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Scientology:

Tom Cruise attacked in shock bio

Sunday Telegraph, Australia
Jan. 6, 2008
www.news.com.au
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ReligionNewsBlog.com • Item 20278 • Posted: Sunday January 6, 2008  

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Tom Cruise has been slammed in a new unauthorised biography which claims his daughter Suri was sired by the head of the Church of Scientology and Cruise himself has become second in command.

Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography

Author Andrew Morton – the biographer of Princess Diana - claims Scientology has taken over the 45-year-old actor’s life, with its officials selecting many of the staff at his Hollywood mansion, according to the UK’s Daily Mail.

The shocking book also compares 20-month-old daughter Suri to the Devil’s child in the film Rosemary’s Baby, born by sperm donation from Scientology’s dead founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

Scientology leader David Miscavige is said in the book to have gone to extraordinary lengths to charm Cruise, even ordering his staff to plant a field full of wild flowers at a Scientology base in California after Cruise had told him of his fantasy to run through a wildflower meadow with his then newlywed wife Nicole Kidman.

According to Morton’s book, Miscavige even joined him on honeymoon in the Maldives after his wedding to Katie Holmes in 2006.

Not surprisingly, Cruise denies each of the claims, and Scientology lawyers are believed to be drawing up a lawsuit seeking $113 million ( £50 million) in compensation from Morton’s publishers, St Martin’s Press.

Scientology’s abuse of the law

The Church of Scientology is known for its unethical behavior toward its critics. Its hate and harassment activities often include abuse of the law:

The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.
- L. Ron Hubbard, A Manual on the Dissemination of Material, 1955 (See: The Purpose of a Lawsuit is to Harass)

Cruise’s lawyer and close confidante Bert Fields gave a rare interview to The Mail on Sunday to pour scorn on Morton’s book, titled Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography.

Morton writes that Ms Holmes may feel she was in “the horror movie Rosemary’s Baby, in which an unsuspecting young woman is impregnated with the Devil’s child”.

Cruise will not be reading the book when it is published in the United States on January 15, Mr Fields told the Mail. “He has no intention of reading it. He’s very, very busy with a lot of things right now.”

Morton’s book reportedly paints a picture of a talented actor who enjoyed enormous success at a young age and then gradually became engrossed in Scientology.

Cruise’s involvement in Scientology began in 1986 when he was recruited by his first wife Mimi Rogers, a Scientologist who gave him some literature on the subject.

L. Ron Hubbard, a science-fiction writer, created Scientology in 1954. Its followers have fought hard to have the system of beliefs recognised as a religion, and its central teaching is that life’s problems can be solved through a system of one on one counselling called “auditing”, measured by an “E-meter“.

Celebrities and Scientology

“The Church of Scientology uses celebrity spokesmen to endorse L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings and give Scientology greater acceptability in mainstream America. As far back as 1955, Hubbard recognized the value of famous people to his fledgling, off-beat church when he inaugurated ‘Project Celebrity.’ According to Hubbard, Scientologists should target prominent individuals as their “quarry” and bring them back like trophies for Scientology. […] Celebrities are considered so important to the movement’s expansion that the church created a special office to guide their careers and ensure their ‘correct utilization’ for Scientology. The church has a special branch that ministers to prominent individuals, providing them with first-class treatment. Its headquarters, called Celebrity Centre International, is housed in a magnificent old turreted mansion on Franklin Avenue, overlooking the Hollywood Freeway.
- The Selling of a Church: The Courting of Celebrities

The author quotes former senior member Karen Pressley as saying: “A senior Scientology executive would be on the phone telling us that Emilio Estevez was staying in Malibu and that we had 48 hours to speak to him and get him in for an auditing session. There was so much heat and pressure on this it was outrageous.”

Morton says David Miscavige invited Cruise to his “desert lair” in 1989, a 500-acre resort in Hemet, 90 miles from Los Angeles, nicknamed “Gold Base”.

Morton claims the base was surrounded by security cameras, with “secret plans to rig the perimeter with homemade explosives in case of attack”, as well as a “man-made eyrie where eagle-eyed guards with high-powered rifles fitted with telescopic sights scanned sunbaked California scrub for possible intruders”.

After Cruise fell in love with Nicole Kidman on the set of motor-race movie Days Of Thunder in 1990, Miscavige invited them to Gold Base, Morton says.

According to Morton: “When Tom confided to the Scientology leader about the couple’s fantasy of running through a meadow of wild flowers together, his friend apparently decided to make his dream come true.

Morton claims Scientologists were worried that Kidman might be a problem because her father was a psychologist and she had given an interview emphasising her roots as a Catholic.

Morton claims Cruise’s later girlfriend Penelope Cruz’s father Eduardo “was concerned that his famous daughter could be drawn into what he considered a cult - and, like so many others, be lost to him and his family for ever.”

Cruise’s lawyer Bert Fields described the allegation as “ridiculous”.

Morton says Cruise’s current mission is to recruit David and Victoria Beckham. The actor invited Miscavige to a Real Madrid game back in 2004 and held a celebrity party for the couple when they moved to Los Angeles.

The Church of Scientology is incensed about a series of allegations Morton makes about Miscavige, who took over from the religion’s founder L. Ron Hubbard at the age of 26.

Elliot Abelson, general counsel for the Church of Scientology, said of Morton: “We tried to contact him to co-operate, to give him the truth, to give him a tour. I received nothing.

“This was a pre-ordained mission to trash Tom Cruise. He didn’t ask to speak to David Miscavige and wrote some horrible things about him which are totally untrue. No one has ever made complaints of that kind.”

Mr Abelson denied the actor was “second in command”.



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