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