The Science Fiction Cult

I have a tale for you that sounds like it comes out of the Star Wars saga.

75 million years ago, Xenu, the tyrannical leader of the Galactic Confederacy transported billions of his own people to a distant rock floating around in space, in ships that resembled the aircraft that we know and love today. When they arrived at the rock, they were unceremoniously dumped out in the vicinity of volcanoes and wiped out with hydrogen bombs.

He sounds like a complete bastard, this Xenu character, doesn’t he?

Worse, the spirits of the billions of the dead aliens became immortal and after all of this time still roam the rock, which is now a lovely little blue planet teeming with life and beauty. That planet is our own beloved Earth and the spirits of the murdered billions, called Thetans, float around our planet and attach themselves to human beings. 

Basically we all have an inner Thetan and this is analogous to our soul.

Sounds like a great idea for a science fiction story, doesn’t it?

Except there are a large number of people who actually believe this story to be real; these people are called Scientologists.

The originator of this story is L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, who has somehow managed to convince thousands of people that their souls are immortal alien spirits that operate their bodies. Amongst those people are Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

L. Ron Hubbard is now dead but his legacy lives on. Scientology leaders announced his death as if he had shed his mortal body allowing him to continue his amazing research on another planet somewhere out there in the depths of space.

The leader is now a rather mysterious man called David Miscavige.

Scientology claims to be a religion but in reality it is more like a cult. I have to be honest with you, here – I am absolutely fascinated by it, not because I believe any of the rubbish that David Miscavige and his followers are trying to peddle (for huge sums of money I hasten to add). Rather, I am fascinated about how people can be taken in by all of this utter nonsense and actually change their lives to immerse themselves so deeply into it that they cannot escape without potentially having vile facts published about them, or worse, being totally ostracised by their own family members who choose to stay as part of the religion.

When I was a young naïve student, the church of Scientology tried to recruit my friend and I when we were backpacking around Europe. The incident occurred in Amsterdam and their “expert” tried to convince me that I was a manic depressive who was about to commit suicide. She claimed that only they could help and that rather than leave Amsterdam as I had planned, I should enrol in their course to help guide me away from such evil thoughts.

You see, I was wondering around Europe and as such was fair game. I was young and naïve, but not so naïve that I believed it.

Deep down I knew I was tremendously happy and that their words were ridiculous. I may have been naïve but I was not stupid.  They attempted the same thing with my friend who found the entire experience hilarious.

Since then, I’ve followed the exploits of Scientology with interest. Initially, I found it all amusing but in recent years, events have taken a disturbing turn for the worst and I no longer find it funny.

We even have a Scientology “church” in the centre of Manchester. One time, I saw a few people protesting outside and handing out leaflets.

There are a few accusations that have been directed at the Church of Scientology but, to be honest, I’m a bit wary about mentioning them.

Why? Because the first one is “attack the attacker”. Allegedly, anybody who attacks Scientology must be treated with hostility, which means that the church will investigate those who accuse them of wrongdoing and publish any findings to the press, employers, friends and family and even make counter accusations against them, potentially leading to things like running their career. There is no “turn the other cheek” philosophy in Scientology. Such people are labelled by the church as “suppressive persons”.

We also have “disconnection”. If you are a “suppressive person” who still has family who are Scientologists, then the church basically causes your family to cut you off completely. There are many examples in the documentaries that I have seen where people have left the church and been totally disconnected from family members who are still part of the church, Worse, those family members are allegedly so brainwashed that they completely disown them. Parents have been banished by their own children.

If you are a member of the Sea Org, the most dedicated elite within Scientology, and you don’t live up to the high expectations of the church then you are “rehabilitated” which involves being locked up and isolated and subjected to intense physical hard labour and “auditing”, an activity that involves a weird kind of question and answer session while you are gripping a metal cylinder in each hand that is connected to a contraption called an E-meter – a sort of strange emotion detector.

"Will I ever be famous"?

In order to rise up the rankings you basically have to throw money at the church and study religious doctrine for every hour God sends.

No wonder they want somebody like Tom Cruise to be the acceptable face of the church.

Allegedly, their “pope”, David Miscavige is said to behave like a psychotic despot, sometimes physically assaulting people working for him.

I hasten to add, all of this comes from documentaries and films about the “church” – I have to say this in case I suddenly find myself being followed by Scientologists or have the name “Plastic Mancunian” splashed over cyberspace as an evil liar.

Oh well – if such a thing happens then maybe we’ll see whether the “attack the attacker” accusation is true or not.

I’m really looking forward to seeing “My Scientology Movie” by one of my favourite documentary makers, Louis Theroux. Here’s a trailer for it:

Let’s hope I am not labelled as a “suppressive person” as a result of this post.

Who Reads This Crap?

Yesterday, my good lady, Mrs PM, bought a magazine called “Celebrity Pants” (or something like that). Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, I picked it up and was immediately struck by the fact that I didn’t know who half the people in the magazine were. Either that or I couldn’t believe that these people were still famous.

The magazine described celebrities, some of whom had achieved nothing more than appearing in a reality TV show baring all their emotional baggage for all to see, still in states of extreme trauma in their personal lives due to fashion disasters, excessive weight gain, excessive weight loss, boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife trauma (delete as appropriate), pregnancy, loss of confidence and displaying all the misfortune that we all have to suffer as part of our daily lives.

Who the hell cares?

I ask this question because quite frankly I do not care one iota and furthermore I can’t see why anybody else should care. I don’t go to a random town in England, stop a complete stranger in the street and say to them “I’m slightly overweight and am really struggling to shift those extra pounds – you see I’m addicted to bacon and eggs and can’t stop eating it. I think I might go into rehab …” They would be quite justified in telling me to eff off to be honest.

The magazine basically told me that Kerry Katona is gorging herself into ugliness and her bloke is telling her that she is a fat cow – including pictures of her scoffing a burger; that Letitia Dean is so slim now that she can attract a toy boy; that Jordan and Peter Andre are arguing all the time; that Kate Moss’s arse is getting fat; that Lembit Opik and his cheeky girl have split up; that other supposedly famous people are vaulting mountains to stay in public view.

I ask again; who the hell cares?I also have another question: WHO READS THIS CRAP?

Well I know that Mrs PM does – occasionally. She justifies buying such magazines, saying that she loves a little sleaze, a little juicy gossip, celebrity self-destruction and what some women are wearing.

I couldn’t give a damn. Why would I want to read about Jade Goody and her latest dress? This is a woman who is famous for showing us her worst side on national TV, not once but TWICE. What else has she done? If she faded into obscurity overnight would anybody care? To give Jade Goody her due, at least I’ve heard of her. But on the other pages in “Celebrity Pants” I found myself staring at images of wannabees and has-beens who are strangers to me. I’ve never heard of them. And when I asked Mrs PM who they were she struggled in a lot of cases to tell me (a) who they were and (b) why they were famous.

The magazine would have been as useful to me if it had consisted of a series of articles about random people in London, who they were shagging and what they were wearing. In other words it would be totally and utterly pointless; a complete waste of a tree and ink.

The sad thing is that these magazines are best sellers. People buy them and people love them. WHY?

I just don’t get it. What’s more, I don’t get why the national newspapers are submerged in the cult of celebrity either. The tabloids are full of this kind of nonsense and make these so-called celebrities even more famous.

You read things like “All eyes were on ”. Well let me tell you something; that is a lie. My eyes weren’t on whoever it was. If the person who finished fourth on Big Brother two years ago said to me “Do you know who I am?” I would say – “No – who the hell are you and why should I give you more than a nanosecond of my attention?”

It’s all gone too far in my view and I hate shows like Big Brother and the like that are fuelling this obsession with fame and being famous when the people involved have as much talent as my cat.

I would much prefer to read about unsung heroes and people who deserve the adulation that these so-called celebrities receive. It is these people who deserve the riches that come from celebrity not some former singer of a crap band from the eighties whose now so fat she can’t crowbar her bulk into a limousine, or a winner of a reality TV show whose only claim to fame is that he doesn’t know the capital of France.