Are you looking around for that Cruisetastic Scientology recruiting video everybody’s talking about today? (Which the narrator, who sounds like he’s on loan from Super Friends, dubs “Tom Cruise on… Tom Cruise: Scientologist!”) But you didn’t get a chance to download it to your hard drive before L. Ron’s lawyers had it removed from YouTube? Us Weekly has a quick summary. Some highlights:
Tom Cruise: I think it’s a privilege to call yourself a Scientologist, and it’s something that you have to earn because a Scientologist … has the ability to create new and better realities and improve conditions. Being a Scientologist, you look at someone and know absolutely that you can help them.
“Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident … you know you have to do something about it because you know you’re the only one that can really help.
“But that’s what drives me … I know that we have an opportunity to really help … effectively change people’s lives and I am dedicated to that. I am absolutely, uncompromisingly dedicated to that.”
You know, sometimes the best way to help people is to stay out of the way. And when it comes to Scientology, “sometimes” means “all the time.”
Take, for example, the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project. It’s a Scientology “org” that Cruise founded in 2004 [Correction: 2003] to help the workers who cleaned up the debris from the World Trade Center and breathed in toxic fumes. Here’s how it’s supposed to work, according to the official site, nydetox.org:
Only one method for reducing body levels of toxic chemicals has been widely implemented, studied and demonstrated to be safe and effective: the detoxification program developed by L. Ron Hubbard.
It is a precise regimen that includes exercise, sauna bathing, and vitamin, mineral and oil supplements. More than 20 years of clinical experience have established its value in treating chemical exposures.
Here’s how it really works, according to Slate:
Toxic substances (including pollutants, pesticides, and various pharmaceuticals) are stored largely in the body’s fatty tissues. Detoxification is thus made possible by “mobilizing” fat reserves—that is, by releasing portions of stored fat that contain dissolved toxins—into the bloodstream, and then eliminating these toxins, mainly through sweating. In order to “unleash” fats, participants take increasing doses of niacin (up to a whopping 3,500 mg to 5,000 mg per day), along with other vitamins and minerals such as calcium and magnesium. They ingest two daily tablespoonfuls of oil (a blend of soy, walnut, peanut, safflower, and evening primrose oils) to replace the fats that have been mobilized and to maintain weight: Advocates are clear that weight-loss is not to occur. Participants also spend a half an hour jogging, followed by two-and-a-half to five hours in a sauna (while drinking ample water), to eliminate contaminants through sweat. The program generally runs seven days a week for three to four weeks, or until the patient no longer “feels the effects of past drugs or chemicals” and reports a “marked resurgence of overall sense of well-being.” That is the model regimen, at least.
Sounds scientific! Except that niacin actually lowers blood-lipid levels, the opposite of what this technique claims to do, and in high doses like this it can cause a host of problems, including liver damage. (“Oh well. Sorry your liver gave out, 9/11 worker. Guess you just didn’t believe in L. Ron enough!”)
And there’s no proof that sweating out toxins actually works, especially the kinds of toxins released on 9/11. Plus sitting in a hot sauna for hours on end can actually be dangerous to these already-sick people, due to dehydration and heat stroke.
Pushing junk science to exploit the brave men and women who put their lives on the line during a national crisis… Thanks for the help, Tom.
P.S. Radar has a piece on this video, and in the comments, a former Scientologist has a quick glossary of the bizarre terms Cruise uses. Here’s my fave:
*KSW (short for Keeping Scientology Working): A policy written by Hubbard in the 1960’s that requires all Scientologists to follow his words and his rules exactly.
More like Kooky Strange Weirdness!
P.P.S. What Would Tyler Durden Do? has the video, and you can download it here… for now.
P.P.P.S. For all you out-ethical SP’s out there, here’s a gallery I like to call Tom Cruise, Man of a Thousand Thoroughly Unnerving Faces:
P.P.P.P.S. Part two.
Related posts:
- Dear Dave: What’s Worse, “Knocked Up” or “Pimped Out”? David Letterman is still dealing with the controversy over those...
- How Can Trudie Styler Save the Planet Without Helping to Destroy It? Last week, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper joined all rational people...
- Obama Celebrates Earth Day By Helping Destroy the Earth This story at the CBS News Political Hotsheet yesterday has...
- Will Smith Hires Scientologist as ‘Secular’ School’s Headmistress We haven’t heard much from Jada Pinkett and Will Smith...
Hmmm. Everyone puts out information for their own interests. Whether it’s Tom or the Pharmaceutical companies that tell us to pump our bodies full of synthetic drugs just to increase their triple bottom line.
I don’t think anyone really knows what can or cannot help these people. It’s a shame that Tom is “wrapping it in a blanket” of cult.
“I don’t think anyone really knows what can or cannot help these people.”
Seriously? So because Scientology is junk science, then that makes real science and medical treatment also bogus? I believe there are people who do know what can and can’t help them. They’re called doctors, scientists, researchers, etc.
I’d venture to guess that the majority of people who take prescription drugs do so on their own free will and probably keep taking them because of the beneficial effects. Or are you suggesting that Pharmaceutical companies only create fake drugs to sell to brainless people that have no ability to make up their own minds if the treatment works or not? Are you also suggesting that vaccines for diseases such as polio and medicines such as penicillin are fake treatments created solely to make profits?
Wow ever heard of placebo? I worked in the life sciences industry where in clinical trials where patients were given a drug and some a ’sugar pill’. Sometimes placebo workd over the manufactured drug. I’m not saying that ALL drugs are ‘bunk’, I’m saying that the Pharmaceutical Industry is just that…and “Industry”…they are in to make money !! (just buy some of their stock on any of the markets)
Tom Cruise said in his rant that “they” (Scientologists)know what helps people and he wants to spread the word. I don’t think they know enough.
sheesh !
I just can not believe that anyone would seriously follow this “religion” I mean you’d have to be really stupid, almost beyond belief. Movie stars and celebrities must be a lot dumber than you can imagine. Why on Earth anyone would listen to their advice on anything, whether it be politics, the environment etc.
I mean if some weirdo walked up to you tomorrow, and said you’ll go to Hell unless you believed in Xenu the alien warrior, you should vote for this guy, would you really listen? If you do you deserve what you get.
You’re arguing over a man who bases his “faith” on a self-help book/movement that was created by a science-fiction writer to be a money-maker. I don’t know why anyone spends the effort to post what he says or why anyone cares. He told Matt Lauer that the Nazis “created” psychology!! We’re seriously giving airtime to these people (celebrities), most of whom didn’t make it past the 9th grade, just because they have ready access to a camera and a national audience. Because they get paid millions to pretend to be someone else, we’re supposed to buy that they are the authority on what is or is not good for us, what can or cannot cure us, how we should or should not be educated, etc…
I could care less what he has to say, what I want to know is – how do these people get their wisdom teeth removed? With no anesthesia? What happens when he gets a kidney stone? You really think Tom Cruise – just because he “does his own stunts” – is really passing a kidney stone on his own without a stint? I think the real reveal would be medical records for the famed Mr. “Modern Medicine is Evil” Cruise. I would much rather hear how he’s popping Percacet for a broken arm he sustained on the set of “Valkyrie” then how he thinks exercise and meditation will heal all that ails us.
Oh god, I know I’m usually up to defend anyone and I try to moderate my language, but bitch is CRAZY.
Ummm so if Tom Cruise drives past a car accident, only he has the power to help. So, Scientologists have inate EMT powers as well!
Nice to know!
When I first saw this video I thought SNL had finally upped it since “Dick In A Box”, when I realized it was for real…
“I’m usually up to defend anyone…”
You must be exhausted!
I am! I also get bullied quite a lot in high school and get spitballs thrown at me. It’s the price I pay for my noble posting-on-blogs.
Any one who would join a “religion” founded by a science fiction author is by definition nuts. L. Ron would be laughing right now at the dupes, if he weren’t burning in hell.
Oh, I wish I could have seen the original video! I agree that anyone following the “religion” of Scientology is being duped by L. Ron. How ridiculous to believe in something that was fully imagined by a man that sought to create a religion to make money?
Why did nobody think of a caption contest for these photos???
>>caption contest
lets get started:
http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=motivator3638338uf8.jpg