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You are here: Home / A new religion that will bring you to your knees

A new religion that will bring you to your knees

by DougJ|  February 7, 20116:53 pm| 39 Comments

This post is in: General Stupidity, We Are All Mayans Now

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If you haven’t yet, you should read that New Yorker article on Scientology that Anne-Laurie recommended. Here are my favorite parts:

“A major cause of mankind’s problems began 75 million years ago,” the Times wrote, when the planet Earth, then called Teegeeack, was part of a confederation of ninety planets under the leadership of a despotic ruler named Xenu.

[….]

Davis became fiercely committed to the Sea Org. He got a tattoo on one arm of its logo—two palm fronds embracing a star, supposedly the emblem of the Galactic Confederacy seventy-five million years ago.

[….]

In his view, Haggis’s emotions at that moment ranked 1.1 on the Tone Scale—the state that is sometimes called Covertly Hostile. By adopting a tone just above it—Anger—Isham hoped to blast Haggis out of the psychic place where he seemed to be lodged. “This was an intellectual decision,” Isham said. “I decided I would be angry.”

In places, it’s eerily like a Mark Leyner book, in others, it sounds a lot like the comments section at RedState.

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Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    BGinCHI

    February 7, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    It sounds like Doctor Who fan fic.

    But without cultural references.

  2. 2.

    Emma

    February 7, 2011 at 7:04 pm

    Ah…. Never mind. BginCHI said for me.

  3. 3.

    Martin

    February 7, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    You can’t take in an intro to Scientology without the South Park episode. The full episode is there as well.

  4. 4.

    Marmot

    February 7, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    Xenu was such a despot 75 million years ago.

    And here I thought the martyr from 2,000 years ago was kind of a reach.

  5. 5.

    PurpleGirl

    February 7, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    Not that I ever took Scientology seriously, after all I’d heard dozens of times of how L. Ron talked about making millions by founding your own religion, but when someone began leaving fliers at science fiction conventions which spelled out the super secret inner knowledge of Xenu, it made me laugh.

  6. 6.

    Citizen_X

    February 7, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    I understand that this may have caused problems for the velociraptors, but what the hell would it have to do with us? Mammals hadn’t even evolved primates by that time.

    Please don’t answer that.

  7. 7.

    Mark S.

    February 7, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    Watch the video Martin linked to. It is all explained there.

  8. 8.

    beltane

    February 7, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    planet Earth, then called Teegeeack

    Isn’t Teegeeack the planet the teabaggers hail from?

    Scientology sounds kind of like Mormonism, except without a god who has the lack of imagination to show up in such dull places as Missouri and Elmira, NY.

  9. 9.

    freelancer

    February 7, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    No religion reaches full retard unless it addresses the subject of dinosaurs in a truly original and stupid fashion.

    What did those 76 planets look like? Some like Earth today, some a bit different, but all in all they would have appeared quite familiar by today’s standards. A civilization like in the 1950s, says Hubbard on Tape 10. People had bodies, houses, cars, jobs, wives, husbands, children, telephones, television, and of course interstellar space flight based on space-energy and controlled gravitation.
    __
    Earth itself was considered sensationally beautiful and pleasant – tropical plants could be found even north of today’s arctic circle. There were dinosaurs and other spectacular creatures. Small wonder that this planet was a tourist resort and attracted people from all over the galaxy to spend their holidays here. The local population was predominantly white, like today’s Europeans; other races were represented, too, mainly by tourists.
    __
    Are “178 billion people average” possible? Well, if you were granting each person – man, woman and child – 25 square meters living space, 25 sq.m. working space and 25 sq.m. recreational space (that’s 75 sq.m. per person), and if you were constructing a building according to these specifications so as to accomodate the 6 billion people who live on this planet currently, it would cover 450 thousand square kilometers. That’s about the size of Spain. All the 6 billion people currently on this planet could live in Spain on one floor. If you built the building in the style of a condominium three floors high, it would cover 150 thousand sq.km, the area of England (without Scotland and Wales). If you built it nine floors high, it would cover a mere 50 thousand sq.km, the size of Holland, Denmark or Switzerland.
    __
    So all the people currently living on this planet could be accomodated in an area the size of Switzerland and have the rest of the planet for agricultural purposes and as a nature resort. Of course this would demand advanced solutions regarding energy supply and transport, solutions not based on carbon-based fuel or atomic fission, but that shouldn’t worry anyone. Since Nicola Tesla the necessary inventions have been made; all one would have to do is take them out of the security lockers of oil and electricity magnates and actually use them. And food certainly wouldn’t be a problem either, if one reformed today’s wasteful feeding habits (with agriculture already efficient enough to throw part of the harvest away so as to keep the prices up).

    Mission Accomplished, LRH.

  10. 10.

    RSA

    February 7, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    “I decided I would be angry.”

    One problem with rejecting psychology, as Scientologists do, is losing any ability to understand what’s going on in your own head.

  11. 11.

    Jay in Oregon

    February 7, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    This is my favorite bit of Scientology-related journalism:

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/travolta-hospitalized-with-critically-low-emeter-r,824/

  12. 12.

    Southern Beale

    February 7, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    For the Clif’s Notes edition, HuffPo has an excerpt in which Josh Brolin reflects on seeing John Travolta practice Scientology on Marlon Brando.

  13. 13.

    SteveinSC

    February 7, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    Well, then, when did Ming the Magnificent show up? Before or after the dinosaurs?

  14. 14.

    Mark S.

    February 7, 2011 at 7:41 pm

    I wonder whether Xenu allowed earmarks. It would make sense when governing such a huge galactic empire to have some mechanism so that local representatives could have some say on where appropriations went. But Real Americans prefer to just let bureaucrats in Washington to make all these decisions.

    I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more stupid issue in politics. Banning earmarks doesn’t save any money; it just changes who decides where that money is spent. This country is too stupid for democracy.

  15. 15.

    James Gary

    February 7, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    “….Black Velvet, if you please.”

    DougJ, I salute the breadth of your lyrical knowledge. Also, Teegeack is on the New Jersey Turnpike between Secaucus and Cheesequake.

  16. 16.

    freelancer

    February 7, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    @SteveinSC:

    I don’t know when he showed up, but Ming left right around the Sixth Season, when the writers started running out of ideas and so Gazoo makes an entrance.

  17. 17.

    JRon

    February 7, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    South Park’s summary was spot-on. Watch out for Scientologists, I have friends who’ve advocated for treatment of depression as a medical disorder (which it is) who were harassed a long time by those guys and their sock puppets. It was traumatic for them.

    They were the key funding and activists behind the opposition to the Mothers Act, due to their vehement anti-psychiatry stance. Based on that our whole family avoids anything with Beck, Travolta or Tom Cruise, for example. Especially Cruise. Too upsetting for some of us to even see their fucking faces, no matter what role or song it is.

  18. 18.

    Sad_Dem

    February 7, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    Xenu used nukes to solve an overpopulation problem, so maybe he was Republican. A Democrat would have taxed successful people to pay for the abortions of the poor.

  19. 19.

    maus

    February 7, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    I appreciate the SP coverage, but regret that it makes many people NOT take them seriously.

    If anyone has a half-hour free, check out this personal story from someone who lived their lives in the cult-

    http://counterfeitdreams.blogspot.com/

  20. 20.

    JRon

    February 7, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    Also, for a bit of fun, this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBZ_uAbxS0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

  21. 21.

    Arclite

    February 7, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    A major cause of mankind’s problems began 75 million years ago,” the Times wrote, when the planet Earth, then called Teegeeack, was part of a confederation of ninety planets under the leadership of a despotic ruler named Xenu

    When a religion is created by a science fiction author, why should I be surprised if it contains science-fiction sounding elements?

    Anyway, Hubbard created Scientology on a lark after betting Robert Heinlein (of Starship Troopers fame) that he could do it. Once it took off, I think he just rode the wave.

  22. 22.

    JWL

    February 7, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    You people are so fucked when Xenu returns.

  23. 23.

    Arclite

    February 7, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    @Jay in Oregon: That Onion article is awesome! More technobabble than a Star Trek episode.

  24. 24.

    Arclite

    February 7, 2011 at 8:48 pm

    Also, too: DougJ name change to “Disciple of Xenu” in three, two, one…

  25. 25.

    Ecks

    February 7, 2011 at 9:01 pm

    @beltane: whatchoo got aginst missouri?

    Gooo Mizzou.

    For the truly best part of the article, check out the last 2 pages or so where he fact checks some of their claims about L.R. Hubbard and finds that a) some of his significant claims about his life are wrong (he never sustained the injuries in the army that he claims his techniques had miraculously cured), b) that the document they produced about his army discharge was a forgery, and c) that some of the medals they claimed he had been awarded did not even exist at the time he was supposedly awarded them.

    It’s a thing of beauty to see a journalist doing their actual fracking job.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Once

    February 7, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    @Ecks:

    It’s a thing of beauty to see a journalist doing their actual fracking job.

    This is what I loved most about the article. Some of the best real journalism you’ll ever see.

  27. 27.

    Origuy

    February 7, 2011 at 9:45 pm

    @Ecks: Mormons believe that after his crucifixion, Jesus reappeared in Missouri.

  28. 28.

    bago

    February 7, 2011 at 9:53 pm

    For those of us playing Dead Space 2 over the weekend and are thinking about unitoligy, and bringing us closer to the marker….

    Awesome game, no? Has a touch of that old school “die until you get it” thing going on, but sweet Jesus, the deaths you can die…

    The severed hand in reference to the first game cover? Classic.

  29. 29.

    SFAW

    February 7, 2011 at 10:19 pm

    Mormons believe that after his crucifixion, Jesus reappeared in Missouri.

    Yes, he appeared in Cape Girardeau, in the form of The Angel Moron Eeee!, to a thetan child. Unfortunately, the thetan child thought it was an hallucination from too much Oxycontin, and thus did not heed the lessons – except for the Moron part – that the Angel was trying to bestow.

    And the rest, as they say, might be history.

    Or not.

  30. 30.

    Rev. Miller

    February 7, 2011 at 10:24 pm

    Every time I want to give Scientologists a hard time for their beliefs I remember that their beliefs are not any more ridiculous than the beliefs of all the major religions. It’s just a question of how much time has passed.

    Totally takes the fun out of it.

  31. 31.

    Snaporaz

    February 7, 2011 at 10:56 pm

    If you are interested in learning more about Scientology, track down these books:

    Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller (definitive biography of LR Hubbard)
    A Piece of Blue Sky
    The Road to Xenu (available for free online)
    LR Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? by one of Hubbard’s sons

  32. 32.

    El Cruzado

    February 8, 2011 at 12:16 am

    @Origuy: Maybe he hadn’t suffered enough?

  33. 33.

    cthulhu

    February 8, 2011 at 2:10 am

    @Rev. Miller: The problem isn’t so much their beliefs as their behavior. While Scientology is not the only religion that uses such tactics/practices in the modern day, they stand among a fairly small group. And my sense is that though it is pretty common for true believers of any religion to be upset when others leave, it encompasses a sincere worry about a “lost soul” while Scientology further automatically worries about a “new enemy.” That distinguishes it for me.

  34. 34.

    Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac

    February 8, 2011 at 9:07 am

    Can we have “Ranked 1.1 on the Tone Scale” as a tag?

  35. 35.

    Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac

    February 8, 2011 at 9:16 am

    @Origuy: Close, but no. They think that he came over and visited somewhere around central America, at an indeterminate location. I remember as a kid seeing church paintings of Jesus with people with Mayan type pyramids behind him.

    Ah, here it is

    http://www.religionfacts.com/mormonism/images/Christ_visits_the_Americas_cropped_center_detail-565.jpg

  36. 36.

    Joel

    February 8, 2011 at 10:54 am

    Took all day but that was a worthy read.

  37. 37.

    catclub

    February 8, 2011 at 11:09 am

    Has anyone pointed out the new movie that was advertised on the superbowl has people going back 75 million years to sort things out? Is it made by Scientologists?

  38. 38.

    Quiddity

    February 8, 2011 at 12:36 pm

    That New Yorker article is thorough. 24,000 words – which is around 70 book pages. For a typical reader, that’s one hour at least. Still, it’s good that it’s out there.

  39. 39.

    DPirate

    February 9, 2011 at 11:42 am

    You are in deep trouble now. LRon’s minions dont let anyone diss teh Xenu.

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