Earlier this week I responded to an invitation by a local county high school to guide a select group of juniors and seniors (in an accelerated learning program) through a tour of Scientology. As most critics understand, the topic has too many facets to cover in a 30 minute chat. Consequently, for the purposes of economy I pared down my exposition to a few central topics. These included: why Scientology was, properly speaking, not a religion; how the IRS came to grant it tax exempt status; my personal experiences in Scientology and as a Scientology critic, and a few rudimentaries concerning the belief system itself. Here I focused upon the implicit exorcism of Dianetic auditing and the explicit exorcism of upper level auditing. A great deal further investigation into Scientology followed during the ensuing Q&A session. The students also received a printout directing them to such critical websites as Operation Clambake, Arnie's site, Xenu TV and Scientomogy, among others.

Almost every one of these students had seen South Park's "Locked in the Closet" either on Comedy Central's initial November showing or afterwards on the Internet.

I wish to raise but two points concerning my experience. First, from a critical standpoint, it's remarkable what Comedy Central achieved in terms of bringing Scientology to a forefront of public awareness. The first question I asked the students concerned how many of them had even heard of Scientology *prior* to South Park, and only one hand was raised out of a class of fifteen or so. South Park is such a prominent source of cultural reference for intelligent people in their late teens or early twenties. I don't think a busload of well-intentioned Bob Minton's could have achieved the same level of social demystification as has this cartoon with its crude construction paper cut-out characters. South Park also managed an excellent job of informing viewers of the cult's Xenu mythology. And yes Virginia, this is what upper-level Scientologists actually believe.

Secondly, some of the students wondered whether or not the cultists at the very top of the Scientology food chain believed in all the doctrinal nonsense ladled out to the rank and file or whether they were simply in it for the money. I responded that this remained an open question and that long time critics could not manage any agreement amongst themselves as to whether or not Miscavige or Rinder subscribed to the literal truth of Hubbard's most arcane folklore.

I look forward to future opportunities to educate the public about this ridiculous cult.

-- ewsnead

We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest. - George Christoph Lichtenberg

http://www.xenu.net
http://www.whyaretheydead.net
http://www.lermanet.com
http://www.scientomogy.info/index.html#NEW
http://firstdistributorsnz.com/scien...south-park.htm
http://www.torymagoo.org
http://www.xenutv.com

and (drum roll) http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9363363/inside_scientology

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