What I would have asked about

I recently saw the controversial intreview that Tom Cruise had with Matt Lauer on the Today Show. Cruise was asked about his new movie, his new flame, and about Scientology. For those who may not know, Cruise is a devout member of the Church of Scientology--a religion based on the Dianetics program of the late L. Ron Hubbard.

When the interview got into Scientology, the conversation kept coming back to Cruises' religious opposition to psychiatry and the use of drugs to treat depression and other mental illness.

In all seriousness, I wanted Lauer to ask Cruise about how his religious beliefs were related to his new movie. Doctrines of the church include that life existed on Venus and Mars--evil life--that imprisoned human beings on earth. An evil extra-terrestrial emperor named Xenu enslaved human beings with his psychic powers. Sounds a bit like war of the worlds to me.

For an example, consider the following. In a famous passage from his book Have You Lived Before This Life?, L. Ron Hubbard recounts how a Scientologist had been zapped by a Martian with his ray gun in a past life. "The PC ["preclear," a beginning Scientologist] was on Mars without a body 469,476,600 years ago, creating havoc, destroying a bridge and buildings. The people were called by an alarm to temple. PC went and broke the back pew, and the Temple tower. He wandered in the town and saw a doll in a window, and got entrapped trying to move its limbs. People seized it, beat it up, and threw the doll out of the window (30 ft. drop). The doll was taken roughly to the Temple, and was zapped by a bishop's gun while the congregation chanted "God is Love." When the people left, the doll, out of control, staggered out and was run over by a large car and a steamroller. It was then taken back to the Bishop, who ordered it to be taken (in a lorry with others) to dig trenches or ditches for 2,000 years. (The whole incident took nearly 2,000,000 years.) Then it was taken and the body was removed and the PC was promised a robot body. The thetan (PC) went to an implant station and was put into an ice-cube and went by flying saucer and was dropped at Planet ZX 432. It was drawn to a building to an emanator. PC was interiorised by spinning and confusion into a dummy training and indoctrination robot body. In some way not very clear, a transfer was made to another robot body and PC was told to look after it for ever. It reported to a village (after a doubtful encounter with a giant, and heat stroke) and was set to supervise unloading of saucers. It zapped and killed another robot and PC took over its body to prove it could work. The PC was punished in first robot in a saucer and shipped off. The saucer exploded en route and body of robot was in space falling in two parts with PC vainly endeavouring to take care of it and the second body. This was sucked by departure of a saucer into water in a dock. Divers brought it up, but the PC left it, he thinks, to attend the other body."