Scientology

Scientology is a religion whose name gets quietly taunted whenever it shows itself, unless lawyers are present that is. Truly a religion for the modern age, instead of relying on years of violent repression to instill respect it uses underhanded law suits and bullying to keep people quiet. But if Scientology is such a forward thinking belief system, what do they have to hide? While anyone could dig up the dirt based on their many attempts to quiet their critics, I will instead, let the very beliefs of Scientology, taken from their most important (and well guarded) of documents to shed some light on this group.

Let's start by what you would hear if you go up to your average Scientologist and asked them what they can offer you. According to them, each individual has what equates to a soul, but they call it a Thetan. Apparently, in a separate universe there is an essence of spirit and thought that is called Theta, which we channel, imprecisely in our own universe. We channel it as individual 'thought units' that are claimed to be immortal. To explain how, Scientology just borrowed a few views on reincarnation. The Thetan cannot just disappear, so it somehow or another becomes another being. But when it becomes this nice new shiny being (it’s the newest model, all the craze), the Thetan brings with it all its traumas and issues from its past existences. So Scientologists get to have all the feel goods of immortal reincarnation from Eastern religions and fuses it with good old Catholic self hatred. Everything you did wrong then is still with you, and with no confession, there is no way to reduce the load. Instead they get audited, like from a tax collector. And just like a tax collector, they ask for money. Now let’s take a break for a moment, shall we?

Here we have a religion that instead of asking for money like your average boring televangelist, first tries to explain to you that you will be stuck with all your past-life traumas (sins) until you pay them. Yes, you have to quite literally ‘pay for your sins’. Which it turns out is a lot, as there were no auditors in your previous life so you are stuck with a few generations worth of traumas. This is insulting for a reason most people haven't quite realized. If something horrible happened in your 'past life' (I know it doesn't exist but follow my lead for a bit), you will have to pay for it now. So one can only imagine with this worldview the kind of trauma Holocaust victims suffered, or any of the other atrocities committed by humanity. All the suffering under Stalin, Pol Pot and whatever evil cult or bastard(s) you choose to name, all of that shit is on you now and you get to pay for it. The lives destroyed, the minds shattered, this was not enough according to Scientolgists. No, all that suffering is now why you are having a bad day. Try imagining that you were tortured under the horrid experiments of Josef Mengele and now you, as a separate being, have to pay money because of that. It is an insult to the memory of these people.

Now let’s try and get that bad taste out of our mouths, shall we? Now as I was saying, according to scientologists, we are Thetans, which are bits of the grand spirit/thought 'thing' that is Theta in another universe. Right, so our universe is known as MEST, Matter, Energy, Space and Time. Apparently, Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, never heard of a little equation known as E=MC2 otherwise he would not have counted matter and energy as separate. So right from the start we see Hubbard's other life as a bad science-fiction writer coming through (and he was bad, the kind of bad sci-fi geeks would only inflict upon each other as a punishment). Now it is believed by Scientologists that if we can get rid of all our past traumas, we can free our inner Thetan. What does this get you? Well a free Thetan doesn't even need a physical body any longer, so you can go ahead and shed that old husk. You can also command everything in 'this' universe, all matter and energy will be at your disposal! It turns out that freeing your inner Thetan turns you into a wizard.

About now you may be asking yourself ‘how do they know this?’ Has anyone been able to attain such a pure essence, or as Scientologists call it, their 'native state'? Nope. Not a single person, including L. Ron Hubbard, has accomplished this, ever. But it's there up for grabs if you only buy enough audits! Did I mention that these audits, in the upper levels cost in the hundreds of thousands of US dollars? But since everyone wants to be a wizard at some point, people hand over the cash in exchange for a read over with an E-meter, which is the special device that is what they use for their audits. In my mind I imagine it looks like the ghost detector used in the movie "Ghostbusters".

But if you have made it into the church (which I should mention is officially labeled as a church, so they can receive tax exempt status) and moved up to the proper level, you get to learn some of their greatest secrets. From here the craziness only goes uphill so hold on. If you buy your way up to rank...I mean level OT III, you get access to what is considered by Scientologists to be their most significant document. It is nothing short of the true history of the human race! Yes, those pesky creationists got it wrong and so did those evil evolutionists, the real truth has been entrusted to a talentless hack of a writer. What could this truth, so secret that it must be hidden from lesser Scientologists until they have 'prepared' themselves for the shocking reality? Well it goes a little something like this...

About 75 million years ago there was a ruler of the "Galactic Confederation", which, despite using the word galactic, only had 75 planets to its name. Kind of like how American Baseball has the World Series when they only include themselves and one team from Canada…Anyway, this ruler was known as Xenu (not to be confused with Xena, warrior princess and one time planet demoted to plutoid [and stripped of its name and give a 'proper' one]) and he had a problem, his confederation was a bit overpopulated. Apparently, members of the "Galactic Confederation" were not Scientologists, but Catholic, because they hadn't become acquainted with proper birth control yet. But Xenu, being the resourceful fellow he was, what with being ruler and all, came up with a brilliant plan. When his subjects filled out their taxes (yes, they had to pay taxes as well, what else was he to do, rulers have to do something and taxes are as good as any to pass the time), they had to also get their tax forms inspected at audit centers (didn't we see that word a bit back?). When they entered, they were taken to a back room, anesthetized with an injection of Alcohol and Glycol (wait, what?) and frozen (that is not how suspended animation would work...I told you he was a bad writer, didn't I?).

Now Xenu just needed to figure out what to do with all these bodies (13.5 trillion of them to be precise). That is a lot of meat, what is a writer to do with all that meat. Well the idea of Soylant Green had already been taken by someone else (and I doubt Hubbard would have been clever enough to think of this anyway), so instead it was decided that they would all be taken to Earth, which they called "Teegeeack" back then (which may or may not be a name invented by a fourth grader). What were they transported in? Well the "Galactic Confederation" had all these space ships that looked just like our old DC-8 aircraft, except they had rockets instead of jet engines...which would still make for a horribly slow interstellar trip.

When they finally reached Earth...I mean Teegeeack, they dropped all 13.5 trillion people on the Canary and Hawaiian Islands...because those two are so close together and would fit that many people with no trouble at all. Now that the bodies were dropped off on some backwater planet, Xenu had to get rid of the evidence, so what does someone with the almighty technology of the DC-9 airliner...eh…space plane use? He of course grabs a few hydrogen bombs from his armory and tosses them into the volcanoes at these sites, somehow causing eruptions and killing everyone.

If you will indulge me in another quick detour, I have to ask, the height of this space faring race's munitions is a fusion bomb? This guy was completely unimaginative; he could have used molecular deconstructions or something that accelerates proton decay. But no, he just throws them a few thermonuclear bombs. Now we obviously would have signs of such an occurrence somewhere in the geographic strata, that is, if it were to of occurred. But really, why did Hubbard use items he read about around him, DC-9 space ships and H bombs, instead of something, I don't know, SCIENCE FICTION, he was supposed to be a sci-fi writer, correct?

Right, thank you for that, now back to the story. So Xenu erected some sort of electric field or whatnot to keep the immortal Thetan soul thingies on Teegeeack...Earth... or whatever (electricity stops souls...I never would have guessed). Xenu also had his minions (every evil ruler needs minions) build 3-D theatres for the freshly dead Thetan ghosts to watch (whether they got the red and blue glasses upon entry, we may never know). In these theatres they were forced to watch a false reality which brain (soul?) washed them into believing the reality we know today. That way they would no longer be a concern for Xenu any longer...even though he had already trapped them inside the planet, he apparently needed to confuse them as well.

Now at some point humanity comes along (not much detail spent on this, is it? Do they think we evolved from previously existing life or did we get dropped here by another irritated ruler?) and the brainwashed Thetans attach themselves to us which causes us to develop our psychological and physical ailments. Wait, weren't the lesser Sceintologists told that all our ills came from our past life memories? So that is all a sham now, is it? Does this mean that they deny our history, that it's just something watched by long dead ghosts stuck to us like they were made of velcro? So which is it then? I suppose if you were a member you would have to forget the old idea as a false memory and accept this new poorly written idea as ‘reality’. And by the way, when you get to this point, you are no longer of the same species. Nope, you leveled up from Homo sapiens to Homo novis, so get used to being a separate species and we will all hope that any breeding done with your previous species mates will not result in offspring as if you believe this shill, we don't want you reproducing.

So, yes, now they have to accept this new 'reality', got it. They now have to audit away the sticky Thetan souls that have attached to them like ethereal leeches. Which is what they were doing all along, except before they were pretending it was past life issues...

So whatever happened to old Xenu? Well part of the "Galactic Confederation" caught on to what was going on and rebelled, calling themselves the Marcab Confederation. This new rebellion then went on to fight what was left of the evil empire (wait, I could have sworn I heard this somewhere too...he's stealing Star Wars now? Has the man no shame?) Anyway, Xenu gets captured and locked inside a mountain...yes a mountain that is kept secure by an infinite battery (apparently Hubbard isn't familiar with the 2nd law of thermodynamics either). And now the relatives of Xenu are those who are criticizing the church the harshest. Yes, somehow the kin of Xenu, all those millions of years ago, passed the true secret down the blood lines until some of them were born on Earth, oddly enough as humans, and could ridicule the church properly when it finally was established. Nothing convoluted about that at all.

At this point, there really isn't much else I can say. Scientology makes a mockery out of itself well enough on its own. But still this church does prey on vulnerable people to join their ranks, telling them to stop contacting their families and give all their money to the church. It sucks the life out the desperate and leaves them as mere husks. So while their beliefs are a riot, the harm this idiocy does can be immense. In the end it is all about money and retaining their tax exempt status. So whenever you see something from Scientology, remember what kind of crazy they are tapping into here.

Thank you Misa Akane for this request!