Scientology's Hollywood hype comes to St. LouisAfter a seemingly contrived media blitz about Tom Cruise's dyslexia, the other shoe finally dropped.
"Applied Scholastics International" opened its doors last week in St. Louis, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The program is closely related to Scientology and was founded, is largely staffed and coordinated by its practitioners.
A spokesperson for the program says it's "secular," but it is admittedly based upon the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.
Cult apologist J. Gordon Melton, was apparently flown in to assure anyone interested that this effort "has to be separate, or it would just be too controversial," reported The News Tribune.
Melton previously offered apologies for the terroist cult Aum in Japan after the group gassed Tokyo subways. Cult members paid for his travel expenses.
Tom Cruise, actresses Jenna Elfman and Anne Archer and musician Isaac Hayes, all Scientologists, were there for the grand opening reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Cruise, the featured speaker proclaimed, "Study Technology works."
But the former "Top Gun" offered no proof other than an anecdotal story.
For that matter, there is no meaningful independent peer-reviewed and published scientific study proving the effectiveness of any of Hubbard's touted "technology," to cure anything.
Even Cruise's alleged cure from dyslexia has never been independently verified.
No one seems to care about such facts though in an increasingly celebrity-driven pop culture. If a movie star says something is true, it must be. And there are always those photo ops.
The Hollywood TV show Extra ran a clip about the opening of the St. Louis center without even mentioning the Scientology connection.
Scientology certainly is expert at managing and milking its celebrities for its maximum benefit through carefully coordinated media events in an ongoing effort to plug pet projects.
Cruise and other Hollywood types that showed up in St. Louis are just one more example of Scientology's slick publicity machine.
Isaac Hayes even cut the opening ribbon for yet another staged photo op.
[Posted by Rick Ross at 09:07 AM][Link]
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:: July 30, 2003 ::
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This news page is about groups, organizations or movements, which may have been "cults" and/or "cult-like" in some way, shape or form. But not all groups called either "cults" or "cult-like" are harmful. Instead, they may be benign and generally defined as simply people intensely devoted to a person, place or thing. Therefore, the discussion or mention of a group, organization or person on this page, is not necessarily meant pejoratively.
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