Published by the Church of Scientology International

Actor-producer Tom Cruise told the audience that Applied Scholastics holds the key to understanding and applying what one reads and studies. His goal as international ambassador for L. Ron Hubbard’s Study Technology: making it available to all who reach for it.

What better time to learn how to be a pilot than in preparation for ‘Top Gun,’” he told more than 2,500 educators and guests gathered at the opening of Applied Scholastics’ new international teacher training facility near Saint Louis. “So one day I went to have a lesson and after one day I gave it up — I couldn’t do it.”

There was just one problem, he admitted: he could not understand what he was reading in his training manual — and to make matters worse, a decade earlier he had been convinced of a label he found impossible to shake at the time. “I had been diagnosed with a false label — dyslexia,” he said. “With that I had been told I had a ‘learning disorder.’”

Thus, his immediate reaction to failure as a pilot student was, “’I’m dyslexic — damn!’ I’ve got to figure this out.”

He tried everything to unsnarl his study troubles — “different tutor groups, different speed reading courses, I hired people to come in and read with me.”

Then, the breakthrough:

“Shortly after that I discovered ‘the study technology,’” he said, referring to discoveries by author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard that teach people, young or old, how to learn anything.

Today, the producer and star of The Last Samurai, says he hasn’t seen his learning difficulties since he began using Mr. Hubbard’s revolutionary study technology.

“Now, I am a licensed pilot — twin engine, instrument rated, which means I can fly through any weather by flight instrument alone; commercial rated, which means I can carry passengers as a profession if I so desire; and just for fun, I’m a highly trained aerobatic pilot.

“I am a film producer, I have my own film company, I own and run three companies and I continue to act in movies in addition to all that. And I learn every single day,” he stressed. “I use this technology each and every day in my life, at my work, with my children, in every area of life. Because of what study technology did for me, I started helping others.”

Mr. Cruise has done so as a founding board member of the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project (HELP), a highly-effective community-based learning program utilizing the study technology to open the doors of learning to thousands. This year, he was recognized by the National Mentoring Partnership with its Excellence in Mentoring Award.