Tom Cruise as Lestat de Lioncourt in Interview With The Vampire

Tom Cruise was introduced to Scientology in 1986 by his then girlfriend Mimi Rogers. Her father Phil Spickler had been associated with Hubbard’s movement since 1952. Cruise and Rogers married in 1987 and divorced in 1990. According to reports, Scientology leader David Miscavige forced the couple to divorce in 1990 as Rogers’ father had broken away from the Church and was therefore denounced as a “squirrel” — a Scientology epithet for any person that practices Scientology outside of the Church.

Following the Cruise-Rogers divorce, Miscavige kept tight control on Cruise and the actor became a dedicated Scientologist. Cruise later claimed that Scientology cured his childhood dyslexia. He told the Spanish magazine XL Semanal  that he learned to read, and understand what he read, by using Scientology’s literacy technology. The dyslexia community was outraged by Cruise’s claim.

Towards the end of his life, Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986) used his in-house Scientology band “The Apollo Stars” to produce a truly awful music album called the Power of Source. Below we see an angry-looking DJ ElronH at his mixing console laying down some tracks:

Hubbard considered himself an expert in music, sound recording, and everything else. As a result of his tinkering, Hubbard invented a sound recording technique he called Clearsound. After Hubbard’s death, the Church of Scientology filed a patent on Clearsound in 1993 which listed Hubbard’s name as the inventor.

Made in a pre-digital era, Hubbard claimed his Clearsound device wiped “excess electrons” off magnetic recording tape and thus reduced sound distortion. US Patent # 5,710,685 describes Clearsound as an Apparatus for reducing distortion during recording in a tape recorder.

The Church of Scientology says of the Clearsound system:

Ron wanted you to receive his communication in a perfectly CLEAR and UNDERSTANDABLE form.

Being clear and understandable are key concepts in Scientology. When Katie Holmes was about to give birth to the couple’s daughter Suri, father Tom Cruise insisted that they use L. Ron Hubbard’s “silent birth” teaching. Hubbard said all sounds must be minimized at birth as sounds can negatively affect a baby for life by giving it engrams. Accordingly, Tom Cruise had six-foot tall placards placed around his mansion for those involved in the birth. The signs read:

Be silent and make all physical movements slow and understandable.

Are we clear? Do you understand? No sounds. Make all your physical movements slow and understandable to Katie, Tom, and the rest of the birthing team.

Seen from this perspective, Cruise’s epic 2020 face-ripping rant to his film crew was pure Scientology:

Is it understood? If I see it again, you’re fucking gone. And so are you. So YOU’RE gonna cost him HIS job. If I see it on the set, YOU’RE gone, and YOU’RE gone. That’s it. Am I clear? Do you understand what I want? Do you understand the responsibility that you have?

In Scientology terms, Tom Cruise was “impinging” upon his film crew. He was using his “ethics presence” to give them a “face-ripping reality factor.”

A reality factor in Scientology is also called an “R Factor” and is intended to let a person know what the expectations are in the present-time reality and situation. The “face-ripping” part is an expletive and threat-laden R-Factor delivered at high volume and intensity. This technique is intended to terrify people into complying with all orders so that the work gets done and there is no “counter-intention.”

Cruise’s intention was for his crew to follow COVID-19 protocols. They did not, apparently, and this deliberate disobedience is called “counter-intention” in Scientology. Counter-intention to command authority, in this case Tom Cruise, is viewed as a HIGH CRIME and is seriously punished in Scientology.

Cruise had to establish his dominance to ensure that his orders were followed. He chose the path of brutality to lay down the law because that is all he knows from his Scientology paradigm. Hence, the 2020 Tom Cruise Face-Ripping R-Factor:

Had Cruise launched into his abusive, threatening, and profanity-strewn rageaholic outburst in a corporate environment he would have been fired. No corporation will tolerate this type of abusive conduct in the workplace. This is why seven people walked off Cruise’s set in disgust. Film professionals do not have to put up with Tom Cruise’s verbal abuse and utter lack of decency and respect.

None of the late night talk show hosts who have supported Tom Cruise would ever put up with being treated like this. Can you see James Corden allowing himself to be victimized by a torrent of profanity and anger in this way? So why are these celebrities empowering Tom Cruise to treat film crews in this way?

Approving of Cruise’s conduct sends the wrong message to the union professionals upon whom the late night shows depend. It also sends a wrong message to sponsors and the audience. Ellen DeGeneres came close to losing her show due to the way in which she treated her crew. She has lost advertisers and her ratings have plunged. The launch of the next Mission Impossible will be marred by Cruise’s tirade.

Tom Cruise in a fight scene for the 1992 film Far and Away.

In 1992 Tom Cruise was filming the Ron Howard directed Far and Away with his future wife Nicole Kidman. The film is notable for a little-know fact: Tom Cruise demanded that Ron Howard use L. Ron Hubbard’s Clearsound system to record the audio on the film. From a 1992 Rolling Stone interview with Cruise:

He [Cruise] did persuade the Far and Away production team, however, to record his and Kidman’s dialogue with Clearsound, a Scientology-developed audio system. Sound quality is an obsession with Cruise. The only time he ever shows any anger is when he’s asked why, with so many great high-tech Hollywood sound systems, he would need to have his own. “There’s no such thing as a great Hollywood sound system,” he snaps. “I’ve done enough looping in my life to know. The sound people in Hollywood are like a priesthood. They’re from another era.”

His eyes are dark. Gleaming. Laser-head is back. “No one usually gives a shit about sound,” he says sharply. Even before his discovery of Clearsound, he pressed the Dolby system on his sound recordists. “With a lot of them, it just pisses them off,” he says. “And I say: ‘Fuck you, okay? I want the best. I simply found a system that’s better. All I want is clarity on the voice. I don’t think that’s asking for so much, is it?‘ “

It is interesting to note the then 30-year-old Tom Cruise considered himself better at sound than all of the so-called Hollywood experts that had been recording movies for decades:

“There’s no such thing as a great Hollywood sound system,” he snaps. “I’ve done enough looping in my life to know. The sound people in Hollywood are like a priesthood. They’re from another era.”

The Clearsound system was incredibly more expensive than conventional sound equipment as we read in a 1993 Los Angeles Magazine article by Rod Lurie:

Then there’s the case of the new high-tech sound-recording machine–something called Clearsound. Cruise has become enamored of the device, developed by a fellow named Steve Marlowe, and has been pushing–hard–to get it used on all his films.

The problem is, filmmakers who have used Clearsound claim that while they are often impressed with the results, it still has enough kinks to make its use untenable. Plus, where standard recording rigs cost about $5,000, Clearsound runs $120,000.

Cruise did succeed in getting director Ron Howard to use Clearsound on Far and Away, and a spokesman for Howard’s Imagine Films concedes it was used to “appease Tom.” On A Few Good Men, apparently trying to keep Cruise happy, Rob Reiner elected to use both Clearsound and a standard sound machine. And Lindsay Doran, the producer of The Firm, admits, “All I know is we sound-recorded two different ways. I was told one of the ways was a brand-new process and the wave of the future.”

Steve Marlowe was, at this time, a high-ranking Sea Org member in the Religious Technology Center (RTC). It appears Scientology was attempting to use Cruise to push its Clearsound system into Hollywood in the same way it pushes its bogus drug treatment (Narconon) and literacy program into schools, state drug treatment programs, prisons, and anywhere else it can infiltrate these things into in order to make money.

Tony Ortega Exclusive: Leah Remini on Tom Cruise’s Covid rant in its Scientology context

In a 2004 interview with Rolling Stone, Tom Cruise went off on those who do not like Scientology (emphasis ours):

Since Scientology, in the popular imagination, is such a loaded word — often associated with heavy-handed recruitment tactics, strong-arm-lawyer assaults and steep membership and course fees — one would think that Cruise wouldn’t be so willing to take a journalist through that world.

“Who are those people that say those things?” Cruise asks when I bring it up over lunch one day. “Because I promise you, it isn’t everybody. But I look at those people and I say, ‘Bring it. I’m a Scientologist, man. What do you want to know?” I don’t mind answering questions.”

He lists some of Scientology’s selling points: its drug-abuse, prison-rehabilitation and education programs. “Some people, well, if they don’t like Scientology, well, then, fuck you.” He rises from the table. “Really.” He points an angry finger at the imaginary enemy. “Fuck you.” His face reddens. “Period.”

This abusive side of TC is not often seen. He learned from his buddy David Miscavige. Sounds just like him — same language, same inflection, same “I have the world on my shoulders and you are f**cking me over” routine… He probably leaked this thinking it makes him sound tough. https://t.co/ONt0ehASav

— Mike Rinder (@MikeRinder) December 16, 2020

In Tom Cruise’s disastrous 2005 interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show, the actor vented his rage at Psychiatry:

Cruise: …No, you see.  Here’s the problem.  You don’t know the history of psychiatry.  I do.

Lauer: Aren’t there examples, and might not Brooke Shields be an example, of someone who benefited from one of those drugs?

Cruise: All it does is mask the problem, Matt.  And if you understand the history of it, it masks the problem.  That’s what it does.  That’s all it does.  You’re not getting to the reason why.  There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance.

Lauer: So, postpartum depression to you is kind of a little psychological gobbledygook –

Cruise: No.  I did not say that.

Lauer: I’m just asking what you, what would you call it?…

Cruise: Matt.  Matt, Matt, you don’t even — you’re glib.  You don’t even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, okay?  That’s what I’ve done.  Then you go and you say where’s the medical test?  Where’s the blood test that says how much Ritalin you’re supposed to get?

Lauer: It’s very impressive to listen to you.  Because clearly, you’ve done the homework.  And you know the subject.

Cruise: And you should. And you should do that also. Because just knowing people who are on Ritalin isn’t enough. You should be a little bit more responsible in knowing really —

Lauer: I’m not prescribing Ritalin, Tom.  And I’m not asking anyone else to do it.  I’m simply saying, I know some people who seem to have been helped by it.

Tom Cruise’s 2020 rant at his film crew for not following virus protocols on a film set followed the actor’s long-established pattern of being the expert on everything and of “putting in ethics” on people as Scientology would say.

Cruise’s notion that his production work on Mission Impossible is responsible for saving the film industry follows the Messianic and the “we are the experts on everything” delusional self-image constructs of Scientology.

Tom Cruise said that Scientologists were the only ones who could help at the scene of an accident. Scientologist Cruise now seems to think that he alone can save the movie industry. “This is what I have to sleep with at night,” he yelled at his crew.

L. Ron Hubbard once claimed that the professionals at the Kodak regularly consulted him about film emulsions, color, and other technical matters. Hubbard claimed this even as he took exceptionally awful photos for use in his Scientology training manuals. The two examples below are Hubbard’s. They tell the story of what a Scientology Volunteer Minister should do in life. Hubbard charged Scientology exorbitant fees for the use of his poor-quality photos and training films. When he died, his estate kept collecting royalties for this:

Using his expert skills, the Scientologist Volunteer Minister spotted the hidden Suppressive Person at the restaurant. It was the cook poisoning the food. The cook was fired.

Seen through a Scientology lens, Cruise’s film crew are Suppressive Persons; they were acting to sabotage and destroy the latest installment of Mission Impossible. Tom Cruise confronted and shattered their suppressive ways.

Yelling and screaming profanities and threats are intrinsic to Scientology culture at all levels and particularly in the Sea Org and celebrity strata.

Below is a recording of L. Ron Hubbard losing it with Scientologists. Mr. Hubbard is furious and yet he shows far more restraint than Tom Cruise.

On his Power of Source album, L. Ron Hubbard sang on the song entitled L’Envoi: Thank You For Listening:

Clearsound was used to deliver Hubbard’s bullfrog bass in high-fidelity.

Below: The 1993 Los Angeles Magazine article on Tom Cruise, Clearsound, and other details by Rod Lurie. This is a great period piece. We posted the best archival copy we could find online. Please contact us if you have a better copy.