h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think critical pieces on the church of scientology have been well received in the past, so it will be interesting to see if this provokes any response.

I remember walking into the church office on Tottenham Court Road in about 1980, when it was opposite Paper Chase. I had arrived early to meet someone and had 40 minutes to kill.

I filled in one of their fine questionnaires in which it struck me that the topics repeated in cycles, offering the same basic questions over and over, presumably to look for inconsistant replies. The "result" of my responses was a diagnosis of mental instability (well, they got something right) so they offered to attach me to an e-meter to do some more analysis (to find out how much it would cost me for a cure I guess). I immediately spotted that the e-meter was a simple galvanomic skin-response meter, which was a shame for them because a circuit for such a meter had been published in about 1978 (in Electronics Today International I think), along with some information on using bio-feedback.

Having had some time to practice with a GSR meter I had learned to make the needle do pretty well what I wanted, so I had a lot of fun, extending the attempt to calibrate the meter to about 5 minutes and then sprinting the needle back and forth across the dial. Sadly before I could spread my own form of mental instability to one of the church members (who was non-the-less convinced by this time that the meter was malfunctioning) it was time to return to real life, so I walked back out into the sunshine and spent the next half hour chuckling.

Starting a religon is a great way to make money.
It takes very little capital; perhaps only a computer and a bank account. Oh, almost forgot, and the 'nod' from above ... the vision.

The contributions rolling in are often tax-free.

Rooms can be rented for meetings in the early days.
When enough money has been accumulated the church can become a player in the property market.

Surplus cash can be invested on the World's stock exchanges and also the gold and precious metal markets. An 'own bank' is also a good idea.

As an aside, how did those people in Old Testament times lived for so many years; Adam 930, Noah 950. Methuselah 969 etc.?

A bit of synchonicity here. Last nights broadcast of South Park here in the states was about scientology. (Tom Cruise locks himself in Stan's closet and everyone keeps begging him to come out. )

Anyway, it was brilliant. Especially the part where they explain the stuff with the body thetans and the alien overlord Xeno. In bold letters over the scene they posted this: "This is what scientologists actually believe!"


And in anticipation of the lawsuits that the church typically uses to silence critics every name in the credits were replaced with John Smith and Jane Smith.



Count Smith.

ooh, sorry, for a minute there my 'thetan' escaped and took over the world... *damn* must keep it in check...

I wish we had Mort Sahl's take on Scientology. I think it was Sahl talking about Unitarians, saying the Klan burned question marks in their lawns.

IT's fascinating but scary what people will believe. Well not only believe but who they allow to control them. These are well written interesting articles.

They were using a different calendar than we use today.