Going Louis Theroux on Your Ass, by @robinsanderson

By Robin Sanderson At the SCA we’re constantly taught to be inquisitive, and strongly encouraged to discover newthings. For the past few months this quest to discover has taken me down some, shall we say, interestingroutes. Enter a bare faced messiah and a giggling guru. The bare faced messiah is a Mr. L. Ron Hubbard. Don’t worry, I’m not a Scientologist. In fact, for a portion of my younger life I was engaged in strongly opposing Scientology (unrelatedto the Anonymous “Project Chanology” movement). On numerous occasions I met with BonnieWoods and her husband Richard. Bonnie is an ex member of the Church of Scientology, and avocal critic of the organisation. She famously won a High Court battle against the Church,something that not a lot of people manage to do because of its financial power and itsoutrageously litigious nature. These details are for a story I can tell another time. And I don’t want to get sued. Hopefully you get the picture that I’m suspicious of organisations offering to sell you a “piece ofblue sky” (an actual L. Ron Hubbard quote). But as a supposed inquisitor extraordinaire, I felt it my duty to reevaluate a subject I had previouslybeen antipathetic towards. I sought out a Scientologist I knew, who, for the purposes of this story, will go by the name ofHenry. Henry offered to talk me through what Scientology had done for him. My bullshit alarm was all the way up to 11, but I asked myself whether I was being intolerant andneedlessly obstinate in the face of an opportunity to discover. I wondered if my previous criticism ofScientology was built on naive, youthful fervour. So I said to myself that I would keep an open mind, if only to prove to myself that I could form anopinion by experiencing both sides of the story. I sat down with Henry to watch an introductory DVD on Scientology. I’ll cut to the chase. It was fricking laughable. Where do I start? The corny, overblown CGI graphics. The phony, sphincter puckering “acting”. Itwas completely devoid of any emotional sophistication or intelligence. And I haven’t even startedon the “theories” yet. I won’t start lest I never end. Early into the viewing, tittering to myself internally, I tried to take a sly photo of the CGI madness onthe TV screen. I accidentally left my flash on, and Henry went into a paranoid meltdown, believing Iwas engaging in some kind of religious espionage. Well, to be fair, he wasn’t far wrong. After trying to convince him that I would take it seriously, shortly thereafter the word “BULLSHIT”erupted from my mouth as the narrator explained one of L. Ron Hubbard’s fantastical theories thathe invented whilst swimming in a quagmire of psychiatric drugs and baloney pulp fiction. Henry and I both quickly agreed that Scientology wasn’t for me. Lucky for Scientology, I figured.But I wasn’t going to stop at just one wacky baby boomer spiritual movement, was I?Next, enter the giggling guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, leader and guru of the TranscendentalMeditation organisation. I was immediately more wary of this organisation because I am inclined to be sympathetic to it.“Dangerous”, I thought. “That’s how people get sucked into cults”.Having done extensive research, I came to the conclusion that it was benign and certainly notfitting the description of a cult. Sure, there were a few disaffected TM’ers on the web who mainlysounded like sulking bed wetters, and the whole Yogic flying thing is a bit “different”, but everythingelse seemed broadly positive. Also, four people I have the deepest esteem for are proponents of Transcendental Meditation: RickRubin, Russell Simmonds, Lena Dunham and Jerry Seinfeld.That gave me the permission to go exploring. I went to an introductory meeting in a small room inside a handsome building in Victoria. About 15well adjusted, totally non whack job adults had convened, and we discussed what we wanted andexpected. My first impressions were that I found it a tad bit creepy and embarrassing that all of uswere looking for some kind of spiritual and mental trickery that could elevate us amongst meremortals. How selfish and unenlightened, I thought. A beautiful young woman who I felt I recognised, perhaps as an actress, told us she wanted tostart TM again after practicing for much of her childhood. I wondered if her somewhat blank, aloofdemeanour was related to her hypothetical profession, or because TM had turned her young braininto mush. Or maybe it was because she was sick of me checking her out. Certainly the woman who was running the induction seemed to have a brain of mush. Totallyspaced out. This didn’t seem a good sign. I hesitated at this point and questioned whether it was wise to continue. I looked inside myself, and in there I saw Jerry Seinfeld talking back at me “Really?!” he wassaying, in that manner he uses to express withering condescension. Was I really going to chickenout at this stage? I didn’t chicken out. It’s only been a month and a bit since then. I had four lessons teaching me the meditationtechnique. Only once did I feel someone trying to nick my wallet out of my pocket whilst I was deepin meditation. So generally I trust them. And after that, you’re left to get on with it yourself andmeditate twice a day in your own home. And that’s all there is to it really. I won’t bore you with my personal experience of the act of meditation because that’s kind ofbeyond the point. If you’re interested in trying it, then I would say try it for yourself. There’s nothingto lose. The most important lesson surely is that my desire to be inquisitive has taken me to some places Imight never have been. And when I leave the school, I can say:“I tried to join two cults because of SCA”Put that quote on your website Marc.