The Entheta is flying . . .

With Cruise's latest bit of Kult Krazy™ in wide release, the entheta is flying fast and furious in the mainstream media and it's open season on the cult, so why aren't I delighted? I certainly want Miscavige and his cronies brought to some kind of justice. I want people to feel free to write about the "church" and Hubbard without fear of being buried in Kobrin-grams or having Eugene Ingram breathing down their neck. Personally, I just like mocking Hubbard and his batshit crazy "tech", but I'm feeling uneasy.

What's giving me this gnawing anxiety is the growing lynch mob mentality of late, mostly fomented by Anonymous' plan to attack $cientology's servers which quickly spread from the digital to the anolog world. Surely this would be fun, right? Plucky underdogs nipping at the bloated bureaucracy of the cult, striking blows for free-speech and liberty. That should fill me with glee, right? There are many thoughtful Anonymous members to be sure, but sadly, what is coming out of the woodwork is more like a pack of juvenile Hubbards who clearly don't get out of their parent's basements enough. These rogue shit-disturbers seem to be filled with anger and stupidity and they're playing directly into OSA's hands. The fake anthrax envelopes, the "Honk if you hate Scientology" signs and calls for sabotaging church property all sound like the tactics of OSA at the height of Hubbard's paranoia.

The problem with anarchy is that it only works when everybody is a responsible, smart adult. When you throw out an open call for action, you're gonna get nut-cases who just want to smash some shit and they don't care who gets hurt or what the consequences are. This is never a good idea. One huge difference between Anonymous and OSA is that OSA is run with an iron fist, and that everything is planned down to the last detail. Okay, the OSA plan may be a complete foot-bullet-clusterfuck (it usually is), but at least there won't be any "rogue-element" surprises along the way.

Attacking them isn't the way to get at them folks . . . you have to reveal them in all their space-opera glory. Don't be a censor and try to stop people from reading Hubbard's crap . . . encourage them to read it! Get them a copy of the hilarious "A History of Man" or highlight the tone-scale stuff in "Dianetics" about eliminating gays "without sorrow". Get them to watch Tom Cruise go off the deep end on Gawker. Have them watch one of the cult's creepy recruiting films. For in-depth research, send folks to xenu.net or cultnews.net. Then there's parody: Southpark has proven that you'll get way more results with some smart mockery or parody than you will with an attack on the poor shchmucks in the church who are the very people we're trying to wake up. How about Hubbard in his own words? My song "What's the Matter With You Hat?" (mad props to Karl for the video) is a fun primer on interplanetary travel and tanning in the Van Allen belts. If you're itching for confrontation, head down to your local org or mission and picket . . . politely. Don't give them any ammunition about how awful and evil critics are. Remember, all the preclears see is the happy, shiny Scientology that teaches and helps people. They see the smiling face, not the greedy, manipulative, paranoid cult.

For a daily dose of sanity, check in on Mark Bunker's great blog. He's been on the front of this battle for years and has great perspective on the whole thing. For all the media circus around the cult right now, there are still millions of folks who really don't know anything about the CoS, so there is still a need to speak out. I believe the critic's job is to get the uniformed direct access to the crazy stuff before they can be love-bombed into parting with all their money and brainwashed into believing all their troubles stem from being covered with Xenu's space cooties.