SCIENTOLOGY USA
 
Third-generation Scientologist grows disillusioned with faith (San Francisco chronicle - Feb. 2001)
 
Astra woodcraft affidavit (Executed in Clearwater, Florida this 24th day of January 2001)
 
Tom Cruise - just call him jehovah (www.askmen.com)
 
 
   INDEX : English texts
 
 
Third-generation Scientologist grows disillusioned with faith
 
Leaving the Fold
 
Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer
Monday, February 12, 2001
Astra Woodcraft, apostate and defector, is the latest enemy of the Church of Scientology.
 
Woodcraft, 22, never really joined this controversial psycho-spiritual movement, at least not as a free-thinking adult. Astra was born into it.
 
Founded in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard, a prolific science fiction writer and freelance philosopher, Scientology describes itself as "the only major new religion established in the 20th century," as a bridge to increased awareness and spiritual freedom.
 
Woodcraft, a third-generation Scientologist, paints a different picture.
 
Recruited at age 14 into the movement's elite "Sea Organization," Woodcraft describes a brave new world of authoritarianism, greed and spiritual manipulation.
 
Two generations of her family have been torn apart by Scientology. Holding her 2-year-old daughter, Kate, in her arms, Woodcraft vows that there will be no fourth generation in her clan.
"I don't want her to have any connection to Scientology," said Woodcraft.
 
All cults have problems with apostates, insiders who leave the fold and denounce their former faith. But the Church of Scientology plays hardball with defectors, investigators and others seen as church enemies.
 
"They are very hard on apostates," said Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara and the author of a recent scholarly study on the Church of Scientology.
 
Church leaders make no apologies for their vigorous defense of the faith.
 
"Scientology is something people feel very, very strongly about," said Jeff Quiros, a church spokesman in San Francisco. "It's not a go-to-church-on- Sunday kind of religion. It's an intense religion. If people get in your way, they need to be dealt with one way or another."
 
Two ways the church deals with critics are lawsuits, its own undercover investigations and public denunciations of those attacking the church.
 
"Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way," Hubbard once advised his troops. "Start feeding lurid blood, sex crime, actual evidence on the attack to the press."
 
Given those instructions, it is not surprising how church leaders responded to Woodcraft's allegations.
 
"She has made a decision in her life that her religious values and what she got from Scientology - how it saved her from drugs and a life of promiscuity and petty crime - are all irrelevant," said international church spokesman Aron Mason. "Now she's hoping the Church of Scientology will pay her to shut up."
 
Somewhere between Woodcraft's Orwellian tale and Mason's fierce response is a lesson - a story about how authoritarian movements deal with the anger and apostasy of children raised in their midst.
 
Born in England to Scientology parents, Astra Woodcraft came to the United States when she was 7 years old. Her mother, Leslie, had crossed the Atlantic to attend "advanced auditing sessions" at a large Scientology training center in Clearwater, Fla.
 
Scientology is based on the precepts of Hubbard's 1950 book, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health."
 
Practitioners at Scientology centers around the world hook themselves up to a simple electric device - an "e-meter" - for "auditing" sessions that purport to measure thoughts and emotional reactions, known in Scientology parlance as "engrams."
 
Their goal is to attain a psychological and spiritual state called "clear," where they are said to overcome compulsions, repressions and other self- generated diseases and psychoses.
 
"Clears" are then sold advanced training sessions to become "operating thetans," spiritual beings said to possess such supernatural powers as the ability to leave their bodies.
 
Operating as a thetan does not come cheap.
 
Scientologists purchasing 12.5 hours of advanced auditing, for example, are asked to make a "donation" of between $12,100 and $15,125. Graduates purportedly achieve "a new viewpoint of sanity and rationality."
 
It was the lure of supernatural powers that attracted Astra's father, Lawrence Woodcraft, to Scientology.
 
His story begins in San Francisco in 1974. Woodcraft had just finished his university education in England, earned his architect's license, and was in the city on vacation.
 
"I was wandering around the city, and someone came up to me and asked if I wanted a free personality test," Woodcraft recalled.
 
Intrigued, he walked into the Scientology office in San Francisco. "It seemed kind of weird to me," he said. "They put me on the e-meter. They'd stare at me and ask me to define words."
 
Back in London, Woodcraft signed up for an introductory Scientology course.
 
"Psychotherapy is the hook that gets you in," he said. "Then they promise to reveal higher levels, and the secret to life itself."
 
Woodcraft's involvement deepened in 1977, when he married Leslie, who worked in the Scientology office in London.
 
Astra was born in 1978, followed five years later by her sister, Zoe.
 
In 1986, Lawrence said, the family got a call from Leslie in Florida. She had joined the Church of Scientology's Sea Organization, an intense cadre of true believers, and wanted her family to join her in the States.
Woodcraft flew to Florida with Astra, Zoe and his 12-year-old stepson from his wife's previous marriage.
 
"I hated it," Astra said. "All five of us lived in one little cockroach- ridden motel room."
 
Rather than working as an architect, the church position he thought he had landed, Woodcraft said he was assigned to a job monitoring Scientology auditors.
 
"They told me to just do what I was told," he said. "They said now that you've joined the Sea Org, you have to join the greater purpose of clearing the planet."
 
Astra said her mother was working long shifts in Clearwater. "We hardly ever saw my mom," she said. "At some point, I was moved into a dorm."
 
Later, the entire family was transferred to Scientology's international headquarters in Hollywood.
 
Astra said her formal education stopped at age 9.
 
Over the next few years, she was sent to a series of makeshift schools run by Scientologists. "There were no lessons, and hardly any books," she said. "Mostly, we just hung around."
 
California law requires that minors receive at least 20 hours of schooling per week.
 
"We were only getting five or six hours a week," Astra said.
 
When she was 14, young Woodcraft was recruited to follow her mother's footsteps and join the Sea Organization. From age 14 to 19, she said, she was working from 8 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., laboring for months without a day off, doing administrative work at the church world headquarter building in Hollywood.
 
"Every week, you're supposed to do more than the week before," she said. "You are in such a state of paranoia. All these kids are running around yelling at you. They'll come up to you and yell, `What are you doing! Your statistics are down! What are your crimes ?' "
 
Scientology leaders concede that the 5,882 members in its Sea Organization - including about 500 under the age of 18 - work long hours.
 
But they said the Sea Org is a volunteer religious organization - like the Jesuits of the Roman Catholic Church - and thus exempt from child labor laws.
 
Church leaders also stress that members of the Sea Org practice a very intense form of Scientology. It's much different, they say, from the larger worldwide body of rank-and-file Scientologists, who engage in a more individualized approach to the Hubbard philosophy.
 
Scientology spokesman Aron Mason, who worked with Astra at the church headquarters on Hollywood Boulevard, defended the schooling of minors in the church's Sea Organization. They receive at least 20 hours of self-directed education using a series of check sheets based on L. Ron Hubbard's innovative "study technology," he said.
 
Members are brought into the Sea Org at an early age, Mason said, to "begin learning the fundamentals of the religion."
 
Much of that training, he concedes, is administrative work, but he insists that is still part of their religious training.
Mason took two visitors on a tour of the offices where Astra worked. Rows of filing cabinets and charts showing the growth of Scientology organizations around the world, line the walls.
 
Sea Org members in mock navy uniforms - a vestige from the days when Hubbard ran Scientology from a ship in the Mediterranean - bustle about the church offices.
 
This is the command center for a network of 170 Scientology churches, training centers and affiliated organizations representing a purported 8 million adherents around the world.
 
Outside experts say that figure is greatly exaggerated. Nevertheless, there is no question the Church of Scientology has become one of the wealthiest and most successful of the many new religious movements born in the last half of the 20th century.
 
"These are the most dedicated Scientologists on the planet," Mason said of the workers in the Hollywood office. "This is the mother church. You only understand it if you compare it to other religious orders."
 
Down the hall at Scientology headquarters, young Sea Org recruits practice using the e-meter by firing questions at a large teddy bear subbing for a counseling client.
 
"Has anything been repressed?" they ask the stuffed animal. "Has anything been invalidated? Do you have a present-time problem? Is there an earlier time when someone said you had a present-time problem and you didn't have one ?"
 
It's a strange scene, Mason concedes, but designed to give counselors-in- training a safe way to practice using the e-meter. "If we did this with real people," he said, "we could get people very spiritually muddled up."
Working here are devotees such as Kenny Davies, a Sea Org "director of correction," whose job consists of supervising counselors engaged in study and auditing sessions.
 
"If there is some imperfect functioning area of the organization, I step in and find out what the difficulty is," he said.
 
Davies, 28, joined the Sea Org cadets when he was just 10 years old.
 
His mother, a recently divorced single mom with three children, got involved in Scientology in St. Louis in 1977, when Davies was 4.
 
Davies went to Scientology schools, and said he prefers the independent study to the regular classes he attended during a brief time in public school.
 
"My learning curve went way up," he said. "I was able to duplicate faster - to grasp knowledge - faster than usual."
 
Today, Davies lives and works on a Los Angeles street named L. Ron Hubbard Way, which runs through a cluster of converted hospital buildings taken over by the Church of Scientology.
 
Members of the Sea Org are provided food and housing, and given a small stipend of $45 to $50 a week to buy personal items.
 
"What I'm doing is not like working at McDonald's," he said. "I'm not doing it because I have to. I'm doing it because I love it, and because it makes me happy to help people."
 
In December 1999, Davies married another Sea Org recruit, moving out of his dormitory "berthing" and into a private room with his new wife.
 
Like most Sea Org couples, they understand that they are not supposed to have children.
 
"I am very focused and busy doing what I want to do," he said. "My wife feels very much the same way."
 
Astra Woodcraft says she was tricked into joining the Sea Org over lunch with Scientology recruiters at a Denny's restaurant in Hollywood. She was offered a job at Bridge Publications, she said, which publishes books by L. Ron Hubbard.
 
"In the regular Sea Org, they only pay you $45 a week, but Bridge is a for- profit company, so they have to pay minimum wage, about $300 a week," she said.
 
"I thought it would be great. I was 14, and I'd be making $300 a week."
 
Astra signed the standard billion-year contract promising loyalty to the Sea Org.
 
"They say you join the Sea Org for a billion years, and every time you die you get a 21-year leave of absence between lifetimes," she said. "It's ridiculous."
 
Once she signed up, however, Astra was told she would be working, not at Bridge Publications, but for Scientology's international justice chief for $45 a week as a secretary.
 
At age 15, she married a 22-year-old Scientologist who also grew up in the movement.
 
That same year, Woodcraft became an "ethics officer" authorized to mete out punishment to anyone breaking Scientology rules.
 
It's not uncommon in the Sea Org to have young teenagers supervising and disciplining other members two or three times their age, she said.
 
"It's like in (George Orwell's novel) `1984,' when they have all the kids spying on their parents," she said.
 
Meanwhile, Astra's mother and father got divorced. Her dad left Scientology, hoping his two daughters would eventually follow his lead.
 
Those hopes brightened when her paternal grandmother died, and Astra persuaded her wary Scientology bosses to let her attend the funeral in England.
 
"They are paranoid about external influences," she said. "They are worried that if people get too much of a glimpse of normal life, they'll want to leave. "
 
Her week in England with her father and his family did give Astra a window to another world. She began thinking of ways to get out of her marriage, and out of Scientology.
 
Her solution, strange as it seems, was to get pregnant.
 
"If you get pregnant, they'll send you to one of their smaller, lower-level organizations. In reality, you're very heavily pressured to get an abortion, but I figured it was my only way to get out."
 
Church leaders say Scientology has no policy on abortion, leaving the choice up to individual couples.
But Melton, the new religious scholar, said the Sea Organization does discourage procreation among Sea Org couples.
 
"They don't look at children as a resource, but as a problem," he said. "Children take people off-line, so they discourage members of the Sea Org from having children."
 
With that knowledge, Astra Woodcraft decided to get pregnant, but not tell her husband.
 
Two months later, Woodcraft suddenly left her husband, and her religion. She got a day off from work, and never went back.
Instead, she headed to the airport, intent on fleeing to England, seeking refuge with her relatives, and having her baby there.
 
Her brother and a Scientology security guard intercepted her at Los Angeles International Airport, she said, even trying to grab her ticket.
 
Woodcraft got on the plane. Once in England, however, her family and church leaders persuaded her to return to Los Angeles and take the formal steps required to officially leave the Sea Org.
 
That included submitting to a "confessional," admitting her misdeeds and signing a nondisclosure statement.
 
"I had to promise I'd never say anything to anyone, and that I was a really bad person, and did all these horrible things, and that the church never did anything wrong and did great things for me," said Woodcraft, who does not consider the statement a legal contract.
 
Woodcraft said she signed the statement to avoid being declared a "suppressive," the Scientology ex-communication order forbidding family and friends in the church from having any contact with her.
"If you're not raised in Scientology, this all sounds crazy. But when you're brought up in it, it's all you know," she said. "You think there's something wrong with you for wanting to leave."
 
In July 1998, Woodcraft received a detailed bill from the Church of Scientology International office in Los Angeles demanding payment for all the "free" training courses and auditing sessions she had received while in the Sea Org. The total amount was $89,526.
 
Today, Astra lives in her father's Van Nuys home with her 2-year-old daughter and 16-year-old sister, who left the church last year.
 
Her mother and stepbrother remained in the Sea Org, along with her maternal grandmother. According to Astra and Lawrence Woodcraft, their family has spent at least $100,000 of inherited money on Scientology classes.
 
Her mother, Leslie Woodcraft, declined to be interviewed.
 
But in a written statement, she charged that Astra was "being conned by people from the Lisa McPherson Trust," an anti-Scientology group in Florida that is trying to "pry money out of Scientology."
 
"Both of my daughters were raised in Scientology," Leslie Woodcraft wrote. "Both of my daughters are free to make their own decisions about their spiritual futures."
 
Meanwhile, Lawrence Woodcraft was officially declared a "suppressive person" by the very office that once employed his daughter.
 
His alleged crimes included his "efforts to assist blown staff members."
 
That is Scientology lingo for helping his two daughters leave the church.
 
Now it's Astra who finds herself on the verge of excommunication.
 
"They tell people they have to get family members into agreement with Scientology, or disconnect," Astra said. "They split up families."
 
Scientology officials see it differently. Astra, they say, is the one who violated the tenets of the church and disgraced her family. It was the church, they say, that kept Astra from drugs and petty crime. And it is Astra, they contend, who is attempting to extort money by working with the Lisa McPherson Trust, which has a civil suit pending against the church.
 
As proof, Mason provided a copy of the May 1998 affidavit Astra signed to be released from her billion-year, multilife Sea Org contract.
 
In it she admits to such crimes as getting into "yelling matches with my boss" and taking nylons from a Sea Org colleague.
 
She also said five years in Sea Org "stopped me from becoming more unethical and it saved my relationship with my family and stopped me from going downhill."
 
As for the church's assertion that Scientology saved her from drugs, Woodcraft said her illegal drug use was limited to experimentation with marijuana.
 
She also denied Mason's charges that she is trying to get money from the Church of Scientology or that she has received money from anti-Scientology groups.
 
"I'm not looking for any money, and I'm not suing them," she said. "I had something to say, and now I just want to get on with my life."
 
Don Lattin at dlattin@sfchronicle.com
 
 

Astra Woodcraft

Astra Woodcraft was seven years old when her parents thrust her into the world of Scientology's "elite" Sea Organization.

View Astra's Video Interview

"The Story of Kate" Video Interview

  

 

From the cramped quarters of the motel room her family of five shared when they first arrived at the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida, Astra was moved into a dormitory where, because Scientology would not provide a bed for her, she slept on a couch for a year.

This was the beginning of Astra's life in the sub-standard and oppressive living environment that is accepted as routine to those in the Sea Organization.

Astra's affidavit covers her formative childhood and teenage years. In it she describes the poor schooling she received and the hours working at the behest of the Church of Scientology, including having to guard other members who wanted to leave. Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, Astra married a 21-year-old man on the orders of her superiors. She tells of being belittled and yelled at by other Sea Org members, including her own mother, when she refused to get an abortion after becoming pregnant at 19.

In her affidavit and in newspapers articles published in the San Francisco Chronicle on February 12, 2001 and also in the London Daily Mail on February 17, 2001 , Astra speaks out about these horrific experiences and many others inconceivable to those unfamiliar with the practices of Scientology.

In "The Story of Kate," Astra Woodcraft details the pressure that was brought to bear on her to abort her baby when it was discovered that she was pregnant. Meet Astra's beautiful daughter, Kate, who is alive today because of Astra's courageous escape from Scientology's Sea Organization.

I, Astra Woodcraft declare as follows:

1. I am over the age of 18 years.

2. The statements herein are of my own personal knowledge and if called upon as a witness, I can testify competently thereto.

3. I was born in 1978 in London, England. At that time, my mother was a member of the Church of Scientology.

4. When I was 5 or 6 years old, my mother took me to the Scientology organization in England called Saint Hill, which is located in East Grinstead, Sussex. There I received approximately 12 hours of "auditing." The auditing I received consisted of an "auditor" telling me to "look at that wall, thank you, walk to that wall, thank you, touch that wall, thank you, walk away from that wall, thank you," and similar such commands. I was made to follow these commands on a repetitive basis.

5. When I was growing up in England to the age of seven, my mother would apply the Scientology technology for sicknesses. When I hurt myself, she would make me do a "contact assist" which meant that if I hit my elbow, I had to touch it back to the place where I hit it over and over until it felt better and I wasn't allowed to stop until it felt better. If I was ill, my mother gave me a "touch assist" where I would lie down and close my eyes and she would touch me with her finger and ask, "feel my finger." This was also done until I felt better. I never felt better from theses processes but would have to pretend I did because she wouldn't stop until I said I felt good.

6. Throughout my years in scientology, in all the auditing I received I never felt good at the end. I made up wins to get it over with and generally felt relief that it was over and dread that I would have to have another session. I kept this secret always because it is scientology policy that if a person does not get gain from auditing, it means they are a suppressive person.

7. In 1986, when I was seven years old, my mother's father died. He left her some money and she used it to go to "Flag" which is the highest-level Scientology delivery organization in the world, located in Clearwater, Florida. While she was there, she was recruited for the Sea Organization which is where people dedicate their entire life, and supposedly the next billion years of their lifetimes, for the purpose of "clearing the planet" which means getting everyone into Scientology and processed to the level of "Clear." She called and told us she had joined after she had already started working there. She told us we all needed to join, that we were moving to Flag to live in a beautiful apartment, that we kids would go to a very good private school and this would all be paid for by Scientology. She additionally told us that her and my dad would get bonuses, time off every other weekend and family time every evening.

8. When we arrived in 1986 to the Sea Organization in Clearwater, myself, my brother, my sister and mother all lived in one motel room for several weeks. Then we were moved into the main living quarters for the Sea Organization members who had young children called the QI (Quality INN) and at this point my dad joined us. Again, we lived in one small motel room. All five of us lived in this room for approximately 3 months, when my brother moved out. From this point on, the four remaining family members lived in this room for about a year, wherein I was moved into a dorm with 4 or 5 other girls. In this dorm, I slept on a couch, as there was no bed for me. I lived there for another year, which was the remainder of our time in Clearwater.

9. We were never sent to a private school as promised. We instead went to the local public school. I only recall my mother taking 3 days off out of the two years we were there. She almost never spent the evening family time with us (1 ½ hr), but stayed at work across town. After being in Clearwater for about a year, my father was sent off to help on the renovations of the Sea Org ship, The Freewinds. As I was moved into a dorm, my father was gone and my mother didn't take time off to spend with us, I almost never saw my parents.

10. At one point of our time in Clearwater, we went back to England to take care of our Visas. My father, my brother and I begged my mom not to take us back to Florida, as we disliked it so much. I spent a lot of my time crying about it. My mother refused and insisted we return.

11. For the two years that we lived in Clearwater, I went to school until 2 p.m. and then worked at the "Cadet Org" where we did such jobs as cleaning, etc. On weekends, we would work as well.

12. In 1988, when I was 9 years old, my mother was transferred to middle management of the Sea Organization, which is located in Los Angeles, California. When we arrived, my father took a leave of absence so that he could obtain our Visas and work to pay off debts. When we arrived in Los Angeles, we were moved into a rundown studio apartment. After living there for about a month, my father paid for and moved us into a proper apartment.

13. For approximately a year, from the age of 9-10, I was in the Cadet Org in Los Angeles. This is where the children of Sea Org members go. During the day, we went to school at a building they had rented where there were two classrooms; one for older kids and one for younger kids. The teacher was not a trained or certified teacher, but a trained Scientology "Supervisor." We had no class lessons, but instead worked straight out of books and were made to make clay "demonstrations" of what we were studying. If we acted up in class at all, the supervisor simply threw us out of the room. This happened to me on several occasions. One time, when I was 10, there was going to be an inspection of our school. Many of the children were made to stay until about 3 a.m. cleaning up the premises.

14. Every day after school, we were made to work. We were sent to the basement of one of the main offices for the Sea Organization and made to do filing, as there were mounds of it piling up. When work ended at approximately 9-10 p.m., we went to sleep on cots or directly on the floor with pieces of blankets to keep us warm. When my mom got off work, she picked me up. From what I recall, this was between 11pm-12am.

15. After being in the Cadet Org for about 1 year, I refused to go back. Several things happened that caused me to feel this way. A boy who was there got upset and climbed to the top of a billboard and threatened to jump and kill himself: another boy threw a cockroach at me and kicked me. My mother continuously tried to get me to stay but I refused and moved in with my dad. I did continue to go to their school, but after a few months, I was told that I either had to work in the Cadet Org or discontinue attending their school. At this point, my father enrolled me in a private school. It was a Scientology run school at my mother's insistence.

16. At the Scientology school I attended, which was called "Ability Plus," there were again two classrooms, one for younger kids and one for older kids. There was no proper curriculum and no student had ever graduated from high school, even though they claimed that you could. There were no class lessons; we just worked from books and "checksheets". Our "teacher" spent several hours reading us the science fiction book from L. Ron Hubbard called "Battlefield Earth."

17. When I was 14 years old, I started doing a Scientology course at the Celebrity Centre in Hollywood. Soon after, two Sea Org recruiters approached me. They were recruiting for Bridge Publications, which is a Sea Org organization. They told me that if I joined their group, I would get paid minimum wage {which was several hundred a week, a lot of money for a 14 year-old); that I would not have to wear a uniform like most Sea Org members; and that I would go to school and finish my education. They also told me that when I was older and wanted to have children I could. They spent several hours convincing me including telling me that the only thing stopping me from joining was my "reactive mind." The recruiter's names were Gavin Potter and Malcolm Chisholm. I ended up agreeing to join. One of the reasons I agreed to join was that my mother and brother had persisted in trying to recruit me and I knew this would make them happy.

18. Soon thereafter, I started on the "Estates Project Force" (EPF), which is like boot camp for the Sea Org. I started in May of 1993 and was on it for approximately two weeks. When I first arrived, I was made to fill out a "life history" form where I had to write down any sexual experiences I had had, all my friends' names, and dozens of other extremely personal details. I also had to sign a contract for a billion years. I never got a work permit. My schedule on the EPF went something like this: 6:30 a.m. wake up and get dressed; 7:00 a.m. breakfast; 7:30 a.m. muster (meeting); 7:30-8:00 a.m. run (not walk) around and empty all the ashtrays and trashcans outside three different buildings; 8:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. study Sea Org policies; 1:00 p.m. muster and polish boots; 1:15-1:45 p.m. lunch; 1:45 p.m. muster, drilling and marching; 2:15 p.m.-7:00 p.m. work, which included cleaning pots and pans, cleaning out a clogged toilet, sweeping and mopping floors, etc.; 7:00-7:30 p.m. dinner; 7:30-10:00 p.m. more work; 10:00-10:30 p.m. shower; 10:30 p.m. muster; 11:15 p.m. go to bed. This was a 7-day a week schedule.

19. After I finished the EPF in June of 1993, I started working at Bridge. The day I started working there, they told me I was being transferred to another organization for 2 months. I was told that I had no choice but to do it, as I had no "staff status." I went to work in the International Justice Chief's office doing secretarial work. I had to wear a military uniform. After I worked there for approximately three months, I was told that I was being transferred to another organization permanently and that I again had no choice as I still had no staff status. The organization I was transferred to was the International Training Organization. The staff there were on $15 a week pay as they had no money and the food they were given was beans and rice. I tried to refuse to go there but was told again and again I had no choice. Once there, I felt I couldn't survive on the refried beans and rice we had for every meal, so I took other food that wasn't supposed to be for us because I was starving. This was considered stealing. This lasted approximately 1 year.

20. For the first 6 months that I was in the International Training Org (ITO) I was the Receptionist. I had trouble attending the 6 hours of school that the minors went to on Saturdays because in order to attend I had to find someone to replace me on my post. The school here was, again, substandard with all the approximately 60 kids enrolled in one room with one non-certified teacher. We had no lessons, no curriculum and no way to graduate: you just stopped going when you turned 18 or got a GED.

21. Soon after I joined the Sea Org when I was still 14, I started having a relationship with another Sea Org member named Jason Merrill. Jason was 21. After two months we were heavily pushed by senior scientology managers to get married, as in the Sea Org you are not allowed to do anything other than kiss before you are married and if you do more, you may be sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force, which means heavy labor for at least a year. In December of 1993, when I had just turned 15, Jason and I went to Las Vegas and got married.

22. Once married, the Sea Org did not have a room in which we could live together so we were instructed to live in our separate dorms until they found room that we could share and this would take several months. Instead of this, we decided to stay down the road at Jason's parents house, and we did so for about four months, knowing we would get into big trouble if we were found out as it was against policy for sea org members to live outside of church provided facilities.

23. After about 4 months, the Executive Director International and the Commanding Officer of the CMO International, who were at the top of the management of Scientology, came to inspect our organization. They asked me if I knew anyone who was not living in the Sea Org berthing and I was compelled to confess that my husband and I were not. We were immediately ordered back into SO berthing and since there were still no rooms available, we stayed in a storage closet that was 3/4 full of storage for a week. We slept on the floor and there were no windows.

24. After a week in the closet, we were moved into a room of our own, but after 1 week, that room was taken away and we were moved to another building. We didn't find out we had been moved after other staff members had removed our belongings. The room we were put into next had a missing windowpane that was never replaced, very old carpet and peeling paint. We shared the bathroom with 2 other couples and had no light bulb, no shower curtain and no hot water the majority of the time. We lived in this room for 6 months.

25. After being the Receptionist at the ITO for 6 months, I was transferred to the post of Master at Arms and then to Director of Inspections and Reports. I was in charge of enforcing ethics and justice for the 100 staff in ITO and the 50-100 students on training. My very first assignment was to handle a 40 year-old man whose wife had been gone for 2 years on training. He had been masturbating which is considered "out-ethics" and I was supposed to make him stop. I was 15 years old.

26. On this post, I also had to handle people who wanted to leave the Sea Organization. I had to convince them to stay and if they refused, I had to make them do hard labor and order them to get "confessionals" which often took up to 6 months or a year to complete before hey were allowed to leave. One couple wanted to leave and they left without permission twice but came back. Leaving without permission is called "blowing." I was ordered to put them under heavy watch because there was no one else to watch them. Since there was no one else to watch them, I had to do it. I was then ordered to put a mattress outside their door and tie my arm to the knob while I slept so they couldn't sneak out. The policy soon became that anyone who wanted to leave must go under "watch" to stop them from "blowing."

27. I was ordered to do numerous watches while in the Sea Organization. Anyone who admitted to having thoughts of suicide was immediately put under watch. I was ordered to do these watches by executives at Religious Technology Center, CMO and OSA. My husband at the time spent approximately nine months watching an OT Sea Org member for reasons that were kept secret; during this time she got pregnant and had a miscarriage. She was under watch 24 hours a day with my husband and another man watching her during the day and another staff member watching her at night.

28. I was also in charge of investigating and finding the "Suppressive Person" if a department wasn't producing enough. I had to make people write up their "overts & withholds" (things they had done that were bad), receive confessionals, do amends, etc. I had to write a "Suppressive Person" declare on a lady who had already left with permission but then was ordered to receive more confessionals and was having trouble getting a ride to come over and receive them. She was then made to disconnect from family and friends who were in the Sea Org and her husband was ordered to split up from her, but he refused.

29. During my time in the Sea Organization I started going to the 6 hour a week school less and less. I couldn't get anyone to cover my job and got in trouble for leaving it. Also, the school got reduced even further to all of us sitting all day in a room doing Spelling and Math bees. By the time I was 16, I was attending sporadically and at 17 I wasn't attending at all. I didn't think it made any difference since I didn't learn a thing while I was there. I didn't learn math, history, science, social studies or English. I just did spelling bees, read a book, etc. After I turned 18, some of the kids got to go take their GED, but because I was over 18 I didn't get to do it since there was "no reason" as I no longer legally had to attend school. It was well known that the legal minimum for school attendance for a minor is 20 hours a week. We were told this, but the law was blatantly ignored.

30. From the age of 14, I had an official schedule starting at 8:00 a.m. and ending at 10:00 p.m., but regularly worked later, sometimes until 2 or 3 a.m. We got 30 minutes for lunch and 45 minutes for dinner and no other breaks. We regularly were ordered to work during part of our meal times. We sometimes got into trouble if we went to the canteen when it wasn't our mealtime. The schedule was 7 days a week, but we got Sunday morning to do our laundry and clean our rooms. On Saturday's we did labor work, consisting of renovations, etc. There was a period of 3 weeks or so in 1995 when I was still a minor where there was a huge evolution to print new policies to revise all the Scientology technology. (This is known as the "Golden Age of Tech within the church.) During this time, all staff including minors were ordered to work around the clock literally to produce these new polices and put them into binders. My job was to go and wake up any staff who went to sleep and make them get back to work. I would fall asleep while driving. I got approximately 2 hours of sleep a night during this time, but many times got no sleep for 2 or more days. I was ordered to drive around even though I was falling asleep and incoherent due to no sleep. One time I parked my car and accidentally fell asleep and woke up 3 hours later because a meter attendant was knocking on my window. Once this "evolution" was complete, the staff was rewarded with a trip to the movies.

31. In approximately 1996, when I was 16 or 17, there was a re organization done and I became in charge of the ethics and security departments for the entirety of middle management known as the Flag Liaison Office. One day, the Chief of Security International, Jeff Porter, came and gave me an order to get some staff to do security at an event. I didn't do it because I didn't consider it my job. He then came back and screamed at me, pushed me up against a wall and screamed at me more while holding me against the wall and spitting in my face. I complained about this but nothing was done to handle it.

32. When I was 18, I was transferred to another job in the Data department. This was because someone said I was not qualified for the job I had been doing because I had tried marijuana when I was 13 years old. I worked in the Data department for one year. My senior, Wayne Furness, harassed me on a regular basis. When I first started working under him, he started calling me a lesbian and telling me and another girl that we were lesbians. I got very upset and finally wrote a report to his senior. She told him to stop and nothing more. He stopped calling me a lesbian, but because I had reported him, he continued to call me other names such as "Two-ton Tesse" (I was not in the slightest overweight being 5'6", 130 lbs), telling me I had "soft-skin", etc. When he would say these things I got upset and then he would say that I had withholds and to write them up or he would tell me to go to ethics. He got his other juniors to side with him and tell me that I had "soft-skin", etc. I reported this behavior but nothing was done because our department, which Wayne was in charge of, produced a lot and the policy from L. Ron Hubbard is that if someone's statistics are "up" then they can't get in trouble no matter what they do. Someone once "looked into" the situation, but nothing was done.

33. When I worked in the Data department, one of my jobs was to gather the statistics from around the world on a weekly basis and compile them all and graph them on the computer. There were approximately 300 organizations and I had to get each one to report in between 50-200 statistics each week. Every Thursday we had to get this done and had to stay at work until 3am. We also only got 5-10 minutes to eat lunch and dinner if at all. Every week there were, of course, a few organizations that were late reporting or had missing reports and every week staff from an organization called CMO International would write to me on a system similar to instant messaging getting progressively angrier as the day went on and there were missing reports. They would call us if they got really mad. I had to sit and answer their questions about where the reports were from 8am until about 9pm at night. I was told things like "You are fucking counter-intention," and "You are stopping these reports coming in," and other such expressions if any reports were late. They would also call me and my senior and scream and swear at us. Screaming and swearing is the regular way that seniors get juniors to do things in the Sea Organization. I was screamed and sworn at on a regular basis while I was in the Sea Organization.

34. There were a series of policies implemented by management while I worked in the Sea Org. When I had been there for a few months, our Commanding Officer made a new rule that no one could leave the building without her permission. Then I was told that I was not allowed to see my dad and have dinner with him without a specific reason and special permission. After about a year they told us that we were not allowed to eat anywhere but in the building nor were we to eat any food other than that provided. We were not allowed to go next door for pizza or anything. After about 3 years, we were told that we could not use our Sunday morning laundry time for anything else either, i.e., seeing our family, parents seeing their kids, or anything.

35. At around this time, another new policy was issued stating that no one could make or receive any personal calls without someone from the ethics and security department being with them. Personal calls were not transferred to us and a list was made each day of all incoming personal calls. This list was sent to the executives and the Religious Technology Center so that they could monitor who was being "influenced."

36. My calls from my father were rarely routed to me and instead I would receive a note 2 or 3 days later telling me he had called. I had to go and hide in a phone booth to call him. On Christmas Day we were not allowed to go with our family or do anything other than the planned trip unless we got special permission, which was sometimes denied.

37. About 9 months before I left I was told that I could never see my father again unless I was working to get him back into the Sea Organization.

38. We were also made to fill out interrogatories listing out any gifts we received from family members, who we spoke to and anyone we knew who had left the Sea Organization. Anyone we were talking to, family or friends, who had either left Scientology, gave us gifts or money or tried to get us to take time off, were called 'External Influences" and we were ordered to either handle them or disconnect from them entirely.

39. The staff was also made to practice how they would handle family members who inquired about how they were doing, etc. I was instructed to lie to my father and tell him I was attending school and not working long hours.

40. If a staff member got into trouble they would be assigned "lower conditions." This meant doing formulas and amends, etc. A new policy came out after I had been there for a year stating that staff who were in lower conditions had to sit in the fire escape stairwell or in the trash room to eat their meals. They also had to do up to 40 hours of amends on their own time, which was during their meal times or after 10:30 at night. I myself had to eat in the stairwell and do hours of amends on my sleep or mealtime. We also were not allowed to watch TV and anyone who had a TV and VCR had it confiscated and only given to them if they had a day off and wanted to watch a movie.

41. For the almost 5 years that I was in the Sea Organization, I never got one day off with my husband other than 2 days when we got married and Christmas Day. I myself only got approximately 10-15 days off in the 5 years that I worked there.

42. Approximately 1½ years before I left, a new rule came out stating that if you got pregnant, you had to either get an abortion, which was heavily pushed, or leave. The rule had previously been that if you got pregnant, you had to get an abortion or be sent to a small and failing lower organization where you had to fend for yourself and your baby. I had to handle any staff that disagreed with this new rule. I myself disagreed with it because I wanted children and was told I would be able to have them when I was first recruited. However, I never said anything for fear of getting into trouble. I got to the point of being suicidal because I was so unhappy, but I never said anything because I would have gotten into big trouble and been looked down upon.

43. In September of 1997, my grandma in England died. I convinced my seniors that I had to go to her funeral in England. They did not want me to go, but finally relented and let me take an 8-day leave. When I returned I realized that I could not take being split apart from my family any longer. I decided to get pregnant because if I tried to just leave, I would be made to do heavy labor and confessionals for 6 months to a year and be called a "degraded being" by the other staff. I got pregnant in January of 1998 and on February 23rd 1998 I left without permission, got on a plane and went to stay with my aunt and uncle in England. No one knew up until then that I was pregnant and I was really sick and had to get away. My seniors in Scientology threatened me that if I didn't come back and receive a confessional I would be declared a Suppressive Person and my family would never speak to me again. My mother who is still in the Sea Org called me on a continuous basis telling me to get an abortion and return.

44. I returned on April 1st, 1998. Jeff Porter told me that if I left again, I would be declared immediately. I told the security staff there that I would stay with my father and come in every day for my confessional, explaining that I needed proper nutrition and they couldn't provide it. They told me that I had to stay in their berthing or I would be put under a non enturbulation order, which means that if I caused further trouble, that is if I still refused to stay in their berthing, I would be declared suppressive. I then agreed that I would stay there for four days, which is how long my confessional was supposed to take. The Security Chief wrote me a letters stating that if I was not done with my confessional within four days, I could stay with my father until I finished.

45. Four days later I was not done, but I was told that they had only written the letter to get me to stay in the berthing and that it was not valid. Therefore, I had to continue to stay in Sea Org berthing and eat micro waved meals even though I was suffering from morning sickness. I had to sleep on the floor in a small room while waiting for my confessionals. I was there for 1 month.

46. It took a lot less time for me to leave because they didn't want any of the other staff to know I was pregnant, so they were trying to get me out quick. A staff member from the Religious Technology Center (The Sea Org's highest organization) came up to me one day while I was in the process of routing out and asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was pregnant and leaving and he said to me "Oh, too late for an abortion?" I personally knew of three other girls who got pregnant and were convinced to get abortions. One was my sister-in-law who was 16 weeks pregnant when she was convinced to abort her child although she was strongly against it. My mother told my sister and I that it was good that she got an abortion.

47. Another thing I had to do before being allowed to leave was sign an affidavit stating that I thought Scientology and the Sea Org were great and that I was leaving because I couldn't confront bad things I had done. I was told I could not leave without signing this document and that if I did leave before signing, I would be declared a suppressive person. I signed it knowing that it was not legal as it was signed under duress. It was the standard policy to make anyone who left the Sea Org sign such an affidavit and if you didn't agree to what they wrote in it, you were sent in for more confessionals and ethics handlings until you did.

48. For the first few months after I left, I was called to come back in several times to answer questions for investigations. I was threatened if I wouldn't come in.

49. When I left, I was given a bill totaling $89,000 for auditing and courses that I had done while I was in the Sea Org. I have been called approximately 10 times by various staff members including Bob Diskin and Renee Norton pressuring me to send them money to pay this bill. I have been sent about 20 letters on this subject.

50. When I was about 8 months pregnant, my ex-husband wrote me a letter and told me that he had decided that he did not want to have anything to do with our daughter when she was born. He stated that it was because he had to dedicate all his time to the Sea Organization. When my daughter was 6 months old, I wrote to him and told him that I needed him to figure out a way to pay child support, as I was not able to support our daughter. He didn't reply for 6 months, but told his parents to stop seeing our daughter. They had been seeing her every other weekend up until that point and then I stopped hearing from them. They, too, are Scientologists. I ended up giving up trying to get child support from my ex-husband.

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America and the state of Florida that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed in Clearwater, Florida this 24th day of January 2001.

Astra Woodcraft

source : xenutv

 
Brooke Shields : Tom Cruise est dangereux
 
Jeudi 2 juin 2005
 
source : http://www.actustar.com/actualite/200506/20050602e.html
 
Après les critiques de Tom Cruise sur la prise de médicaments de l'actrice pour sortir d'un grave baby-blues, la jeune maman réplique.
 
Brooke Shields prévient le public de la dangerosité des affirmations de Tom Cruise qui dit que grâce à la scientologie, il a découvert qu'on n'a pas besoin de prise en charge médicamenteuse ou psychologique pour se sortir de la dépression ou d'autres maladies mentales.
 
Il a même critiqué ouvertement l'actrice en la blâmant pour son addiction au Paxil à propos duquel elle a déclaré qu'elle s'en sevrait pour mettre en route un deuxième bébé après sa fille Rowan.
 
L'actrice déclare, d'après IMDb, qu'il ne faudrait pas faire confiance à quelqu'un dont la croyance implique de consacrer sa vie aux extraterrestres et ajoute en colère :
 
"Ses commentaires sont dangereux. Il devrait s'en tenir à sauver le monde des extraterrestres"
 
 Tom Cruise a-t-il un problème ?
 
source : http://www.oui-mais-toscope.info/node/437
 
Dès que l’on parle de Tom Cruise ces jours-ci, ce n’est pas à propos du film La Guerre des Mondes qui doit sortir prochainement. On parle plutôt de son comportement, de sa relation avec Katie Holmes ou de ses croyances religieuses. Il n’y a rien de mal à cela. À ce que tout le monde sache, il n’est pas devenu fou, il a le droit de sortir avec qui il veut et de croire en ce qu’il veut. Le problème, c’est qu’il en fait trop selon Paramount Pictures.
Tom Cruise lors de son passage à l’émission Oprah le 23 mai 2005.
 
Le tournage de Mission Impossible 3 qui devait commencer en juillet 2005 est reporté. C’est signe que la grande major hésite à mettre en branle une machine de 150 millions et à faire reposer le tout sur une vedette qui semble instable, qui a peut-être un problème mais lequel? Les sommes investies exigent prudence, les producteurs estiment le risque trop élevé actuellement, dirait-on.
 
La décision fut prise par Brad Grey, président de la Paramount, seulement après quelques mois en poste. C'est la deuxième fois que le tournage de ce film, le troisième d’une franchise très payante, est reporté. Biens des cinéphiles attendent depuis longtemps le troisième opus, il faudra prendre son mal en patience.
 
Tom Cruise est une vedette embarassante ces jours-ci. Lors de la campagne de promotion du film La Guerre des Mondes (War of the Worlds), il parle davantage de l’Église de scientologie, une secte controversée dont il est membre depuis plus de vingt ans, que du film. Mauvais calcul de sa part. Une promo de film n’est pas une campagne de recrutement religieux. Ses critiques envers Brooke Shield furent mal accueillis également. L'actrice prend des antidépresseurs et Cruise critique cela, selon la doctrine de la scientologie, en disant que la maladie mentale ne devrait pas être traité par ce genre de médication. L’actrice a vivement réagit à ces propos et à proposé que l’acteur aille lui-même se faire soigner.
 
Il y a eu l’émission d’Oprah du 23 mai où l’acteur a fait le pitre en sautant partout sur le divan et en se mettant à genoux devant sa belle. Mise en scène un peu hystérique qui a plu a la moitié des auditeurs, qui ont trouvé ça romantique, et à la moitié des autres qui trouvèrent le tout un peu exagéré. Tous ont retenu l'événement. C’est bien. Mais Cruise devait parler de son film, c’est la raison de sa présence à l’émission. Oups …
 
Bon nombres de vedettes, dont John Travolta, sont membres de l’Église de scientologie. Les producteurs n’y voient aucun inconvénient. Les frasques de Tom détournent l’attention des gens par rapport au film de 130 millions US. Les producteurs n’ont pas tort de s’inquiéter. Le porte-parole de DreamWorks, Marvin Levy, a confirmé au New-York Times que c’est en tout cas un sujet de conversation à la direction de l’entreprise.
 
Voilà pourquoi sans doute, dans les prochains jours, Tom Cruise fera moins d’apparitions publiques. Quelques rencontres présélectionnées demeurent pour la promotion du film War of the Worlds. Officiellement Levy assure que la baisse du nombre d’apparition publiques n’a rien à voir avec le comportement de Cruise.
 
Paramount reconnaît ouvertement avoir mis sur la glace le projet de Mission Impossible 3 qui devait débuter le 18 juillet 2005 en Italie.
 
Télés, blogues, radio, journaux et magasines ne parlent que de la foi dérangeante de Cruise, de sa relation avec Holmes et en oublient l’essentiel : le cinéma. Tous s’entendent sur un point : ils ne comprennent pas l’attitude de la star et estiment que tout cela peut nuire à sa carrière à long terme. Même les fans commencent à s’inquiéter un peu pour Tom. Lui a-t-on lavé le cerveau comme on le fait chez beaucoup de personnes qui sont dans des sectes ?
 
Lee Anne De Vette, soeur et porte parole de Tom, assure n’avoir rien entendu de tel. J’imagine qu’elle était en vacances depuis deux mois en Antartique pour ne rien savoir de tout ça. «Vous avez ici quelqu’un qui est très heureux, dit-elle à propos de son frère. La réponse à son passage à Oprah est enthousiaste. Il est très content.» a-t-elle affirmée au New-York Times.
 
Pour plusieurs l’attitude ado de Cruise cache aussi tout un pan de sa personnalité, celle d’un porte-parole et recruteur important de l’Église de la scientologie. Il en parle de plus en plus de cette Église, à toute les tribunes. La semaine passée à Access Hollywood il en a longuement parlé de cette passion. C’est à cette occasion qu’il a critiqué Brooke Shields sur le fait qu’elle prend des médicaments contre la dépression. C’est que les scientologues estiment nuisible la psychiatrie moderne avec médication. De tels propos de la part d'une vedette en vue comme Cruise, qui n’a aucune notion de psychiatrie, est dangereuse et inapropriée pour bien des gens.
 
Cruise insiste toujours davantage pour faire la promotion de l’Église de scientologie, il organise des visites guidées pour d’autres célébrités ou journalistes qui peuvent durer des heures. Il avait même fait installer une tente sur le plateau du tournage War of the Worlds pour faire la promotion de cette secte. Une véritable table de recrutement, n’ayons pas peur des mots. Cela a créé des tensions entre le studio et la vedette car il était hors de question de recruter de nouveaux membres sur le plateau.
 
Toute cette histoire sème la controverse. Que l’on soit ou non en accord avec l’attitude de Cruise sur la façon dont il affiche sa vie privé et ses croyances religieuses, force est d’avouer que cela risque de nuire à sa carrière. Est-ce à dire que Cruise devra choisir entre sa carrière d’acteur et celle de recruteur pour l’Église de scientologie? Peut-être pas. L’industrie lui envoie tout de même de sérieux avertissements qu’il devra prendre en considération s’il veut rester la vedette qu’il est.
 
Embarrassant, Tom Cruise ?
 
The New York Times 3 juin 2005
Los Angeles

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/article/article_complet.php?path=/arts/article/03/1,144,161,062005,1056610.ph

Le tournage de Mission: Impossible III devait commencer le mois prochain. Les récentes frasques de Tom Cruise ont toutefois convaincu Paramount de mettre le projet en veilleuse. Et si la grande vedette d'hier était aujourd'hui devenue un boulet pour les studios?
 
Quelques mois seulement après sa nomination comme président de Paramount, Brad Grey doit prendre une décision qui ferait trembler tout producteur de Hollywood: faut-il aller de l'avant avec le projet d'un troisième Mission : Impossible ?
 
C'est que le comportement excentrique de la vedette des deux premiers films de la série, Tom Cruise, embarrasse un peu tout le monde ces jours-ci. En campagne de promotion pour son prochain film, War of the Worlds, l'acteur parle de plus en plus de l'Église de scientologie, une organisation religieuse controversée dont il est membre. Puis le 23 mai, à l'émission Oprah, il a sauté sur le bureau de l'animatrice Oprah Winfrey, a couru sur un divan et s'est mis à genoux pour professer son amour envers sa nouvelle flamme, l'actrice Katie Holmes.
 
Plusieurs vedettes de Hollywood sont membres de l'Église de scientologie, et il n'y a rien d'étrange à célébrer un nouvel amour. Mais des dirigeants de Paramount et de DreamWorks, qui coproduisent War of the Worlds, craignent que les récents coups de théâtre de l'acteur aient détourné l'attention du film, qui a coûté 130 millions US.
 
«Peut-être que le film n'obtient pas toute la publicité qu'il devrait, a reconnu Marvin Levy, porte-parole de DreamWorks. C'est un sujet de conversation (ndlr: parmi les dirigeants) pour toutes sortes de raisons.»
Des apparitions limitées
 
Les deux studios ont déjà réduit le nombre d'entrevues avec les médias en vue de la sortie de War of the Worlds, limitant l'accès des médias à Tom Cruise à «un petit nombre de rencontres présélectionnées», indique M. Levy. Il affirme toutefois que la décision n'a rien à voir avec les agissements de Cruise, et que la stratégie de promotion était établie depuis quelques semaines déjà.
 
Chez Paramount, par contre, on reconnaît avoir mis en veilleuse le tournage d'un Mission: Impossible III. Pourtant, il s'agit de l'une des franchises les plus rentables de la compagnie et le projet a déjà coûté une dizaine de millions de dollars. Le tournage devait d'ailleurs commencer le 18 juillet en Italie.
 
«Aucune décision finale n'a été prise, nous discutons toujours», a indiqué un cadre de Paramount qui refuse d'être identifié, de peur de mettre en péril la relation entre le studio et Tom Cruise. D'autres dirigeants au courant de ces discussions notent que le budget de Mission: Impossible III avait récemment dépassé 150 millions, un autre sujet de préoccupation pour le studio.
Une foi dérangeante
 
Les récentes frasques de Tom Cruise ont beaucoup fait jaser. Blogueurs, animateurs de radio, d'émissions de variété et humoristes ont tous remis en question son histoire d'amour avec Katie Holmes. Était-ce un coup de publicité ? Non, répond une porte-parole de Cruise.
 
Mais à Hollywood, la discussion entre les agents, les producteurs et les autres acteurs porte sur un autre sujet: est-ce que l'attitude de la plus importante star du box-office américain nuira à long terme à sa carrière? Car la confusion règne à propos des motifs qui ont poussé Cruise à agir comme il l'a fait depuis quelques semaines.
 
Sa porte-parole Lee Anne De Vette, qui est aussi sa soeur, jure n'avoir entendu aucun propos négatif à la suite de sa présence à Oprah. «Vous avez ici quelqu'un qui est très heureux, dit-elle à propos de son frère. La réponse à son passage à Oprah est enthousiaste. Il est très content.»
 
Mais il n'y a pas que cela. Son association de plus en plus publique avec l'Église de scientologie dérange également. En entrevue la semaine dernière à Access Hollywood, Cruise a évoqué longuement sa passion pour la scientologie, critiquant même l'actrice Brooke Shields d'avoir pris des antidépresseurs. Les scientologues considèrent comme étant nuisibles la psychiatrie moderne et la médication. En avril, Cruise a aussi fait une visite guidée du centre des célébrités de son Église à un journaliste allemand pour « l'aider » dans le cadre de son entrevue. Lorsque le journaliste a dit de la scientologie qu'elle était une pseudo-science, Cruise s'est énervé et l'échange s'est corsé.
 
L'insistance de Tom Cruise à vouloir promouvoir l'Église de scientologie dans ses entrevues fait désormais face à de la résistance à Hollywood. Des cadres du distributeur international United International Pictures se sont plaints d'avoir dû faire, eux aussi, une visite guidée de quatre heures du centre des célébrités de l'Église lors de l'achat de War of the Worlds. Cruise avait également insisté pour installer une tente afin de faire la promotion de son Église sur le plateau de War of the Worlds, ce qui avait créé des tensions entre le studio et lui.
 
La tente a finalement été plantée, mais le studio a refusé qu'elle serve à recruter de nouveaux membres.
 
Tom Cruise - just call him jehovah
 
source : http://www.askmen.com/toys/entertainment_100/133_gossip.html

Tom Cruise has always been somewhat of a strange fellow to me. First he married and divorced Mimi Rogers, then Nicole Kidman, then he dated Penelope Cruz and now he's rumored to be giving it to Sofia Vergara. Meanwhile, any time someone says the word "homosexual" in the same sentence with his name, they find themselves in court.
 
But his diverse love interests aren't what boggle my mind; it's the fact that he is a Scientologist. Okay, it's not even that. It's actually that he constantly harasses people to embrace his beliefs. What's the deal ?
 
If that wasn't bad enough, it seems that he sent packages to some reporters. The packages contained plaques listing the 12 rules of Scientology. If that wasn't enough, he also made a donation to the Church of Scientology in their names. Uh, weird-o yo. Next thing you know, he'll be going door to door in Beverly Hills, asking people to convert.
 
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