Tom Cruise, Project Celebrity backfires.

From 'The Universal Identifying Characteristics of a Cult' (David Brear Axiom Books copyright 2005).

L. Ron Hubbard

David Miscavige

Apart from its use in the sense of ‘a popular fashion especially followed by a specific section of society’ or ‘a person or thing popularised in this way,’ the traditional definition of the English noun, cult (Latin cultus worship), has been ‘a system of religious worship (Latin religiosus obligation, bondage) especially as expressed in ritual,’ or ‘devotion or homage to a person or thing.’ However, the word is now also used as shorthand for what is more accurately described as a pernicious cult. This evolving, criminogenic phenomenon can be briefly described as: 

any self-perpetuating, non-rational/esoteric, ritual belief system established or perverted for the clandestine purpose of human exploitation.

Such groups are identified by the following, essential characteristics :

1). Deception. Pernicious cults are presented externally as traditional associations. These can be arbitrarily defined by their instigators as almost any banal group (‘religious’, ‘cultural’, ‘political’, ‘commercial’, etc.). However, internally, they are always totalitarian (i.e. they are centrally-controlled and require of their core-adherents an absolute subservience to the group and its patriarchal, and/ or matriarchal, leadership above all other persons). By their very nature, pernicious cults never present themselves in their true colours. Consequently, no one ever becomes involved with one as a result of his/her fully-informed consent.

2). Self-appointed sovereign leadership. Pernicious cults are instigated and ruled by psychologically dominant individuals, and/or bodies of psychologically dominant individuals (often with impressive, made-up names, and/or ranks, and/or titles), who hold themselves accountable to no one. These individuals have severe and inflexible Narcissistic Personalities (i.e. they suffer from a chronic psychological disorder, especially when resulting in a grandiose sense of self-importance/ righteousness and the compulsion to take advantage of others and to control others’ views of, and behaviour towards, them).* They steadfastly pretend moral and intellectual authority whilst pursuing various, hidden, criminal objectives (fraudulent, and/or sexual, and/or violent, etc.). The admiration of their adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ strong sense of self-entitlement and fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love, etc.

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* ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder,’ is a psychological term first used in 1971 by Dr. Heinz Kohut (1913-1981). It was recognised as the name for a form of pathological narcissism in ‘The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1980.’ Narcissistic traits (where a person talks highly of himself/herself to eliminate feelings of worthlessness) are common in, and considered ‘normal’ to, human psychological development. When these traits become accentuated by a failure of the social environment and persist into adulthood, they can intensify to the level of a severe mental disorder. Severe and inflexible NPD is thought to effect less than 1% of the general adult population. It occurs more frequently in men than women. In simple terms, NPD is reality-denying, total self-worship born of its sufferers’ unconscious belief that they are flawed in a way that makes them fundamentally unacceptable to others. In order to shield themselves from the intolerable rejection and isolation which they unconsciously believe would follow if others recognised their defective nature, NPD sufferers go to almost any lengths to control others’ view of, and behaviour towards, them. NPD sufferers often choose partners, and raise children, who exhibit ‘co-narcissism’ (a co-dependent personality disorder like co-alcoholism). Co-narcissists organize themselves around the needs of others (to whom they feel responsible), they accept blame easily, are eager to please, defer to others’ opinions and fear being seen as selfish if they act assertively. NPD was observed, and apparently well-understood, in ancient times. Self-evidently, the term, ‘narcissism,’ comes from the allegorical myth of Narcissus, the beautiful Greek youth who falls in love with his own reflection.

Currently, NPD has nine recognised diagnostic criteria (five of which are required for a diagnosis):

·         has a grandiose sense of self-importance.

·         is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love, etc.

·         believes that he/she is special and unique and can only be understood by other special people.

·         requires excessive admiration.

·         strong sense of self-entitlement.

·         takes advantage of others to achieve his/her own ends.

·         lacks empathy.

·         is often envious or believes that others are envious of him/her.

·         arrogant disposition.

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3). Manipulation. Pernicious cults employ co-ordinated, devious techniques of social and psychological persuasion (variously described as: ‘covert hypnosis’, ‘mental manipulation’, ‘coercive behaviour modification’, ‘group pressure’, ‘thought reform’, ‘ego destruction’, ‘mind control’, ‘brainwashing’, ‘neuro-linguistic programming’, ‘love bombing’, etc.). These techniques are designed to fulfil the hidden criminal objectives of the leaders by provoking in the adherents an infantile total dependence on the group to the detriment of themselves and of their existing family, and/or other, relationships. Pernicious cults manipulate their adherents’ existing beliefs and instinctual desires, creating the illusion that they are exercising free will. In this way, adherents can also be surreptitiously coerced into following potentially harmful, physical procedures (sleep deprivation, protein restriction, repetitive chanting/ moving, etc.) which are similarly designed to facilitate the shutting down of an individual’s critical and evaluative faculties without his/ her fully-informed consent.

4). Radical changes of personality and behaviour. Pernicious cults can be of any size, duration and level of criminality. They comprise groups, and/or sub-groups, of previously diverse individuals bonded by their unconscious acceptance of the self-gratifying, but wholly imaginary, scenario that they alone represent a positive or protective force of purity and absolute righteousness derived from their leadership’s exclusive access to a superior or superhuman knowledge, and that they alone oppose a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil. Whilst this two-dimensional, or dualistic, narrative remains the adherents’ model of reality, they are, in effect, constrained to modify their individual personalities and behaviour accordingly.

5). Pseudo-scientific mystification. The instigators of pernicious cults seek to overwhelm their adherents emotionally and intellectually by pretending that progressive initiation into their own superior or superhuman knowledge (coupled with total belief in its authenticity and unconditional deference to the authority of its higher initiates) will defeat a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil, and lead to future, exclusive redemption in some form of secure Utopian existence. By making total belief a prerequisite of redemption,adherents are drawn into a closed-logic trap (i.e. failure to achieve redemption is solely the fault of the individual who didn’t believe totally). Cultic pseudo-science is always essentially the same hypnotic hocus-pocus, but it can be peddled in an infinite variety of forms and combinations (‘spiritual’, ‘medical’, ‘philosophical’, ‘cosmological,’‘extraterrestrial’, ‘political’, ‘racial’, ‘mathematical’, ‘economic’, ‘New-Age’, 'magical', etc.), often with impressive, made-up, technical-sounding names. It is tailored to fit the spirit of the times and to attract a broad range of persons, but especially those open to an exclusive offer of salvation (i.e. the: sick, dissatisfied, bereaved, vanquished, disillusioned, oppressed, lonely, insecure, aimless, etc.). However, at a moment of vulnerability, anyone (no matter what their: age, sex, nationality, state of mental/ physical health, level of education, etc.) can need to believe in a non-rational, cultic pseudo-science. Typically, obedient adherents are granted ego-inflating names, and/or ranks, and/or titles, whilst non-initiates are referred to using derogatory, dehumanizing terms. Although initiation can at first appear to be reasonable and benefits achievable, cultic pseudo-science gradually becomes evermore costly and mystifying. Ultimately, it is completely incomprehensible and its claimed benefits are never quantifiable. The self-righteous euphoria and relentless enthusiasm of cult proselytizers can be highly infectious and deeply misleading. They are invariably convinced that their own salvation also depends on saving others.

6). Monopoly of information. The leaders of  pernicious cults seek to control all information entering not only their adherents’ minds, but also that entering the minds of casual observers. This is achieved by constantly denigrating all external sources of information whilst constantly repeating the group’s reality-inverting key words and images, and/or by the physical isolation of adherents. Cults leaders systematically categorize, condemn and exclude asunenlightened, negative, impure, absolutely evil, etc. all free-thinking individuals and any quantifiable evidence challenging the authenticity of their imaginary scenarios of control. In this way, the minds of cult adherents can become converted to accept only what their leadership arbitrarily sanctions as enlightened, positive, pure, absolutely righteous, etc. Consequently, adherents habitually communicate amongst themselves using their group’s thought-stopping ritual jargon, and they find it difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with negativepersons outside of their group whom they falsely believe to be not only doomed, but also to be a suppressive threat to redemption.

7). False justification. In pernicious cults, a core-group of adherents can be gradually dissociated from external reality and reformed into deployable agents, and/or de facto slaves, and/or expendable combatants, etc., furthering the hidden criminal objectives of their leaders, completely dependent on a collective paranoid delusion of absolutemoral and intellectual supremacy fundamental to the maintenance of their individual self-esteem/identity and related psychological function. It becomes impossible for such fanatics to see humour in their situation or to feel pity for, or to empathise with, non-adherents. Their minds are programmed to interpret the manipulation, and/or cheating, and/or dispossession, and/or destruction, of inferior outsiders (particularly, those who challenge their group’s controlling scenario) as perfectly justifiable.

8). Structural mystification. The instigators of pernicious cults can continue to organize the creation, and/or dissolution, and/or subversion, of further (apparently independent) corporate structures pursuing lawful, and/or unlawful, activities in order to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate themselves from liability. In this way, some cults survive all low-level challenges and spread like cancers enslaving the minds, and destroying the lives, of countless individuals in the process. At the same time, their leaders acquire absolute control over capital sums which place them alongside the most notorious racketeers in history. They operate behind ever-expanding, and changing, fronts of ‘privately-controlled, limited-liability, commercial companies,’ and/or ‘non-profit-making associations,’ etc. Other than ‘religious /philosophical’ and ‘political’ movements and ‘secret societies,’ typical reality-inverting disguises for cultic crime are:

‘charity/ philanthropy’; ‘fund-raising’; ‘lobbying’ on topical issues (‘freedom’, ‘ethics’, ‘environment’, ‘human rights’, ‘women’s rights’, ‘child protection’, ‘law enforcement’, ‘social justice’, etc.); ‘publishing and media’; ‘education’; ‘academia’; ‘celebrity’; ‘patriotism’; ‘information technology’; ‘public relations’; ‘advertising’; ‘medicine’; ‘alternative medicine’; ‘nutrition’; ‘rehabilitation’; ‘manufacturing’; ‘retailing’; ‘direct selling/ marketing’; ‘multilevel marketing’; ‘network marketing’; ‘regulation’; ‘personal development’; ‘self-betterment’; ‘positive thinking’; ‘self-motivation’; ‘leadership training’; ‘life coaching’; ‘research and development’; ‘investment’; ‘real estate’; ‘sponsorship’; ‘bereavement/trauma counselling’; ‘addiction counselling’; ‘legal counselling’; ‘cult exit-counselling’; ‘financial consulting’; ‘management consulting’; ‘clubs’; etc. 

9). Chronic psychological deterioration symptoms. The long-term core-adherents of pernicious cults are psychotic (i.e. suffering from psychosis, a severe mental derangement, especially when resulting in delusions and loss of contact with external reality). Core-adherents who manage to break with their group and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For many years afterwards, recovering former core-adherents can suffer from one, or more, of the following psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):

depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness ( asthma, skin disorders, headaches, fatigue, etc.); sexual problems/ fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.

10). Repression of all dissent. The leaders of the most-destructive cults are megalomaniacal psychopaths (i.e. suffering from a chronic mental disorder, especially when resulting in paranoid delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness, and the compulsion to pursue grandiose objectives). The unconditional deference of their deluded adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ own paranoid delusions. This type of cult leader maintains an absolute monopoly of information whilst perpetrating, and/or directing, evermore heinous crimes. They sustain their activities by the imposition of arbitrary contracts and codes (secrecy, denunciation, confession,justice, punishment, etc.) within their groups, and by the use of humiliation, and/or intimidation, and/or calumny, and/or malicious prosecution (where they pose as victims), and/or sophism, and/or the infiltration of traditional culture, and/or corruption, and/or intelligence gathering and blackmail, and/or extortion, and/or physical isolation, and/or violence, and/or assassination, etc., to repress any internal or external dissent.




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Recently,  the mainstream media (particularly, lightweight magazines specializing in celebrities and scandals) has again temporarily-turned its attention to the pernicious cult which has been most-commonly referred to as 'Scientology.' This is because the chapter of the two-dimensional 'Scientology' fairytale entitled 'Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes perfect marriage,' has suddenly fallen to pieces. 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/tom-cruise-lawyer-threatens-national-enquirer-house-horrors-348151


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2172515/Tom-Cruises-lawyer-blasts-National-Enquirer-cover-article-featuring-false-vicious-lies-client.html


The majority of media reports cite Tom Cruise's unquestioning devotion to 'Scientology' as being the underlying cause of his latest divorce. However, a lot of well-informed observers (particularly, former 'Scientologists') had seen this unhappy-ending as being inevitable.

It now seems that Katie Holmes has decided that she doesn't want her six year old daughter to follow in her father's tragicomic footsteps, and be brainwashed into living her life intellectually-castrated by the exploitative, paranoid group-delusion that all human beings are secretly infested with, and enslaved by, invisible, evil extra-terrestrials which only 'Scientology/Dianetics Study Technology' can enable us to identify and 'clear from planet Earth' (for a price).

Tom Cruise has been described as the most powerful movie star on the planet. At one time, any movie with him in it was guaranteed to gross over $ 100 millions at the box office. Any corporation would have to pay a fortune to obtain the endorsement of Tom Cruise. Yet he continues to commit huge amounts of his own time and funds to promote the ‘Church of Scientology;’ an organization which, although registered as a ‘tax-free religious association’ in the USA, is officially listed as a dangerous cult (shielding an organized, blame-the-victim fraud) in various other democracies, including France and Germany.  

A recording of Tom Cruise appearing before a crowd of 2000 ‘Scientologists’ at a closed rally held in the USA (DVD ‘Applied Scolastics Spanish Lake’, ‘Golden Era Productions,’ 2003), gives a good idea of the key-role Tom Cruise has unwittingly played in the promotion of the 'Scientology' fraud.

After emerging from his VIP front-row seat to warm applause, a beaming Tom Cruise stood at a lectern. He was dressed in a dark suit with an open-necked shirt. He sported collar length hair and a full beard. After an emotional account of his childhood-struggle against dyslexia, the star launched into a long-winded, but precisely-worded, endorsement of what he believes to have been his salvation :

‘I am not just a believer ! I use this technology each and everyday in my life ! At my work ! With my children ! In every area of life ! And I am proof of what study technology can accomplish ! My mission is to make study technology available for everyone who wants to reach it ! Any group ! Any person ! Any teacher ! Any mentor ! Any parent ! Every child ! Anyone!’ I have, and I will, continue to dedicate my life to accomplishing this, and I am supremely grateful to Mr. L. Ron. Hubbard for the study technology he provided, because I would not be here today if I didn’t get that.’

So what lies behind this passionate proselytizing?

Born in 1962 in New Jersey, Tom Cruise (given name, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV) was permanently an outsider - the new little boy in the neighbourhood. In 1974, following his parents’ divorce, Thomas (aged 11) and his 2 older sisters, Lee Anne and Marian, and younger sister, Cass, went to live with their mother in a modest home in Kentucky. Their father died of cancer soon afterwards. Thomas (aged 14) accepted a scholarship at the St. Francis Seminary Cincinnati, where, for 8 months during 1976, he trained to become a Catholic priest, but he was unable to follow his studies because he was dyslexic. 

Thomas desperately tried to achieve acceptance in the Seminary via sports. However, despite his courage and determination, he was too small and not really talented. Meanwhile, his mother remarried and moved back to New Jersey. When Thomas was unfairly judged a failure and obliged to leave the Seminary, he attended High School in New Jersey where he discovered amateur dramatics. As a performing artist pretending to be other people, Thomas found immediate success and acceptance, so he decided to make stardom his goal in life.

In 1980, Thomas (aged 18) left school and went to live in New York. He attended evening drama classes and supported himself by taking menial day jobs. During this period, he attended auditions for television ads. He was never chosen, despite travelling to Hollywood to test for more-important roles. 

Thomas then shortened his name and signed up with ‘The Creative Artists Agency.’ A string of movies followed, culminating in ‘Risky Business’ which made him into a minor star. At this time, Tom Cruise (aged 22) gave one of his first television interviews. The out-takes from this material, reveal him to have still been suffering from dyslexia. At one point, he smiled vacantly at the interviewer, completely unable to follow her questions.

 It was at this stage in his early career that Tom Cruise was deliberately targeted by ‘Scientology,’ following a sinister doctrine, ‘Project Celebrity,’ issued by L. Ron. Hubbard dating from 1963. This incited ‘Scientologists’ to seek out ‘any person well known to the public and well liked but who has passed his or her prime, or any rising figure.’ The same document shows that Hubbard was so keen to recruit celebrities, that his adherents were instructed not to take payment from them at first. To this end, by the early 1970s, Hubbard had organized the acquisition of an impressive mansion in Los Angeles, ‘The Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre.’ Its basic function remains to ensnare rising or falling celebrities, by identifying their weaknesses and by pandering to their existing belief in their own importance.

In 1986, Tom Cruise (aged 24) starred in the smash-hit movie, ‘Top Gun,’ and became an international sex-symbol. He was then approached by ‘Scientology’ through an intermediary, Mimi Rogers (aged 30), an attractive movie/television actress and ‘Scientologist,’ well-known for bringing celebrities into the organization. In 1987, Tom Cruise married Mimi Rogers. She took her ill-informed and emotionally-vulnerable young husband to the ‘Celebrity Centre,’ where he was welcomed with open arms. The devious procedures by which Tom Cruise was gradually transformed into an unquestioning believer in the ‘Scientology’ fairytale, have been disclosed by some of the actual persons who were directly involved. He was first taken to a comfortable room in the ‘Celebrity Centre’ to be ‘Audited.’ This involved a one to one interview in which he was encouraged to divulge every detail of his life. Even the most intimate information about his sexual partners and preferences was recorded. He was persuaded to recount his frustration about his dyslexia, his grief about the loss of his father, his sense of exclusion as a child, etc. etc. Tom Cruise was then told that ‘Dianetics study technology’ would clear all these blocks and enable him to fulfil his true potential. After passing a simple course in language, the star became convinced that ‘Dianetics’ had cured his dyslexia. He then began to invest more and more of his time studying ‘Scientology’ - so much so, that he divorced Mimi Rogers in 1989.

The current boss of ‘Scientology,’ David Miscavige (b.1960), realised that, in Tom Cruise, he’d found everything that L. Ron Hubbard had dreamed of in ‘Project Celebrity.’ The popular young star was now selected to become the international ambassador for ‘Scientology.’ He was invited to visit the secret ‘Scientology Base’ at Hemet, 100 miles west of LA in the Californian desert. Former staff have freely-explained its paranoid atmosphere and sinister function. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2168482/Snipers-razor-wire-prison-cells--inside-secret-Scientology-HQ-Katie-fear-Suri.html

Approximately 800 ‘Scientologists’ have lived and worked on an expansive site. At the heart of Hemet, is an Orwellian fortress protected 24 hrs a day by armed guards — it bristles with surveillance cameras and razor wire. This building is forbidden to everyone except the uniformed elite of ‘Scientology,’ the ‘Sea Org.’ It is from Hemet, that David Miscavige rules the organization and plans his world-wide strategy. The majority of ordinary ‘Scientologists’ do not even know of its existence, let alone its location. Staff at Hemet have been conditioned to believe that agents of an evil extraterrestrial force are trying to destroy ‘Scientology,’ therefore, their ‘Church’ is obliged to defend itself. When visiting Hemet, Tom Cruise has been treated like a God. He is flown in by helicopter and given his own private villa complete with a flock of servants. David Miscavige has personally selected the star’s supervisors, and has arranged for him to progress, unhindered, through the pyramid of ‘Dianetics’ initiation.

Former ‘Scientologist,’ Bruce Hines, has explained how he encountered Tom Cruise at Hemet, and how he was ordered to allow the star to pass the famous ‘E-Meter’ tests, no matter what the reading. 

David Miscavige spends long periods with Tom Cruise and the two are close friends.

In 1990, Tom Cruise met the Australian movie star, Nicole Kidman. They soon married, but despite remaining together for 10 years, Nicole Kidman, never really fell for ‘Scientology.’ Although she visited Hemet with her husband and was treated like a Goddess, to her own confidents she described the ‘Base’ as ‘giving her the creeps.’ Eventually, the couple’s marriage ended when they adopted two children, Isabella and Connor. Tom Cruise insisted that they should not go to a traditional school, they should be brought up as ‘Scientologists.’ His two sisters, Marian and Cass (whom he had brought into ‘Scientology’), were appointed as mentors. When Nicole Kidman objected, Tom Cruise was given a typical ultimatum - if he wanted to progress in ‘Scientology’ then he would have to break with all negative influences.

It seems that history keeps repeating itself.

David Brear (copyright 2012)