This morning I was a guest on "Religion on the Line", on WABC Radio in New York City. The hosts are Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis, and Father Paul Keenan, Director of Radio Ministry for the Archdiocese of New York. The topic was Scientology.

At one point, the hosts announced that they were going to have John Carmichael on in the next hour. Carmichael is the President of the Church of Scientology of New York. (He's also the DSA.) They asked me, what is the one question I would want John Carmichael to answer.

I said that I'd met John Carmichael, and they should not expect to get any straight answers out of him. But as to a specific question to ask: I said that Scientology spokespersons seem to be of two minds about Xenu. Sometimes they pretend they never heard of him. The church's national spokesman, Ed Parkin, did that just a few weeks ago. But sometimes they say, "that's just a small part of our religion". But if the goal of every Scientologist is to "go OT", and the only way to do that is through Xenu, then how can it be just a small part of their religion?

Well, they got John Carmichael on, and I was wondering which tactic he would choose: deny, or minimize? John surprised everyone by choosing both! First he denied Xenu, saying he "didn't exist". But when the hosts said "it's right there on this web site", he told them that they wouldn't understand it; that they would have to study it to understand. Without study it wouldn't make sense.

So there you have it. John first denies Xenu and then admits to Xenu. I predicted right on the air that he'd behave like a weasel, and then he goes and out-weasels even Ed Parkin.

John, you are the KING OF WEASELS!!!

Very well done, old boy. I'm sure the listeners loved it.

-- Dave Touretzky: "I've studied OT III, and it STILL doesn't make sense." http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets

From: "ewsnead"
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 13:32:56 -0400
Message-ID: <-t6dnR6yAerXC0ffRVn-vQ@comcast.com>

The Scientologist is increasingly beginning to resemble a cartoon character dwelling in a realm aloof from contradiction. Because if I exist in cartoonland, then anything is in principle literally possible. I can defy gravity and fly without wings. I can walk barefoot on molten lava. I can transform myself into a talking duck or a banjo strumming raccoon. I can save the planet from malevolent aliens. I can transform my evil sister, Judy, into a jack-in-the-box and banish her to the cornfield because she contradicted me and attempted to thwart my postulates. I can be literally alive even if I am literally dead. I can both be and not be. I can pretend that a lie is the truth, a truth is a lie and that the distinction between them meaningless. I can say one thing and then contradict myself and then act as if I never said the first thing because all I'm actually doing is constantly diverting your attention from the lived context of what is actually going on. Something recently said becomes a phantom because the ago has no actual existence as something ever said at all since it was once said and not said in the immediacy of the now, which is the only real thing and grants me license to create reality as I see fit because I am a high level operating thetan.

Get it?

ewsnead

-- "Scientology: boldly challenging the MEST universe since 1953, with decidedly mixed results."

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