"Vee have vays of making you talk, Herr Cruise."

Let me be the first to say it, just to get it out of the way:
New. Gawker. Shirt.

I'll buy that shit in bulk.

@IBentMyWookie: What would it say? "I'm an SP. Don't KSW. WTF? TTYL? BRB!!"

you know you're extremely weird if you're giving germany the heebie-jeebies.

@larrydarrell: Reading that comment thread gave me the heebie-jeebies.

@HookerfaceAnon: I meant the title of the post. Admit it, you love it now too.

I used my Commodores Messenger Mystery Ring to burn all the hair off my Lionel Richie Action Figure.

And ... now ... it's ... Springtime for Hubbard...

Mary Sue Hubbard is alive and well and a Gawker commenter? Run your PTS/SP Handling tech on that.

Composer is none other than Lalo Schifrin. I'm sure his estate is looking for mad royalties from dem Sci-fi-entologists.

@IBentMyWookie: Oh yeah. Can we do a Gawker Blub Club for Dianetics? I heart Sci Fi.

Marmaduke's message scares the shit out of me.

Has anyone created a version of the Tom Cruise video that explains his Scientology jargon in subtitles/pop-ups?

i.e. "KSW stands for Keep Scientology Working. It refers to a book by the same name (written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1965) and a series of policy letters also written by Hubbard."

I think this would be a hit.

@veraikon: FTW: KSW

The background guitar is the soundtrack to any garden-variety porno film.

MSH is "Mary Sue Hubbard"? Aw, I thought it was one of the boy-messengers making a confession about Miscavige's same-sex exploits. Markdumke should have given more details!

Weren't they busy making up OT-8 a while back? Nothing gets a religion moving again like a product line extension. "OT-8. Now with 50% LESS Xenu!"

I'm beginning to think Miscavige and Dov Charney are one of the same.

@veraikon:
New on VH1: Pop Up $cientology!

You people really need to consolidate all these Cruise-related comment threads. I'm having trouble focusing here.

@Truculent: Like they would ever allow %50 less Xenu. More, dammit, MORE!

Big thanks to Gawker, especially for the clip of Cruise accepting that big medal, where he and the cheering crowd salute "LRH." It's beautiful. As a former member of Swami Muktananda's "Siddha Yoga" group, I'm interested in the dynamics of group-think in all these spiritual, psychological, and political orgs.

Funny thing about the "LRH" clip in question... it's really not the content of what Cruise says that's so weird. It's more his whole manner of absolute certainty in his beliefs, and how he and the crowd reinforce this certainty in each other.

I consider a skeptical, questioning mind the best guide in life. And there's something in the Cruise clips that demonstrates what it's like when you lose your ability to question, trading it in for blind belief in a dogma. I can't say exactly what it is in these clips that shows that he's sorta hypnotised... it's like pornography: I know it when I see it.

Stuart
[stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com]

I love the new shiny happy fun Tom. It's like he is channeling Frank Booth, but without using the gas cause OT7s don't NEED the gas. And that whole wind up monkey playing the cymbals thing he has got going with the laughing, well, don't even get me started.

@larrydarrell: I vaguely remember a pre-strike Jon Stewart saying something about how the only thing scarier than scientology as a religion was the idea of Germans cracking down on a religion. It was in the middle of the last German-Scientology war of rhetoric, IIRC.

@theobviouschild: Sounds like somebody could use a little "help". Tom?

*** Servicey Alert ***

Q: The best part of the scientology clip was the back ground music. Please tell me who did it.

A: Napoleon XIV [Real Audio]

Thanks, balknchain!

@Landor: I've been meaning to ask, is that Landor as in Walter Savage or as in the branding firm or something else entirely?

Zis is zee time in Scientology ven vee dance!

I read that one of the early tests Scientologists make you do is to sit opposite another mug and stare at each other for 2 hours - this puts you into an hypnotic state thereby creating a perfectly fertile psychological environment for believing the ridiculous alien story...

As a former member of the Sea Organisation in Scientology, listening to Tom Cruise prattle on and on using Scientologyspeak is all too familiar. What Tom doesn't see is that since Scientology is and always has been star-struck becuase they know one or two well-placed celebrities can create more advertising than a week of television commercials. He gets special treatment like nobody's business, so when he talks about how amazing it all is and how only Scientilogy can save the world, it just bores me to death. He is parroting the official Scientology pr package, and adding nothing original in the prcess, I might add. Scientology is a cult, and that's that. Tommy can go and be amember of any stinking cult he wants, just shut the hell up about it! You are boring, Mr. Cruise!

No, no-Tom's not Gobbels, he's the police officer in "Young Frankestein" who talks about goose schtopping, goose schtopping, und had ze mechanical arm!

LilyB, I'm afraid I've been caught
Walter Savage Landor, I am not.
     I'm pulling a sham
     Name's an anagram.
At best, you could call me a sot.

What a mess. How can this ONCE highly endeared actor embrace such a group with the history of these behaviors and call himself rational. Something trumatic occurred in his childhood that lead him to seek the most outlandish and controversial religion out there. The Scientologists are having ball with this guy!! Laughing all the way to the bank as they cash his checks. And what is WILL SMITH thinking?? HE has no reason to join this group. So what if Jenna Elfman and Kirstie Alley are members, they keep it to themselves as they should!!!
If anyone should be worried it is Katie Holmes, she has connected herself to a fanatic in return for what? Money, more money? Prestige?? Is she thinking she will stay awhile and then skip out?? They will never let her go, lest she meet some unfortunate accident. How can anyone take seriously a group that formed itself with the leadership of a law breaking creep that holed himself up in Cuba to avoid prosecution.
While Tom seems like a nice guy gone bad, he would do himself and others a big favor by taking the positive aspects of the practicing Scientologist and splinter off into a group that focuses all this "energy" into doing the good he speaks so often of.
I did some research and asked some locals in Clearwater what they know of this group that is buying up land like hotcakes and they say that there are hundreds of sad tales about scientologists on the streets of Clearwater because they ran out of money. They show up at the police station needing their passports back from the Scientology headquarters and they have no way to get home. Does that sound like a nice religion to join???

Tom Cruise is all, "WOOOOOO, SCIENTOLOGY, ROCK OUT!"

ORK and Katie

If Tom's really 2nd in charge at the church, he may have prematurely opened the "secrets" of OT 15 - clearing the planet - the final frontier. His head may be filled with so many Thetans that not even he knows whose talking, if he's even in there any more. I think Col. Kurtz went up the same river.