Gawker
Andrew Morton's biography of Tom Cruise, though it's brought threats of a $100m lawsuit, has emboldened other critics of the increasingly rabid Hollywood star. Mark Ebner, the investigative reporter, just emailed us links to some Scientology promotional videos. Morton's central claim is that Cruise, star of movies from Risky Business to Mission Impossible, is the effective number two of the Church of Scientology, the cultish religion founded by L. Ron Hubbard, and subscribed to by other eccentric Hollywood actors such as John Travolta. The videos bear out, at the very least, that Cruise is central to the organization's marketing efforts. In this amazing clip, to a background track of theme from Mission Impossible, Cruise explains how Scientologists are "the authorities on the mind", the only people who can bring peace and unite cultures. Watch it, after the jump, before the scary Scientologists silence us all.
When you're a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you're the only one who can really help. We are the authorities on getting people off drugs. We are the authorities on the mind.... We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures. Now is the time. Being a Scientologist. People are turning to you. If you are a Scientologist, you see things the way they are, in all their glory, in all their complexity... It's rough and tumble. It's wild and woolly. It's a blast. It really is. It is fun. Because damn it, there is nothing better than going out there and fighting the fight, and suddenly you see — boom! — things are better. I want to know that I've done everything I can do, every day... I do what I can. And I do it the way I do everything.
[Video was part of a package as Tom Cruise appeared before the International Association of Scientologists to accept its "Freedom Medal of Valor." More background on Cruise and Scientology, mentioning the speech, in a 2005 article in Radar magazine.]
Comments
I don't think I'd use the phrase "after the jump" for at least two weeks.
This was the best of the clips, but the Cruise Control website, a companion to Morton's forthcoming book, has others. I think they'll open them up on Tuesday, when the biography of the Hollywood star is finally released.
[tomcruisebook.wordpress.com]
As if the thought of Monday morning is not bad enough now I have to worry about these Scientolgist freaks. "We are the authorties on the mind" ! Just a pity they're not the authorities on rescuing his movie career.
@Nick Denton: Not that my opinion matters one bit, but you are doing much better this weekend.
ksw...ptsp...mp, yp...I don't know his industry jargon.
I have never seen someone say absolutely nothing with such intensity. He might as well have been diddling his lips with his finger for ten minutes.
I keep thinking this is an elaborate hoax and someday Tom Cruise is going to do his big reveal, that he's the modern day Orson Welles. The truth is, he's just batshit crazy.
KIT, KIT, KIT...oh wait that's MindHead.
Someone get him on the first plane to Iraq and let's see his car crash skills.
He's an ACTOR. He doesn't even go off script until the day before filming. The Hawr-rah...
@lululemming: I'd be in complete agreement if it were not for the [pubescent upskirt photo] post.
"We are the way to happiness"
Scientologists, I'm already there... I took a detour that Dianetics missed!
@Hot Foot: Position's taken, so yes, Tom is batshit crazy.
@pre555soul: Ha! Exactly. You can practically hear him thinking, "Oh jeez, how many more minutes do I have to fill?" I'm no psychologist, but I was a psych major in college, and if memory serves, the technical diagnosis for Tom would be "lumpy tumtums in the brainy-wainy."
Also, what's with the bad-ass braggodocio (sp.?)? What exactly is he feeling so defensive about? What? What? What?
Anyway, where's the proof for his assertions? Scientologists being better than anyone else at the scene of an accident, say--evidence, please.
So, does he want to us become Scientologists, or does he want us to volunteer for the Battlefield Earth Army? Or is that the same thing? I'm so confused.
Wow. Fucking wow.
Too bad all those hospitals have to muddle through neurosurgery without Scientologists, the only ones who can REALLY help.
That clip was way creepy. Something was off in his speaking and his body language. At least something was off in the first 4 minutes - which was all I could bring myself to watch.
"I won't hesitate to put ethics in someone else." I'm no expert on L. Ron Hubbard's phrasebook, but does "ethics" mean "my penis" and does "someone else" mean "a gay male porn star"? Or, is Tom a bottom?
So, is he really gay or what?
He's 100% certified insane. What a post!
Show me the CRAZY!
@dcd:
Give me librium or give me meth!
That's a beautiful Lanford Wilson monologue.
According to National Institute of Mental Health statistics, at any given moment 26% of the American population is experiencing at least one symptom of mental illness. Yet we're ALWAYS SURPRISED when one such deranged MF makes it into the press.
@lolcait: Or Dennis Hopper's monologue in "Apocalypse Now."
Wow! Helluva brave post, Nick, from what I understand about The Crazytologists. Snap snap!
As of 10:39, btw, the video is "no longer available."
Also, I wouldn't be me without asking: Where's the WTF tag?
Yikes! Looks like the Writers' Strike is affecting the Scientology Awards as well!
@lululemming: Yes!
@Political Party Girl: Cruise's monologue wasn't written. It was spewed.
Hmm, that video link is not working for me. Nonetheless, after just having seen Top Gun on AMC, I'm going to suggest that "Highway to the Danger Zone" might have been a more appropriate soundtrack choice.
Google Video clip is down. Scientologists strike again. (Unless it's just a technical glitch.) Damn. That was quick.
Wow. Now if that quote doesn't sound like it came out of the mouth of a cult member, I don't know what would.
God. Not that I promote mass-suicide or anything, but isn't it time for Tom to consume his spiked Kool-Aid or applesauce yet like a good little cult member??
Uh, I think Tom's publicist, Pat Kingsley, admitted that all those "rescues" that Tom supposedly did were complete fabrications. So much for Scientology Supah Powahs.
I've always wondered if the E-meters vibrate.
@Nick Denton:
Sergey and the other trillionaire dude will get to the bottom of this. Scientology vs. Google - a deathmatch I'll watch!
Lovely: he's managed to imply that the woman he "rescued" was on drugs when she went off the road. Lawsuit? Ohpleasepleaseplease!
If only Tom Cruise could find the right medication . . .
@Hot Foot: Curious as to how batshit came to mean crazy. I mean it's guano, right? What's crazy about fertilizer? Oops, I think I heard a car accident outside.
@belltolls: Prolonged exposure to bat droppings can cause blindness, dementia, and intense self absorption.
nutter
@enviousjuno: Pleasure Chest plans to have a line of E-meters
Tom - L. Ron created this bullshit to pay off a debt, not to be taken seriously. That is why he brough in a top science fiction editor as his co. Not a religious authority or spiritualist - a science fiction editor.
Let it go.
Is it only me, or can other people not see the video? I wanna watch the crazy!!!
@nex0s: I can't see it either. It's either a Mac problem, or Tom Cruise is a regular Jezebel reader. Would. Not. Be. Surprised.
I feel so dirty for having preordered the Tom Cruise bio this weekend, despite the horrid reviews. Washing off my shame: mission impossible.
So he's done Diana, Posh & Becks, Monica and Tom. Where next for the true-speaking Morton? Katie & Suri: Their Story?
@missjwalker: I feel bad, but part of me wants to read the Cruise bio. But I don't want to pay for it. So I just read the good parts in the tabloids. If it ever makes its way to the bargain table, I might buy it.
Of course T. Crusie is #2 in the Scientology Church, just high enough to make him their biggest donor, I'm sure.
Nick, are you still alive, or have the Scientologists tried to hang you in your shower?
We are the authorities on the mind... We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures. Now is the time....
"Lebensraum! Lebensraum! Just as we have established peace within our own people, so we want nothing else than peace with the world. For we all know that our great work can survive only in a time of peace."
Don't the Scientologists realize that the more they attack this book, the more people are going to want to read it? St. Martins Press and Morton can't buy this kind of publicity.
Except that Morton's life may be in danger. I hear he's been forced to sell his home and go into hiding.
I was reading some article about Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake and how in the years before their suicides they were convinced that they were being stalked and hounded by Scientologists - - it sounded pretty far out, but the thing is, they didn't otherwise seem crazy at all, so I started imagining that they were right and they were being watched and that no one would believe them. Could drive a person to madness or even suicide, no? What is the DEAL with these nutso Scientologists? I'd love to see someone do a real expose . . .
Damn, the video won't work. Yeah, there does seem to be a helluva lot of "Tom Cruise rescued me" stories over the years, eh? Tom is like a creepy version of Clark Kent nobody called.
Tom: "This building is on fire, I'm here to save you. Also I have Scientology brochures in my car."
Me: "Save it Zippy, I'll take my chances with ol' blazey."
@zivah:
Yeah, I read that Vanity Fair piece as well. Really disturbing. Supposedly Beck (a Scientologist) knew Theresa & Blake, but now Beck is all "Theresa & Blake who?" Story goes Beck was a friend of the couple & he wanted to leave "the church" at one point & then all this crazy shit started happening to Theresa & Blake.
I do find it curious that NO ONE tells anything about Scientology but I'm starting to understand: When you become a member, they "audit" your ass ( You confess all your sexual deviations) & should you ever want to leave, they blackmail you with your confessions! Dirty fuckers.
@Nick Denton: The Wordpress link didn't work, either. Yikes!
watching this makes me squirm. he's cuckoo. very manson or david koresh-ish. "i can help anyone! i'm so great - follow me into the depths of hell" freak. didn't think i could be anymore turned off by him. done and done!
At any moment I expect Cruise to shove a wab of blue velvet in his mouth
"Baby needs mommy!"
Somebody should really look into the "suicide" of David Hans Schmidt, who was trying to blackmail Cruise when he unexpectedly "killed himself."
@gunshy007:
Do a search on Paulette Cooper. She is a journalist who wrote the first book critical of Scientology back in the early 1970s. The "Church" framed her for making bomb threats and tried to drive her to suicide. Luckily it didn't work, but it took her years to clear her name and recover.
@NotReadyForPrimeTime:
Thanks for the heads up. Is there a way you could email me?