The couch that I am ushered to is the sort of rambling red rose pattern deal you’d come across in your great aunts house or in the lobby of a mid range hotel. Pillows avalanche around to fill any empty space not being protected by my hands. A steaming hot cup of not too bad coffee in my left hand will be aided by the taste buds muted by a premature searing splash.. Further to my left is a yellow ceramic cookie jar cat frozen forever cleaning itself two feet away from a three foot wide bust of L Ron Hubbard. Over his bronze shoulder I see cardboard Superman and he’s looking right back at me with his fists on his hips and determination in his eyes.
This is not what I pictured on my way up to the Columbus Scientology Center. I imagined fevered rants about alien warlords while fire scrambled and licked at my flesh from a lava-pit like Indiana Jones’s Temple of Doom. I wanted there to be evidence of crazy all around me. I wanted to be turned away at the door because I had no business being there. There was actually a well-timed clap of thunder and a lightning flash but it had been raining all morning already. I can’t say if I knew for sure why I decided to take the #2 bus downtown to the building I walked by so many times on my way to the theater or to take photographs at a statehouse protest. I sat across the street eating lunch and deliberating whether or not I should just go back home and pick a new topic so many people talk about but I know nothing about. now I’m 45 minutes into an unsettling hybrid infomercial history channel anti-drug beast of a documentary available for purchase at the end of my visit.
Advil is bad but coffee is ostensibly just fine: Did you ever wonder why you know things that you don’t remember learning? I thought that was how early childhood development worked but apparently it’s my past life and recurring experiences tap in to that atavistic corner of my memory. Did you know that L Ron Hubbard was a brilliant sailor and could pilot any boat on the sea? I can’t see why any of this is important or how each new ‘fact’ is related to the next but still everything sounds about as weird to me as the zombie magician Jesus I grew up hearing about from one of the many Nuns teaching at my Catholic elementary school. Diane, a smiling woman in her mid-40’s indeed intercepted me at the door on my arrival and after the anticipated ‘what are you doing here’ ‘I come in peace’ conversation I have been led to the couch and handed a Styrofoam coffee cup. For a second I recall that sage advice customarily given to high school and first year college girls about being careful with drinks you didn’t pour for yourself but there are lots of windows in this room and I’m pretty sure things won’t get freaky until Diane sees how long I can sit through the introductory film that presumably everybody watches the first time they visit the center. She talks in between chapters on the DVD and takes questions.I’m now on my third or fourth cup of coffee.
The first segment is on the life and history of L Ron Hubbard, pulp fiction writer, sea captain, and the church’s founder. Then there was a 30 second advertisement to inform the audience what book or books to purchase if they wanted to know more. The pattern repeats itself with the focus of companion texts changing.
No end is in sight. ………………’Past experiences are the problems in your present.’ no shit. ‘What you really need to do next is get audited and sign up for some classes it will help you choose the path you need to take. Are you ever sad? Sometimes do you ever perceive something that nobody else nearby seems to notice? There are bad things in our past that we can help you overcome. But first sign up and you can start the purification process. I can’t tell you much more until you take the next step.’
Everything sounds like a sales pitch to me, like lots of organized religions or whatever you might call it. Of course there’s my pre-existing bias but it’s been two hours and change. I hope disappointment isn’t showing on my face. For all I know I am coming off as a sincere and curious newcomer. There just might be potential in me yet and I’ll look back at today as the day that changed it all forever. Or have they been on me from the start? The point soon turns moot as I can no longer avoid the money question. “Nope I can’t really afford to buy anything today” I’m a broke ass college student with half a job.. “ Well we sure hope you come back when you can. I think we can help you.”
Missive Silo 