Like Ragnarok, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and The Sopranos – all things (good and bad) must end.
And that end has come for the Church of Scientology.
It was an experiment that just didn’t work.
For Tom Cruise, it’s another high-profile bomb – like “Rock Of Ages” and “Knight and Day.”
So… it’s time for all the vacant eyed, lost soul, followers of Scientology to leave the fields, re-enter society, and a have a few beers. Reality is waiting – time to get on with it.
The final nail in the coffin for Scientology is, of course, the TomKat divorce.
Finally, the “Church” has a scandal it cannot hide from or cover up – and an entire organizational collapse is imminent (and what an organization it is – see left).
To compare it to something in the media (this is a media blog after all), the TomKatSu divorce scandal is to Scientology what digital is to the newspaper industry. This scandal has effectively put an end to Scientology “subscriber growth” and it will not recover.
Its “best days” are behind it – and the end is near. Seriously, what movie star or powerful media figure would join Scientology now?
No amount of pressure by Thetan thugs or house visits to Katie by Anne Archer will get Scientology out of this mess.
It’s over.
[For full, unbelievably well-researched accounts of what happens behind the guarded walls at Scientology – please read this piece in the New Yorker and this piece in Rolling Stone.]
America and the world are completely on Katie’s side and anything other than full capitulation by Tom Cruise and Scientology will only make matters worse.
Words like ‘creepy,’ ‘evil,’ ‘cult,’ freaky,’ ‘fucking bizarre,’ ‘brainwashed,’ and just plain ‘disturbing’ are often used when people comment about Scientology.
But somehow, nothing much was done about it – probably because most people just think it’s a place where out of work actors go to detox and secure five and under guest shots on shows like “Dharma & Greg.”
Lots of allegations – but no real criminal charges have stuck against the “Church” other than random financial issues (taxes, etc.).
But now there is a very high-profile little face in the middle of it – little Suri Cruise – and the people of the world will not allow this “Church” to overtake her developing brain. [To see photos of Suri – you can Google her name. It felt wrong to put a photo of her in this blog.]
Either Scientology leaves them alone to live a somewhat normal life – or they commit organizational suicide by trying to force this little girl into the SeaOrg re-education school for high level Scientologists (or some other work farm type education).
Tom Cruise and, to a lesser extent, John Travolta (power is based on box office grosses) are the faces of Scientology. And the faces of Scientology look pretty shitty right now.
Leave Suri alone, cut the creepy secret cult shit that makes so many people afraid of you, and do the right thing for your members – let them go. Stop ruining lives.
Perhaps there are some decent life lessons to be learned from the writings of L. Ron Hubbard (i.e., “The fastest way to make a fortune is to invent a religion”…), but those lessons will never reach a mass audience as long as the perception of Scientology is that of a cult of zombies eating the brains of the young.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Awesome, Jill! So – I heard Suri is now 6 years old & was supposed to begin Scientology Brain Washing ….oooppppssss sorry….Scientology Sunday School……..Katie objected & hit the road.
“Katie objected & hit the road” <——- ahaha! beyond hilarious.
Why is that hilarious? It’s true.
Agreed. Scientology is a cult. Bottom line. Take that little girl and RUN Katie!
Who would have thought little Katie Holmes could bring down Scientology? At least she’s made a lot of people aware of who and what they are. That’s the first step…
GO KATIE!
Exactly! Seems to me Tom Cruise has a choice. Let Katie have sole custody of Suri, or let Katie bring down the Church of Scientology. I wonder which avenue his “best friend” David Mascavige wants him to take.
If Tom doesn’t walk away from Scientology, his career is over. His reputation will not survive the public scrutiny brought about by all this.
Went to the flagship Church of Scientology in NYC just to check it out. They exist to bilk money out of foreigners and the poor by promising better lives in exchange for HUGE sums of money. The only “religion” I’ve ever heard of that charges you to be a member. At least the other “cults” are free.
That, combined with the stories of SeaOrg slaves, forced abortions, and mysterious deaths of defectors is enough to convince me they are very dangerous.
They took Hubbard’s axiom: “The fastest way to make a fortune is to invent a religion” to a whole new level of crazy.
If you think scientology is scary, If the goofball Morman gets in the white house, even scarier. Both cults.
Scientology is not a religion. It is a cult. Tom Cruise is disgusting. I stopped going to any movies he was in a long time ago. He is nuts!
shoot ’em in the ass and blow out their brains
Don’t worry Jill. No judge in his right mind would give complete custody of a child to Tom Cruise in lieu of the mother. Suri will be fine.
The Sea Org, as described in Lawrence Wright’s The New Yorker article “The Apostate”, that you linked to – (The New Yorker, February 14 & 21, 2011 issue) used small children drawn from Scientology families for what the article described as forced child labor. The article describes extremely inhumane conditions. Children spent years in the Org, sequestered from mainstream life.
Thanks Jill – agreed. Anyone who bothers to do any research or reading about Scientology (those stories you linked to is a good start) would also agree with Mr Murdoch’s tweet. It is very evil, creepy and scary really. I have friends in it, and they are so strange now. Total changed them and they talk about Ron Hubbard and his books and beliefs all the time, it is annoying. It is a cult. Check it out, they do not really hide what they believe, which is they are chosen from an alien race, the rest of us are bad and have thetans inside us that only Scientology can remove for us. Not kidding her or exaggerating.
What a ridiculous premise for an article. No celebrity divorce is going to cause even a beer burp to a multi-billion-dollar, multi-million-member international cult. Whackjob Hollywood actors and actresses get married and divorced more often than Gallagher smashes watermelons, and two weeks later it don’ mean nuthin’.
This isn’t your average celebrity. If it was Giovanni Ribisi getting divorced I would agree with you – but this Tom Cruise, the very public face of Scientology. Just wait until the media really starts to focus on this.
Yes yes yes! If the Scientology chruch is smart, then will let Katie and Suri walk away. Otherwise they may find that Katie may be the single biggest threat to the Scientology “church” since its inception. Think about it — a pretty little girl, and her pretty, smart, sympathetic, well-known, movie-star mother, married to a semi-loony movie-star husband and involved with a completely loony church, trying to fit back into the mainstream? She could raise millions in donations if a court battle ensued. And if her lawyers were smart, they would drag the battle on as long as possible, exposing and dragging every idiotic facet of this idiotic “religion” into public view. Any jury of twelve sane folks would be on her side. Potentially, it could lead to criminal charges against the Scientology church leaders, loss of the church’s tax exampt status, and possibly the total destruction of this cornball religious scam.
i think getting out of a religious cult is a good thing and not letting a cult brainwash your kid is a good thing (all religions are cults, btw)