This is Your Brain on Scientology

Two factions of the Church of Scientology are locked in a high-fever battle for what they believe is the whole agonized future of this planet.

We have Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder on one side, and David Miscavige on the other. The three of these guys used to work together for 30 years, busting their guts out to beat "Deadline Earth", the point at which all Mankind would blow itself up without the sanity that Scientology alone can provide. All three men still feverishly believe that only Scientology will save the world, but each now thinks that Scientology is being ruined of its earth-saving powers by the other.

Even though they now hate each other at levels only religious fanaticism can attain, they used to believe that the criminal acts they committed together were for the "greatest good" to save the world from itself by using Scientology. And so each has the goods to put the other away in prison for years, but neither want to tell all on the other because their own mutual destruction would result. So instead, they must play very childish games against each other and put the videos on the Internet for everyone to see.

You might say that these three guys lack perspective. None of them have ever been able to step back and ask themselves if Scientology will really save anything. For instance, L Ron Hubbard liked to sell services to Scientologists that he claimed would increase their powers of communication. All of the people involved in the following video are very highly trained Scientologists, fully versed in L Ron Hubbard's communication technology.

Watch this video and ask yourself if these people are good at communication:

Even though it is completely obvious to anyone else that these people are speaking like they are in a childish spat, and displaying no ability to listen or to understand each other at all, to them, they think they are mighty superhumans, cutting each other down with laser-precise confront and communication skills.

Another person who believes that he is going to save the planet from itself, using the superhuman skills that only Scientology can provide, is Tom Cruise. See Tom's superhuman communication skills in this now infamous interview with Matt Lauer on the Today Show:

 

Tom Cruise displays here a delusional belief that he alone knows the history of psychiatry. He believes that he is "getting ethics in" by telling the world that Brooke Shields' use of anti-depressants for her post-partum depression was wrong, and that Matt is "glib" for questioning him on it. Tom Cruise had no idea of the effect his behavior would cause to his career, to Brooke Shields, and even to the reputation of Scientology itself. He, like the Scientologists above, continues to believe - even after this debacle - that he has superhuman abilities from Scientology, and that he and his cult alone can "save the planet."

What could possibly cause this oblivious blindness to his own behavior and to the perspective of others? Most people who have not been contaminated by Scientology would have the foresight to understand how they appear to others, and what kind of effect their behavior would have from the viewpoint of other people in society. One very common characteristic of Scientologists, and other religious cult members, is this blindness to how others perceive them.

Dissociative disorders are common mental derangements caused by trance states and other coercive tactics employed by religious and political brainwashing techniques. The cult instills a new "self" inside the member which re-defines and essentially walls-off the values from his old self, and his old society. When the cult member adopts his new identity, created within the context of the deranged value system of his cult, he is no longer aware of the social appropriateness of his behavior as viewed by the wider world. Almost like stuck in a dream, or an intense role-playing game, he sees only the inner world of the cult role he is playing, within the worldview of the cult, thus developing a blindness to the objective reality of the outside world and to the other people around him.

This is your brain on Scientology. It is not a pretty sight. At first, the loopy, fanatical behavior is funny and kind of entertaining. But when you really learn what's going on, it's not so funny any more.

Experts have called Scientology one of the most effective brainwashing cults ever devised. The effects from having been under the control of Scientology can last a long time, years after leaving and no longer being under its control.

Maybe some day the US government will recognize the danger inherent in cult brainwashing "therapies" and think up a way to license practitioners who delve deeply into the minds of people. Or maybe they can apply the existing laws on fraud to reign in cults like Scientology. Until then, it looks like we are just going to have cult members run free in the streets of our society, and put their videos up on the Internet so people can laugh at the spectacle they make of themselves.