Tom Cruise - Diane Sawyer

If you watched the Primetime show on ABC last night, you saw that Diane Sawyer interviewed Tom Cruise about a lot of the subjects that have been written up in the tabloids lately.

It's been at least a decade since I last saw Diane Sawyer on TV and I was surprised how old she looked. Tom looked great and I thought the interview went very well; he came across as credible and enthusiastic.

Regarding Scientology, he handled her question about silent birth by giving her the truth about it. Silent Birth makes sense when you come right down to it, so I think that his interview will dispel a lot of the attention that the curious have had on that. One of our religious beliefs in Scientology is that fetuses and neonates can hear anything said around them. Most of what is said they just ignore, and of course they don't understand it at the time, but if there is pain and unconsciousness involved and there are medicos joking around and saying things, then later in life, under the right circumstances those words that were said can start to act like hypnotic commands. Better to prevent it in the first place, hence "silent birth". From my own experiences, I can tell you that such words in those moments of pain and unconsciousness do act exactly like hypnotic commands and can make people act very strangely. I've felt the force of these myself, and using Dianetics have run through these enough times to spot them and to dispel their influence completely.

Tom also said that Katie would have use of any drugs (including an epidural) if she needed them, and could make all the noise she wants.

Tom's intense joy of living came through, as well as his love for Katie and his kids.

Tom warned Diane not to believe anything she read in the tabloids--that it was all made-up lies. And that people had been lying about him since his early childhood, when he moved around a lot and they made fun of him as the new kid.

All in all, it was a good interview. No new ground was broken, but it was good to hear Diane say that she'd read Dianetics twice. At least she had done her homework! Tom advised her to read "Fundamentals of Thought" next if she wanted to know what Scientology says about God.

When she tried to pin him down about Scientology's views about God, he was very politic. There's no dogma within our church telling us what to believe about God. We do pray when we get together during a Sunday service, for example -- we have several prayers asking God to secure human rights for all of us humans. Most Churches of Scientology have a Sunday service every week. But that's not the focus of what we do. Like Tom said, our focus is on helping people live a better life in their own estimation. And we have many tools that help us and help others to do that.

We have a huge Volunteer Minister corps that goes where needed around the globe, from Ground Zero in NY to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans to earthquakes in Pakistan and helping tsunami victims in India, Thailand and Sri Lanka. If you want to find out about Scientology, ask one of those guys in the yellow VM shirts who are filling sandbags, digging survivors out of the ruins, giving first aid, or handing out food and water. They'll be glad to tell you, especially if you pitch in.