I’ve been hearing a lot of ads on the radio recently for Narconon, a supposedly proven rehabilitation method for drug addicts. What these ads fail to mention, however, is that Narconon is a front group for a particularly insidious cult – Scientology. Apparently, they’re going on a recruiting drive.

Scientology is classified as a religion, and it’s a pretty scary one, not because the beliefs themselves are ridiculous (they are), but the methods used to propagate, teach and defend those beliefs are pure evil. Scientology not only fills people’s heads with utter crap (all religions do this), but it charges them a shitload of money for the privilege (almost all religions do not do this).

Scientology doesn’t appear to be much of a problem in Australia and was actually banned for a time in various states (Victoria 1965-1982) due to the fact that Scientology is really just a bait-and-switch scam devised to get as much money out of its adherents as possible. Thanks to the backing of a few misguided celebrities, such as Cruise and Travolta, scientology appears to be more problematic and litigiously powerful in the United States and Great Britain. Ridiculous laws that give tax exempt status to religions are a real help with their ultimate plan, which is to sue everyone who’s not a scientologist. In 1982, the High Court reversed the Australian ban and declared scientology a religion, noting:

"Charlatanism is a necessary price of religious freedom, and if a self-proclaimed teacher persuades others to believe in a religion which he propounds, lack of sincerity or integrity on his part is not incompatible with the religious character of the beliefs, practices and observances accepted by his followers."

In other words, the guy who started this thing (L. Ron Hubbard) was a dishonest nutbag, but that doesn’t invalidate their claim to religious legitimacy. Just as well, or all religions would be in a spot of bother.

For those who don’t already know, scientologists believe there was a bit of a brouhaha in the Galactic Federation about 75 million years ago. An evil galactic warlord, by the name of Xenu, thought there was a bit of a population problem so he rounded up millions of inhabitants from all over the galaxy and had them frozen. He then brought these frozen aliens to Earth (for some reason) and dumped them all into the volcanoes in Hawaii (which weren’t actually there 75 million years ago). Xenu then captured the souls of all the dead aliens and sat them all down with some popcorn to watch some brainwashing films. The alien souls, now properly brainwashed, were released and have since found refuge in the bodies of us all. It is, in fact, these pesky alien souls that cause everyone’s problems. The only way you can defeat these parasitic alien souls is to undergo auditing counselling by the scientologists. Of course, they don’t tell you all this crazy alien crap when you first show up. You must first undergo years of auditing sessions (brainwashing) in order to completely eradicate any critical thinking ability you may already have possessed.

So, as I said in the title, you’re probably better off drugged to the nines than turning to these loonies for help. They’ll bleed you dry, their Narconon system is dangerous and probably won’t help, and you could end up believing that aliens caused all your problems. For a great scientology resource, go to www.xenu.net