I'll be frank: nothing much inspires me to write. This is problematic, especially as I want to write professionally. Most of the time I'll write something inflammatory, or a fanciful story, but these are sporadic. It's very rare that I'll hear or see something, on the radio or on the television, that will prompt me to start writing, to start showering my views and thoughts all over the freshly awoken shoulders of the internet.
So it came as a bit of a shock to me that I had this sudden impetus to write about something. I felt so compelled to put what I thought down in pixels, a feeling that was all to foreign to me.
It all came from a documentary. Journalist and author John Sweeneys' follow up programme on the Church of Scientology for BBCs Panorama, 'Secrets of Scientology', which aired last night, was in equal parts frightening, frustrating and just really, really strange.
Sweeneys original documentary, 'Scientology and Me', became quite popular because of one infamous scene. After being berated with beliefs by a loud middle aged woman in a museum dedicated to showcasing why Psychiatry has caused genocide across history, Sweeney lets his rag slip a bit. His rag is then stuffed in a bottle filled with petrol, lit, and thrown right in his face, agitated to the point of madness by press goon Tommy Davis. Davis accused Sweeney of being biased against Scientology, knowing full well that he'd been orchestrating teams of Scientology members in blacked out four-by-fours to follow Sweeney around everywhere he goes.
In the follow up, Sweeney focuses on the people who decided Scientology wasn't for them. Among these people was Mike Rinder, Former Executive Director of the Office of Special Affairs. That means he was in charge of purporting the Churches image as good for society and helpful and kind and all the other things it flagrantly isn't. Rinder speaks candidly about the churches abuses of power and invasions of privacy, such as the very sinister usage of secret cameras and microphones during an 'auditing' session.
Aside from the very creepy and, without a shred of hyperbole, sickening way the church sends a camera man and supervisor to any place Sweeney and the team happen to be filming, the most disturbing part of the whole thing was the destruction of families. Rinder is estranged from his wife and children. When he made the decision to leave the church, he was cut off from his family; they were told he was an enemy of the church, an undesirable. Years later he was confronted by his ex- family, accompanied by CoS goons. They shouted expletives at him, and attempted to have him tried for assault. This was all recorded as Rinder was on the phone to Sweeney at the time, and all charges against him were dropped.
This isn't a stand alone case. Sweeney spoke to a few others whose lives had been fractured by the churchs draconian policies; a woman who had multiple abortions due to her status in the church, a young mother whose fiancée left her to be with the church, and a woman who, after leaving, had private information about her sex life banded around on a CoS newsletter.
On the face of it, the Church of Scientology is a laughable state of affairs. A sect that so desperately wishes to be taken seriously, but inadvertently destroys any possible credibility with its pathetic and ridiculous strong arming and palatial monuments to its own deluded self worth. Let's not even get started on the concept of Lord Xenu and the volcano ghosts. It's hard to believe that someone could form a religion around what appears to be the plot of a weak episode of Scooby Doo, but then again anything is possible in America. Anything.
All mutant galaxy Field Marshals aside, the churchs actions are puerile and really quite childish. The best part is, is that when John Sweeney was being shouted at by the loud CoS member in the eerie, dark museum, she harked on about how psychiatry was used in Nazi Germany and was a contributing factor to the Holocaust.
What else was Nazi Germany guilty of? Intimidating muscle, surveillance, silencing people, manipulative propaganda... Sound familiar?
