Faith! *

The latest issue of Rolling Stones carries a special report on Scientology, which it calls the secret church.Every one knows that Tom Cruise is into it. All along I've been thinking that it's some zany idea of his. Headquartered in Clearwater, Florida, the Scientology cult was founded by L.Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer in 1954.

The Scientology "religion" espouses that 75 million years ago, an evil galactic warlord named Xenu controlled over populated 76 planets in this galaxy. To reduce population, Xenu rounded up 13.5 trillion beings and then flew them to Earth, where they were dumped into vulcanoes around the globe and vaporized with bombs. This scattered their radioactive souls or thetans until they were caught up in electronic traps set around the atmosphere and implanted with false ideas like God, christ and organized religion. These "thetans" attach themselves to human beings and cause emotional and physical problems.

Some theory this is! Whew!!

Rolling Stones reports that before starting his religion, Ron Hubbard was into black magic and sex rituals. After his death in 1986, David Miscavige leads this cult now. Apart from Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kelly Preston and some more Page 3 (or Page 6, depending on the country) mainstays practise this "religion".

It was a fascinating article which details how the organization revels in having their own jargon and how it is very secretive in nature.

Reading that, I could not help wondering how seemingly normal people join this obviously abnormal groups. This is not an one off group, I am sure. The world over we can see money being made in the name of some religion or bonding, whatever.
I guess all these cults play on an individual's insecurity at some level. Also they feed on the human being's social needs. All rituals and invokings of any group can be seen to provide a feeling of belonging to the members.
Also surprising to me is the ability of a single individual who leads the organization to hold in thrall, the people who are actually no different or no lesser than him. Such is the power of the mind. It can dominate everything around it or it can be so submissive.
In our country, where religion is a big draw, I have seen clean shaven personalities lead organizations in the name of religion. What struck me was they need not have to grow beard and morph into scraggly sadhus, to convince others. Such is the power of the spoken word. Seeing them i've always wondered, "In what way this guy is different from me?". But not everyone does and hence they thrive.
And I thought Tom Cruise was a normal handsome guy like me having a string of beauties as girl friends! Ofcourse on Penelope, I have reservations. But when the guy ditches someone like Nicole Kidman, I should've known!

* - This song from the eponymous album is by George Michael. A Grammy winner which went platinum, I absolutely love this album. All the songs are good, to say the least!