Cruise also took on the cause of education, hoping to win government funding for Scientology's Applied Scholastics supplemental education program. Over lunch with Secretary of Education Ron Paige and his chief of staff, John Danielson, Cruise, according to a report in theWashington Post, asked numerous questions about the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the Bush administration's mandate that schools found to "need improvement" must set aside 20 percent of the annual budget to provide students with supplemental education. By the summer of 2003, Applied Scholastics, now headed by Bennetta Slaughter, had been approved in the state of Missouri as one such provider and soon met with similar endorsement in Florida, California, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C.
During this phase of Cruise's activism he began to float a story that became a key part of the rewritten script of his life: that his dyslexia had rendered him a "functional illiterate" until he was "cured" by Hubbard's study technology. By the summer of 2003, Cruise was openly promoting Scientology as a cure for learning disabilities, often plugging a Scientology-backed tutoring program, the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project (H.E.L.P.), that he'd helped found.
By the fall of that year, Cruise garnered even more publicity for his sponsorship of the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, a Scientology-endorsed clinic in lower Manhattan that used Hubbard's controversial Purification Rundown to treat first responders at the World Trade Center on 9/11, who now, two years later, suffered from health problems related to the disaster. In an interview with Larry King on November 28, 2003, Cruise, who donated more than $1 million to the effort, defended the clinic, whose techniques some physicians had criticized. "Doctors do not know how to diagnose chemical exposures, because it can actually have mental ramifications," he said. "You go to a doctor and now he's going to put you on more and more drugs, steroids, things that are ineffective." But Scientologists, he suggested, had far more potent solutions. "I've actually helped people that have been diagnosed with ADD, ADHD," Cruise said, giving a plug for Hubbard's study technology.
"I watched Tom promoting those causes and I just felt a shiver," said Karen Pressley, who'd left Scientology in 1998, disillusioned with David Miscavige's leadership. "He had that same passion I'd once had when I was convinced that I had found the only thing that worked. It's a phase you go through in your development as a zealot."
But Cruise was a special kind of zealot: he was the biggest movie star in the world. His intense personality lent fervor to his new role as a one-man Scientology promotion machine. "At Int," recalled Marc Headley, then the head of production at Golden Era, Scientology's in-house film studio, "they put together a media reel each week of everything being said about Scientology that everyone on the base had to watch, so people who saw it thought Scientology was the biggest thing that was happening right now in the world." Cruise's effectiveness as a spokesman was the most exciting thing to happen to the church since it was granted a tax exemption in 1993. "They thought it was awesome," said Headley.
As Cruise was getting ready to embark on an overseas tour to publicize his film The Last Samurai, Warner Bros. reportedly became concerned about how his advocacy of Scientology would play. According to numerous reports, the actor's longtime publicist, Pat Kingsley, often credited with carefully constructing Cruise's "Teflon" persona, advised her client that, for this trip, he should leave the Scientology talk at home. Instead, it was Kingsley who stayed behind: when Cruise began his European tour, his publicist was noticeably absent.
Two months later, Cruise ended his fourteen-year affiliation with Kingsley and her company, PMK, and hired his older sister and fellow Scientologist, Lee Anne DeVette, as his new publicist; Marty Rathbun later said that David Miscavige encouraged Cruise to make this move. Now, free of Kingsley's moderating influence, Cruise and DeVette embarked on a plan to educate journalists about Scientology. Whereas Kingsley had often scolded certain reporters for asking about Cruise's religious beliefs, and even banned some from doing so, the actor now insisted that journalists tour the Celebrity Centre before he'd sit down for an interview. Scientology was "the shit, man," Cruise told Rolling Stone's Neil Strauss in the summer of 2004. "Some people, well, if they don't like Scientology, well, then, fuck you." "Really," he added. "Fuck you. Period."
David Miscavige, by all accounts, was thrilled by the emergence of Tom Cruise, Proselytizer. It fully realized his strategy. To Scientologists who knew the men, it seemed as if a complete transference had taken place. "Tom talked and acted as if he were a clone of David Miscavige," said Mark Headley. And in fact Miscavige, the chairman of the board, or COB, of the church, often told his staff that Cruise was the "COB of celebrities."
During one meeting on the base, Headley recalled, Miscavige told the assembled Scientologists a revealing story. In late 2003 or early 2004, Cruise invited a group of Scientologist celebrities to a meeting in Hollywood. About twenty or thirty reportedly showed up to hear Cruise offer a powerful rallying call to activism; Cruise read the actors the riot act about what it meant to be a "real" Scientologist. Headley said, "Now this is a guy who didn't say shit about Scientology for ten years—but now he is telling them they were 'out-ethics' for not being vocal enough about Scientology."
Miscavige, said Headley, used this story to illustrate Cruise's dedication. "He'd done it totally unsolicited, and called Dave afterward and told him what he did. Dave loved it. And I'll tell you one thing," he added. "Right after that meeting supposedly happened, Jenna Elfman showed up at the opening of a Scientology mission in San Francisco, and then another one in Buffalo."
Elfman wasn't the only one spurred to advocacy. The second-generation Scientologist Ericka Christensen, a young actress who'd starred in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, told the New YorkDaily News that she counted Scientology as one of her "secret weapons," as the newspaper put it, and considered Cruise a mentor. The actor Jason Lee, who'd costarred with Cruise in Vanilla Sky but had kept mum about his involvement in Scientology, now showed up for the opening of a Scientology mission in Los Feliz. Perhaps the most surprising new spokesperson was the pop singer Beck. His father, the composer David Campbell, is a Scientologist, and Beck, as he once said, "grew up in and around" Scientology; but like Lee, the singer had never spoken openly about the group. Now in an interview he reported that the faith had "strengthen[ed]" his outlook on life and inserted a small anti-prescription-drug message in the video for his single "Girl."
Cruise, meanwhile, had recruited James Packer,* the son of the richest man in Australia, Kerry Packer, to Scientology. Sea Org staffers, who'd long ago been instructed to refer to Cruise as "sir," were now ordered to salute the actor as if he were their superior officer.* When Cruise visited Int, as he did with more frequency after 2003, he was no longer accommodated in his standard condo, but rather in the guesthouse of L. Ron Hubbard's $10 million mansion, Bonnie View. One reason for this treatment was that Cruise, at least according to Miscavige, was now Scientology's main cash cow. In 2004, Cruise gave close to $3 million to Scientology, with much more promised. Miscavige frequently bragged to his staff that Cruise intended to use some of that money to help build hundreds of new churches and boom Scientology beyond anything Miscavige had previously imagined. In the leader's mind, Cruise could be a one-man "war chest," the sole funder of the church's expansion.
Cruise's strategic value to the church was so crucial that nothing was too good for the actor. Miscavige even created a special award for him, the International Association of Scientologist's Freedom Medal of Valor, which he presented to Cruise at the IAS's twentieth anniversary gala in October 2004. When Cruise, in a black velvet jacket, walked onstage to receive his medal, a platinum disc encrusted with diamonds, the audience gave him a standing ovation as the actor and the Scientology leader saluted each other, hugged, and then clasped hands in a victory gesture. Miscavige called Cruise "the most dedicated Scientologist I know."
Other Scientologists cringed at that statement. "All I thought about was the dedicated Sea Org members who'd
sacrificed and given their lives to Scientology," said one member who was in the audience that evening. But to Miscavige, Cruise was better than all of them. The leader had even begun to tell his staff that he wished that Cruise could be his second-in-command, recalled Jeff Hawkins. "He'd say that Tom Cruise was the only person in Scientology, other than himself, that he would trust to run the church."
All the other Scientology executives, even such esteemed officials as Ray Mithoff, Greg Wilhere, and Mike Rinder, were "degraded" in Miscavige's eyes; their repeated failures—Rinder and Marty Rathbun's inability to protect Miscavige from personal involvement in the Lisa McPherson case, for example—made them unworthy.
Zealously embracing the role of Scientology's chief proselytizer, by the spring of 2005 the actor was presenting himself as a "helper" who'd assisted "hundreds of people" to get off drugs. "In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world," he told a reporter from Germany's Der Spiegel, who replied by calling Hubbard's techniques "pseudoscience." Cruise also maintained he could help criminals reform their lawless ways. "You have no idea how many people want to know what Scientology is," he told the German newspaper.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Cruise spent so much time proselytizing about Scientology during his spring 2005 promotional tour for The War of the Worlds that the director, Steven Spielberg, became concerned that Cruise was drawing attention away from the movie. But the actor was by now sealed so tightly within Scientology's protective shell that he barely took notice.
The next step was a new wife. Sandra Mercer, the onetime Scientologist of Clearwater, Florida, watched Cruise declare his love for Katie Holmes on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the spring of 2005 and chuckled when she saw him jumping enthusiastically on Winfrey's couch. ("Enthusiasm is very high on Scientology's tone scale," she said.) It was not unheard of for single members at Cruise's level to be "ordered" to get married in order to continue to progress in the church, she explained. Hubbard stressed that a truly successful Scientologist would be successful on all the dynamics of existence, including the "2nd Dynamic," which is marriage and family. "I can't say that happened with Tom, but I've heard it said to others; I've said it to people myself. And in Tom's case, he would have been told: 'If you find someone who can help us reach more young people, wow, what a win that would be!' That is what's promoted. Everything you do, every action you take should be done from the standpoint of gaining worldwide acceptance of Scientology."
Eventually, however, Cruise's increasingly strident advocacy began to backfire, notably after he lambasted the actress Brooke Shields, a onetime friend, for using the antidepressant Paxil to treat postpartum depression. Then, a few days after his Oprah appearance, Cruise sat for an interview on the Today Show, where he lectured Matt Lauer on the dangers of antidepressants. "Do you know what Adderall is? Do you know what Ritalin is? Do you know now that Ritalin is a street drug? Do you understand that?" Cruise asked Lauer. "You see, here's the problem. You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."
It was, as many television critics noted, spectacular TV. It was also proof to many observers, including many former Scientologists, of just how dangerously out of control Cruise's zealotry had gotten. Though Miscavige by all accounts viewed Cruise's advocacy as a win, former Scientologists and even some current ones were shocked by his tone-deaf approach. The Church of Scientology, which for decades had deftly morphed in response to society's latest interests, now seemed wholly oblivious to the effect Cruise's performance was having not only on the actor, whose career took an irreparable hit, but on his church.
By the end of 2005, Scientology had been lampooned on virtually every late-night talk show and, most memorably, on South Park. By 2006, a spate of magazine articles* had examined Scientology's teachings and scrutinized its more controversial practices. As the church spokesman Mike Rinder went on television to deny Scientology's policy of making its members disconnect from family and friends who had fallen away from the church, Tom Cruise receded into the background, although by all accounts, his friendship with Miscavige, who served as best man at his wedding to Holmes and even accompanied the couple on their honeymoon, remained strong. "Dave probably told Tom to cool it a little bit and not be so aggressive in fighting people like Matt Lauer, but he wouldn't go, 'Oh my God, this really backfired,'" said one former Scientology executive who worked with Miscavige. To the contrary, he said, Miscavige would simply think that those outside of Scientology were wrong "and Tom Cruise had been 'black PR'ed.'"
For a short while, John Travolta stepped back into the promotional spotlight, albeit unsuccessfully. In February 2007, Travolta told the media that Scientology's Narconon program might have helped save the former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith, who died of a drug overdose. "Google Narconon for a minute," MSNBC's Willie Geist suggested to the talk-show host Tucker Carlson, in response to this statement. "If I wasn't so completely terrified of Scientology, I would," Carlson quipped.
By the end of 2007, Scientology's public image was worse than at any other time in Miscavige's tenure. It was a "joke" how bad it was, a onetime senior church official told me when I interviewed him in the spring of 2008. "Between Cruise and Miscavige, they absolutely destroyed Scientology's PR," he said. "I've never seen it like this."
And yet Miscavige seemed almost oblivious to this problem, a quality that set him notably apart from L. Ron Hubbard, who'd reacted to negative press with hurt feelings, blaming the "wog world" for his problems and isolating himself and his followers. According to many observers, Miscavige was unfazed ("Dave doesn't care if people like him," an official noted) and blamed his staff when things went wrong.
It was a tendency Miscavige had shown since taking over the church: an example, said many of his former executives, of the leader's poor management. But Miscavige's imperviousness was also wholly understandable. He had lived immersed in Scientology since the age of eight. He'd become the leader of the church at the tender age of twenty-five. He'd had no experience living in the non-Scientology world, much less in running a Scientology org or mission, or even counseling people in any significant way. Indeed, Miscavige's dealings with the flock had always been limited—according to Marty Rathbun, the leader frequently sent emissaries like Rathbun to interface with prominent members while he remained at a distance. In his twenty-odd years at the helm, Miscavige did one television and one print interview. After 1998, he did no interviews at all.
Scientology too had become more insular. And this, noted Steve Hall, made it even harder to promote Scientology to mainstream Americans. "That has got to be the hardest assignment in the world," he said. "By this point, Scientology is a culture. Inside the church you can go on completely unaware, really ignorant of how to connect to people, because you live and breath Scientology twenty-four hours a day. But outside of the church, people know all about the lawsuits, they've heard it called a 'mafia' or a cult, they've gone on the Internet to read the OT materials ... so how do you sell Scientology to new people? You don't."
Chapter 15
The Bubble
LUCKILY FOR THE CHURCH, a growing majority of today's Scientologists are, like David Miscavige, people who were born or raised in the movement. This makes the marketing of Scientology far easier. Children who grow up in Scientology have a limited worldview: they are integrated into mainstream society, yet in many ways are totally isolated from its standards and norms. The degree of this isolation may differ, but the general rigor of a Scientology upbringing holds true whether members live in a sleepy community like Clearwater or in Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the United States. Many church-raised kids refer to their childhood as a "bubble." Some children thrive in this environment; others, chafing against its dogma, rebel; still others are consumed by it entirely.
Natalie Walet falls into the first category. She is part of Scientology's third generation: both of her parents, a few aunts and uncles, and her paternal grandmother are Scientologists, and Scientology is the
only religion she's ever known. When I met her for the first time, in August 2005, she was seventeen, just out of high school and living with her parents in Dunedin, outside Clearwater. We met at the Starbucks on Cleveland Street, around the corner from the Fort Harrison.
This, she realized, was a daring move. Scientologists are discouraged from speaking to journalists; those who do—indeed most of those I met—do so with the church's permission and are often chaperoned by church officials. Natalie hadn't asked anyone's permission. A pretty girl with shiny dark hair, she was tremendously self-assured, which was something I'd find true for many Scientologist kids. She had agreed to talk to me "without a filter," as she later said, "because quite frankly I wanted to stand up for the rest of us Scientologists that get globbed in with the crazy people."
We watched from the wide front patio of the Starbucks as a blue and white bus, adorned with the word FLAG in elaborate script, discharged what looked like a small army of Sea Org members. Each was dressed in a preppy uniform of khaki, black, or navy blue trousers and a crisp white, blue, or yellow dress shirt.* "Most people think that all Scientologists look like that," Natalie said. She was dressed in a low-cut black T-shirt and jeans. "I meet people all the time who say, 'Oh my God, you're a Scientologist?'" She rolled her eyes in teenage exasperation. "I mean, dude, you see them every day. Your clerk at the 7-11 could be a Scientologist. Your neighbor may be a Scientologist. You just don't know. And that's because we're not that different from you! We're all just people," she said.
Inside Scientology Page 33