Okay. I may be ranting too much about cults here, Scientology in particular, but once I get my teeth into something I worry it like a dog with a bone. Two interesting things have come to my attention:
1. Apparently Scientology and Kabbalah are vying for Victoria Beckam (formerly “Posh Spice”), and rumors report that Kabbalah may win her over. Now, I’m not exactly in love with the way celebs are flocking to “neo-Kabbalahism”, as I would put it, but if you follow the two links above, you’ll see that Kabbalah is, at least, not ENTIRELY INSANE AND WHACKO and is, in fact, based on certain Jewish beliefs dating back to the 13th century. Now, I don’t give a rat’s ass about Victoria Beckham, but one less rich person funding Scientology makes me happy. So far I haven’t seen the Kabbalah Center acting in an outrageous manner. The first time I see them use their influence to get a TV show pulled or something, I will change my tune, I promise. They’re still getting far more money than they need, but, hey, what the hell, if they can convince people to give it to them — as long as they’re not frickin’ brainwashing people into it — fine. They’re not paying for “levels”, as far as I understand (please correct me if I’m wrong). I have no problem with someone paying tithes to a particular religious organization as long as that religious organization is not completely insane, as Scientology is. Here’s what I would LIKE to see though — a few more celebrities with backbone who don’t need to join a cult to justify their existence. My current favorite is James Woods, who was recently quoted as saying, “I am sick of starring in douchebag feminist movies where I play a bad guy in a good suit.” Amen.
2. Did I mention Scientology is completely insane? One of the good people at SouthParkStudios.com directed my attention to an article linking L. Ron Hubbard with the father of modern “magick” Alistair Crowley in an attempt to create some kind of moonchild or something with another one of Crowley’s followers. The FBI was interested (Hubbard spent his last few years fleeing from the FBI, I believe), and followed up on it. Apparently the poor man who trusted Hubbard ended up losing his yacht and his wife to him, although he did seem to succeed in consummating their weird idea with some woman, that is, the other man involved bonked some woman in some strange ritual and — now here’s what I want to know — the woman in question may or may not have had a child from it and if she did, where the hell IS IT? (you’ll wonder the same damn thing if you read the link to the FBI file above).
Rant off!