All Hail the False Pope! Satan is Risen!

I done been thinkin' about Scientology quite a little bit the last few weeks or so. Before I left LA, I was trying to think of the things I never did there that I really wanted to do, and the top thing on my list was Sunday Brunch at the Scientology Celebrity Centre, but no one was willing to go with me. They were all too afraid. So I ended up having to go with my second choice and, to make a long story short, wound up contracting a social disease from Pam Dawber (I made the list a long, long time ago).

I wasn't afraid to go to the Celebrity Centre, though. What harm could they really do? I never really understood the way people I knew reacted to even a mere mention of the word, "Scientology." There was a genuine, fervent hatred and fear of these people and their beliefs, of which the people I knew knew nothing; no one could tell me why Scientologists were bad.

Eventually I looked into it thanks to the trusty internet, and after I weeded through all the shadier, more speculative stuff, I learned that they were a ridiculous, highly organized cult with pretensions of ominousness, that their belief system was insane, and that, ultimately, they put their faith in the notion that some shitty genre novelist has solved the riddles of the universe. But they're not gonna kidnap you and brainwash you. They'd love to brainwash you, of course, but you do have to let them. Last I checked, it was not considered a good PR risk for a federally recognized religion to hold and indoctrinate unwilling participants. I just don't see them taking that chance.

"So," you ask, exhasperated, "if they don't kidnap their cult members, where do they get them?" Well, that's a mighty good question, little lady, and one I can't rightly answer, never having actually met a Scientologist m'self, but I'd imagine they come from the same place as all the other stupid people. That's what I'd guess, anyway.

"Well," you ask (and I can tell by the glazed-over look in your eyes that you really didn't pay attention to what I just said), "what about all that stuff about people who leave Scientology and then commit suicide? Do you think they really committed suicide, or do you think they were suicided, like Hunter S. Thompson?"

Are you suggesting that Hunter Thompson was murdered by the Church of Scientology?

"No, man--Hunter S. Thompson was killed by the U.S. government... for knowing too much."

Oh, you mean about the robot army and the Cheney-cloning machine?

"Oh, whatever, dude. Just answer the fucking question. You know what I'm talking about."

All right, fine. You're no fun. So, yeah, of course people who leave Scientology are gonna kill themselves. One would think Scientology has got to be the last straw for some people. That can't be the first place a stable person is gonna go looking for a belief system.

None of this means that Scientology is a bad thing. It appears to work for people, and they're not doing anything wrong, not really, anyway. As far as I'm concerned, they're a ludicrous cult with sinister overtones, but so is pretty much every other faith, if you look at them at the right angle. Anybody who joins any of 'em is weak-minded and a coward. You in particular.