L. Ron Hubbard

In a new unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, Andrew Morton—the author who made a small fortune with Diana: Her True Story—makes some pretty serious and inflamatory claims.

The book, which is scheduled to be released later this month, alleges that Katie Holmes was impregnated, a la Rosemary's Baby, with the preserved semen of deceased Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. It also says that Mr. Cruise’s ex-wife, Nicole Kidman, “feared blackmail” over auditing tapes she made with Scientologists in which she discusses her sex life. Moreover, Mr. Morton writes that Mr. Cruise is the second most powerful person in the church’s hierarchy; and, according to the book, he now plans to recruit soccer phenom David Beckham to the religion.  read more »

It's worth adding one footnote to today's Post story on the tight relationship between Margarita Lopez and groups affiliated with the Church of Scientology. (Short version: She steers city funds into their, er, unconventional health programs; they give her campaign money.)

Margarita is a proudly out lesbian, but Scientology has a rather, well, complicated relationship with homosexuality, detailed in this Wikipedia entry. The bottom line is that they appear to see it as a curable condition, though the group seems to be getting more pro-gay.  read more »

The church's late founder, L. Ron Hubbard, had this to say:

"The sexual pervert (and by this term Dianetics, to be brief, includes any and all forms of deviation in dynamic two such as homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism, etc., and all down the catalog of Ellis and Krafft-Ebing) is actually quite ill physically."

Was the real story lurking behind the two-foot-long bronze penis?  read more »