Enlightening Nonsense

I was walking around Times Square and saw a demonstration up ahead. Reading the signs I saw something like, “SCIENTOLOGY VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS!” I dropped to my knees immediately and thanked God in advance for blessing me with what I knew was going to be a good time.

I was walking around Times Square and saw a demonstration up ahead. Reading the signs I saw something like, “SCIENTOLOGY VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS!” I dropped to my knees immediately and thanked God in advance for blessing me with what I knew was going to be a good time.

I talked to one guy from the fuckscientology.com group and said to him, “I know Scientology is a cult. I mean, Christianity is a cult, too. But what have they done to violate human rights?” He went on to tell me how they have a specific “Fair Game” policy where they target people who speak against them and try to ruin their lives. He mentioned the author Paulette Cooper who had written a book entitled The Scandal of Scientology and how they harassed her with 18 lawsuits bringing her near a point of complete breakdown. He told me how one woman was denied medical treatment and died and anyone who tried to expose this information would be harassed. He went on and painted a not-so-pretty picture of Scientology. I thanked him and walked past the dozen cops present, only a few of whose handcuffs had been slapped onto my wrists in the past, to the Scientologists.

“I would like to take the stress test,” I said (they offer some free stress test and while I couldn’t care a rat’s ass about my level of stress as determined by the founder of Scientology saying it is based on how many evil entities are attached to my body, I was raised in a Jewish family and so now anything free is hard to pass up. When I was younger, I caused quite an ethical stir in my family when one day I brought home a pig. What started out as, “We can’t have an unclean animal in our house,” with the discovery that I got it for free soon turned to, “Let’s wack the mother fucker and eat chops tonight!”)

The Scientologist I asked said, “I just saw you talking to the protesters over there.”

I said, “I’m an intelligent person. I talk to and get information from everyone, be they protester of cult freak.” She was okay with that answer. She told me that they were just closing down; apparently the law doesn’t allow for practicing quackery without a license.

We had a decent, respectful chat until I mentioned the origin story I had read of Scientology, that on the Planet Xenu an evil race captured the souls of the other creatures and transporting them via a big spaceship to the planet Earth where the souls were dropped in a volcano and then somehow escaped and attached to humans, causing the humans to have emotional and stress freak-outs. I would be more likely to believe the government’s 9/11 conspiracy story about 19 hijackers defeating the most technologically advanced defense system in the world with box cutters and, “Oh, they turned off the transponder—that’s why they couldn’t find the planes” explanations than that fable. Granted it took waking up while my mother was sticking a quarter under my pillow before I realized that she, in fact, was the Tooth Fairy and even though I tried to justify it away that she was just trying to molester me in the night, I am much older and wiser now, as that happened at least three months ago.

She shot back, “I don’t even want to know,” which after our up ‘til then pleasant conversation rocked me back on my heels, like when I was walking up a flight of stairs behind a man eating a bean burrito and he blasted a fart about two inches from my face. She went on to imply that anything on the Internet written against Scientology was lies and that the only true source of information was from the Scientology propaganda website itself. That sounds like the same reasoning that a Catholic priest uses to have you sit on his lap while his pants are dropped around his ankles. 

I told her that I had seen online in L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology and eldest son of Old Mother Hubbard’s, own handwritten journal the ridiculous Xenu fable, that had he told it while Old Mother was still alive, she would have gone to the cupboard and grabbed a rolling pin and beat her delusional son silly.

At one time she was making a point, responding to my citations of bad behavior that I had directly seen from Scientologists, that if one person in a group does something less than ideal, that doesn’t make the whole group bad. She gave an example, “If Bernie Madoff rips off people, that doesn’t make all Jews bad.” It’s funny, until that very point I had never even considered Bernie Madoff a Jew; just a prick. I had to dig deep down inside to restrain myself from responding, “I disagree. All Jews are bad.”

I actually wish I did say this, as I very much like delving into this type of exploration with people because what inevitably happens is that if you respond to a person who says, “I think gays should have equal rights,” with “I disagree. We should ship them to an island and then nuke it to Hell,” often their true colors will come out and they will express their hatred and intolerance through their liberal sensitivities, “Well, I wouldn’t mind if that happened, but they do still have rights.” 

Keith Ledger’s character of The Joker in “The Dark Knight” had the philosophy that when pushed to the edge, most people will show their true colors–and those colors aren’t pretty. In a way he was a realist, somewhat saying, “Let’s not bullshit each other here, shall we? You can wear your fancy suit and give to this charity or that, but at the end of the day you care about nothing but yourself and will step on anyone you need if it means avoiding losing your morning mocha latte in your coffee mug.” We all have the ability to fully express our enlightenment at any moment but until we raise our consciousness, I will take The Joker’s philosophy over Kant, Niche or Plato any day. And for the record, if it were up to me, I would send Bernie Madoff to an island and nuke it to Hell.” That’s because I hate Jews.

I didn’t get any further with her, besides her recommending I take a left at the M&M Store, pass the Nike Store on the right, and go to the Scientology Store on 46th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. And so I went. The last time I had went with my dog, I was rudely thrown out by some Scientology bitch with a “No Dogs And Chinese Allowed” slogan she took from the Bruce Lee movie, “The Chinese Connection.” I can see the reason to keep out the Chinks but I found it out and out racist to prevent my dog from testing her stress levels. But this time the Nazi dike was not on duty guarding the castle and so they let me in with my dog.

I was made to sit about 10-minutes while they found someone available to administer my test. If I had a life I would have minded but since I don’t, I didn’t. A few girls came over to admire my dog and give me the customary Scientology welcome blowjob. I think the second girl might have been a dude but I appreciated his extra effort with the thumb up my ass. And finally in a very “Adam’s Family,” “Walk this way,” I was invited downstairs to take my stress test. I did my best to keep up but my ass was a little sore from the rambunctious thumb.

I sat down opposite Jay, who was wearing a bright yellow Cannondale athletic shirt and seemed like a gym teacher on motivational crack. I liked him despite a few of his suspect ways, the first being no blowjob.

He had me hold these metal poles. “Imagine you’re holding two cocks in your hand.” Apparently rumor had spread that I took a thumb in the ass and I was already branded the Scientology gay whore. This machine was designed to measure my stress levels and when the meter went to the right that meant more stress.

“Think of a thought—“ just then a Scientology prostitute came up to my dog and I looked over at her. “What did you think?” asked Jay, excited that the meter had jumped to the right.

“I really didn’t think anything yet.” I paused to think. “I guess I thought that I wished this bitch would leave my dog the fuck alone.”

“Okay, think of a person.” I thought of my beloved and an inner smile washed over me. The stress meter still moved to the right. “What were you thinking of?” I didn’t know him and already this nosey fucker wanted to get into my head.

“I was thinking of my girl.”

“Do you have any stress about that?”

“No, not that I’m aware of.”

“Not that you’re aware of. What does that mean exactly?”

“It means, ‘no’.”

“Okay, think of something else, an event.” I thought of an upcoming family event that I was looking forward to attending. “What did you think about?”

I wanted to say, “I thought about bending you over the table and shoving this metal pole up your ass!” but instead answered in a more appropriate manner, “You’re a very attractive man.” I’m fucking with you. I said, “I’m thinking about a family gathering.”

“Are you feeling stress?” because once again the needle moved.

“Not really. I’m actually looking forward to it. I mean, I suppose all family can get under your skin at times but I feel pretty relaxed with my family, unless of course they mention 9/11 and I go off for 30-minutes about how it was an inside job. Then I suppose there’s a little stress.”

I had to ask, “Jay, this fuckin’ thing seems to move no matter what goes on. I mean, I haven’t felt a lick of stress, besides the thumb in the ass incident earlier, and this needle is moving more than a laxative junky’s bowels.” Jay told me that he was just measuring thoughts at the moment and the next segment would measure stress. I had a feeling that had I answered, “Yeah, I feel very stressed about the puppies and ice-cream I was just thinking about,” Jay would have jumped out of his seat and praised his Lord and Savior Hubbard that a sinner has been found.

In the second segment, again I felt very unstressed about his questions and again everything measured stress. The only remote stress I might have felt was because this whole process reminded me of the time I was on “The Moment of Truth,” that Fox reality show where they hooked you up to a lie detector test, and I was asked, “Have you ever ejaculated on your dog?” I know they just wanted a yes or no answer but I feared without the explanation of how “I swear, she just happened to jump on the bed as I was finishing!” I was going to come off as a pervert. Now that was some serious stress.

After I put the metal poles down and Jay and I felt like we had blown a mutual load, we sat and chatted. I liked Jay. He allowed me to ask anything without his panties getting in a bunch like what tended to happen with the other Scien-tools. He told me his story how at first he was like, “Ah, this is shit—do you mind if I use the word ‘shit’?” I told him I didn’t but was aware that he was doing the old “patterning” technique, probably unconsciously, where you start to talk like the person you are interacting with in order to make them lower their guard. Truthfully, as much “bullshit” and “pussy” and “prostitute” I sprinkle into my writing, in my daily interactions I rarely curse and didn’t once with Jay. It is reflective of living in a culture where we think we have progressed because we don’t call a black man a nigger to his face and instead follow him around the store and make him feel like one.

Jay and I talked philosophy and we agreed on many points. In his personal story, he started with one tool from Scientology and when he saw how deeply it impacted his life, he read Dianetics and soon became a Dianetics Bible salesman like the rest of them.  He assured me he worked as a volunteer and most of the money that Scientology took in went towards helpful programs to feed the starving orphans and de-harpoon the whales. I assumed this two-story Times Square headquarters with a built-in movie theater was probably paid for by the beneficent resistance leader from Xenu who had gifted all the money he made investing in Quackow bird fertilizer to the cause. When Jay shared one shallow summary of the Buddha’s enlightenment, I had to flesh it out a bit, if not to defend the name of the Buddha than to show him that even a dirty, unkempt hippie like myself has read a book or two and was capable of forming a whole sentence without the use of the word “cocksucker.” Granted it requires a lot of effort on my part—but I can do it!

I even asked him about Xenu. At first he implied he didn’t know what that was about but later acknowledged that he had heard about it but didn’t give it much weight. This reminded me of the tactic that I had seen Gary Hart use on more than one occasion when asked about the New World Order, first denying knowing anything about the New World Order and then when his own words using that phrase were quoted back at him he “suddenly” remembered and was like, “Yeah, I said that but it meant nothing.”

I’m looking forward to my eternity in Hell where I am going to piss in Gary Hart’s face and tell him, “I don’t know anything about urine.”

“But you’re peeing in my face right now?” he’ll respond.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean anything.” He’s a little bitch.

I was like, “It’s kind of like a Christian not knowing the story of the virgin birth. Now I don’t personally believe Mary spit out baby Jesus without a human cock first spitting in some semen into that vag of hers, but I can still see that there are benefits in the teachings of Jesus. In Scientology, there may be a lot of useful techniques and teachings but it perplexes me that almost no one who I’ve talked to in the ‘church’ even knows the story of Xenu. And it doesn’t speak highly of Scientology that the fruits of its tree act rudely when you even inquire about it. That’s the definition of a cult when you can’t ask questions.”

Jay told me, “You know the old phrase,” and put on an Italian mob accent, “You can talk about me but don’t fuck with my mother.” Okay, so now we just moved beyond shooting the “shit” and were in the realm of him feeling comfortable “fuck”-ing me. [Note to self: tie my hair back and wear a fuckin’ suit if I want to be talked to without being cursed at.]

He was talking about how people get defensive when challenged about what they are passionate. I do understand that. I don’t personally care if someone likes or dislikes Osho but when they misinterpret him and pretend they know him, I kinda am like, “You can talk about me but don’t fuck with my mother.” They usually respond, “I didn’t mention your mother. And stop cursing like a sailor, you low-classed scumbag!”

Jay had them bring me some back cover of some book on Scientology and read it, telling me this totally applied to what I was talking about regarding my main issue, which he forced out of me, my lack of follow-through problem. I was not looking forward to what I anticipated would be coming, me bellowing cries of angst to him about how I never satisfied a woman.

What I read on the back cover was entirely about people being reactive, with a quote by John Travolta and some other famous cult member whose celebrity status made their words whored out like Lois Griffin on “Family Guy” after Peter just spent the family’s last dime buying a rare ostrich. After I finished it I was like, “Jay, I very much agree with what this says but it has nothing to do with me being a lazy mother fucker.” As much as Jay cared about Scientology and was doing his best to connect with me, there were still limits on how much he could truly come into union with another person without the tools of a junky’s dependent on his Scientology crack vile. I had a nail in the wall seeking pounding and he pulled out a screwdriver and expected me to whistle Dixie with a cock in my mouth.

After I was done with Jay, there was an attempt to get me to watch the 15-minute propaganda film that would surely convince me that my life was shit without Scientology.  There were a few girls sitting around, only one of which had blown me. I was told that the next movie started in 7-minutes. They seemed to imply that I was definitely going to see it and I said, “I’m still deciding.” I enjoy fucking my time away chatting and discussing nonsense but I had already spent a half-hour in this freak house and the thought of waiting another 7-minutes and then sitting another 15-minutes, after which I’d probably be bombarded by Moonie-trained cultists asking me twenty questions about how the movie impacted my life and me having to come up with a response clever and insulting at the same time like, “It reminded me of the third ‘Matrix’ movie: good overall production quality, some exciting moments but a stupid plot and a terrible actor for the leading man,” did not appeal to me. Oh, if only Jay had me hooked up to the double-dildo stress machine now.

One of the girls, I think, was trying to be cute. She said something like, “We don’t like people deciding.”

I responded, “Yeah, I heard that about you cultists.”

She then attempted to make a joke about forcing me to follow her commands with something like, “You are going to let me cut the right part of your hair off.”

I almost gave her the helpful advice, “Why don’t you stick with being a mindless follower of a cult based on a fairy tale, by which in this moment I am not referring to Christianity, and leave me to the comedy?” but I was feeling so pumped up by my talk with Jay, who happened to live in a van by the river, that not only did I not want to push her face in her own unfunny pile of poo, but I was even planning to rent a John Travolta, or if I was interested in watching a homosexual actor, a Tom Cruise movie when I got home.

Then she went Satan. She turned her back on me and sat down as she said, “You don’t have to see the movie. We don’t force anyone to do anything.” While the words were fine, the tone and the action were very dismissive. Being a quick study, I answered her action with the Scientology lesson I learned from the back of the book that Jay handed me.

“You know, if one of the goals of Scientology is to no longer be reactive, I must point out that your behavior here is very reactive.” She started to leave and trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, that she was just a comedy dolt and not a bitch, I said to her, “I assume you were being facetious and joking.” She responded that she wasn’t and left briskly. Bitch.

Now I found myself surrounded by two young woman and a guy and was ready to bust some heads in if they tried to prevent me from getting out of there with more mundane questions, my only disappointment being that I didn’t have a video camera to capture the bloodbath so I could post it on YouTube and read the brilliant commentary from the YouTube community of, “Fag!” and “Yeah, mess ‘em up!”

I told the remaining pricks that I had just spent a half-hour talking to Jay, which I enjoyed, and the feeling I was now going to leave with was a negative one because of that reactive bitch. The guy started to say something and I gave him a look that clearly communicated that if I had to listen to another word from his pussy mouth I was going to start smashing some heads. He shut his pie hole and I took my dog and left.

One thing that was made clear to me is that it doesn’t matter whether it is Scientology, Christianity, Buddhism, Yoga or needlepoint, it is not the “system” that is important, it is the person who comes to the system. Jay was an open person who took the tools he needed and used them to feel better about his life. Sure he was probably unaware of some of his manipulation techniques, but in his defense, they were probably induced into him when he was strapped to a table and hooked up to a sodium pentathol drip.  These other fools, though, were out and out cultists who may give a decent blowjob but God forbid you ask a question that is not listed in their Scientology military manual, they fall apart like Humpty Dumpty after I kicked his oversized egg-ass off the wall.

As I walked home with my dog, Abandon, she looked up at me and said, “I’m thinking of joining up with Scientology. Do they accept dogs?” I stopped in my tracks. She looked forward and said, “I’m just fucking with you.” I breathed a sigh of relief, as it had taken me three years and two deprogrammers to free her from the last cult she had gotten herself messed up with, the Christian church, and I swore I would throw her ass in the Hudson River before I went through that again.

Do you know what the ‘L’ in ‘L. Ron Hubbard’ stands for?” she asked, implying she knew the answer.

I bit. “No.”

“It stands for ‘Lucifer.’ I had to hand it to her, my little girl was funny.

I was hoping you went Rambo on their asses so I could bite a couple of those mother fuckers.” While Jay didn’t influence me, apparently his choice of language had influenced my dog. I went home and painted a sign that said, “SCIENTOLOGY FUCKED UP MY DOG’S VOCABULARY!” and will be marching in front of their headquarters tomorrow. Perhaps it is a little “reactive.”

 

REFLECTION:

What groups do you belong to? Are there any teachings that don’t jive with you and yet you never have questioned them? Why? What teachings do you like and what don’t you like from your personal cult’s lexicon? Why can’t you take the teachings that are useful and discard the one’s which aren’t without the need to identify yourself as a card-carrying cult member?

MEDITATION:

Imagine someone asking you a question with a negative tone about something you care about. “I think yoga is just a way for people to pretend they are spiritual,” or “Gandhi was a pervert who laid down with young women” (two phrases that have come out of my mouth almost as much as the lewd word “prostitute.” How would you react? If you would react in anger or frustration, I would suggest that you are “attached” to the item of discussion. Any TRUE guru or religion seeks to set you free, not make you an imprisoned follower.