L. Ron Hubbard...Meets Tony Robbins...At Esalen?
Robert Farley writes in the St. Pete Times about Scientology's soon-to-be-revealed "Super Power":
Matt Feshbach believes he has super powers. He senses danger faster than most people. He appreciates beauty more deeply than he used to. He says he outperforms his peers in the money management industry.He heightened his powers of perception in 1995 when he went to Los Angeles and became the first and so far only "public" Scientologist to take a highly classified Scientology program called Super Power.
Where in L.A. did he do this?
"Just in Los Angeles," is all Feshbach will say. Super Power is that secret.
Under wraps for decades, Super Power now is being prepped for its eventual rollout in Scientology's massive building in downtown Clearwater. That will be the only place worldwide where the program, much anticipated by Scientologists, will be offered.
A key aim of Super Power is to enhance one's perceptions - and not just the five senses we all know - hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell.
...Details of Super Power training have been kept secret even from church members. Like much of Scientology training, details aren't revealed until one pays to take the course.
Asked about Super Power, church spokesman Ben Shaw provided a written statement: "Super Power is a series of spiritual counseling processes designed to give a person back his own viewpoint, increase his perception, exercise his power of choice, and greatly enhance other spiritual abilities."
"Give a person back his own viewpoint"? Maybe if Scientology hadn't helped remove it in the first place, that wouldn't be necessary. Then again, if this "Super Power" thingie helps Scientologists see that it's a wee bit idiotic to suggest popping vitamins as a curative for a new mother who contemplates driving herself and her newborn baby into a wall...well, maybe it can't be all bad. At the very least, it's got to pull in some big bucks for Scientology.
You know, if you simply want to be a good person, you really don't need to fork over your life savings to anybody. You could, say, just fork over $10.01 for a copy of Krishnamurti's slim paperback, Freedom From The Known. And sure, there are other resources too; many of them, available for free on the Internet, like "The Philosophical Guy's" dissection of Aristotle's concepts, from Nichomachean Ethics, of "friendship of utility" versus "friendship of the good."
Belief in god and adherence to a religion is easy. It usually just requires nonthink. Figuring out a moral/ethical system of your own that makes sense, and then following it -- that's a task for the modern thinker: one who actually thinks instead of letting some guy in a funny suit (or with a funny "clearing" machine) do it for him or her.
Super Power? Bwahahahaha. I can't wait for the South Park episode lampooning it! Parker and Stone have had so much fun at the expense of Scientology and other quackery that this is sure to be immortalized by the boys.
Dan at May 7, 2006 1:26 PM
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