A Vanity Fair reporter recently asked Scientology-affirming actress Juliette Lewis an affable, offhand question: Can a Scientologist celebrate Christmas? Her affable, offhand response:
I’m a Christian! I think there’s so much confusion because people don’t understand a religion where you can be another religion but you can still practice Scientology. That’s why it’s completely progressive. It’s just tools for living. It’s about understanding one’s self and others and compassion and how to communicate better and how to live in this troubled society. It’s really basic, common sense stuff. It has nothing to do with all this funny folklore that surrounds it. You could be a Jewish Scientologist or a Buddhist Scientologist or a Christian Scientologist or anything else.
The reporter apparently felt free to press the question: She didn’t think there were aliens in her family tree?
I was thinking about where that idea came from, and I was like, “Oh, maybe it’s because [L. Ron] Hubbard was a successful science fiction writer, so they’re confusing his science fiction with his other studies that have nothing to do with science fiction.” It’s like you thinking I might punch somebody in the face because I played somebody who punched somebody in the face in a movie.
….
I’m used to misconceptions. And honestly, I don’t care to explain Scientology to people. You can investigate it on your own. It’s not that difficult. There are Web sites and all sorts of resources. The one thing that troubles me is when rumor becomes hatred and prejudice towards a group of people. That’s when it becomes scary, when you have people trying to take away other people’s right to practice a religion of your own choosing.
I think if I’d been the reporter in the room, I might have urged the question a bit further so as to see if something more could be teased out: Ms. Lewis, if it’s true that Scientology is more of a technology than a philosophy, then why is it considered a religion? If it’s “just tools for living,” then why did Mr. Hubbard call it a religion, and why is it properly known by its full title as the Church of Scientology? I can’t see it as anything but a religion – or at least a mytho-religio belief system first and everything else second. Can you?
That’s akin to Michael Bywater’s curiosities about Scientology, but his main problem is not with the religion itself. He allows that it is a religion, but he wants to know what the main difference is between Scientology and any other religion. The answer, for him at least, is pretty fundamental.
My conclusion is that it’s L Ron. Not just his keenness on the business aspects of religion. Not just the thorough nastiness of some of his administrative bruisers. Not just the allegations of black ops and dodgy dealings or the notorious hair-trigger litigiousness of the organisation (it’s so litigious it’ll probably sue me for calling it so litigious it’ll probably sue me). Nor even L Ron’s history as a civil engineer, a pretty flaky WW2 military career (kicking off a two-day battle involving his own submarine-chaser, four other ships, two blimps but no actual enemy submarine) or his tall stories about geology, Freud, atomic physics (he failed), being a lama, exploring, documentaries and the rest. No; my theory is it’s L Ron. I mean, literally, “L Ron”. Jesus: fine. Muhammad: fine. Moses: tickety-boo. Peace be upon them all. But L Ron? Excuse me? If its founder had been “L Ron Christ” would Christianity ever have got going? It’s a harsh world and I think the answer is “no”.
But as for why Scientology did get going … well: first, Dianetics hits the perfect pitch of laying out mumbo-jumbo in just clear enough terms for people who think they’re terribly significant but who aren’t that bright (there are a lot of movie stars in the lists, wouldn’t you say?) to think that they’re grasping something terribly important which actually makes sense. And, secondly, it doesn’t pose a Creator. Just a bunch of clever aliens. Whom we can turn back into if we have enough money.
Brilliant.
Apotheosis without the Theos. Only a science fiction writer could come up with that idea.