From http://www.thebulletin.com/archives/2005/july/bullpen0722.htm

Scientology & the Madness of Mr. Cruise

For a quarter century, diminutive, beetle-browed Tom Cruise has been one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. In his blockbuster movies he usually plays confident, even cocksure, all-American hero types, but in real life his shiny armor is starting to show chinks.

Not long ago the toothy actor went on Oprah Winfrey's show to declare his undying love for young actress Katie Holmes by jumping all over the furniture like a howler monkey pumped full of ginseng. His rather plastic and unconvincing "Look at me! I'm a heterosexual!" act was followed shortly thereafter by an announcement of the couple's engagement.

Then after pressing criminal charges against a fan that sprayed him with a water pistol at a movie premiere, the humorless Mr. Cruise turned an interview with Matt Lauer into a harangue, dismissing Lauer as "glib," insisting actress Brooke Shields' postpartum depression was only psychosomatic, and attacking psychiatry as a dangerous pseudo-science about which he possessed an expert level of knowledge.

(Few things are as embarrassing to witness as an uneducated person arguing passionately about something he knows absolutely nothing about.)

Like all too many celebrities, Cruise is a member of the so-called Church of Scientology (CoS), a dangerous, little-understood mind control cult that promises self-fulfillment, mental peace and clarity, financial success, cures of everything from blindness to homosexuality, and even the restoration of long-dormant godlike powers. It's no wonder that the cult has been so powerfully embraced by members of the entertainment industry, seeing as celebs tend to live in a fantasy world, trying to balance colossal egos with fragile senses of self-esteem.

The CoS was founded in the 1950's by L. Ron Hubbard, a modestly successful science fiction writer and small-time grifter with a history of mental illness, bigamy, and spousal abuse. After getting involved in Satanism and the occult, he famously declared to a fellow writer, "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

You initially get involved in Scientology by taking a free personality test, which naturally reveals you have some issues that can be resolved by paying some fees and taking some classes. The more you pay and the more classes you take, the closer you get to enlightenment and freedom from your hang-ups. The highest level classes can cost between $300,000 and $500,000. Needless to say, Scientology becomes an all-consuming thing as you sacrifice family, friends, time, savings, and income to the Church.

When the American Psychiatric Association refused to recognize Hubbard's treatment program, called "Dianetics," as valid therapy, he declared psychiatry a junk science and put its practitioners at the top of his enemies list, calling them aliens from a "fifth galactic invader force" that is currently trying to destroy the planet. The details of Scientological doctrine are only revealed in stages, because Hubbard claimed they were so shocking they would kill a person unprepared for such information. In fact Hubbard's laughable cosmology sounds like a bad plot from a third-rate pulp novel.

According to Hubbard, 75 million years ago, an evil alien emperor named Xenu controlled a chain of over-populated planets. With the help of insect-like psychiatrists, Xenu had millions of his subjects paralyzed with chemicals and shipped to Earth, where their bodies were stacked up around huge volcanoes. Nuclear bombs were detonated in the volcanoes, killing all the people. (That's where the volcanoes in the "Dianetics" commercials come from.)

The souls of all these dead people were then shown movies that depicted God, Christ, and Satan, and a variety of confusing, contradictory images and information. The souls of these dead people abide in humans to this day, and the "implanting," as Hubbard called it, of false information can only be removed by Dianetic therapy.

In addition to practicing mind control and bilking people out of hundreds of millions of dollars, the CoS is aggressive in its recruiting efforts, sending "ministers" to counsel the wounded and grief-stricken at the World Trade Center and tsunami-affected parts of Southeast Asia, in an attempt to stymie the efforts of legitimate counselors, psychiatrists, and psychologists.

The CoS also has a private intelligence force, the "Guardian's Office" (GO), which is designed to discipline members and attack critics and defectors. Harassment, smear tactics, spying, blackmail, physical and mental torture, break-ins, and even murder have been used against the enemies of the Church.

Scientology is more than a mere scam: it's a highly dangerous organization with cruel, insidious goals. It needs to be stopped before it makes any more inroads into our culture. Of course, we may not actually have to do anything. Tom Cruise has been making himself such a laughing stock these last few weeks that if he keeps it up the whole world may soon know that the Church of Scientology is nothing but a ship of fools with an evil and deadly agenda...

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