Cult News

Wang Wenyi, the woman who captured attention last week by shrieking on the White House lawn during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s speech, gained entrance to the highly secured area with an official press pass issued through the Epoch Times, reports The Statesman of India. 

The Epoch Times can be seen as little more than a front for Falun Gong, known as an “evil cult” in China.

In its report The Statesman noted that the publication “tends to be remarkably sympathetic” to the controversial sect and “generally provides a platform to preach Falun Gong’s beliefs.”

Supposed news reporter Wang shouted “President Bush, stop him from persecuting the Falun Gong! Stop him from killing! Stop the torture and killings! Falun Dafa is good.”

Does that sound like a question from a journalist?

In an article within the Epoch Times Wang is more accurately identified as simply a “Falun Gong practitioner.”

John Nania editor in chief of the Epoch Times US editions, its Boston editor Martin Fox and the newspaper’s communications director Cindy Gu are all Falun Gong devotees and followers of its controversial leader Li Hongzhi, who lives in the United States.

Typical of Falun Gong and its substantial public relations machine, the Epoch Times quickly attempted to strategically spin some distance between itself and the woman whose shrieks at the White House were compared to the screams of a “banshee.”  

“Dr. Wang attended this event on Epoch Times press credentials,’’ an official spokesperson for the newspaper admitted in a statement today. “However, her actions¦ were her own. In protesting in this manner, she did not act on behalf of The Epoch Times” quoted the Chicago Tribune.

It seems whenever Hongzhi’s followers engage in fanatical behavior some sort of spin control takes place affording the man called “master” and his disciples plausible denial or at least a little wiggle room.

However, Wang’s hysterical outburst at the White House can be seen as little more than a carefully staged and scripted climax capping a culmination of stories she wrote run within the Epoch Times regarding Chinese labor camps and alleged “organ harvesting in China’s labor camps.”

Chinese officials have repeatedly characterized such sensational claims as “sheer lies.”

Falun Gong’s repeated claims about its followers being cremated after their organs were taken have included photos of a supposed crematorium. But this was later exposed as a window-paned boiler house with a brick chimney in a civilian-use facility in the Chinese city of Shenyang” reported Shanghai Daily. 

Western media often seems to give little scrutiny to the claims of human rights violations made by Falun Gong and its adherents, almost accepting them without question.

But despite such positive press it appears that Li Hongzhi and his followers want totally controlled coverage through their own newspaper and then stage contrived media events through “reporters” like Wang.

Falun Gong often accuses China of spreading propaganda about its practices.

But apparently the Epoch Times and its staff hope to manufacture their own brand of propaganda in an attempt to manipulatie the media, such as this latest stunt on the White House lawn.

In an ironic twist the name of Tom Cruise’s newborn child “Suri” actually means, “get out of here” in Hebrew and that’s what some of the star’s critics seem to think Katie Holmes should do.

CultNews got this feedback from one reader.

“Tom Cruise is nuts. Katie Holmes next big mistake would be to marry this control freak. To listen to this fool talk you would think he was the first person to be in love and have a baby. This girl needs to take her baby and run for the hills. I certainly hope she gets her head on straight before it is to late.”

According to Israeli experts “Suri” means quite literally “get out of here” reports the London’s Daily Telegram.

“I really don’t know what they were thinking when they chose this name. It’s a term that denotes expulsion, like ‘Get out of here’,” says Gideon Goldenberg, a linguistics professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

Why not call the baby “Scram Cruise?” Yaron London of Israel’s Channel 10 television quipped.

So does this mean there is something prophetic about baby Cruise’s name?

The growing consensus appears to be that Katie Holmes may be intellectually incapacitated, possibly through Scientology programming.

Sara Stewart of the New York Post commented today that Tom Cruise has turned “a promising young actress into a glassy-eyed Stepford Wife.”

A Muslim opined in Britain’s Sunday Herald that if Cruise had persuaded Holmes to dump Catholicism for Islam instead of Scientology the press would probably be harder on the star and likely label such a conversion “as nothing short of oppressive and brainwashing.”

Given the history of this situation maybe the name of baby Cruise was a cryptic choice by Katie, or a “Freudian slip.”

Perhaps it’s time for Holmes to grab Baby Suri and “scram.”

It appears that Li Hongzhi the leader of Falun Gong, a group Chinese officials refer to as an “evil cult,” may have become a millionaire since his exile in the United States.

Hongzhi bought a house in New York shortly after arriving in US for $293,500 and then bought another home in New Jersey for $580,000 the next year. Together the two residences cost $873,000.00 reports The Independent of London. 

Given the substantial rise in real estate values across the United States and particularly in the New York/New Jersey area, it is probable that Hongzhi’s homes may have doubled in value.

This means Li Hongzhi has likely become a millionaire. 

Not bad for a former army musician and clerical worker, who seems to have done much better marketing religion than making music.

The British newspaper did not disclose if the homes were paid for in cash or financed through mortgages.

But even if the Falun Gong leader borrowed money, considering the timing and appreciation of his investments he is a wealthy man.

The Independent also reported that the so-called “Living Buddha” claims that he “can move himself anywhere by thought alone.” 

Does this mean Li travels from house to house through telepathy?

Hongzhi also has made grandiose claims such as his supernatural powers “averted a global comet catastrophe and the Third World War.”

What else would a responsible property owner and good neighbor do?

Less fantastic but perhaps a bit unsavory is how Hongzhi reportedly promotes an “‘us and them’ feeling among his devoted followers.” And there is the less than “Buddha”-like and “unattractive beliefs he has about homosexuals and children of inter-racial marriages.”

CultNews has previously reported Hongzhi thinks that that gays are “disgusting” and somehow a “black substance” accumulates within the bodies of gay men. “Disgusting homosexuality shows the dirty abnormal psychology of the gay who has lost his ability of reasoning at the present time,” says Hongzhi. And one day he claims gays will be ’eliminated’’ by ’the gods.’’

Hongzhi also seems to be a racist. He has said that “mixed-race people¦[are] instruments of an alien plot to destroy humanity’s link to heaven.” And that these interracial unions are somehow part of “a plot by¦evil extraterrestrials.”

Falun Gong frequently gets press by staging publicity stunts. This week one of Hongzhi’s faithful shrieked like a “banshee” while Chinese President Hu Jintao of China stood with President Bush at the White House lawn during an official visit.

This month Hongzhi’s followers also claimed that the organs of Falun Gong believers are being harvested by the Chinese government at hospitals for profit. Government and medical officials vehemently denied these allegations as “sheer lies.”

Unlike the historic Buddha, millionaire Li Hongzhi lives in comfort while his humble disciples frequently make personal sacrifices and live meagerly.  

Now that Katie Holmes has given birth to baby “Suri,” what will the future be like for the Cruise child? 

One thing seems sure, there will be only one religion honored in the Cruise household and that is Scientology.

Asked if their baby would be given a traditional Catholic baptism, Cruise who himself was raised Catholic and once considered becoming a priest said, “You can be Catholic and a Scientologist…But we’re just Scientologists,” reported the Washington Post.

Cruise claims the Holmes family “approve of Scientology.”

But it seems the star might be sending a message to Katie’s parents in Toledo, which is essentially that there will be no middle ground regarding religion around his firstborn biological offspring.

Ms. Holmes’ parents are reportedly upset.

A long-time friend of the  family says, “I can’t imagine what her parents are going through right now. She really needs to get that baby baptized in the Catholic church,” reported Starpulse News Blog. 

Apparently, this isn’t the first time Tom Cruise has had differences over Catholicism.

A “persistent rumor” is that Nicole Kidman wanted to bring up her children Catholic, and that this and her continuing criticism of Scientology caused “problems in her marriage,” reports Fashion Monitor of Toronto.

As CultNews reported last year Scientology’s “Top Gun” has already undertaken the religious indoctrination of his two children adopted during his second marriage to Kidman, Isabella and Conner Cruise, despite an alleged understanding the couple may have had through joint custody.

“Bella Cruise,” the eldest of the two children, completed the “Basic Study Manual” of Scientology last year at age 12.

Kidman congratulated Katie Holmes in a statement made through her publicist, wishing the 27-year-old new mother and her baby well, but offered no comment to 43-year-old Tom Cruise.

The Oscar-winning actress is now a practicing Catholic.

One report claims Cruise is taking no chances on Katie Holmes and has already demanded sole custody of their only child in case they break up.

Holmes remains an unwed mother to date; though the couple supposedly plans to marry soon.

Is it possible that her conservative Catholic parents “approve” of this too?

Out of the womb and into the world baby Suri will soon be exposed to Scientology’s “sacred science,” and not the Seven Sacraments. 

Scientologists live by the book, as written by founder L. Ron Hubbard. It is his writings that form the basis of both their mindset and the foundation for almost everything they do, from “silent birth” to the very meaning of life.

In the beginning there was Hubbard, and Hubbard largely began his new religion with the book “Scientology: the Fundamentals of Thought.” According to the author this is the “basic book of theory and practice of Scientology.”

Excerpts of Scientology’s primer can be found at the Web site of Canadian Caroline Letkeman.

Hubbard wrote, “Equipped with this book alone the student of the mind could begin a practice and perform seeming miracles in changing the states of health, ability and intelligence of people.”

He boasts that his book is “a summation, if brief, of the results of 50,000 years of thinking men.”

Hubbard states that “Scientology is actually a new but very basic psychology in the most exact meaning of the word. It can and does change behavior and intelligence, and it can and does assist people to study life.” And it “improves the health, intelligence, ability, behavior, skill and appearance of people…It is a precise and exact science, designed for an age of exact sciences.”

“Basic psychology”?

Didn’t Tom Cruise call psychology and psychiatry “pseudo-science”?

Never mind.

Hubbard’s far reaching and all encompassing claims dominate the life of Tom Cruise and there is no doubt that the “world’s greatest movie star” intends for them to do the same for baby Suri.

It seems that less and less attention is being paid to the so-called “Kabbalah Centre” lately as the media spotlight has shifted to focus on Scientology instead.

A couple of years ago reporters were buzzing about the Hollywood’s latest craze and it wasn’t Tom Cruise.

But Speilberg’s star turned the public’s attention from “War of the Worlds” to his war of words, defending Scientology and attacking Brooke Shields, psychiatry and the use of anti-depressants.

Scientology’s “Top Gun” successfully restored his church to its former prominence as the most talked about so-called “cult” in Hollywood.

Instead of the media attempting to decipher Madonna’s latest mystical allusion, reporters breathlessly awaited the birth of baby Cruise as if it were the “Second Coming” of the “Christ child.”

Madonna doesn’t seem to have the same magic.

That may be why the former pop queen has gone from Kabbalah references to using a “disco-fied crucifix” for an entrance at her upcoming concerts.

It is rumored that the 47-year-old 1980s diva will be lowered from the ceiling hanging on what has been reported variously as a “disco ball,” or “cross-like disco ball” or “disco-fied crucifix” to be used for her dramatic entrance on a coming concert tour reports Inside Entertainment.

Will Madonna somehow be symbolically crucified amidst blinding light?

Has the “Material Girl” left “Jewish mysticism” to return to her Catholic roots?

Well, at least to grab some attention for publicity purposes and sell tickets.

The cost of this glitter was estimated at $10 million.

Meanwhile Scientology’s return to its former top “cult” status may actually be good news for Philip and Karen Berg, Madonna’s spiritual mentors.

Before Scientology’s “Top Gun” started blasting his way through interviews the Bergs were wounded repeatedly through in-depth news reports. Radar Magazine ran a critical series about the organization’s finances and the British press was relentless, such as articles run by The Guardian.  

But now with such intense attention being focused on Scientology, its leading man and Katie Holmes, the press seems somewhat indifferent about the Kabbalah Centre, whether Madonna calls herself “Esther,” or clings to a multi-million dollar “cross-like” prop. 

It appears that Scientology and/or Scientologists may be actively involved in a spamming campaign to boost Tom Cruise’s sagging popularity.

The New York Post reports that “Cruise’s cronies seem to have put a lot of effort into skewing a Parade magazine poll in his favor.”

That Internet vote was taken to measure public opinion, whether Tom Cruise or the press, is responsible for the movie star’s public relations meltdown. 

84% of the respondents supposedly said they blamed the press, but Parade wasn’t buying it.

Instead staffers at the magazine thought there was something “fishy” about the results.

Parade’s publicist Alexis Collado told the Post, “We…found out more than 14,000 (of the 18,000-plus votes) that came in were cast from only 10 computers! One computer was responsible for nearly 8,400 votes alone, all blaming the media for Tom’s troubles. We also discovered that at least two other machines were the sources of inordinate numbers of votes. It seems these folks (whoever they may be) resorted to extraordinary measures to try to portray Tom in a positive light for the Parade.com survey. There is even a chance they wrote a special ‘bot’ program for the sole purpose of skewing the results, rather than casting the votes by hand on a computer.”

“Whoever they may be”? 

Since almost all of Cruise’s inner circle of “cronies” are Scientologists it seems almost certain that the “they” Collado refers to, are probably members of the controversial church, often called a “cult.”

Scientologists already have a reputation for spamming on the Internet. And the church’s netizens often appear to use “bot” programs. So what happened to Parade appears to fit a familiar pattern.

Historically Scientology has been accused repeatedly of supporting “spam teams.”

It seems that when legal threats failed to intimidate its Internet critics at discussion groups the next step was “Scientology spamming,” as reported by the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

Scientologists also have regularly been accused of using “bot” technology to thwart their critics.

So if it sounds like Scientologists, looks like Scientologists and smells (figuratively speaking) like Scientologists, then it just might be Scientologists that helped out their fellow believer Tom Cruise. 

After all, the actor is Scientology’s “Top Gun,” and the organization must be concerned about one of its most important assets. Cruise often acts like a never ending “Eveready Energizer Bunny” promoting the controversial church at almost any opportunity, whether its curing drug addicts or dyslexia Cruise’s answer is almost always Scientology.

But it seems Tom Cruise might a falling star. 

In one poll the 43-year-old actor was “voted the person people would least like to go camping overnight with” below Saddam Hussein, reported China Daily. 

He also beat Paris Hilton and Bobby Brown for the top spot in a Los Angeles Times poll as the “Tackiest Star” of 2005 reported Hollywood.com. And Cruise picked up the title “most irritating actor in movies” in a vote taken by Britain’s Empire Magazine.

Not long ago the actor also won two not so coveted Razzies. A silver gong for “the most tiresome tabloid target” and he got the gold for “unashamed romancing” reported the BBC News. 

With such increasing negatives Scientology may be sweating a bit.

As anyone in advertising knows likeability makes a good spokesperson. That is, people don’t buy products from someone they don’t like.

Just ask any sports star that lost an endorsement deal after some personal or professional scandal.

So if people don’t like Tom Cruise how can he successfully sell Scientology?

Enter the spammers and bots to make him look like a victim by deliberately skewing a poll.

Meanwhile Cruise’s spokesman told the Post that he knows “nothing” about the spammers and therefore has “nothing” to say on the subject.

Well, if Scientology and/or its devoted followers did the spamming and bot work, that would provide a comfortable layer of separation, affording both the star and his spokesman “plausible denial.” 

Cruise himself may not be sweating that much because as the BBC observed, “Mission Impossible I and II took nearly $1billion between them. If the third in the series, due for release this summer, is anything like as successful then, as far as the powers that be in Hollywood are concerned, their brightest star can continue to do and say what he pleases.”

But will moviegoers continue to buy the Cruise brand?

If recent polls, ridiculing awards or the seemingly desperate attempt of spammers is any indication, maybe not. 

CultNews has previously reported about the Apostolic Faith Church, often called a “cult,” in Jefferson, Ohio led by Charles Keyes, a man many see as an “evil” influence over his followers.

“Evil is the only word that comes to my mind,” declared a Virginia judge who subsequently ordered that four children be removed from their mother’s custody due to her involvement with the Keyes church.

Carolyn Clark the mother of 13, once loyal to Keyes, was the first of his flock to publicly repudiate him.

But her husband remained a fervent and devoted follower.

After losing custody of the couple’s eight minor children Ralph Clark beat his wife Carolyn to death.

He is now serving a life sentence in an Ohio prison.

More than 20 minor children have been removed from the church that Keyes rules over like a virtual dictator.

Accusations of “brainwashing,” exploitation and illegal child labor have been leveled against the man whose disciples have called him “Christ Charles.”

However, unlike Jesus who rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, Keyes prefers his pearl white Cadilac, with custom plates that read “Bishop K,” reflecting his self-proclaimed title of “Bishop Keyes.” 

And CultNews has learned that the “Bishop” has apparently just recently purchased a Mercedes, valued at more than $50,000.00. It seems that a Cadilac just wasn’t enough for this allegedly anointed “man of God.”

Keyes’ faithful followers have at times lost homes and cars rather than refuse the financial demands of their leader.

The notorious preacher took over Apostolic Faith Church after his father Oree Keyes, who legitimately held the title of Bishop within a small denomination of Pentecostal churches, became ill. But since that time the denomination that respected the father has thrown out his son.

Keyes’ church includes about 200 members, many of them minor children.

Some of those children have been subjected to brutal beatings by so-called “deliverance teams.”

A 7-year-old boy was held underwater in a bathtub and later left tied up alone in the church overnight supposedly to break him of bad behavior. The child was later removed by protective services.

Katie Lane, a caseworker for the Ashtabula County Children Services Board specifically assigned to handle cases concerning the Keyes church told a Virginia court during a custody hearing, “I don’t believe any children should be there.”

Increasingly unpopular in Ashtabula Keyes has apparently moved out of his long-time home and leased a condo at “Geneva on the Lake.”

Sources have told CultNews that as many as 15 people at times occupy the two-bedroom 1,500 square foot condominium.

Many women come in and out of Keyes rented residence and the cars of his disciples are parked nearby.

Witnesses have told CultNews that Keyes has been known to have multiple women sleep with him, while devoted female followers lay strewn around his bed on the floor through the night.

Is this what Keyes is up to at his new Lake Geneva digs?

Meanwhile his neighbors may wonder how a two-bedroom condo can physically and/or legally accommodate so many people?

Certainly this doesn’t seem to be “Christ-like” conduct for a supposed “man of God,” but rather reflects the continued bad behavior, which has generated more than a little bad press for the profligate preacher.

Note: Since this article appeared self-proclaimed “Bishop” Charles Keyes and his crew has moved out of their condominium rental. On May 11th Keyes followers loaded up a U-Haul and left for parts unknown. A few days earlier the black Mercedes, driven by the “bishop,” was gone. Apparently, Keyes had already departed before his faithful began packing. The Mercedes S-500 luxury sedan now has a personalized Ohio license plate that reads “1BISHOP.”

The so-called “Twelve Tribes” a purported “cult” that began in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but moved away amidst much controversy more than twenty years ago, appears to be planning  a comeback.

This group was known in Chattanooga through its business the “Yellow Deli” during the 1970s. And was led by former carnival barker turned “prophet,” Elbert Eugene Spriggs, who reportedly now lives in Asheville, N.C.

Spriggs followers are spreading the word of their return through “reunion” announcements posted along with their own version of the Twelve Tribes Tennessee history through the Web site Chattanoogan.com.

The first reunion was yesterday on Easter Sunday from 2 to 10 PM.

Was this supposedly symbolic of their group’s Tennessee “resurrection”?

The next reunion is scheduled for June 18, from 2 to 10 PM.

Former members of Twelve Tribes that consider the group a destructive “cult,” have a Web site called “Twelve Tribes-EX.” There is also a discussion group available through Yahoo.

Spriggs “dismissed the concerns of those who view the somewhat controversial church group as controlling and cultish,” reported the Web site Chattanoogan.com.

“We are not a cult, we just had the misfortune of coming together during the time of Jim Jones and the mess in Guyana,” he said.

These gatherings are taking place within the Rose Garden at Warner Park. A public place located at the intersection of 3rd St. and Holtzclaw Ave. not far from the campus of the University of Tennessee and near an old group 1970s address.Twelve Tribes is planning to reopen its “Yellow Deli” in Chattanooga and has launched a Web site.

In 1978 the elders of the group reportedly conceded that their church had an “authoritarian character” reported the Chattanooga Times.

“They call us ‘brain washers.’ I guess we do wash brains,” an elder admitted speaking with Eddie Wiseman to a reporter in 1978. “We must because if we don’t there will be no changing in a person’s life,” he then rationalized.

Wiseman, a native of Chattanooga, has remained a powerful figure in the group along with his wife Jeanne Swantko, its lawyer.

But Wiseman’s own son fled Twelve Tribes and later told the Boston Herald “growing up in there…things…just weren’t right.”

The Herald reported that Wiseman’s son was “abused, forced to work in factories, brainwashed and denied a normal childhood.”

Wiseman, 58, told the Times he plans to relocate to Chattanooga and help operate the new Yellow Deli.

Many other children have also fled the group and described its brutal physical punishment and mistreatment. Some minor children were taken into hiding by Twelve Tribes parents hoping to avoid court rulings regarding child custody, in some cases authorities later made arrests. 

Twelve Tribes kids typically do not attend public schools and begin working at an early age. Authorities in New York fined the group for child labor violations.

Twelve Tribes has also been frequently criticized for its racist teachings.

Spriggs has taught his followers that “Martin Luther King and others have been inspired by the evil one to have forced equality” (“Unraveling the Races of Man” 1988).

Spriggs once observed, “It is horrible that someone would rise up to abolish slavery. What a wonderful opportunity that blacks could be brought over here to be slaves so that they could be found worthy of the nations” (“Cham and Servitude” 1991).

The group has also been called “anti-Jewish.”

Twelve Tribes teaches that “‘Jews are hostile to all men’ except those in Messiah…they are contrary, antagonistic…opposite…opposing…against…opposed…obstinate…The Jews double fallen nature is inclined to be a reproach…to the Gentiles…”(“Jews” August 1996).

A new Web site has been launched called “Twelve Tribes Teachings.com,” which includes the complete archives of the group’s in-house periodical InterTribal 1994-96. This archive offers a detailed record of Spriggs teachings in his own words and/or as related by his followers.  

Spriggs also is known for his somewhat strange, more obscure teachings regarding such things as air conditioning, how to prepare and eat vegetables and about cheese.

“No cheese. Throw that hard cheese out. We don’t eat it. You can’t get a good Jew to eat it. It’s bad for your system. You have to get something else to compensate for it because it constipates you. Old hard cheeses are no good for you,” says Spriggs.

Since the group’s departure from Chattanooga after the sale of its properties in 1979 Twelve Tribes has accumulated millions of dollars in collective assets. The former carnival barker turned “prophet” controls a substantial financial empire, essentially built upon the backs of his followers.

Twelve Tribes members work hard running coffee houses for the group, and have labored putting together products for Trader Joe’s, L.L. Bean, Estee Lauder and at one time Robert Redford’s Sundance Catalog.

Today Twelve Tribes appears to specialize in buying run down properties in upstate New York, and then using its considerable manpower for rehabilitation.

Also, new members often surrender their assets to the group.

CultNews has learned that when members leave they most often take virtually nothing, despite whatever gifts they may have given the group and many years of hard work.

Meanwhile Spriggs lives in relative luxury, spending his time at various homes in the United States, France and Brazil, while many of his followers subsist modestly in group housing.

Whenever Twelve Tribes or its “prophet” has been criticized and/or scrutinized by anyone, this has frequently been characterized as “persecution.”

It their recent public postings group members claim that “prejudice” and “fear” led to them being “driven from Chattanooga” and compared that experience to the “Salem Witch Trials.”

Twelve Tribes members also say that Spriggs and his wife Marsha moved to New England much like the “brave Pilgrims…fleeing…for freedom of religion.”

Spriggs followers then blame everything on public officials and accept no meaningful responsibility for the group’s bad behavior

Now Twelve Tribes members “from Chattanooga are coming back.”

Will Spriggs triumphantly return to Tennessee as its rich prodigal “prophet”?

Will the town that takes such pride in its “bible belt” status be happy that a man often called a “heretic” is coming home?

“Coming back to Chattanooga is an opportunity for people to see who we are and what we turned out to be,” the Twelve Tribes “prophet” told Chattanoogan.com.

Chattanooga, which seemed relieved to see Spriggs and his people leave, is probably not going to be glad to have them back.  

Air America Radio talk show host Janeanne Garofalo of “Majority Report” was seemingly taken in by a Scientology-linked project selling a “detoxification” cure invented by the church’s founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Apparently, Garofalo either didn’t understand or didn’t care about the often-reported links between the privately-funded “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project” touted on her Friday night show and Scientology.

CultNews began reporting about the Scientology-linked project more than two years ago and the story was later picked up by the New York Times and Associated Press.

The so-called “Purification Rundown,” which is a Scientology religious ritual, is at the heart of the program. Hubbard invented the process, which includes large dosing of niacin, sweating in a sauna and ingesting cooking oil. 

The Fireman’s Union ultimately dumped the project and the chief medical officer for FDNY Dr. Kerry Kelly said, “The essence of their program is you stay in it until you suddenly wake up and say, “I feel great.’ It’s hard to have faith in a program like that.”

Kelly concluded that there is no “objective evidence” to support the claims made by the project.

The usually sharp, well informed and at times cynical Garofalo is typically more skeptical. But she did the Friday night show without her Internet savvy researcher/wingman Sam Seder.

CultNews has witnessed firsthand as a guest on “Majority Report” how this team works with Seder hovering over his laptop grabbing information through the Internet while Garofalo gets in the zingers.

Janeanne Garofalo’s guest was Scientologist Leah Remini, star of “King of Queens,” a supporter of the New York detox project. She brought along Jim Woodworth, a “certified chemical dependency counselor” and Joe Higgins a “retired firefighter.”

CultNews reported in 2003 that Woodworth ran HealthMed of California, which like the “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project” has a history of controversy.

Doctors at the California Department of Health Services accused HealthMed of making “false medical claims” and of “taking advantage of the fears of workers and the public about toxic chemicals and their potential health effects, including cancer.”

Is Woodworth trying to do the same thing in New York?

Joseph Higgins, the former firefighter that Remini brought along is a paid member of the controversial clinic’s advisory board associated with Woodworth in New York.

A listener told CultNews that it seems Ms. Garofalo had actually visited the Scientology-linked detox facility. And that there was something more or less said that “if it works, it works.” 

Well, it doesn’t seem to work according to the chief medical doctor at the FDNY. 

The same listener said that only “near the end” and “somewhat reluctantly” was there any mention of possible links to Scientology and/or L. Ron Hubbard its founder.

Garofalo closed her show repeating the Web site address “newyorkdetox.org,” which is incorrect. The correct address is actually “nydetox.org.”

Scientology frequently uses its celebrities to get media time for essentially what can be seen as an infomercial promoting its programs, services, and of course its founder the late L. Ron Hubbard.

CultNews previously reported how TV talk show host Montel Williams was beguiled by Scientology celebs Juliette Lewis, Anne Archer, Catherine Bell and Kelly Preston (Mrs. John Travolta). Williams consumed two of his hour-long program slots promoting celebrity Scientology-linked projects. 

But of all people has the seemingly cynical Janeanne Garofalo now been bitten by the celeb bug and followed in Montel’s footsteps?

Scientology is ranked lower than Islam as one of the most, unpopular religions in America. Even Islam, despite “Muslim terrorists” and rioting radicals making headlines, is seen better.

Specifically, Americans are twice as likely to view Islam favorably than Scientology.

The poll conducted by CBS News was actually focused on measuring the perception of Islam amongst Americans and not Scientology, but other religions were named and came up and also were measured in poll results.

CBS found that amongst Americans 45% said they have an unfavorable view of Islam, a rise from 36% in February reports Daily Times in Pakistan. 

Only 19% of had a favorable view of Islam, compared to 30% in 2002.

But only 8% of the American public view Scientology favvorably according to the CBS poll, which is less than one in ten.

That’s right, despite the star power of Tom Cruise Scientology’s “Top Gun” and all his efforts to promote the controversial religion, its religious ranking now may be lower than ever.

Other faiths ranked are also follows; 58% had a favorable impression of Protestantism, 48% of Catholicism, 47% of the Jewish religion, 31% of Christian fundamentalist religions and 20% of the Mormon religion.

What has happened to Scientology?

CultNews could not find before Cruise polling as opposed to post Cruise results.

However, it looks like “Muslim terrorists” and rioting radicals are doing a better job than the “world’s biggest movie star” promoting the faith they claim.

Likewise, Donnie and Marie have arguably done better for the Mormons as have televangelists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell it appears for Christian fundamentalism, at least when compared to the job Cruise seems to have done for his church.

In all fairness, Scientology is perhaps a difficult religion to promote. The church has often been derided as a “cult” and Time Magazine once called it “a hugely profitable global racket that survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner.”

Perhaps if the product is bad the salesman shouldn’t be blamed?

But it does seem that Cruise has damaged Scientology’s public image, even taking into consideration its history of bad press. 

In an interview with GQ Magazine the actor insisted “that talking about his Scientology beliefs had not damaged his career” reports the Mirror of the United Kingdom.

“It’s the exact opposite. You can try and create a PR machine that’s going to put out misinformation and discredit someone. But that’s not gonna stop me. Ever, ever. It’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Well maybe the box office recepts will be OK for Mission Impossible III, but what about Scientology?

With pitiful numbers like CBS uncovered maybe Scientology should tell Tom Cruise that “the right thing to do” is just shut up.