology as critics have used it to create transparency around matters the church would prefer to keep private, and the organization’s leaders and lawyers have struggled to keep negative information about it from spreading online. Those critics have often been past members. In 1997, for instance, the church sued a former Scientologist from Virginia for copyright infringement after he posted a few dozen pages of doctrinal materials online. A court ruled in the church’s favor. Scientology was also successful in a similar lawsuit against the Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network, an anti-cult group founded by a former Scientologist. In that case, the church was ultimately allowed to repossess some 2000 pages of documents it claimed had been illegally copied. 

But over time, this strategy proved fruitless and probably served, Streisand-effect-like, to only raise on- and offline awareness of anti-Scientology materials. Fundamentally, Ross-Barnes explains, “the internet is something L. Ron Hubbard didn’t predict,” and one the organization’s lawyers and legal threats cannot overcome. “This is a huge platform and space for free speech. People can put whatever they want on the internet. That’s something Scientology isn’t equipped for. It thinks it can control the narrative, silence critics, and avoid accountability. Perhaps this was easier in the 60s and 70s.”

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Social media has given ex-Scientologists another space and platform to criticize the church. The most prominent is Jenna Miscavige, the niece of David Miscavige, Scientology’s ecclesiastical leader, who has built a large following on TikTok and YouTube talking about the neglect, isolation, and manual labor she said she suffered growing up in the Sea Org, the church’s tightly-controlled workforce. 

In April, Alex Barnes-Ross was given a copy of a digital flyer circulated by the church to a Scientologist-only online community seeking recruits for a “Master dissemination group” that works to “get new people into orgs through social media.” Underneath an image of a team of people seated on a couch looking at laptops, tablets, and phones, the flyer’s authors’ claimed credit for having “introduced” “tens of thousands” to L. Ron Hubbard, while recruiting “hundreds of new people onto the Bridge,” Scientology’s graduated path of spiritual progress. 

The flyer reflects the Scientology PR apparatus’ growing interest in harnessing church members not only to recruit members on social media, but to engineer a positive image that will drown out more critical voices. 

“Scientology’s strategy is to try to control the dissent online and flood Facebook and Instagram and TikTok with their propaganda so it overrules the survivor stories,” Barnes-Ross explains.

The TikTok and Instagram pages being run by individual Scientology missions are likely being carefully monitored, he adds, with how they are authorized to respond to critical comments closely coordinated with the Office of Special Affairs (OSA), which oversees church public relations. 

“OSA will basically send down orders and say, ‘In the future, reply like this’ or “Don’t do this,’” he says. “There’ll be very strict guidelines on what to say or not say and how to say it.”

Essalhi confirms that OSA would instruct the social media teams on how to answer negative comments. “Anyone that has to deal with the public,” he explains, would “get practiced on it routinely.” 

The church’s new Instagram and TikTok presences—and, Essalhi says, an emerging emphasis on YouTube—are efforts to present a gentler and more approachable face to these platforms’ relatively young, unformed, audience, which is naturally an attractive population for Scientology. While Scientology claims a membership of millions, the figure seems to include anyone who’s ever taken one of the Church’s courses. Independent surveys have put it at fewer than 100,000 in America. A 2001 City University of New York survey estimated only about 55,000 US adults identified as Scientologists. Today, Tony Ortega pegs active membership at 20,000 to perhaps 50,000 at highest. 

Scientology, Ortega says, “has an aging population. The vast majority of members…are second or third generation. They’ve been raised in Scientology rather than joining. They’re in a crisis in terms of membership. If they can get you while you’re young, you’re going to be a longstanding donor for years.” 

In 2020, Mike Rinder, a former senior church official turned critic, described Scientology as “steadily shrinking” in a blog post: “The vast majority of scientologists today are… 65 to 75 years old. They are going to die off. Despite their claims to the contrary, scientology cannot prevent illness and disease.” Rinder himself died in 2025. Today, Scientology says 44% of members are between the ages of 31 and 40, and that only 3% are over 61 years old. 

Whatever the current numbers, Essalhi says the social media recruitment effort “is not working at all.” While the videos he once helped make may be “doing a good job popping up on people’s For You page” on TikTok, Essalhi says they’re falling short of their actual goal: “If you want to talk about actually getting people in, getting products sold, selling books—which is the ultimate reason why you’d do it—it’s not working. I know, because I was in this group chat.”

“Any young person nowadays who walks past Scientology and gets handed a leaflet, they’re going to Google or go on TikTok,” explains Barnes-Ross. “They’re going to find the truth and they’re not going to go into the building.”  

Barnes-Ross also says the new, TikTok-heavy approach is, as he puts it, “doomed for failure,” because with the internet, “the truth is out there—and it’s easy for people to engage and spread.”

Posted on May 15, 2026 by Scientology Business Team

East Grinstead Town Council has issued a statement, reaffirming its position that it sees no issue with the Mayor and Councillors attending events at the Church of Scientology’s UK headquarters and refusing to meet with survivors who live and work in the town.

Last month at the annual town meeting, a member of the public asked a question raising concern about the Council’s close association with the controversial Church. “Over the last three years, every Mayor of East Grinstead has attended events at Scientology’s headquarters on multiple occasions throughout the year. Today, all councillors should have received a briefing sheet explaining how scientology’s goal is to assert influence over the town.. and despite going to events at Saint Hill, we as survivors and concerned residents are yet to be given the opportunity to meet with councillors to express our concerns.

“In the interests of fairness would the current, or perhaps the incoming Mayor agree to give us just 30 minutes of their time to hear from abuse survivors and residents about the danger this organisation poses to the town and the impact mayors going to events at Saint hill has on our often marginalised community? 

The question comes amid a longstanding effort from local residents and ex-Scientologists who are seeking greater accountability from officials who associate with the so-called church. In 2024, the Daily Mail published an extensive investigation that revealed several Councillors and ex-Mayors had attended Scientology’s events at their headquarters in the town, as well as lavish red carpet film premieres where they were given the opportunity to take photographs with Tom Cruise.

Since then, every Mayor has attended the annual IAS (International Association of Scientologists) gala and/or turned on the Christmas lights at Saint Hill, as well as other major events at the property.

In response to the question at last month’s annual town meeting, East Grinstead Town Council have now issued a formal response, once again declining to meet with survivors.

"Cllr Belsey shared your correspondence with me, and I am responding on behalf of the Town Council, representing the collective view of the Council.  As the role of Mayor was formally handed over to Cllr Reeves last night, I can also confirm that my response reflects her position in this matter. The Mayor’s attendance at civic events is undertaken in an official capacity and should not be interpreted as endorsement of any organisation’s policies, beliefs, or practices.  The Council does not consider it appropriate to hold meetings based on comparisons of time spent with different groups or individuals, and therefore no meeting will be arranged on this matter. The Town Council’s role is to serve the whole community impartially.  It is not within the Council’s remit to mediate disputes, adjudicate contested narratives, or revisit settled positions through ongoing correspondence." - East Grinstead Town Council statement (May 2026)

It is understood local residents have written in to complain to the Council, concerned that by attending events at Scientology’s headquarters and declining to meet survivors it sends a message to those who live in the town and have been harmed by the church that their voices do not matter.

East Grinstead Town Council describes itself as a “civility and respect Council”, and yet seems to only wish to engage in meaningful dialogue with residents who support or agree with Scientology.

Scientology was once found guilty of the largest infiltration of the US government in its history, known as the Snow White Project, in which thousands of covert agents were placed in various civic offices in order to gather information and sway official opinion on Scientology. Despite its history, and the UK government issuing a warning about the organisation, East Grinstead Town Council has continued to associate with the Church and send Councillors and Mayors to events in an official capacity.

Posted on May 9, 2026 by Alexander Barnes-Ross

Earlier this week we shared a leaked internal webinar recorded by Scientology London staffer Charlie Wakley, in which he lays out how to create social media accounts in order to promote the controversial church and attack critics. But how are Scientologists told to handle negative comments?

Thanks to our inside source, we can reveal the rules which were sent out to Scientology’s social media alliance – formed of staff members from Orgs across the world – who are responsible for posting content online.

The purpose of this group is to flood social media with positive content on Scientology and overwhelm the internet with the truth about who we are and what we do.

We have been running a pilot in London over the past few months and have already gotten over 20 million views organically on social media so want to get others doing the same.

This is currently being done in the following ways:

1. Producing our own engaging content on Scientology answering common questions with good hooks and getting lots of engagement (eg https://www.tiktok.com/@lifeimprovementcentre)

2. Clipping existing content such as Scientology Network and the 4D campaigns content into shorts for tiktok and other platforms (https://www.tiktok.com/@scientologyclips)

For number 1 the purpose of this group is to coordinate at least one of these type accounts for all major parts of the world (UK, West US, East US, South America, Australia etc). This will be done by an official org account, staff member or public.

For number 2 we need volunteers to do ‘clipping’ which means making lots of short form vertical videos from a longer form piece of content. This can be done almost unlimitedly and for starters we need accounts for each one of the 4D campaigns etc. For this we will need volunteers who can post daily or sponsoring to pay ppl to do it.

Will share more hatting and answer questions on this as we go.

First step is making sure we have everyone we need in this group so let me know if you wanna add ppl and I will make you admin.

For anyone new joining us for the biggest movement in social media history on TikTok.

Internal memo sent to Scientology social media volunteers (2026)

In another message, Scientology staffers are told to “never engage” with Black PR – Scientology’s term for negative press – and to “block the user or delete the comment” if it isn’t in-line with their PR image. It continues “I’ve blocked around 200 people so far”, raising questions over censorship and free speech.

The message also instructs volunteers to “use dead agenting”, a Scientology technique used to smear and discredit critics.

Here is a brief successful action write up on what London has been doing for the past 8 months of moderating the comment section and replying to the comments of videos.

1. Never engage with Black PR, hateful or rude comments. Either block the user or delete the comment. If the comment is bad black PR then just block them. Ive blocked around 200 people so far and it just saves having to delete their comments all the time.
2. After a while you will start to see the type of Black PR comments you are having to delete. Use the keywords in the filter comment sections in settings to save time. TikTok will just automatically remove them for you but will need the keywords.
3. Always use dead agenting if you are to reply to any comments which have wrong data that you feel is worth replying to such as “l thought you have to pay millions to do Scientology” Use handing Black PR to reply to this comment that way if another person comes to check out the comment they will see your reply that would of handled the black pr.
4. Always reply to questions that seem genuine. Use simple and good data and refer them to your link in your bio.
5. Again to stress, BLOCK or DELETE any Black PR comments or entheta. We are here to forward theta not enemy lines!

Scientology social media guidelines (2026)

As to whether Scientology’s social media strategy is working, one staff member from a city-level Org wrote “We are getting multiple people coming up to us, saying they’ve seen us on Tik Tok, we’re selling books to amazing people. Dissemination is rolling here!” Another responded, “Why TikTok is important!”

Our inside source also shared the 2025 annual social media report giving us some interesting insights into Scientology’s efforts to counter a rising collective of ex-members speaking out online.. and which Orgs are most active in the campaign.

FULL ARTICLE LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/uk-scientology-buildings-speed-runs-tiktok-trend

Hundreds of teenagers have attempted to “speed run” Scientology buildings in different parts of the UK as part of a TikTok trend that started in Los Angeles.

Scientology speed running is where people rush into buildings and see how far they can get before being ushered out by staff. The Church of Scientology said using its spaces for viral stunts was “trespass, harassment, and disruption of religious facilities”.

A single post on Snapchat last week about a London run snowballed. “First UK raid of Scientology. Happening this Saturday 2nd May. Bring face coverings and GoPros. Spread the word,” it read. The post was shared on TikTok and by Saturday about 100 people were laying siege to London’s main Scientology centre near Blackfriars.

Rizak Abdullahi, 19, who watched the events unfold, said: “Some of them were dressed as dinosaurs, some had cat masks, it was quite funny.” He said by the time the group had gathered, two City of London police vans were waiting to rebuff them. “You know the UK police, they know everything,” Abdullahi said.

City of London police said officers spoke to the crowd, who left after a short while. No arrests were made.

Levi Telford, 16, who had come to London from Carlisle – a four-hour trip – to join in said that aside from the “mysterious” nature of Scientology, the trend itself was a good enough reason to go. “I think people want to do it here just to be part of the trend, to be part of something,” he said.

The speed run trend began at the end of March with a TikToker called Swhileyy, who posted a video showing him running through the lobby of the Church of Scientology’s LA headquarters. After gaining 90m views, the video was deleted.

Scientology buildings in Vancouver and New York were also raided by young people competing to see how far they could get.

For some, the idea was to map out the insides of the buildings, learning more and more each time they went. Other attempts were more overtly surreal: one person ran in dressed as Jesus; a group dressed as Minions attempted entry, saying they were looking for Tom Cruise.

Videos of Scientology speed runs have gathered millions of views online, and this weekend copycats began to appear in the UK. A group of 30 or so teenagers tried to speed run a Scientology building in Edinburgh but were also stopped by the police. Drenched by rain, the group took refuge in a Greggs and then went home.

A spokesperson for TikTok said the platform’s community guidelines explicitly prohibited the promotion of violent or criminal behaviour and that the videos were being removed.

Alexander Barnes Ross, who has led protests against Scientology in the UK, expressed concern about the speed runs. Having spent the last year fighting for the right to protest outside Scientology buildings, he said this trend “risks giving the church an opportunity to reopen the case”.

While he welcomed any efforts to expose what he described as “harmful practices” of the church, he said: “There is nothing funny about Scientology. This is a dangerous, harmful organisation.” He said attempts to break in with force undermined his peaceful efforts to protest.

But the people involved insist speed runs are done in the spirit of fun and curiosity. “It’s so secret that people just love to find out what’s happening and explore,” said a TikToker called Hiddenurbex, who went to the London speed run with his friends.

The Church of Scientology said individuals had repeatedly forced their way into church locations, damaging property and endangering staff. It said it was reviewing “all available remedies” to protect personnel, visitors and property.

It said: “The church welcomes lawful visitors. It does not welcome mobs forcing entry, damaging property, disrupting religious spaces or endangering people for views."

Posted on May 5, 2026 by Alexander Barnes-Ross

The Church of Scientology has a well documented history of attacking and harassing critics and former members, and in recent years they have been turning to social media as a mechanism to do so.

Although the Church denies it is behind these accounts and says it’s policy of ‘Fair Game’ was cancelled years ago, this recent internal masterclass proves otherwise. Thanks to an inside source, we are now able to share this masterclass, produced by Scientology London staffer Charlie Wakley, which was shared with Scientologists worldwide and lays out how to create online accounts in order to attack critics.

The masterclass also validates The Observer‘s analysis on Fair Game attacks last year, which suggested Scientology uses AI systems to generate fake accounts and manipulate content. Wakley explains how to use an AI software called Opus Clips to generate short, vertical videos to post on TikTok and other platforms.

Watch the full, leaked video below and read Tony Ortega’s take on it over at The Underground Bunker.

https://youtu.be/G_AXk85Mch0?si=qt11x6rk8oHtv4nq

FULL VIDEO LINK: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNRpJm7M4/

NBC NEWS ARTICLE LINK: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/church-of-scientology-blasts-tiktok-speedrunning-trend-rcna342747

NBC NEWS VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQb-5jCvTXQ&t=26s

Los Angeles police said they are monitoring the trend and conducting extra patrols in the Hollywood area.

A Church of Scientology building in the heart of Hollywood removed its door handles and restricted public entry this week after a bizarre social media trend prompted young people to rush inside and race through its halls.

Videos of the trend, some of which have picked up millions of views on TikTok and Instagram, feature participants recording themselves “speed running,” as if in a video game, through Scientology’s buildings in Hollywood. They are often seen dodging screaming church members and security guards until they are ultimately escorted out.

Scientology is a fiercely private religious group that follows the teachings of founder L. Ron Hubbard and has celebrity adherent, including A-list stars like Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

The church slammed participants in a statement Wednesday, accusing the “speed running” participants of “trespassing, harassment and disruption of religious facilities.”

“Over recent weeks, individuals have repeatedly forced their way into Church properties on Hollywood Boulevard, disrupted religious and public facilities, damaged Church property, and endangered staff, parishioners and visitors,” the Church said.

Turning its spaces into “targets for viral stunts is not journalism, protest or civic activity,” it added.

Police told NBC Los Angeles that they are monitoring the ongoing trend after having received multiple calls to Scientology buildings in the Hollywood Division. Four of the calls came Monday.

Police said the trend was further fueled by a post on X offering a financial incentive for videos of “speed runs.” So far, no one has been arrested in connection with participating in the trend. But officials said a couple of cases have been documented as hate-crime investigations, depending on what a suspect said or did during a “run.”

Police said they are conducting extra patrols in and around the area to deter further incidents.

The church specifically referred in its statement to a “large-scale incident” Saturday when dozens of people rushed into the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition and the church’s public information center, both on Hollywood Boulevard, without permission.

“Staff members were knocked down in the chaos, and the Church is reviewing all available remedies to protect its personnel, visitors and property,” the statement said.

Video of the incident appears to show a large group of people — including a person in a Jesus costume and one in a Sonic the Hedgehog costume — yanking open the doors to the L. Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition, even as a security guard tries to keep the doors shut on the other side.

Once the doors open, the video shows, at least a dozen young people, many of them wearing face coverings or ski masks, storm into the building and run into different rooms inside. Someone chases after the group yelling: “You are trespassing, please leave! The police have been called!”

The video, which had amassed over 1.4 million views on Instagram as of Wednesday, ends with the group being ushered off the premises by Scientology personnel.

Police officials said that they are aware of the incident and that at least two suspects in that group are wanted on suspicion of crimes, one on suspicion of burglary and another on suspicion of felony vandalism.

Police said officers at the scene completed a report for vandalism and battery with a hate crime involved.

The church said it documents and reports every incident to law enforcement and has taken “additional security measures” to protect staff members, visitors and parishioners.

“The Church welcomes lawful visitors,” its statement said. “It does not welcome mobs forcing entry, damaging property, disrupting religious spaces or endangering people for views.”

The 18-year-old content creator who is purported to have started the trend recently told The Hollywood Reporter that he wants the copycats to stop.

“I do not condone what I did, even though I didn’t break any laws,” the creator, who goes by Swhileyy online, told the outlet. “All I did was explore the building. I was never asked not to come back to the premises.”

“I never once in any video or any comment section or anywhere promoted the idea of running through there or beating my record,” Swhileyy added.

Swhileyy, who does not share his real name online or with the Hollywood Reporter, did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

Actor Leah Remini, a former Scientologist who is an outspoken critic of the religion, also urged people to stop participating in the trend, saying she believes it is “unwittingly helping Scientology.”

“If someone is brainwashed for years into believing the outside world is filled with dangerous lunatics who wish to impede Scientology, a group of people running through a Scientology building is only going to confirm that belief and lead them to dedicate themselves even more to the cause they believe in,” she wrote on X.