Blogging is a Nazi science.

Salon is in the midst of publishing a four-part series covering Scientology. Part one addresses deals with the recently more public persona of the religion. Part two is a review of Dianetics. Readers' responses to the review are found here, and I hope the concerns of some of the readers are addressed in the last two installments. (Note: You must click through an advertisement to access Salon.)

A brief off-the-cuff discussion about Scientology at the office warranted responses from a Devil's advocate who I suspect read Dianetics. He said that those seeking Scientology are "searching for meaning." I think every single human on the planet searches for meaning, be it through science, religion, or a combination of the two.

I can't understand how anyone reasonable can find that meaning in Scientology, though the religion's previous success at masking much of its core mythology has probably been able to keep more in its ranks, which is likely part of the design. I believe a given actor possesses a common characteristic (perhaps a chemical imbalance) that makes him or her susceptible to Scientology or any other fad that happens to fall under his or her (or his or her publicist's) radar. Something quantifiable isn't quite right in actors' heads, I'm sure of it. Actors exhibit many of the marks of a self-centered, self-righteous world view, and the introspective nature of Dianetics and Scientology would agree with that mentality. (Has anyone written a case study into the mind of an actor?)

Given that Dianetics breaks down to be a set of paranoid ramblings of a failed novelist with a traumatic past, what concerns me is that so many are internalizing this paranoia and making it part of their world view. I consider this the distinguishing mark of a religious (or quasi-religious) cult. Another distinguishing mark of a cult is an obsession with what I call the "most hated other," which in this case is psychiatry and pharmaceuticals. I wish I could say that coverage of recent happenings with Scientology and its members should be shrugged as the dealings of a few quacks, but no one really knows what the endgame of the Scientology cult is. Forgive me for being the one practicing paranoia, but two tenets of Scientology, as passed along by Roger Friedman, are "Never fear to hurt another in a just cause" and "Never desert a group to which you owe your support." Another phrase worth mentioning is "History repeats itself."