Most Americans are exposed to Scientology with a fair amount of distance between them and it, via celebrity gossip, infomercials for Dianetics on late-night TV and media exposes of the “church” founded by a speedfreak sci-fi writer/con man in the 1950s. When you live in Los Angeles, however, the present day minions of L. Ron Hubbard are all around you…
For several years in the early-mid 1990s I lived in the heart of Hollywood, and I was in the habit of reading the newspaper and eating breakfast at several cheap hole-in-the-walls I could walk to along Hollywood Blvd. Due to the proximity to a lot of Scientology’s real estate holdings, inevitably I’d see two or more Scientologists grabbing eggs and coffee wherever I happened to be, and often I’d have no choice but to overhear their conversations.
Eventually eavesdropping on Scientologists became a bit of a sport for me, something I could amuse myself with. The best conversations to tune into were the ones that would occur between two higher-ranking “Sea Org” types (the ones with the quasi-naval uniforms). Aside from the obvious, there was always one highly reliable element that nearly all of these conversations had and that was pure, unmitigated, hold-nothing-back, out and out vicious bitching. About something… but usually about someone. Someone they’d just rip to bloody shreds behind their back. They seemed to be such nasty, unhappy, bitter people.
The members of the Sea Organization are considered to be the Co$ “elite.” These are the evangelicals who have signed billion-year-long contracts, a “Gnostic” religious order within the Church of Scientology (think Jesuits), who dedicate their lives (all of ‘em, apparently, the Sea Org’s motto is “We Come Back”) to cleansing and uplifting the planet with the teachings of L. Ron Hubcap (If media reports are to be trusted, in recent years the Org seems to be more dedicated to making Tom Cruise feel like a very, very important person than converting the masses).
Every morning was like a fascinating sociological expedition and highly entertaining. These were some of the meanest, most judgmental individuals I’d ever seen in action. They were also, without exception, some of the squarest people I’ve ever laid eyes on. Like Republicans. Or Mormons. Bluntly, they were just losers. Remarkably unremarkable people who looked down their noses at everyone else, even their own teammates.
In my four years of personally observing these perpetually pissed-off Sea Orgres, it seemed pretty clear to me that one of the main draws Scientology must have for certain people—and especially for the ultra true-believer Sea Org “inner circle” types—is that Church doctrine, and the way they’re cloistered and told that they’re superior to everyone else, is actually what these people want, what they get out of it. They’re better than you and I are—and they know it—and they pity us for it (In the in-group parlance, a non-Scientologist infidel is charmingly referred to as a “wog”).
Like all zealots, these Co$ elites want to inflict their truth on others and yet they’re willing to submit to frequent lie-detector tests and sign billion year-long contracts? Please lecture me about “freedom,” won’t you?
Better still? According to the St. Petersburg Tampa Bay Times, Sea Org members are paid just $75 a week on average. Which would make you bitchy, I suppose, if you had contractually locked yourself in to such wages (and dormitory living!) for even a single year, let alone a billion of ‘em…
It’s an odd position to put yourself in. You’d think that if you’d reached a state of “total freedom” being willing to sign on in perpetual servitude for tens of thousands of your future incarnations to a vast pyramid scheme in which top-down authoritarianism is apparently a desirable sacrament would be anathema to you. But no!
In any case, here’s a patently ridiculous Scientology music video of probably mid 90s vintage.