Kirstie Alley reached 'Thetan 8' Scientology status: Church will hold memorial ... trends now
Kirstie Alley had reached 'Thetan 8' status in the Church of Scientology - the highest honor possible - after devoting herself to the religion that she credited with helping her kick a cocaine habit in the 1970s, before she found international fame.
Alley, 71, died yesterday after a brief battle with colon cancer - ironically a disease that the church does not entirely believe in. Her children say she only 'recently discovered' she was ill, but she had been receiving treatment at The Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, near her home in Clearwater next to the Scientology HQ.
According to the laws of Scientology, which is rooted in the ideology that humans are reborn multiple times, she will now be introduced to a 'new life' where she will work through the challenges of the life she has just left behind.
A funeral has not yet been confirmed but the church is said to be planning a memorial service at Flag Land, its HQ in Florida. Alley reached the highest status possible in 2018, and was taken onboard the Scientology ship Freewinds to cement the shift in status.
Leah Remini, a famous church defector who sparred with Alley publicly, previously estimated that it could cost up to $500,000 to reach that level of seniority in the church.
Kirstie Alley, shown in Clearwater, Florida, last year, died on Monday aged 71. She was a devout Scientologist for over 40 years
Alley gushed about the church in its own magazines, on social media and in interviews. She went against other celebrities who had defected, and said their negative comments were all 'bulls**t'
In an interview about it, she said: 'Now here I stand a New OT VIII shiny, fresh and calm… well, as calm as a thetan like me can be.
'I am more confident than ever before. And here’s the big news. I now fully have the confront that puts me right up that damn confront scale with other Scientology Freedom Fighters!'
The ship is described as 'the only place' Scientologists can reach the 'top of the Bridge' and obtain OT 8 status (Operating Thetan 8 status).
Her death is the second from cancer among the upper echelons of the Church of Scientology in recent years - in 2020, Kelly Preston, John Travolta's wife and one of Alley's closest friends, died aged 57 after battling breast cancer.
Scientology resists the scientifically-proven facts about cancer and instead suggests that it is the result of a 'sexual upset' in the body.
'Cancer is not caused - never has been and never will be. It is not a caused mechanism by the external environment or some physiological activity.
'It always requires a second-dynamic or sexual upset, such as the loss of children or some other mechanism to bring about a condition known as cancer,' wrote Ron L. Hubbard, the church's founder, in a 1980 article in one of the church's journals.
By the end of her battle, Alley was seeking treatment.
