Tom Cruise space movie will boost his reputation among Scientologists ‘who believe he will get to meet aliens’
TOM Cruise’s announcement that he’s going to shoot a movie in space will boost his reputation among Scientologists, many of whom believe he may meet extra terrestrials or late founder L Ron Hubbard, critics have claimed.
Former high-ranking members claim that the news the and NASA plans to will prove to followers he has special "powers" and also help "rescue" the
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine confirmed the news on Tuesday in a tweet, saying: "NASA is excited to work with Tom Cruise on a film aboard the space station! We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make NASA ambitious plans a reality.”
Jeffrey Augustine, who runs anti-Scientology websites, says that inside Scientology, 57, is already at the highest level called "Operating Thetan" and many will now think he has "special powers".
He said: "Cruise going into space will enhance his reputation in Scientology as the Church's first astronaut and space explorer.
"The inside talk [within Scientology] will be about Cruise perhaps secretly meeting founder L. Ron Hubbard in space or members of an extra-terrestrial race.
"Cruise will be seen as taking his Operating Thetan powers into space as a Scientology trailblazer to the planets.
"This is the ultimate get for Tom Cruise and Scientology. The prestige of NASA and Elon Musk follows Scientology's pattern of trying to appear legitimate by injecting itself into groups at the UN and legitimate charities."
Scientology critic Tony Ortega, who runs the anti-Scientology website The Underground Bunker, says that this will be a timely boost for the controversial religion, which has faced so much negative publicity from high-profile defectors in recent years.
Ortega said: "Scientology is [running] on fumes, and it’s awfully big of NASA to lend a hand. Although Scientology claims to have millions of adherents and even, in a 2012 ad, said that it was gaining 4.4 million new people a year, the truth is that it has never had anything like those numbers.
"Scientology is struggling, and the pandemic has not helped. But hey, here’s Elon Musk and NASA to the rescue... Scientology never misses an opportunity to pretend not only that it’s 'the fastest growing religion in the world,' but that it’s the 'world’s coolest religion' and that it’s a mainstream affair.
"Any involvement with Tom Cruise and NASA will provide fodder for countless new ads and come-ons from Church leader David Miscavige and his hired hands."
Although Karen De La Carriere, a Scientologist for 35 years and previously married to its current president Heber Jentzsch, still doubts it’s anything more than a publicity stunt on behalf of Cruise, Musk and his company SpaceX.
"Technically, shooting a movie with no gravity in space, how do you get camera crews there? It almost sounds like a Guinness world records stunt, who can do a full length movie like that?" says De La Carriere.
But she says that space would appeal to Cruise, as Scientology’s teachings - written by Hubbard, a Sci-fi author - is based on intergalactic galaxies from a "quadrillion’ years ago.
"Scientology believes our souls have had 'infinite lives', where we’ve changed bodies over and over again, and each time we reincarnate, the only way we can find out about our past lives is by paying for expensive Church courses.
De La Carriere adds: "Scientology has been fixated on galactic emperors in all these civilizations a trillion, billion years ago, outer space is very much in the doctrines of Scientology. It’s hilarious.”
Scientology already has some strange-looking space-related buildings here on earth.
Cruise reportedly has his own
There are remote sites owned by the Church of Spiritual Technology (CST), the most hush-hush of the Church’s subsidiaries and its richest with assets worth tens of billions.
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There are five CST bases across America, including one dubbed the "alien spaceship:” in Trementina in New Mexico, Petrolia in California, and Sweeney Ranch, in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. Trementina and Petrolia have the Scientology trademark interlinking circles with diamonds in the middle of the estate, etched into the land, to guide Hubbard’s spirit back home.
At each site, there’s a secret vault to store millions of titanium discs, all with Hubbard’s documents laser-printed on them.
The Church of Scientology said the claims were untrue but would not comment on specifics.
