Hollywood A-lister Tom Cruise is overseeing a bid to turn his beloved religion of Scientology into a European superpower, apparently.
The actor wants to make the controversial religion’s headquarters in East Grinstead, Sussex, a major landmark, and has been dipping into his own massive personal fortune to make it happen, sources claim.
If reports in the Daily Mail are to be believed (and why not?), Tom has already started £16m-worth of renovations to the property.
A source told the Mail that the plan now is to make the UK scientology church as influential as the British royal family. Definitely doable, obviously.
They said:
It’s worked a charm because Tom’s more dedicated to Scientology than ever before. He’s investing a lot of his own money back into the UK Church and secretly the talk is how they want to be as influential as the Royal family. It might sound like a deluded dream but with bottomless cash and ongoing renovations they believe that, in time, Saint Hill Manor will overshadow Buckingham Palace.
Riiight. Just in case you’ve never seen the Trapped in the Closet episode of South Park, this is what Scientologists actually believe, the religion was started by science fiction writer (and former inhabitant of Saint Hill Manor), L Ron Hubbard.
He created a story about bizarre events 75 million years ago when Earth (then called Teegeeack) was part of a confederation of 90 planets under the leadership of the ruler Xenu.
To cure intergalactic overpopulation, he paralysed the people of other planets and flew them to Earth in space planes.
What did they do with these I hear you ask? They dropped them down near some volcanoes and dropped H-bombs on them of course.
The souls or ‘thetans’ of these murderer people were then taken to cinemas and shown films for weeks on end. With the result being the souls clustering together and inhabiting our early ancestors.
Get it? No? Well neither do we. The planning documents prove that parts of the Mail’s story are accurate, as the piece refers to work that was approved at Saint Hill.
But the church has come out since to completely deny the claims, thought it wouldn’t particularly surprise us if this was all smoke and mirrors.
Speaking to the East Grinstead Courier, a spokesperson for the church said:
There is no truth to the story whatsoever. Saint Hill Manor is preserved as the historic home of L Ron Hubbard, Founder of the Scientology religion, and it is open to the public.
Time will only tell if he fully commits to the religion in this big fucking way.
