John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley and Kirstie Alley are just a few of the many Hollywood stars that practice Scientology.

All members of the religion that "addresses the spirit - not simply the body or mind" have said only positive things about the church, but only one has said that the Church of Scientology helped him to overcome his learning disability.

Tom Cruise, star of movies "Risky Business" and "Mission Impossible," told People Magazine that at age 7 he was labeled dyslexic.

"I'd try to concentrate on what I was reading, then I'd get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything I'd read," he said. "I would go blank, feel anxious, nervous, bored, frustrated, dumb."

"Top Gun" came out in 1986, the same year Cruise became a Scientologist. Cruise discovered the "Study Technology" developed by the religion's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, in the 1960s, according to the Associated Press.

"I realized I could absolutely learn anything that I wanted to learn," Cruise told the magazine.

"Scientology is a religion that offers a precise path leading to a complete and certain understanding of one's true spiritual nature and of one's relationship with self, family, groups, mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being, or infinity" according to the Church of Scientology's official Web site.

Cruise, a 41-year-old actor, is a founding board member of the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project, a nonprofit group that uses Hubbard's teaching techniques in a secular setting.

"I don't want people to go through what I went through," Cruise said. "I want kids to have the ability to read, to write, to understand what people are saying to them, to be able to solve life's problems," reported the Associated Press.



Copyright Brigham Young University 11 Jul 2003