'Tom Cruise Told Me to Talk to a Bottle': Life at Scientology's Secret Headquarters

[Liberal_in_LA]

'Tom Cruise Told Me to Talk to a Bottle': Life at Scientology's Secret Headquarters
By Tony Ortega

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"You do a lot of things with a book and a bottle," Headley says. "It's known as the book-and-bottle routine." Cruise, he says, would instruct Headley to speak to a book, telling it to stand up, or to sit down, or otherwise to move somewhere.

"You do the same with the bottle. You talk to it. You do it with an ashtray too," he says. "You tell the ashtray, 'Sit in that chair.' Then you actually go over and put the ashtray on the chair. Then you tell the ashtray, 'Thank you.' Then you do the same thing with the bottle, and the book. And you do this for hours and hours."

Let us get this straight. Tom Cruise, who had already starred in Risky Business and Top Gun and Born on the Fourth of July and Days of Thunder, the man who, at the time, was 28 years old and perhaps the biggest movie star in the world, spent hours and hours of each day, for three straight weeks, instructing Headley to speak to inanimate objects, requesting that they get up and move on their own, and when they didn't, told Headley to move them anyway, and then thank them?

"For hours and hours," Headley says.

In God's name, why?

"It was to get your intention over to the bottle."

Your what?

"It was supposed to rehabilitate your ability to control things. And to be controlled," he says.

And there was more. It involved doorknobs.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/11/tom_cruise_was.php

[snagglepuss]

1. One more reason to loathe scientology. The list keeps growing.

Good read. Thanks for posting.

[Triana]

2. ...

:wtf:

[vadawg]

3. this line makes sense if you think about it.....

"It was supposed to rehabilitate your ability to control things. And to be controlled,"

[dmr]

4. You'd never get me to do such a ridiculous thing

I don't know what would get me out faster - me running or them throwing me out.

I had a childhood friend who got mixed up with the Hari Krishna back in the 70s. She called me one day crying, then the phone went dead. I never saw or heard from her again. My cousin, a Detroit cop, and my ex, a cop himself, went looking for her, but they were gone. Damn, I could cry right now thinking about her.

[lonestarnot]

5. poor thing. They never found her?

[dmr]

6. No, and they truly tried

She told me approx where she was in Detroit. My cousin said he knew the place. By the time they got there a few hours after her call, they were all gone. Damn them!

Laurie and I lived next door growing up. Best friends since age 5. I was pregnant at the time, and wanted her to be the Godmother. My daughter lived only two days. It was a sad summer.

[lonestarnot]

7. Oh dear. I sorry for for your loss of child and friend. I have a lost friend too.

But not to the hairy creepas. People can sure get mixed up into some crazy ass shit.

[Irreverend IX]

8. If they can make you talk to inanimate objects for hours on end...

They can make you do anything. That's the whole point of the exercise, along with the nonstop work and sleep deprivation that Scientology requires - to erode a person's ability to reason. They either snap out of it and ditch the organization or quit thinking for themselves and let the church make all their decisions for them.

[vadawg]

9. bingo, its all about you surrendering your will to the them

as you make the bottle surrender to you...... simple parlour tricks that actually work...

[old mark]

10. Rec. The most frightening religion of them all, IMO. Rec.

[Garbo 2004]

11. Thanks for posting this. And sorry but I accidently unrec'd when I was trying to recommend it.

:blush: Sorry 'bout that.

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. that's ok.

:hi:

[Mari333]

12. man, these people are really nuts

I cannot imagine anyone falling for a scam like that.

[tinrobot]

13. Apparently, less than 25,000 have fallen for it

Reading the article, the Church of Scientology claims 10,000,000 members, but the article claims it's probably more like 10,000-25,000.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Does he stare at goats?

[Joe Bacon]

15. $¢ientology is just as stupid as every other religion.

Never ceases to amaze me to see how many people fall for this bullshit!

[piratefish08]

18. I won't disagree.

Many people who think talking to a bottle is nuts are sitting somewhere at this moment smiling at their act of symbolic cannibalism and making telepathic wishes for help in the battle against evil.

It's all varying degrees of the same old bullshit.

[spanone]

16. one man's religion is another man's folly

[Stevenmarc]

17. Scientology, talk to the hand

[UTUSN]

19. So in the South Park episode, the inanimate objects were CRUISE, TRAVOLTA, & JACKSON?!1

Who were told, repeatedly, "Come OUT of the closet!1"? They needed to be physically relocated, is that it?!1

[tanyev]

20. So that's how he got Katie to marry him!

:think: