I’m sure you’ve all heard about the Tom Cruise Scientology video that’s been spread around the web. The video shows exactly how crazy Tom Cruise is about the “religion”. The Church of Scientology tried to (and successfully) stopped many sites from hosting this video but the brave souls at Gawker refuse to do so because they say it falls under “fair use”. Watch the video. You’ll probably be as surprised as I was.

For those that don’t know what Scientology is, it is the “study of truth”. Scientology describes itself as the “the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life”. The religion believes that this study encompasses all parts of the spirit. In order to be a firm follower of the religion, you must be trained about morals, ethics, detoxification, education and management, in addition to being “audited” (more on this later). It makes a some sense until you look more into the whole religion. What the church means by “auditing” is that once in a while you have to meet with a Scientology “counselor, aka “auditor”, in order to talk about traumatic life experiences. These meetings are supposedly confidential but there has been a history of these records being opened for “internal security reasons”. Basically, they convince you to give up your dark, dirty, personal secrets in order to be “enlightened” only to have them use it against you if deemed “necessary”. Wow, that’s completely normal, huh?

There have also been quite a few other controversies regarding the church. From Wikipedia:

“The controversies involving the Church and its critics, some of them ongoing, include:

Scientology’s disconnection policy, in which members are encouraged to cut off all contact with friends or family members considered “antagonistic.”

The death of a Scientologist Lisa McPherson while in the care of the Church.

Criminal activities committed on behalf of the Church or directed by Church officials (Operation Snow White, Operation Freakout)

Fair Game policy that encouraged the abuse of critics.

Conflicting claims about L. Ron Hubbard’s life, in particular accounts of Hubbard discussing his intent to start a religion for profit, and of his service in the military.

Scientology’s harassment and litigious actions against its critics.

Attempts to legally force search engines such as Google and Yahoo to omit any webpages critical of Scientology from their search engines (and in Google’s case, AdSense), or at least the first few search pages.”

There’s a bit more I’m leaving out here for the sake of setting the stage for thise video. If you want to know more about it feel free to look at their website, or to get a more well rounded idea just go to Wikipedia’s page on Scientology.

Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to give you guys some background info on the topic.

Some highlights from the video:

• “You’re either on board or you’re not on board, ok? But, if, uh, you’re on board, you’re on board like the rest of us…period”

• “We are the authority on getting people off drugs. We are the authority on the mind. We are the authority on improving conditions.”
• “If you’re a Scientologist, you see life, uh, you see things the way they are, in all its glory, uh, in all its complexity…”

Here’s the link to the Gawker.com video.

[Gawker.com's "Tom Cruise on Scientology"]

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