The Great Tom Cruise Backlash (Mark Morford)

[icymist]

The Great Tom Cruise Backlash
Will this annoying phase pass, or will Tom become the next super-rich, Mel Gibson-like nutball?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Let it begin now. Let it start with a wry askance glance and evolve into full-fledged annoyance and then move into raging hell-bent OK that's quite enough now please stop before we slap you silly.

Note to Tom Cruise: You are maxing out. Wearing out the welcome. Becoming less the tolerable and moderately talented and mildly likable megastar and more like an itchy boil on the deranged ferret of popular culture, requiring lancing.


<snip>

But then again, Mel's an old hand at being a slightly creepy religious nuthead. And now, apparently, so is Tom. After all, he's been deep into Scientology for upward of 20 years, and is rumored to have progressed to the level of an OT6 (Operating Thetan 6), which is a super-secret high level of the church with super-secret knowledge of the alien story (called "The incident") and ESP, and they all get super-secret decoder rings with access to all the best alien-bred hallucinogens in the L. Ron Hubbard Bone Room, where high ranking devotees gather to drink bunny blood and watch old Travolta movies and discuss what the hell to do about Kirstie Alley.

But Katie Holmes, she's not like them. She's just a kid. She needs lots of creepy brainwashi... er, gentle religious coaching into the super-secret ways of the "church" of Scientology, with their incredibly vicious army of lawyers who attack anyone who says anything at all negative about their cult... er, religion.

(Note to Scientology: first signs that you are not a true religion: You cannot take a joke. You have an army of attack lawyers. You are so unstable as a religion you are unable to handle satire. You think the Kabballah is suing everyone who trashes Madonna? They'd be broke in a week. Just a thought.)

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2005/07/06/notes070605.DTL&nl=fix

:rofl:

[Bouncy Ball]

1. GREAT article.

Right about now, though, Tom is making Mel look downright stable, normal, totally sane and rational.

Is all that stuff true about Scientology? Gads, it's even creepier than I fucking thought!!!

[icymist]

5. Here's a site that'll tell you everything you want to know about this Cult

http://clambake.org/archive/infopack/

Yes! Very creepy and weird!

[Floogeldy]

9. What about immaculate conception, talking bushes, rising from the dead?

How about God pointing his finger and creating the Universe, making woman out of a rib?

Are you kidding me?

[Floogeldy]

6. Examine the original post

It tells us nothing about Scientology and nothing about what is allegedly wrong with it. It contains only scary phrases and assumptions that it is all bad.

Aren't those the same shallow tactics of Limbaugh and Hannity?

[Bouncy Ball]

8. Hi there.

Yes, Scientology is wonderful and Tom Cruise is a god.

I think he just needs a lot of hugs.

[Floogeldy]

10. Hello, BB.

:dunce:

[AutumnMist]

13. Big Difference on Some Levels

Scientology believes that we carry trauma from past lives and that alien DNA has been mixed with human DNA after the big bang. Ron Hubbard explains that in some of his public writings. The levels that are reached in the scientology world are via a free assessment and then a purging of the past trauma that we have supposedly experienced. Trauma will be worked out through the levels. The higher you go...the more you pay to unlock the secret of what the secrets of the universe are and current/past traumas. Hence the need to not take any drugs of any kind during stress or depression. The only way to climb the latter is to purge through vitamins and scientology. There is no middle ground. I am still confused about the alien DNA thing. I think there is some belief that the alien DNA (no joke here or tinfoil) controls the need for medication and so forth.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

2. Agreed. I've got no beef with him plugging his whacked out views,

that's his right. He's in a cult, but that's his right. However, you've got to able to defend your faith. You can't have lawyers, and that simpering toad Billy Bush from Access Hollywood do it for you.

[Floogeldy]

4. Wait a minute

Athiests, the ACLU, and Christian organizations use lawyers all of the time to assert their alleged rights. Why should Cruise or Scientology be any different?

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

20. Good point, but I think its a question of degrees.

Every single time someone rails against them, they send their lawyers.

Of course, maybe I'm just biased. I have to be honest.

[icymist]

3. Crimey! Even Spielberg chimes in on this crap! I say boycot Cruise!

<snip>

The star's Hollywood crusade has included guided tours through Scientology’s “Celebrity Center” for Paramount executives. And it seems like if anyone wants to work with him in the entertainment industry they must pander to his penchant for proselytizing.

After all, no one less than Steven Spielberg has let him pitch a tent on a movie set for his controversial sect.

“Are you trying to extend Scientology's influence in Hollywood,” the Spiegel reporter asked Cruise.

Spielberg again quickly jumped in to seemingly defend his bankable star.

“I often get asked similar questions about my Shoa Foundation,” the director said.

The reporter retorted, “Are you comparing the educational work of the Shoa Foundation with what Scientology does?”

<snip>

http://www.cultnews.com/archives/000813.html

[borlis]

14. I agree.

My hubby wants to see the movie. I told him to go alone. Tom Cruise is a weirdo freak.

[NMMNG]

7. Bizzaro world

I read about Katie's "handler" last week in The Week. Apparently this woman's purpose is to ensure that Katie's brainwashing isn't tainted by the outside world and that Katie stays within the clutches of the "church" at all times.

Creepy :scared: :scared:

[icymist]

11. THOUGHT CONTROL AND SCIENTOLOGY

“The only way you can control people is to lie to them.”

- L. Ron Hubbard, “Off the Time Track,” lecture of June 1952, excerpted in JOURNAL OF SCIENTOLOGY, issue 18-G, reprinted in TECHNICAL VOLUMES OF DIANETICS & SCIENTOLOGY, vol. 1, p. 418.

____________________

One becomes a Scientologist by (to varying degrees) substituting L. Ron Hubbard’s perception of reality for one’s own. Scientology is not swallowed whole; it is accepted incrementally via a carefully constructed series of agreements into which the individual is led, bolstered by profoundly invasive hypnotic techniques, peer pressure, hard-sell tactics and “whipped up gung-ho.” (1) This is a subtle, effective process that inhibits evaluative thinking and entraps people “through deceptive manipulation of our best qualities: loyalty, courage, desire to help.” (2)



Scientology appeals to people by offering them a grand game; a unique and comprehensive self-improvement system; a solution for almost every problem (many people come to Scientology when their lives are in crisis); and a welcoming group focused on major societal issues such as drug abuse, mental health, education, spirituality and morality. After joining the Church of Scientology, one meets with increasing demands for money, time and recruiting others. Those who resist these demands bolt, usually quickly. Those who remain go step-by-step into agreement with indoctrination, all the while believing that they are becoming more aware and self determined.



How and why people surrender their critical thinking skills and succumb to “re-education” has been the subject of study and controversy since the 1950s, when researchers began to encounter forms of coercive persuasion, or ideological re-molding, that were developed in China and the Soviet Union and were used on prisoners of war and on civilians in a variety of milieus. The methods of thought reform identified by such groundbreaking investigators as Dr. Robert J. Lifton (3) and the late Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer (4) have been shown to be present in virtually all high-demand religions presently operating in the United States and the Western world. (5)


(more)
http://clambake.org/archive/infopack/7.htm

[Bouncy Ball]

12. Oh Floogeldy?

:popcorn:

[Floogeldy]

15. And this differs from organized Christianity, how?

:smoke:

[drhilarius]

16. In all fairness...

If you wanted to be a catholic you could get a copy of the bible, the Baltimore Catechism, and attend RCIA classes for free (or for very little money). To be a practicing Catholic, you don't have to spend a dime. You are encouraged to tithe, but you won't be excommunicated for not paying.

To reach the highest level of scientology, Operating Thetan IX, you have to spend a mandatory $480,000. Oh, and if you try to share the word of the sacred documents with others, you could be sued. The scientology, in a rather strange move for a religion, has decided to copyright all of their sacred texts.

[bliss_eternal]

17. I've seen ads for acting seminars hosted at Scientology ctr.

in Hollywood. Don't know why, but that always creeps me out.
Like they are recruiting people that are just trying to break into the entertainment industry. The seminars always have names like,"how to break into commercial acting" or "how to break into tv.acting."

It just seems cheesy, creepy and not at all spiritual that they are trying to get people through the guise of an 'acting seminar.'

Gross!

[Swamp Rat]

18. Tom Cruise is a psycho alien toad... who is often very "glib."

:D

[icymist]

19. TomCruiseIsNuts.com

http://www.tomcruiseisnuts.com/