January 24th - Student Day

 

Ok, so I know that I said that I wouldn’t make fun of religious holidays during this Holiday Month project.  And I feel like I’ve done a pretty job of it so far.  I’ve respected the views of Jewish and Muslim followers alike, and learned more about they’re cultures.  I’ve also tried to get back to my own Catholic roots to understand why those holidays were so important to my upbringing.  While I am still not a religious person, this project has given me a little more understanding behind why religion is such a huge facet of so many people’s lives.

But today has been pretty difficult, because the religion in question is Scientology.  The holiday that I’m celebrating is Student Day, which commemorates a special briefing course that began in 1961 at Saint Hill.  The Saint Hill Special Briefing Course is meant to train Scientologists to become better and more knowledgeable members of the Scientology community.  It is the largest single course in all of Scientology, and is named for the manor in England where Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard came up with the doctrine and belief system that would lead to Scientology.

For a little more understanding about Scientology, please visit www.scientology.org.  The word "understanding" is being used pretty loosely here, because wow, I spent many hours last night going over it and I still don't have a clue as to what it all means.  But in any case, the website has all sorts of links about their mission and merchandise.  That’s right, merchandise.  Scientology is a heavily funded religion, and one that is very costly.  As it is basically a series of courses designed to help you manage different aspects of your life, the bills can really rack up.  

What has been so difficult for me is that it’s hard to separate Scientology, the religion, and Scientology, the national punch line.  Because honestly, who hasn’t seen this and thought “What the HELL is he talking about?”

Um...say what?

For a Cliff’s Notes version of the main tenant of belief, let me bring you through the basic story. 75 million years ago, there was a vast Galactic Confederacy lead by a tyrannical dictator named Xenu (yes, the records are so good in Scientology that they have someone’s name from 75 million years ago), and he had a dilemma.  His confederacy was overpopulated, and it was running out of room.  As a solution, he transported billions of his people, in craft that looked an awful lot like a DC-8 (commercial jetliner), to Earth.  He stacked them around volcanoes, and then blew them up using a barrage of hydrogen bombs.  Their souls, which are called thetans, are still floating around us today.  In fact, each of us has a thetan inside of us, as we are all immortal souls that have forgotten our true natures.

Yup.  That’s what they believe.  We’re all aliens that have forgotten our true selves.  The only way to get back to this level of understanding is Scientology.  That, and a lot of money (to get to the level in Scientology where they tell you about Xenu, one usually has to pay upwards of $100,000).

Knowing this, is it easy to see why this is how I chose to celebrate today?  Amy Galbraith played the part of Oprah...

Also...

A quick shout out to my awesome brother, Lukas.  Today is the 24th, which means it would have been a great time to celebrate Christmas Eve.  I felt like that was giving Christmas two days, and that would have been unfair, so I decided to axe it from the project.  However, Lukas pulled through and refused to let it die.

My family has a tradition of opening up one present on Christmas Eve.  In recent years, that present has been a LEGO set.  My brother and I open our LEGOs, and see who can build their the quickest.  (It took me less than 5 minutes, from the time I unwrapped everything to the time it was built...beat that!)