From my conversations with the Mormons I have found that it just goes to show there are some beliefs religious groups hold which they privately consider to be literally true, but when asked about them in public, they become resistant to spilling the beans. Perhaps this is because, in some way, they know the notions may not really own up to the universally weighable conditions of reality.

 

Another modern American example of this is Scientology and its more “advanced” teachings. Again, the Comedy Central show South Park has chipped away at the surface of this one, but the full story goes much deeper. Many of these tenets from the prolific American science fiction writer, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, who admitted that he started the religion just to make money, are now taken seriously by numerous affluent and influential of our countrymen.  And why not? The basic idea is thus: if I were to give away too many of the ideas, then there would be nothing left with which to audit people.

 

An old friend of mine said, “It seems like most of your battles are against ignorant sub-religions and republicans.”

 

This is not even vaguely true, at least as it comes with respect to an invisible shield that some would wish to apply to all religions in general. The differences apply their respective pressures about life, but one must maintain strength and courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacle. One must retain sanity in the face of bigotry.

 

Mike Gravel recently posted a video on YouTube bitching about supposed affronts to freedom in America which he chalked up to “religious oppression.” I replied asking if Scientology posed such a threat and immediately received insulting text comments asking me why I was against religious freedom.

 

Let’s face it. When religious freedom was first tacked onto the Bill of Rights (and wisely so) there were no intellectual property rights in theology. Even the religious manifestations routinely bordering on the homicidal – such as Jim Jones or perhaps the Manson family – were open about their beliefs. Hell, corner Chuck Manson in his cell for five minutes on a good day right now, and he would not hesitate to describe to you the oncoming race war previewed to him by the popular Beatles’ song “Blackbird.” When I meet Muslims who excuse suicide bombers (or “martyrs”) or foaming at the mouth Zionists who have found new and stomach-churning ways to rationalize racial profiling, I can say, “At least they are honest.”

 

But calling Scientology centers around the country for this article was truly alarming. I had but one simple question in my arsenal, respectfully delivered, and honest in its intent: “Why is there a volcano on the cover of Dianetics?”

The answer to this question is of course, according to Hubbard, a bunch of brainwashed and cryogenically frozen extraterrestrials were dumped into a volcano and blown up, thus setting loose their confused souls to eventually cause the human race pain.

 

When I called most of the churches, I was told to hang on for a second, and then never taken off hold.

 

One woman told me that she had been getting a lot of phone calls about that question and that she was sure that I did not want to personally know; therefore, she reasoned, she had no obligation to explain the answer. (Truth be known, she probably realizes that I have done too much research to be taken in anymore, so she does not wish to waste her time.)

Finally, I reached a woman in a Colorado Church who claimed that, not only had she not reached the Scientology level where I knew she would learn about the volcano’s reasons for being on the cover of Dianetics, but that, to her, in her early working for Scientology, the cover had already taken on its own private meaning representing “creative energy,” “change” and lots of other vague bullshit. The bottom line, though she held her own in a polite conversation, is that she, too, was most likely lying. All one has to do to figure this shit out is google “Xenu.”

 

I, for one, am done dreaming of gaming Scientology. Now that so many of the cult’s internal documents have been exposed and are available on torrents and in the back alleys of the web, the people who choose to shove all of their mental energy into these cockamamie, unsound human origin stories deserve Darwin Awards.

 

The actual merits of auditing are irrelevant in a world where anybody can fucking write the scripts for it. The secrecy and compartmentalization in Scientology is the sort of base and cynical thinking that undermines our defense and security industry – that ridiculous assumption that people who keep things from you mean you anything resembling well.