Cult News

Tom Cruise is running in a relay today through LA as an “Olympic torchbearer,” honored for his so-called “humanitarian” work according to a Yahoo Press Release.

Samsung Electronics sponsored the actor citing his supposed “humanitarian” efforts through such organizations as “Applied Scholastics International,” “Hollywood Education and Literacy Project (HELP)” and “The New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project.”

All these organizations have links to Scientology.

So isn’t Cruise really just shilling for Scientology rather than acting as a “humanitarian”? And running the relay as part of his ongoing personal marathon promoting the controversial church?

One example is the actor’s support of so-called “detoxification.”

Recently the star said, “It’s been almost three years since the attacks [on the World Trade Center] and thousands are still suffering”

The former “Top Gun” turned “Last Samurai” has opened “detoxification facilities” under the banner of the “NY Rescue Workers Detoxification Project,” which is based upon the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard founder of the Church of Scientology.

Cruise’s sister/spokesperson and fellow Scientologist says her brother “will open several more of the facilities through the rest of the year” reported Agence France-Presse.

However, the claims that form the basis for treatment at the clinics Cruise promotes were recently described as “irresponsible” and “pseudo-science,” then subsequently shunned by public schools in California reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

“We’re not going to have cults and religions preaching their line in our schools,” said a California Board of Education President.

The “preaching” he’s talking about is through school programs sponsored by Narconon, another project linked to Scientology.

The key concept behind Narconon treatment, just like Cruise’s clinics, is that the body somehow stores toxins indefinitely in fat. Scientologists preach that these poisons can be purged through a combination of sweating in a sauna along with doses of niacin and cooking oil.

Medical experts publicly repudiated this theory and were quoted at length within the San Francisco Chronicle.

This specific course of treatment is commonly called the “purification rundown,” which is a Scientology religious rite repackaged for sale through various programs linked to the controversial church, such as the Cruise sponsored project in New York.

Cruise tells rescue workers they can rid themselves of toxins picked up by working at Ground Zero trough the “rundown.”

But this approach is “not grounded in science,” a drug counselor told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Narconon program in California, just like the clinics Cruise touts, claim that residual toxins exit the body in colored ooze.

A California medical doctor dismissed this claim and stated, “I’m not aware of any data that show that going into a sauna detoxifies you from toxins of any kind. ”

But for Mr. Cruise this is not a matter of scientific data, instead the actor relies upon his religious faith.

The Hollywood star like his fellow Scientologist and Narconon spokesperson Kirstie Alley firmly believes in the preaching of L. Ron Hubbard.

Hubbard a Sci-fi writer turned prophet called his “purification rundown” a “tissue-cleansing regimen.”

However, a San Francisco School Superintendent summed it up quite differently. She said, “teaching the kids…a philosophical or religious belief, as opposed to science” is a “no [no].”

So shouldn’t New Yorkers “just say no” to Tom Cruise too?

The chief medical officer for the New York City Fire Department seems to think so. He concluded that there is no “objective evidence” to support Cruise’s clinic crusade.

And since when is promoting “irresponsible” “pseudo-science” without “objective evidence” considered a “humanitarian” endeavor?

Tom Cruise will no doubt doggedly continue in his faithful marathon run for Scientology, but should he be acclaimed for it?