Tuesday, June 28, 2005

An Open Letter to Tom Cruise

Dear Tom,

Most of the time, I try to be creative and fun to read. But every once in a while I feel compelled to write something more serious. You, Sir, have compelled me to post this letter to you.

I’m a Christian, though I don’t believe in most organized religion. I know from experience that faith is best examined with skepticism and a critical eye. A person can’t be a lemming. Look at the whole picture. No person is impervious to greed, corruption, and selfishness. Well, ok, one person was (according to my faith).

I’m not jumping on the bandwagon…there are plenty of sites that are amused by what’s going on, what you’re doing these days. As someone who is actually concerned for your well being, I’m actually taking a more serious tone. I’m not coming into this discussion uneducated. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology (including the history of), a Master’s in Education with an emphasis in counseling, and a strong faith of my own. I’m NOT writing to “convert” or “witness you.” You’re walking your own path…I respect that. I’m writing in the hopes that you’ll do some research on your own. But I’m going to give you a few things that I’ve learned about this cult over the past 10 years. Verify it on your own. Don’t take it face value.

Let’s start with a brief overview of what Scientology boils down to: This is taken from Clambake.org.

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75 million years ago there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu. Xenu was in charge of all the planets in this part of the galaxy including our own planet Earth, except in those days it was called Teegeeack.

Xenu had a problem. All of the 76 planets he controlled were overpopulated. Each planet had on average 178 billion people. He wanted to get rid of all the overpopulation so he had a plan.

Xenu took over complete control with the help of renegades to defeat the good people and the Loyal Officers. Then with the help of psychiatrists he called in billions of people for income tax inspections where they were instead given injections of alcohol and glycol mixed to paralyze them. Then they were put into space planes.

These space planes then flew to planet Earth where the paralyzed people were stacked around the bases of volcanoes in the hundreds of billions. When they had finished stacking them, H-bombs were lowered into the volcanoes. Xenu then detonated all the H-bombs at the same time and everyone was killed.

The story doesn't end there though. Since everyone has a soul (called a "thetan" in this story) then you have to trick souls into not coming back again. So while the hundreds of billions of souls were being blown around by the nuclear winds he had special electronic traps that caught all the souls in electronic beams.

After he had captured all these souls he had them packed into boxes and taken to a few huge cinemas. There all the souls had to spend days watching special 3D motion pictures that told them what life should be like and many confusing things. In this film they were shown false pictures and told they were God, The Devil and Christ. In the story this process is called "implanting".

When the films ended and the souls left the cinema these souls started to stick together because since they had all seen the same film they thought they were the same people. They clustered in groups of a few thousand. Now because there were only a few living bodies left they stayed as clusters and inhabited these bodies.

As for Xenu, the Loyal Officers finally overthrew him and they locked him away in a mountain on one of the planets. He is kept in by a force-field powered by an eternal battery and Xenu is still alive today.

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L. Ron Hubbard late in 1952 wrote a book called What To Audit, later renamed The History Of Man. The book is still sold by the Church Of Scientology and it contains many of the basic beliefs of the Church Of Scientology. In the introduction Mr. Hubbard claimed it was "a cold blooded look at your last 60 trillion years." He also claimed his book finally proved the theory of evolution.

Hubbard sought to explain that the human body was occupied by both a thetan and a 'genetic entity', or GE, a sort of low-grade soul located more or less in the centre of the body. To underpin his new science, Hubbard created an entire cosmology, the essence of which was that the true self of an individual was an immortal, omniscient and omnipotent entity called a 'thetan'. In existence before the beginning of time, thetans picked up and discarded millions of bodies over trillions of years.

The GE was once 'an anthropoid in the deep forests of forgotten continents or a mollusc seeking to survive on the shore of some lost sea'. The discovery of the GE (Hubbard hailed every fanciful new idea as a 'discovery') 'makes it possible at last to vindicate the theory of evolution proposed by Darwin'.

Much of the book was devoted to a re-working of evolution, starting with 'an atom, complete with electronic rings' after which came cosmic impact producing a 'photon converter', the first single-cell creature, then seaweed, jellyfish and the clam.

Mr. Cruise, read the above again. According to Mr. Hubbard, the beliefs of Scientology are based on his assertion that humans are evolved from clams. And, prior to that, jellyfish. And, prior to that, seaweed.

Please feel free to respond with the scientific studies that show this delineation. After all, if you’ve learned so much about the history of Psychology (as asserted in your appearance with Matt Lauer), you must have access to resources that can prove this assertion. For that matter, there should be fossilized evidence showing the burial of all of those aliens 75 Million years ago. If we can find dinosaur fossils, surely we can find these as well.

Now, let’s assume that you’ve done your research on the history of Psychology, the brain, the mind, physiology of the brain and behavior, and the differences between different forms of therapy (for example, Adlerian vs. Fruedian therapy). It seems like a little much for you to have studied and understood objectively, given your high school education and time spent working in the film industry (as opposed to time spent in medical school). But I’ll be kind and give you the benefit of the doubt that you are well-read in the areas above.

Heck, I’ll even throw in that you have read the reams of psychopharmaceutical research conducted by drug companies as well as independent researchers. You haven’t claimed as much, simply stating that you know the history of Psychology and we don’t. But I’m a generous man.

In all of your research (having read all of the case studies, all of the research, all of the clinical studies), how can you make a blanket assertion that psychiatry and psychology are harmful to everyone, all the time? Not every psychiatrist takes advantage of his patients. Not even most of them. As medical doctors, they have to take an oath that they will do no harm. Do your Scientologists take that oath? If so, where? Which public officer officiates the ceremony? Please let me know.

I happen to know a few psychologists. I haven’t been in therapy with all of them, no. They generally help a person as best they can and are open to terminating treatment if either party states that they want to. As I understand it, this isn’t an option in Scientology.

Do you know where Scientologist’s historical disdain for mental health treatments and providers stems from? According to an article based on an interview that Barbara Klowdan gave to Russell Miller on July 28 1986 regarding L. Ron Hubbard:

In 1950, he took a lover - Barbara Klowdan, a 20-year-old psychology major. She soon recognized that he was, in her words, "a deeply disturbed man" who displayed all the symptoms of "a manic depressive with paranoid tendencies." She later recalled:

"He was highly paranoid and would be rushing along the street with me and I would say, "Why are you walking so fast?" He'd look over his shoulder and say, "Don't you know what it's like to be a target?" At all times he thought the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association and CIA had hit men after him... he thought everyone was after him. This was long before the IRS was after him. No one was after him at that time, but he certainly had delusions.

When I went to work for him he had hired somebody who had been in the police department. He gave everyone who worked for him a lie detector test asking if he had designs on his life."

Tom, this is your leader, the man who "created" your religion. Think critically here for a moment. Is this someone whose writing should be the basis of a religion?

One last thing, Tom, and then I’ll let you get back to promoting your new film.

In October of 1948, L. Ron Hubbard wrote to the Veteran’s Administration requesting Psychiatric help. I quote from his letter:

“I was placed on certain medication back east and have continued it at my own expense.

After trying and failing for two years to regain my equilibrium in civil life, I am utterly unable to approach anything like my own competence. My last physician informed me that it might be very helpful if I were to be examined and perhaps treated psychiatrically or even by a psycho-analyst. Toward the end of my service I avoided out of pride any mental examinations, hoping that time would balance a mind which I had every reason to suppose was seriously affected. I cannot account for nor rise above long periods of moroseness and suicidal inclinations, and have newly come to realize that I must first triumph above this before I can hope to rehabilitate myself at all. I cannot leave school or what little work I am doing for hospitalization due to many obligations, but I feel I might be treated outside, possibly with success. I cannot, myself, afford such treatment.

Would you please help me?

Sincerely,
L. Ron Hubbard

It is not known if he received treatment. But Tom, the founder of your religion, which is adamant that psychiatry is evil, sought psychiatric treatment.

It’s good to examine these things with discernment and a critical eye, isn’t it?

Sincerely,

J

Sources:

www.scientology.org

www.xenu.net

www.factnet.org

www.scientologywatch.org

www.suppressiveperson.org/

www.spaink.net

www.snafu.de/~tilman/

www.narconon-exposed.org

www.studytech.org

www.modemac.com

www.truthaboutscientology.com

www.scientology-lies.com

www.lermanet.com

www.freedomofmind.com

www.altreligionscientology.org

www.xenutv.com

3 comments:

jazz said...

did you also know that mr. L. ron hubbard was taking all the money he was making from this so called "religion" and buyhing himself yachts and small islands with the money and trying to claim them all as tax-exempt for religious purposes? the irs was all over that shit. its one of the most notorious abuses of tax law to date. it's ridiculous what a scam artist that guy is.

Jeff said...

Yes, I've read that. The guy was truly a nut.

Man, I've got to get back to creative writing...enough of this serious shit. :)

Michelle Thomas said...

J ~ That was a great little letter. Tom has seriously gone off the deep end and to think he USED to be one of my favorite actors. UGH just hearing his name now makes me ill.