The Modern Science of Mental Health

There has been much press and/or debate on the newfound religion of L. Ron Hubbard: Scientology, in the news lately. Especially with the wild-eye evangelical antics of celebrities such as Tom Cruise, or the bad book-to-movie translation of Battlefield Earth compliments of John Travolta, a person such as I begins to wonder "what's the big deal?". Initially, I suspected that it is merely a mis-understood, threatening, new idea or concept, like Christianity was to the Romans during the time of the Apostle Paul. I still hold to this belief, in all fairness because I know nothing about Scientology other than the stereotype of wacky, proselytizing celebrities, which is a bad first-step to take towards an understanding of something 'different'. All the bad press, which you can get an idea of here compliments of Salon.com, leads me to liken the 'medja' to a mad Nero attacking and blaming "those meddlesome, troublesome" Christians; no doubt, everyone's slipping into the grip of the mob, be it Sadducee or Phrarisee, mentality seeking to martyr Scientologists like Christ, Stephen or Perpetua. I ask once again as I did on the topic of racism, what sort of threat does this mean against the average person's traditional beliefs? What are people fighting to preserve? Or is it plain fear of the unknown, or blissful ignorance?

Don't think for one second that I'm for Scientology, which I'm not well-informed enough to judge, I'm just trying to think critically about this occurence. I started reading Hubbard's fundamental text, Dianetics, recently to decide for myself. So far, all I can comment is that this book may be a bit too radical or heterodox for the common, orthodox mind. His concepts on the science of the mind I find to be quite original and sound, not warped or mad as alleged by countless writers, commenters and editors.

Go ahead, consider me mad if it makes it easier for you to live your far too happy, blissful existence. Even Hubbard understood the imminent buffets his ideas would encounter as they became more widespread; go ahead, read the introduction to his book, I dare you. You might be surprised, or indignant, which ever way you have decided to act. Or, more so, it might be frightening to see some ideas, which many are touting as modern, original ideas these days, such as Gladwell's Blink, to be written fifty years ago using different, original phrases instead of the catch phrases of today.

ADDENDUM: Check out this amusing parody of Tom Cruise and Scientology here.