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Scientology Helps Tom Cruise Audition New Wife
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
Sept 7, 2012
All Rights Reserved.
Proving that truth is stranger than fiction, the
Church of Scientology reportedly helped audition 32-year-old Iranian-born
British actress Nazanin Boniadi for the role of Tom Cruise’s wife. Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis,
an excommunicated Scientology
devotee, believes a Vanity Fair story detailing how the Church helped lure
Boniadi into the trap. When
Cruise’s last wife, 33-year-old Katie Holmes filed for divorce June 30, it
rocked Hollywood not for the divorce but the hidden details connected with
Cruise’s role in Scientology. While
still speculative because of Holmes’ conspicuous silence, enough credible voices
point toward Holmes’ refusal to raise their six-year-old daughter, Suri Cruise,
in Scientology. Whether Katie knew
it or not at the time of her marriage to Tom Nov. 18, 2006, her husband was one
of the key leaders in the Scientology Church.
Worth about $270 million, Cruise bought himself the Church of
Scientology, now serving as its No. 2 man, pulling the strings behind the
scenes. With Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard dead since 1986, his self-appointed 52-year-old
successor David Miscavige runs the show, but only on paper. Cruise is the money-man behind the
Church, recruiting rich actors into the fold started by the pulp and science
fiction writer and self-proclaimed genius Feb. 18, 1954. Veering away from scifi writing,
Hubbard published May 9, 1950 his unintelligible tome “Dianetics: The Modern
Science of Mental Health.” In the
book, Hubbard claims to have developed cures from asthma to schizophrenia. Hubbard moved from Pasadena, Calif.
to Bay Head, New Jersey in 1949 to collaborate with science fiction editor John
W. Campbell to finish his “breakthrough” book on mental health.
Based on his own science fiction and love affair with British magician
and hypnotist Allister Crowley, Hubbard collaborated at Campbell’s suggestion
with psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Winter.
Winter helped concoct Hubbard’s pseudoscientific hodgepodge of various
discredited mental health theories bandied about before the turn of the 20th
century, especially German physician Franz Anton Mesmer [May 23, 1734-March 5,
1815], the father of medical hypnosis, which he called “animal magnetism.” Hubbard’s Dianetics treatment was
based heavily on Mesmer, placing subjects in trances and commanding away their
symptoms. Hypnosis, while practiced
by Viennese psychiatrist Sigmund Freud [May 6, 1856-Sept. 23, 1939], was largely
abandoned in preference for his “talking cure” known as psychoanalysis. Hubbard’s obsession with hypnosis
dominates today’s Scientology practices.
Haggis threw his weight behind the Vanity Fair story suggesting that
Miscavige’s wife Shelly helped make Naz’s audition video for Cruise’s pleasure. “Naz was embarrassed by her
unwitting involvement in this incident and never wanted it to come out, so I
kept silent,” Haggis wrote in an email Sept.1 to ShowBiz411.com. “I was deeply disturbed by how
the highest ranking members of a church could so easily justify using one of
their members; how they so callously punished her and then so effectively
silenced her when it was done,” wrote Haggis.
Branded an “apostate” by the Church, Haggis left Scientology in 2009
after 35-years of devoted practice for disagreeing publicly in 2008 with
Scientology’s support of Prop 8, the California voter-initiative banning gay
marriage. Haggis understands
firsthand what happens to Church members who break ranks.
Despite various early run-ins with the Internal Revenue Service,
Scientology maintains its tax-exempt religious exemption. Every time a Church member or
official breaks rank, the Church discredits, sues and excommunicates turncoats. “I was in a cult for 34 years Everyone else could see it. I don’t know why I couldn’t,” Haggis
told The New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright, giving the sordid details of his
involvement with Scientology in the feature story, “The Apostate.” When 50-year-old Scientology
Clearwater, Fl. director Debbie Cook left the Church she was sued for breaching
her confidentiality agreement. Over
her 17 years as director, Cook brought in over $1.5 billion dollars. When details of her trial exposed
abusive conduct by Scientology leader David Miscavige, the Church quickly
settled, covering up its routine practice of brainwashing and violence.
Proving that money talks, Hollywood turns a blind eye to Cruise’s
insidious control over the Church of Scientology. While the Vanity Fair story reveals
egregious abuse of lowly Church members for Tom’s gratification, the Hollywood
community does nothing to stop the Church’s abusive practices. All the Church’s denials don’t
change the long, established track record of unlawful, abusive behavior. Calling Haggis an “apostate,”
Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw denied all of his statements. Accusing Haggis of “attempting to
grab headlines and falsely slander his former religion,” Pouw plays the same PR
game as all other Scientology officials.
Too many accounts of abuse and shady practices make the Vanity Fair story
all the more credible. Watching
from afar, it’s difficult for ex-Church members like Haggis to sit back and
watch Scientology’s abuse without saying something.
John M. Curtis |  |
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