Tom Cruise has become a top proselytizer for Scientology. Is it because of a new private conviction, or a new public role for the church itself? In the course of just a few months, Tom Cruise has made an astounding public leap: He has transformed himself from one of the world's biggest movie stars into one of the oddest. It's not just his sudden romance with and engagement to actress Katie Holmes, which has not yet managed to shake the air ...

L. Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics" is a fantastically dull, terribly written, crackpot rant — it's also the founding text of Scientology. So, what does it actually say? Most of us respond instinctively to "Dianetics." We glimpse the covers (for some reason, you only see this book in battalions of copies), with their lurid pictures of spouting volcanoes emblazoned with screaming, foil-stamp lettering, and as if by reflex, our steps quicken, our eyes avert and our faces compose themselves into the expression of ...

Before Katie Holmes’ devoutly Catholic parents officially sign their daughter over to the Church of Scientology, they might want to get in touch with Philip J. Spickler. One of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s original disciples, Spickler is the father of Mimi Rogers, Tom Cruise’s first wife and the person responsible for recruiting him into the cult in the early ’80s. Like his daughter—who, at her most pious, worked for the Church full-time—Spickler has since left Scientology. Unlike his daughter—who spent ...

Actor Tom Cruise sparred with Today show host Matt Lauer last week over the merits of psychiatry. Although his ostensible reason for appearing on the morning show was to promote this week's release of War of the Worlds, Cruise got into a heated debate when Lauer brought up comments that Cruise has made in the past about depression. The on-air argument is the latest in a growing number of interviews in which Cruise, known for his roles in movies like ''Minority ...

Okay, should we address him as Dr. Tom Cruise from now on? Or will the Rev. Dr. Cruise suffice? Whatever: Anybody who watched the actor's performance on NBC's "Today" show yesterday witnessed an unsettling transformation. The movie star, who has long embraced Scientology, launched a full-bore assault on the psychiatric profession, sticking to a script that his church (founded, mind you, by a hack science fiction writer) has been promoting for decades. "Psychiatry is a pseudoscience," he told host Matt Lauer, ...

The past few weeks have been full of excitement for Tom Cruise. "Today" host Matt Lauer sat down with the actor and talked about his new love, his new movie, "War of the Worlds," and the recent firestorm he caused when he commented on Brooke Shield's use of therapy and drugs to cure her postpartum depression. Matt Lauer: Anything at all interesting happening in your life these days? Tom Cruise: Well, you know, same old, same old. Lauer: Same old you ...

In an interview shown on NBC's Today on June 24, celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise railed against modern treatments for mental health problems. "I've never agreed with psychiatry, ever," he said. Do all Scientologists have a problem with psychiatry? Yes. Scientology has its roots in a maverick form of psychological counseling that rejects the principles of modern psychiatry. In 1950, L. Ron Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. (He founded the Church of Scientology a few years later.) The ...

Tom Cruise wasn’t always so cool. In fact, it’s taken him years (and tens of millions of dollars, we hear) to achieve the special brand of inner bliss that allows him to shrug off getting squirted in the face with water on the red carpet. How’d Cruise do it? With help fromthe Church of Scientology’s “SEC WHOLE TRACK” questionnaire,that’s how. The internal church document was developed by Scientology founder and onetime science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard for use during "auditing" ...

The sign advertising "Free Stress Test" beckoned Marian Prescott as she crossed Farragut Square, and she found herself settling into a chair beneath a yellow tent and taking hold of two metal poles hooked up to a device that the tester said could detect psychic strain. "What did you think of?" asked Kelly Turrisi, the tester, as the needle on the electrometer jumped to the right. Prescott tilted back her head and laughed. Work. Her husband. What else? Turrisi, 19, leaned ...

Question: What ever happened to the Narconon anti-drug prevention program interested in holding presentations at Hawaii's public schools? Answer: State Department of Education officials are not allowing Narconon presentations at public schools. In February, state education officials stopped Narconon's drug prevention and education presentations at public schools on Oahu after Narconon received a negative evaluation by the California Department of Education. The California evaluation "found that the program offered inaccurate and unscientific information and was inconsistent with research-based practices." Based on ...

Colombo, 10 June, (Asiantribune.com): Sri Lankans did not invite Scientologist to come to Sri Lanka and or sought their support and assistance. They came and saw the situation after tsunami favorable to them and in the pretext of helping the affected people; they started exploiting the human misery and began to proselytize Sri Lankans. Shame on them - said Venerable Medagama Dhammanda of the Asgiriya Chapter, Kandy. The Venerable Medagama Dhammanda of, has challenged Scientologists to refute allegations made against them ...

Did Reader’s Digest sell its soul to the Church of Scientology to get Tom Cruise on the cover of its current issue? According to several sources inside the world’s largest-selling monthly, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jackie Leo, wanted Cruise as her cover boy but was impeded by the magazine’s history with the controversial group. Back in 1991, Reader’s Digest excerpted an in-depth investigative piece from Time magazine entitled Scientology: The Cult of Greed. Among other things, the article asserted that the Church ...

The largest private development project planned for downtown could reshape the northwest corner with two condo towers and upscale shops. CLEARWATER — What started as a modest plan for 39 condominiums just north of the Church of Scientology's Sandcastle retreat has gradually blossomed into an ambitious residential and retail development plan that could dramatically reshape the long neglected northwest corner of downtown Clearwater. Triangle Development is now proposing two 15-story condominium towers on the bluffs overlooking Clearwater Harbor. Between them will ...

Just months into his tenure as chairman of Paramount, Brad Grey is facing the sort of decision that makes Hollywood executives quiver: whether to proceed with production of the hugely expensive "Mission: Impossible III," even as its star, Tom Cruise, is puzzling associates and members of the public with his behavior while promoting another Paramount venture, "War of the Worlds." An executive for Viacom, Paramount's parent company, said the studio had not yet decided whether to push ahead with production of ...

Tom Cruise’s over-the-top exclamations of love for rumored fiancé Katie Holmes have his agents at CAA scrambling to congratulate him with the best gift they can think of: a gag order. Ever since the actor’s disastrous appearance with his girlfriend of one month on Oprah, sources say his top wranglers at the agency, Rick Nicita and Kevin Huvane, have been frantically pleading with Cruise’s sister/manager Lee Anne DeVette to “rein Tom in.” “Kevin watched the show and was embarrassed for Tom,” ...

The interchange between Tom Cruise and Matt Lauer on the Today show was a premeditated attack on psychiatrically ill patients. While Mr. Cruise’s claims of expertise in the history of psychiatry were unchallenged, as physicians and psychiatrists we know the complex facts he distorted and the damage such glib untruths cause. Like all of medicine, psychiatric knowledge is far from perfect. However, despite side effects the discovery of antipsychotic medications helped free millions of patients from unrelenting hallucinations and from long ...

Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed a bill Thursday that would have required schools to inform parents about the possible repercussions of mental disorder diagnoses before referring students for mental evaluations. By attempting to color parents' perception, the bill "places the school between the parent and the medical professional," Bush said. The bill was backed by the Church of Scientology and sponsored by Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach and Sen. Victor Crist, R-Tampa.

The sponsor gets word that Bush plans to veto $500,000 for the prison program. TALLAHASSEE — A $500,000 program that uses some teachings of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard to help prison inmates likely will be vetoed by the governor today, the bill's sponsor says. The program, known as Criminon, was quietly added to the state budget by one powerful legislator: Rep. Gus Barreiro, a Miami Beach Republican. He heads the House subcommittee overseeing billions of dollars in criminal ...

While the focus of Tom Cruise news is his romance with young actress Katie Holmes as well as his upcoming movies — "War of the Worlds" and "Mission Impossible III" — the actor took time out of his busy schedule to blast Brooke Shields for taking Paxil. New York's Daily News reports that Scientology evangelist Cruise told "Access Hollywood" that Shields was misguided when she took the anti-depressant to fight postpartum depression. Shields, for her part, is currently starring in the ...

Actor says study technique helped him deal with dyslexia Tom Cruise is a founding board member of the Hollywood Education Literacy Project, known as H.E.L.P., a community-based literacy and mentoring project providing one-on-one tutoring for students and their families at no cost. The cause is dear to Tom because he was once diagnosed as dyslexic, a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin and characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. ...

A packed council chamber erupted in applause Thursday as the Petoskey Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny a special use permit for TIA Corp. of Battle Creek. The company wanted to house a 63-bed residential Narconon alcohol and drug rehabilitation center in the former Rues Residential nursing center along Arlington Avenue, just east of MacDonald Drive. However, the request met great opposition from area residents who feared it would be too intensive a use for the site and would create health ...

Actor Tom Cruise talks about his 20-year membership in the Church of Scientology as he and Director Steven Spielberg discuss the filming of the soon-to-be-released "War of the Worlds." The film, coming out June 29, plays off Americans' fears about terrorism. Spielberg says he has always wanted to direct a "really mean invasion from outer space." Cruise insists, "I just want to help people." SPIEGEL: Mr. Spielberg, no other film director has done more image-building for aliens than you: in your ...

Petoskey planning commissioners will consider a controversial land use request that would allow a residential substance abuse treatment center to be established on the city's northeast side when they meet Thursday, April 21. The planning commission's regular meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at city hall, 101 E. Lake St. During the meeting, commissioners will take public input regarding Battle Creek-based TIA Corp.'s request for a special use permit. If the planning commission approves the permit, TIA expects to acquire the ...

"Just sue. Just do it. Sue, sue, sue. Do it. Go, go, go, go." -Tom Cruise, revealing in Details magazine how he tells his lawyer to deal with negative press. It’s been a fun couple of weeks here at the Beast. After a long, hard Buffalo winter spent slogging away, running on fumes with little relief and few rewards, the last few days have brought some cheer, and put some gas in our tank. Smiles abound in the usually ...

Bills in the state Legislature that aim to keep students from receiving psychiatric treatment bear the familiar marks of Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction writer before he decided, more than a half-century ago, to publish his views on mental health. Now, apparently, his adherents are writing Florida law. Two bills aimed at schoolchildren that are winding their way through the Legislature bear a familiar Hubbard trademark. They hold the practice of modern mental health medicine in contempt and, ...

Opponents say the legislation takes advantage of lingering stigma and will deter parents from seeking help for their children. TALLAHASSEE - Legislation backed by an offshoot of the Church of Scientology aims to discourage public school students from seeking mental health services. The measure would require schools to tell parents that any mental health treatment would be part of a student's permanent record, which is true only in limited cases now. It also would require school officials to tell parents that ...

Human beings have come a long way in the past, oh, three million years or so. But while man has now advanced to the stage where he can split an atom and level a city, it’s hard to say he’s made much progress in understanding himself. But according to the Church of Scientology, that is all about to change. Or rather, it already has for those who have opted to come join the Scientologist flock since the Church was first formally ...

April 8, 2005 – A former civilian FDNY official raised money for a questionable 9/11 charity with a smokescreen of lies and phony props, including a fake link to former mayor Rudy Giuliani, a bogus uniform and fraudulent valor medals, fire officials are charging. Stephan Hittmann was never entitled to wear a uniform in his civilian job as a director of fire training, but that didn't stop him from buttoning up the dress blues and pinning on bogus medals of valor ...

While the religion of Tom Cruise and John Travolta has been getting some tough press in recent days, it’s also been lauded by President Bush’s brother. Florida Governor Jeb Bush raised eyebrows among the critics of the sometimes controversial religion recently when he honored Scientology volunteers who helped victims of hurricanes in his state. Members of the group — which was put in the spotlight this week by the New York Daily News for its alleged anti-homosexual philosophy — were given ...