“The World is a Vampire!”

OK , so the weather has changed from steamy-hot to nice Florida Fall/Spring. This weekend was unbelievably pleasant compared with the last couple. At practice last weekend I almost got overheated.

I haven’t been writing a whole lot of late. I have not been in the mood (and I invariably hear the voice of Patrick Stewart roar “MOOD! MOOD is a thing for cattle and loveplay!” Well mood does have something to do with it. I was (over the summer) in one of those periods where I pretty much didn’t follow my own path, I followed the path of that other people wished for me and (inevitably) I had some difficulty coping. Hopefully that’s over and done with, for better or worse I need to follow my own instincts on some things and worry less about the possible consequences. As my lawyer so correctly says, don’t do anything illegal and you will be fine.

Segueing into…. I went to the Anonymous protest last weekend. it was very small; only about eight of the Florida Anon contingent were there. I didn’t make the first march but I followed them around for the second and took lots of video.

I have no idea where I’m going with this, I mean; filming in downtown Clearwater is fraught with peril. Scientology is not known for turning the other cheek and allowing things that offend them to pass unanswered. I’m of several minds on this, on the one hand I don’t like the idea of tangling with a fanatical “religiously cloaked” psychological mind game focused on extracting as much money and time out of it’s member as possible. People in Clearwater for the most part don’t like them, but they also don’t want to get involved. I quite understand! I don’t want to get involved either.

But then the other side of me starts yammering and it goes kind of like this. “The United States of America was formed by a group of people who didn’t want to make the same mistakes that were made in Europe in the previous 400 years or so. They wanted to create a better place, free of the twin tyrants of theocracy and autocracy. They wanted a system of government that was not based on someones interpretation of “teh truvth” but a system of laws that could be dynamic and change over time. A government that reformed, remade itself, adapted.

Scientology stands to challenge this concept. By the words of it’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard it blankly states that Scientology intends to gain influence in federal, state and local government and replace our current system with something of it’s own manufacture. Not just in the US – everywhere. Once this is done they will forcibly bring their form of “enlightenment” to all of humanity “clear the planet is the way that they put it.” Anyone who opposes this plan is thought to be a “degraded being” in their eyes and if they take action to oppose it, they are labeled a “suppressive person” or SP.  Once again, according to their “scripture, SPs are to be “disposed of without pity.”

That’s what they believe. This to my eyes, this is just like the Klu Klux Klan making blank assertions about white supremacy or the National Socialists talking about the Jews.

I have a huge problem with this. First of all, Scientology is not the end-all-be-all of religion. It doesn’t even appear to BE a religion (not to me anyway,) but of course that designation is completely subjective. Whatever Scientology wants to be, it has become a liability in my mind. It brings conflict and corruption to everything it touches. Hubbard had a few good ideas but his psudo-psychological programs amount to little more than hypnosis and wishful thinking. People who stay with the program think differently than people outside of Scientology and I don’t see that  as an improvement. In fact (again, my opinion;) people who sty in Scientology and adopt Hubbard’s dogmatic way of thinking don’t even communicate very well. It’s either “I tell you” or “you tell me.” There is little idea exchange and no synthesis of thought to them.

“Try it out and see for yourself!” the Scientology members shout. “How can you make a judgment without trying it!? It helped me!”

The difficulty lies in what is helpful to an individual, this can also be subjective. People claim that cigarettes are helpful or schedule one drugs. People claim that chiropractic faith healing is helpful and I have no doubt that it is – to a certain extent. Scientology could indeed be helpfully to people ,but psychological counseling would probably have worked just as well. Everyone is different and there there is no telling what will assist one person over another. Scientology is not a panacea to cure all ills. It strikes me as unscientific and arbitrary, perhaps helping people in some small way by boosting confidence but costing far more terms of money and psychological damage than benefits.

That’s just my opinion mind you, if people like spending big bucks to have some high school dropout inform them that they have to repurchase expensive courses over and over again because someone didn’t transcribe them right – that is completely their own business. I think it’s stupid and might even say that I think it’s stupid. You can call me stupid back but you don’t have the right to tell people I’m a criminal just because I think you are being a dope.

Anyway, my inner voices tell me that organizations like Scientology must adapt to societal norms (such as they are ) or perish. They need to understand the environment that they exist in and instead of trying to “handle” it, try to live with it and enhance it. An amoeba understands this.

Scientology can’t seem to do that. They want to take society over, destroying their foes and manufacture lies about them. This is right out of their so-called “scripture.” What they accomplish in most cases are poor relationships with the people around them and many unnecessary conflicts. Their friends turn out to be people just  using them – not friends at and their foes become hardened.

It’s big fat bunch of wasted effort and it has the same results, every-single- time.

I’ve been watching this group for a long time and I’m not sure they can fix themselves, the whole premise is wrong, Hubbard created a big fat fantasy for people to live in. They firewall themselves against society and when they poke their heads out they find that people have moved on and changed.

There is too much corruption in their structure, too much institutional deception, too much pressure on members and they have a terrible reputation, one that will be difficult to shake in the coming decades.

And they don’t seem to be even trying. In fact, if I’m reading the jungle drums right, they have just got started with Anonymous and things are about to get interesting.

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