Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography pdfdrive com

South Park, revealed that 75 million years ago an alien ruler named Xenu solved
the overpopulation in this part of the galaxy by sending 13.5 trillion beings to
Earth, then called Teegeeack, and vaporizing them with nuclear bombs after first
dumping them in volcanoes. These millions of lost souls, known as thetans, were
implanted with numerous false ideas about God, Christ, and organized religion.
They later attached themselves to human beings and, Hubbard argued, were the
cause not just of an individual’s problems but of all the divisive issues in the
modern world.
As Tom read this material, he learned that the next stage of his progress up
“the bridge to total freedom” was to clear his body of these thetans. While the
Hubbardian myth is now widely derided, the story is a test of belief, a leap of
faith that vaults over rational doubts. For Tom to make further progress, he had
to swallow every last drop of Hubbard’s theological Kool-Aid. “When you join
OT III you are in a members’ only club where you are going all the way with
Timothy McVeigh [the Oklahoma bomber],” observes Jesse Prince.
Like many other Scientologists who reach this level, Tom found the
knowledge he had just received disturbing and alarming, as he struggled to
reconcile the creationist myth with the more practical teachings contained in the
lower levels of Scientology. This is not an unusual response. Those who have
read the Wall of Fire story are very closely monitored for signs that they are
backsliding, becoming disenchanted with their faith. Former Scientologists recall
that, during this difficult time, Tom seemed uncharacteristically dazed and out of
sorts, with dark rings around his eyes. “He went from a firecracker to a wet
noodle,” said one insider. It was recalled that around this time relations became
“ugly” between David Miscavige and the Hollywood actor, Tom complaining
that he had studied all these years and the whole faith was about space aliens. He
was treated with kid gloves, carefully wooed back into the fold. A team of senior
Scientologists worked diligently to “recover” him, calling the actor into the
president’s office at Celebrity Centre in Hollywood for auditing and counseling.
Once Tom had been “handled” to cope with the implications of this bizarre

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myth, the next stage of the lengthy—and expensive—process of enlightenment
was to rid his body of thetans. Three or four times a day he had to go into a
quiet, sealed room and locate and remove the thetans clinging to his body. As the
thetans are invisible and often in a catatonic state, he could only find them
telepathically, using his “E meter” to help detect them. Using his telepathic
powers, he then asked each thetan a series of questions. The first question was
always “What are you?” The thetan might answer, telepathically, in an infinite
number of ways, claiming to be anything from a car to a dust mite or even
Napoleon. Whatever the reply, Tom had to continue asking the same question
until the thetan finally responded, “I am me.” Once the thetan had recognized
itself, Tom would have successfully rid himself of an unresolved spirit, which
would theoretically float away and inhabit another being.
During the twenty-minute session of telepathic conversation he could remove
up to ten body thetans. As odd as the process seemed, it had the effect of sending
practitioners like Tom into a mild but euphoric trancelike state, the actor feeling
good about that day’s “wins.” As former studio executive Peter Alexander, who
attained the level of Operating Thetan VII, recalls, “The theory is that the more
you exorcise your body thetans, the more you become yourself. It is a very self-
absorbed process. It’s all about me, which is why actors love it. It appeals to the
narcissist in you. You begin to feel more certain of yourself, that you, and you
alone, have the answers to the secrets of the universe. During this time I was
walking around spellbound from an endorphin rush. I now realize that I put
myself in a light hypnotic trance.”
Ultimately, though, the process is seen by many former Scientologists as self-
defeating and delusional. Many high-level Scientologists decide to leave the
faith when they realize that it is not working for them—and costing them dear.
Alexander, for example, reckons he spent around $1 million during his twenty-
year membership. With his customary bluntness, Jesse Prince sums up the views
of many former high-level devotees: “After a time you either lose your mind or
lose your faith. You can spend hours talking to your thumb, elbow, or the crack
of your ass, but it is not going to make you a spiritual demigod. Once you realize
that, you are gone.”
Whatever doubts Tom had, they did not seem to last too long; the actor has
been described by his Scientology mentors as a “dedicated and intense” student.
There was, however, a question mark about how sincere he was, a sneaking
suspicion that he was reading a line from a film script rather than being himself.
Longtime Scientologist Bruce Hines, who audited numerous celebrities,
including John Travolta, recalls: “My sense was that he was just acting rather
than being genuine.” He was not the first, nor the last, to come away from an

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encounter with Tom wondering if his whole life was just an elaborate act.
Hines, a thoughtful former physics student from Denver who was drawn to
Scientology because of the scientific claims underpinning Hubbard’s book