make fun of scientologists day!
actually, make fun of scientologists day is pretty much every day around here.
yesterday i noted that beck had married marissa ribisi (actor giovanni ribisi's sister), who happens to be a scientologist. i'm glad that beck is happy in love and all, especially considering that sea change is an album of hugely depressing breakup proportions. but i really cannot abide by his choice in seemingly ass-crazy women. (winona, who i recently saw described as 'containing the semen of a thousand geniuses,' comes to mind.)
i'm not sure if beck was a scientologist before he met ribisi, but apparently the religion has affected his work: "Two members of Beck's band have reportedly walked away from the group, complaining that the singer's ties with Scientology are too much for them to take.
According to the New York Post, drummer Joey Waronker and guitarist Smokey Hormel left the rocker's band despite a scheduled tour of Europe next month.
The musicians said Beck was drawn to the controversial religion by his father, David Campbell, who has been a Scientologist for a decade, and the band's bass player, Justin Meldal-Johnson."
but for marissa, scientology has saved her career! i know this because i found her own personal scientology page (via gawker.com), which is really, quite...inspiring:
"Before Scientology my life seemed direction-less. I knew there were things I wanted to accomplish in life, but I didn't know how to get there or where to start. I was worried. I worried a lot, even at a young age.My brother is an actor and at that time he had already had many successes in acting. I knew that 's also where I wanted to go with my life, but I just couldn't pick myself up and do it. I also wanted to write but I had this idea "I'm just not creative in that area".
So that's when I started in Scientology. I wanted help. I did my first major course (called the "Key to Life" course) and realized that I definitely wanted to act. Then I did the Life Orientation Course that follows the Key to Life Course and I really confronted and organized my life. By the time I finished that course I felt like a new person and three months later I got my first film with a major studio (Dazed and Confused). From there my career as an actress completely took off. I've been working ever since and also continued in Scientology.
About 4 years after that I had received some Scientology counseling on the subject of study, subjects, words, etc. I didn't realize how much having misunderstood words was stopping me or not allowing me to have interest in certain subjects or to even study my own field more. After that I sat down and wrote an entire script with my best friend in one month. A year and a half later we were shooting the script I wrote. Scientology works! Without it, I don't know where I'd be."
what's the most worrisome after reading this, to me, is that marissa ribisi refers to herself as a 'writer.'
so, i understand the basic tenets of scientology, which i've learned from tommy, who is basically an expert on the whole deal, having sat through 'battlefield earth' and all. you, know it's the usual stuff of a widespread religion *coughCULTcough*: started by a pulp science fiction writer, enables you to shoot lasers out of your hands, extorts people for millions of dollars.
but i really haven't been able to find why people would become devoted to scientology. all i see on any web site, include the church's, is vague promises of happiness, less negativity, a more fulfilled life. that sure sounds nice, but how do they do it?
i mean, what does one actually have to do in order to become a scientologist? seriously? besides donate millions of dollars and become brainwashed? what do you have to believe? why are celebrities so easily converted? why is no scientologist seemingly bothered by the story of xenu the retard alien master? who gets all the money that's extorted from the believers?
i'm serious! i want to know. i'm thinking about making a trip to the d.c. church of scientology (the freaking founding church of the whole thing), which is right up the street. yeah. i ate lunch across from it yesterday, and saw some people hanging out on the balcony. they were dressed in bright colors. they looked young and happy. they were laughing. they seemed...content.
hmm.
am i on my first step to being brainwashed?
Comments
Yes, you are.
As always, this rant is prefaced by saying that more and better material is available at Operation Clambake.
They don't worry about the Xenu Alien Overlord crap because most Scientologists don't know about it. That's some of their most closely guarded material -- their highest level courses are taught on a boat in the Caribbean. Disgruntled ex-church members have leaked it, but most church members don't know anything about it. They just know the bland self-actualization bullshit that Scientology peddles at exorbitant rates.
The central activity in Scientology is a process called "Auditing". You pay a lot of money to sit down with an auditor and get yourself hooked up to an "E-Meter". This machine is, of course, nonsense. It's got a needle that goes back and forth and tells you whether you're doing well or badly. I don't know if anyone knows the inner workings -- odds are it's a galvanic skin response meter. This is nonsense, of course. It's just measuring how conductive your skin is, which is primarily a function of how moist it is. The value can change very quickly though, and without visible perspiration, so it's easy to fool people into thinking the reading means something as long as they don't know what's being measured.
Auditing involves L. Ron Hubbard's own version of psychotherapy, while connected to the E-Meter to see how you're doing. Incidentally, Scientologists HATE psychotherapists. There's lots of propaganda from the CoS making them out to be evil creatures bent on corrupting mankind and leading them away from the path to enlightenment. Presumably this is because any competent psychotherapist will tell you that Scientologist methods are pure pseudoscience.
The idea behind Auditing is to rid yourself of "thetans," evil spirits that bedevil mankind and keep you from reaching your fully realized, laser-beam shooting self. Once you do that, you're called "Clear". There's a lot of self-actualization mumbo jumbo involved. And talking about your problems with someone, even someone grossly unqualified, doubtless helps a lot of people. I'd imagine they also throw in a lot of faux-revelatory shallow ontological and semantic philosophizing of the sort you might expect from a bad science fiction author like Hubbard.
So what's the appeal? Well, the early sell is just as a sort of self-help discipline. They claim to be compatible with all religions. They'll come up to you on the street and offer a free personality test, or free IQ test. This is a carefully tailored test that is virtually impossible to pass. In fact, if you do pass (as some Scientology debunkers do for fun, after learning the answers), you'll probably be accused of cheating. The purpose of the test is to reveal the problems you have, whether you have any or not. Invariably, these problems are the sort that can begin to be solved by a (relatively) cheap introductory CoS course.
But Tom Cruise seems happy -- just look at that creepy smile. Why not let them have their fun? Well, first of all, celebrities go a different route than us plebs. They're charged less, do their CoS work at celebrity-only centers, and current and rising stars are actively targeted by the church. They're used for PR purposes, basically. Other CoS members end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, or working as indentured servants for the church, or, occasionally, die. The church doesn't give a shit.
To be fair, that linked death is an extraordinary case. And yeah, people should be free to believe whatever stupid shit they want. But the fact is the CoS tries to censor its critics legally, puts members in a position to place their children in an unhealthy environment, uses deceitful practices to get people to join, and has in all likelihood been a cynical ploy to make money from day one:
"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion." — L. Ron Hubbard
so like...are laser-beam powers the pinnacle of the religion? what comes after that?
whereas Catherine only contains the semen of one genius
after laserbeams you become immortal and can leave your physical body behind, as L. Ron Hubbard chose to do, coincidentally at the same time that he got sick and died.
come on. be a man. DISCLOSE YOUR IDENTITY IN THE COMMENTS.
JON! you think i don't know how to look up ips? you're getting your ass kicked.
sorry, that made me laugh. scientology scares me too...and I don't even know why.
I loved Beck when I thought of him as a musical innovation leader...now I'm tol he's a follower....i want to cry......i'll still listen to his music whether or not i'm being brainwashed by it! does that make me sad....yes it does....but screw you ctitics...he'd be a great musician without l. ron hubbard anyway
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