BOASTING pristine beaches, winter temperatures in the 70s and organised dolphin watching, Clearwater, Florida, seems to more closely resemble a snowbird getaway than a mecca for a religion that Time magazine has called a “hugely profitable global racket.”

But for the Church of Scientology’s flock of followers, the beach town emits religious magnetism. It’s been that way since 1975, when the church’s founder, science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, moved his operation there after spending years running the controversial organisation from a ship called Apollo.

The church owns a 10-square-mile chunk of the city, with nearly 70 buildings worth some $US500 million, and approximately eight per cent of Clearwater’s population (just under 110,000 people) is said to be made up of Scientologists. Not immune to the pull is the church’s most high-profile member: Tom Cruise.

According to Page Six, the actor — who has been a member of the religion since the late ’80s — will be moving into a luxurious duplex penthouse in town. The approximately 20,000-square-foot home, worth a reported $US3 million, features a room-size flight simulator, a car elevator, parking for nine cars, a projection room and a private rooftop pool.

Luxuries aside, you have to wonder what Cruise gets in a sleepy town that he can’t get from Scientology centres in world capitals such as Los Angeles, New York and London.

Tony Ortega, the journalist and blogger behind the Underground Bunker, a site highly critical of the church, speculates to The Post that Cruise might believe that “he can receive the most effective and professional counselling in Clearwater — which he thinks will make him a more powerful person and get him closer to being part of a super race.”

Cruise’s penthouse is two blocks from Scientology’s Flag Building, aka the “Super Power Building,” a 350,000-square-foot facility that is the ultimate in devotee education.

“It’s the forefront of Scientology,” said Jenna Miscavige Hill, the niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige. Hill grew up in the religion, but broke free in 2005 and wrote the memoir Beyond Belief. She added, “You get the best training there.”

Clearwater is the only place to go for the highest level Scientology courses. Priced as much as $800 per hour and requiring up to 90 hours per level, these classes get adherents to various stages of Operating Thetan (OT). Essentially, they are a series of discussions — or “audits” — in which practitioners focus on getting rid of body thetans (supposedly spirits from other lives and planets). Once the most advanced of these courses is completed, the promise is that you will be able to leave your body and control matter with your mind. Cruise is said to be an OT-VII, the penultimate level.

“The belief is that you will have superhuman powers,” said Ortega.

But Scientology is said to be struggling — its membership dwindling as millennials turn up their noses at the publicly maligned organisation. A once-highly placed former member who spoke to The Post estimates followers in America at around 20,000 — down from 100,000 in 1990 — despite efforts to lure young people via ads on Craigslist. (A spokesman for the church told The Post, “The Church is experiencing a period of unprecedented worldwide growth with new churches, record increases in our delivery of religious services, as well as accelerating expansion of our worldwide humanitarian programs.”)

Ortega views Cruise’s relocation to Clearwater as the start of Scientology’s reinforced battle to remain relevant.

“When Tom Cruise buys a place in the centre of [Scientology’s] base, it looks like this is where their last stand will take place.”

Word of Cruise’s move comes in the wake of his Tinseltown real estate sales binge: the unloading of his Beverly Hills mansion for $40 million, and a Hollywood Hills compound for $11.4 million.

“Scientology is suffering in LA, and Clearwater is not only where the most money gets made, but it is also the spiritual capital,” Ortega said. “I think it’s important for David Miscavige to show Cruise being there.

(A church spokesman said, “In Los Angeles, our churches are servicing more parishioners weekly than at any time in their history.”)

“All celebrities [in Scientology] eventually go to Clearwater,” Ortega added. “Tom moving to Clearwater is a big deal.”

While SkyView, the building where Cruise will settle down, is owned by real estate developer Moises Agami — a devout Scientologist whose family, according to Ortega, has “donated $10 million in the last few years” to the church — the thinking is that Miscavige had a hand in orchestrating the move.

Mike Rinder, formerly an international spokesman for Scientology and now an outspoken critic of the church, added that “Miscavige has a lot of influence over Tom Cruise. Theoretically, Cruise would move to Clearwater if Miscavige said he should.”

Per Tom De Vocht, who ran the Clearwater operation from 1996 until 2002, “Having Cruise in Clearwater is a big boost. The place needs to look like Mecca, and with him there it appears more alluring.”

(DeVocht, a church spokesman said, “was dismissed” for “financial misdeeds.” Of Rinder, the church said, “He was removed from his position in the church for ... lying.” And Ortega, the spokesman said, is “bigoted” and “obsessively venomous of the church.”)

The thinking goes that Cruise’s presence in Clearwater will translate to more money for the church, which has assets estimated by Ortega to be in excess of $3 billion. De Vocht recalled the Clearwater headquarters “making $2.5 million a week on services. Then you add another $500,000 [a week] for [local] hotels, restaurants and various amenities,” all owned by Scientology.

While Cruise’s mother, Mary Lee Pfeiffer, and 21-year-old son Connor reportedly reside in the area, De Vocht — who worked closely with Miscavige and spent time with Cruise — speculated that the actor moving to Florida is indicative of something bigger.

“The whole point is for Miscavige to be close to Cruise,” De Vocht said. “Miscavige used to talk about [making] Cruise his right-hand man and second-in-charge. He said he wants to do that because Tom Cruise is an actor and can put across whatever image Miscavige wants him to put across.”

These days, spin is crucial. Books by former church members, as well as the acclaimed 2015 HBO documentary Going Clear and news stories on high-profile defectors such as Crash director Paul Haggis, contribute to Scientology’s tarnished image.

Among the most outspoken apostates is King of Queens actress Leah Remini, who stars in the new A & E documentary series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. In her 2015 memoir Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, Remini describes Cruise as the “church’s most coveted, celebrated and protected celebrity member.”

De Vocht thinks that Cruise truly buys into Scientology’s beliefs in the recollection of past lives, living for eternity and the obsessive quest to remove thetans. “Believing is the only hook that keeps you in,” De Vocht said. (Cruise’s rep did not return The Post’s call for comment.)

Cruise won’t be the first celeb Scientologist to set down roots in Clearwater. Kirstie Alley owns a mansion there, purchased from Lisa Marie Presley, who reportedly left the church in 2014. John Travolta is said to jet into town from a landing-stripped home 118 miles away in Ocala to partake in high-level courses with auditors who are available only in Clearwater. Jazz keyboardist Chick Corea lives near church headquarters and is so inspired by Scientology that he has recorded songs based on the fiction of Hubbard.

But not all is happy among the ranks. Remini, who left in 2013 after 30-plus years of membership — which she has said cost her more than $3 million in donations — recently demanded $1.5 million from the church, claiming that it tried to ruin her reputation and get her current Scientology-themed show pulled from the air.

Cruise will live in luxury in Clearwater, but the treatment there is nothing new for him.

“When he came down, you felt like you were in the world’s best place,” said De Vocht. “If he wanted calamari and the kitchen was out, you went to buy some.”

Other celebs are treated well, but all leave Clearwater a bit poorer. Jason Beghe, an actor known for the TV show Chicago P.D. was a member from 1996 until 2007. He told Ortega about an ill-fated trip to Clearwater, during which he had planned on spending $25,000 for the scheduled courses.

“The first day he was told that he had to go through a ‘security check.’ It’s an interrogation to make sure you’re loyal. That takes two weeks,” Ortega said. “All that time, you’re paying for the room, you’re paying for food, you’re paying to be interrogated.”

Because devotees keep completing levels, the goalpost keeps getting moved. There are “unreleased” OT levels promised for the future; additional courses mean practitioners are pressed to pay potentially hundreds of thousands more in search of enlightenment. Ortega said that, over the course of a lifetime, a Scientologist can spend $2 million on courses, travel and church donations.

He said he’s also noticed more desperate measures on the part of the church. “I have seen co-ordination of celebrities in the last couple years — Kirstie Alley, Nancy Cartwright [the voice of Bart Simpson] and Kelly Preston all finishing OT-VII, [then] going out on tour and talking about it. It told me that Miscavige knows Scientology is in big trouble and asked celebrities to rally the troops.”

Rinder thinks the Clearwater push is part of that. Scientology, he said, is “shrivelling and shrinking all over the world. And when your heart starts to fail, blood gets sent to your brain, not to the extremities.”

In response to queries about Leah Remini, the Church of Scientology did not dispute any allegations but instead referred The Post to this site: leahreminiaftermath.com

This article was originally published on the New York Post