Deb helpfully sent me off to this MTV page to translate some of Tom Cruise’s Scientology jargon from this video. As she says, some of the stuff still doesn’t make much sense. But at least I got an answer on the meaning of that bit about ‘getting those spectators out of there.’ Sure enough, “spectators” are non-believers.

I took the trouble to transcribe a bit from the video:

You can just see the look in their eyes. You know the ones that are doing it and you know the spectators who are the ones who are going “Well, it’s easy for you” or “What am I doing?”, and it’s just … that thing is, uh, I’ve cancelled that in my area. (laughs) It’s like, man, you’re either in or you’re out. That’s spectatorism and it’s something that is, … we have no time for it now…..

Get those spectators either in the playing field or out of the arena. You know? (laughs) That’s, y’know really, that’s how I feel about it.

Seriously…. what a weirdo. Every Christian knows the feeling of wanting to evangelize and feeling frustrated with the state of the world. But I don’t know any Christian that would talk this way. “Cancelled that in my area”??? Good grief! Has anyone checked the missing persons reports? Who knows how big Tom Cruise’s “area” is. A guy with an ego that size might have cleared all the non-Scientologists out of a couple city blocks around him.

And then there’s this bit. According to the MTV page, “an SP is someone who commits suppressive acts, like murder, criticizing Scientology or altering LRH’s teachings…”  Murder or criticizing Scientology — I kind of wish they’d have put a little more space between those two actions. But anyway, Tom says:

(laughs) … and uh, they said, “So like have you met an SP?” (laughs a LOT) And I looked at them. And y’know, and I thought, “What a beautiful thing.” Because maybe one day it’ll be like that. You know what I’m saying. Maybe one day it’ll be that “Wow, SP’s”, like they’ll just read about that in the history books.

Or maybe not. Maybe the people who don’t believe in quasi-religions founded by sci-fi writers will be the ones who continue to write the history books. And we won’t bother to write about Scientology, because no one would believe it anyway.

Cancel that from your area, Tom.

Another good take on excerpts from this video is over HERE at Infinite Monkeys.