In an article on Jan. 24, 2013, the Huffington Post has reported, Tom Cruise Is 'Scientology's Most Important Person Since L. Ron Hubbard,' Says New Book.Tom Cruise is seen as both the face ofScientology and as the church's most important member. Lawrence Wright, the author of "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief," has told E! News that "There's nobody more important in Scientology since L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise is the front of Scientology."
Wright has gone on to say,"the whole goal of the Church of Scientology was to take over the entertainment industry and use celebrities as kind of a product endorsement for their brand." As a matter of fact, some of its most notable members are well known Hollywood names, including John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Juliette Lewis and Jenna Elfman. In a previously published excerpt from his book, Wright mentioned that Cruise was considered the unofficial Ethics Officer of Hollywood since the mid-2000s.
Natalie Finn and Alicia Quarles have also reported on this story for E! Online, Tom Cruise the Most Important Person in Scientology "Since L. Ron Hubbard," Says Going Clear Author.Lawrence Wright is probably right when he points out that people are still really interested in Scientology these days because of Tom Cruise. And the Church of Scientology appears perfectly content with allowing Cruise to be its most prominent champion. Tom Cruise's support of Scientology is certainly a good enough reason for a lot of people to check out what this church is all about.
In the introduction to his new book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, Lawrence Wright writes, "Scientology plays an outsize role in the cast of new religions that have arisen in the 20th century and survived into the 21st."
The book is a look inside the world of Scientology and the life of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986. A recent ad for Scientology claims to welcome 4.4 million new converts each year.
Wright, who won a Pulitzer for his book The Looming Tower about the history of al-Qaida, has written throughout his career about the impact of religion on people's lives. He reports that only 25,000 Americans actually call themselves Scientologists, and about 5,000 of those live in Los Angeles. This includes some Hollywood actors; Wright says that almost from the time Hubbard founded Scientology, he hoped to attract members from Hollywood.
"He really said that he wanted to take over the entire entertainment industry," Wright tellsFresh Air's Terry Gross, " ... but his dream grew larger when he established the Church of Scientology in Hollywood and set up the Celebrity Center with the goal of attracting notable celebrities. ... They wanted an exemplary Scientologist to show to the world, and ... you know, they did get some people like Gloria Swanson, the star of silent films, became a member. Rock Hudson came in the door for a while, and, in those early days, they were constantly patrolling for someone who could be the public face of Scientology."
'Going Clear': A New Book Delves Into Scientology
Interview Highlights
Going Clear
Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
Hardcover, 430 pages purchase
More on this book:
On the Scientology practice of auditing
"If you get into Scientology, you will go to auditing. It's like therapy except that there is an E-meter between you and your auditor. That's a device that actually measures your galvanic skin responses. It's two metal cans that you hold. They used to be Campbell's Soup cans with the label scraped off. A small current passes through it and there's a needle that registers your reaction, and that's what the auditor is looking at when you're responding. Oftentimes in these circumstances you might remember — when pressed by the auditor — a previous existence, and this is given reality and validity by the E-meter. If you have an image in your mind and the E-meter says — according to the auditor — this is something real, what is that? And you have a vague memory of maybe a farmhouse in France — southern France in the 19th century — then you're asked to give more flesh to that memory and, eventually, you've developed a full, fully bodied, confabulated memory of another existence, and that's, that's very powerful in the minds of a lot of Scientologists, and good news because the idea that you are immortal has just been proven to you."
On a key moment in Hubbard's life when he believed he had a near-death experience
"He was taking gas for the dental surgery, and in the process he had, I think, what was a hallucination. He believed that he had died and gone to heaven and his disembodied spirit floated through these gates and suddenly all the secrets of existence were revealed to him and all the things that people have been asking since the beginning of time about the meaning of existence. And then, suddenly, these voices were saying, 'No, no. He's not ready. He's not ready,' and then he felt himself being pulled back, back, back, and then he woke up in the dental chair and he said to the nurse, 'I was dead, wasn't I?' and she apparently looked startled and the doctor gave her a dirty look. But this was a big moment in Hubbard's career because suddenly he became interested in metaphysics. And he wrote a book called Excalibur, which was never published, but it was based on the revelations he supposedly had achieved during this dental surgery. He said that people who read it were so shaken by it that, in one case, the reader came in and put the manuscript on the desk of the skyscraper office of the publisher and jumped out the window, and that the Russians had seized it and so on, but it never actually got published and we only have fragments of it available to us."
On how Hubbard really believed in Scientology and wasn't just a con man
"If he were purely a fraud and a con man as many say, at some point he would have taken the money and run. But he never did. He spent his whole life elaborating the cosmology, the bureaucracy he created to support this church. He spent the rest of his life — usually very much alone — elaborating his theories, the psychology, the religion that he was trying to create, the bureaucracy that's very intricate that supports it. That's what he gave his life to. So I think he really did believe, to some extent, that Scientology was real, but he was constantly inventing it. It was always on the fly, and for people who were around him, actually that was very exciting because you never knew what revelation was going to come next."
More On Scientology
On the difference between Dianetics and Scientology
"In Dianetics ... there was a reactive mind and an analytical mind, and, you know, if you can purge these ancient memories that trouble you, you then, you'll be free, you'll be clear. Scientology has another layer on top of that, and in Scientology there are these levels of spiritual accomplishment that are called 'Operating Thetans.' The word 'Thetan' means, you know, 'the immortal soul.' We are all immortal souls, and part of Scientology is that you discover that in the course of your learning. But there are presently eight levels of Operating Thetans. When you get to Operating Thetan Level No. 3, there's a big discovery that you have in Scientology. It was the most closely held secret in the church until it was put out and dumped into a courtroom in the '80s and all the copyrighted secrets of the church became public knowledge. At that level, Hubbard reveals that we are all infested with space aliens that are called 'Body Thetans,' and they're really the sources of all of the problems and fears and things that we have in our lives, and if you can audit yourself and discover these Thetans and expel them, it's akin to casting out demons that you can free yourself to ever higher levels of spiritual accomplishment."
On the belief that Hubbard will return to Earth
"There's a widespread belief that he's going to return, and every Scientology church and his several residences and so on, they have his office ready for him. His sandals are at the shower door. He's got his cigarettes on his desk. In his residence in the Scientology compound in southern California there's a novel beside his bed, and they change his sheets on his bed daily and they set a table place for him for one at his dining room table. So there's a sense that he might come back at any moment."
Read an excerpt of Going Clear
The great-grandson of the founder of Scientology said that the belief system is a “cult” last night on Current TV with Cenk Uygur. Jamie DeWolf, the great-grandson of L. Ron Hubbard, blasted Scientology in scathing terms.
L. Ron Hubbard’s great-grandson: Scientology is a brainwashing “cult”
Jamie DeWolf blasts the religion his family founded to Current TV's Cenk Uygar VIDEO
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
The great-grandson of the founder of Scientology said that the belief system is a “cult” last night on Current TV with Cenk Uygur. Jamie DeWolf, the great-grandson of L. Ron Hubbard, blasted Scientology in scathing terms.Uygur had DeWolf on to talk about how people get sucked into Scientology. “How do they do it?” asked Uygur.
DeWolf said that Scientology leaders “prey on narcissism….[You’re] told you’re a God-like creature.”
DeWolf also explained how Scientology specifically tries to rope in celebrities, though they are often “insulated from the nastier aspects of it.” DeWolf said Elvis Presley turned down an offer to join Scientology.
“Is it a case study in how you can gradually brainwash people?” asked Uygur. “I think it’s one of the most brilliant and devious systematic brainwashing systems that’s ever been invented,” responded DeWolf.
Alex Kane is a staff reporter at Mondoweiss and the World editor at AlterNet. His work has also appeared in The Daily Beast, the Electronic Intifada, Extra! and Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.
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