The Ex-Factor

Last week, yet another celebrity decided to finally call the whole thing off. By the whole thing, I mean their membership in the strange, tangled, mysterious world that is "Church" of Scientology. The celebrity was Leah Remini of "King of Queens" fame, and she joined the ranks of other Scientology "defectors" like director Paul Haggis, actor Jason Beghe, and perhaps most famously Katie Holmes, who almost quite literally escaped the grip of the "church" like a refugee with her child in her arms.

                                                                                                                                                                        

That Scientology is actually a corrupt, money-hungry operation which abuses its members and is, in fact, a cult—is a no-brainer. The big head-scratcher in all this is how seemingly intelligent, interesting people manage to get sucked so deep into this operation that they will spend thousands, sometimes millions of dollars on it, often cut off family members that are not part of the "church," and wilingly divulge the most secret, personal information about themselves to be put in a file that is accessible to the cult's top members. The story of Scientology and its defectors is all about the power of mind control and brainwashing.

Similar to a woman staying in an abusive relationship despite the harm it does to her emotional and physical well-being, thousands of Scientology members choose to stay in the organization, despite the obvious harm it could do to them. "Why not just leave?" one would ask. And, "why join in the first place?"

To find the answers, we really need to dig deep into human psychology and why humans will voluntarily allow someone to put ideas into their minds and have their actions be influenced by others. Further still, what comes after freeing yourself from the grip of the mind-controller? How do you deprogram yourself from years of belief systems that were instilled in you?

From the day we are born, there is someone in our lives who imparts us with a level of mind control. Initially, it is our parents, who shape our minds in a way that generally reflects their own thinking and views, at least in the initial years of our lives. The grip of a parent's control can be so powerful, that adults often come to repeat the actions of their parents—whether by pursuing the same careers, or embarking on self-destructive paths, like alcoholism. Even as adults, many people seek their parents' approval. And why?

Because humans are validation-seekers, by nature. Whether from peers, lovers, friends, colleagues or  role models. Because we like being good, and like being told we are good at what we're doing.

Which brings us back to Scientology. Its central tenet—as founder L. Ron Hubbard had formulated all those years ago—is self-betterment. We all desire to grow and become wiser and more intuitive, intelligent and able as human beings. Scientology says, "We can help you achieve that—and more." In fact, Scientology promises: we can take your abilities beyond typical human ones. But you have to play your part. You have to work towards reaching that place of unlimited potential. You play your part by studying. Your are given access to a wealth of knowledge that is unprecedented, remarkable, life-altering—the cult claims—and, like any school, you have to pay to study. This is how you get better, this is how you grow.

So you pay. And you keep paying, because the road to reaching that pinnacle of potential can be a long one. In fact, as members who have left find out, the road is infinite. Because the promises are a sham. So, like a hamster in a wheel, you think you're moving closer to something real, an actual destination, but you are as far from it, as the day you got on the wheel.

"I was in a cult for 34 years," said Haggis, after finally leaving. "Everyone else could see it. I don't know why I couldn't."

What's fascinating about ex-Scientologists is how quickly, once out of the cult, many are able to take an objective, critical view of something they had so staunchly believed in for so long. It's as though they come out of a kind of hypnosis.

Which is no coincidence, because one of L. Ron Hubbard's real talents (he had many imaginary ones) was his ability to hypnotize people. And if one studies mind control—whether used in government or inter-personal relationships—they will learn that a kind of prolongued hypnosis is involved.

So does this mean Beck, a creative person who makes innovate music that is beloved by millions, is currently under hypnosis? Or that actress Juliette Lewis, who has delivered some truly maverick performances during her career, has been under a kind of hypnosis her entire life? (She's been a Scientologist since birth). Very possibly. But it can also mean that the consequences of leaving the church—just like the victim of an abusive relationship—are scarier than the consequences of staying. When you are that deeply entangled in a group that is so controlling, breaking away can break you.

More on that, and the man who coaches ex-cultists in deprogramming themselves, in Part 2.

Fine Young Cannibals

    The other night, I had the strangest dream. I dreamt of a grim future, in which the human race had spawned a sub-group dependent entirely on human meat for survival. Not because all the other food was gone, but because their bodies demanded it, craved it. These flesh-eaters weren't zombies, but mortal humans, who stalked their prey at night like predators in a jungle, then ripped into them with teeth that had evolved into razor-sharp cutting devices.

What could have inspired my bizarre dream of a messed up, post-apocalyptic, humans-eating-other-humans future? Perhaps it's the anticipation of yet another big-budget zombie movie, this time Brad Pitt's World War Z, which hits theaters in June. It's a successor to over 500 film titles that center around the subejct of human flesh-eating—from the obscure (Attack of the Flesh Devouring Space Worms From Outer Space) to the classic (Night of the Living Dead). Cannibalism has even made its way into prime-time, major network television. On Thursday nights, you can tune into NBC for their hour-long drama, Hannibal, about the life of the practicing cannibal psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter. So it's rather clear that, as a civilization, we are kind of obsessed with the idea of consuming each other.

And for good reason: cannibalism—clinically termed "anthropophagy"—can be traced back to ancient times. In Greek mythology, the supreme god Kronos ate all of his four children in an attempt to prevent one of them overthrowing him in the future.  The Old Testament describes the Hebrews resorting to cannibalism while wandering the African desert.
   
Cannibalism can be broken down into two broad categories: Learned and Survival. The latter seems to be the more "accepted" type, because it is practiced only as a worst-case-scenario. It was a frequent enough of a practice that by the 19th century, when shipmen went out to sea, the possibility of eating each other in the event of a shipwreck was simply assumed. But only as the ultimate last resort. Dogs, candles, leather, shoes and blankets were all consumed first before turning to human flesh as a food source.

But the other type, the learned one, is a bit more complicated, more sinister; it's the one that we as a society have the hardest time understanding. The kind that is practiced by serial killers and deviant types, who do it because they "can't control it," because it's a need that grows and eventually becomes inescapable. These people realize that they simply have to eat other humans.

Take the case of one Issei Sagawa, known as "Japan's most famous cannibal." In 1981, he shot and then ate a French woman and fellow student when he was studying for his Ph.D. in Literature at the Sorbonne Academy in Paris. He said he did it not only because he had had a gnawing desire to taste human flesh, but also because wanted to "absorb her energy." The meat tasted like "raw tuna," he described. Sagawa was captured by French authorities while trying to dispose of the body in two suitcases in a public park.

He was proclaimed insane and unfit to stand trial, and ordered to a mental institution. But France didn't want this weird Japanese cannibal on their hands, so they extradited him back to Japan. Psychologists there, however, found him to be perfectly sane, concluding that it was his sexual perversion that lead him to kill and cannibalize the woman. Unable to hold him (the French goverment refused to release court documents), they allowed Sagawa to check himself out of the hospital. The cannibal killer has been a free man since August of 1986, never punished for his crime. Today, he admits that he still hungers for human flesh and actively suppresses the urge, in documentaries like this:

 If Sagawa's act was difficult to punish, then another case of cannibalism twenty years later proved to fall into an even grayer area. In early 2001, a man named Armin Meiwes from a small town outside of Berlin decided to place an ad on a website for cannibalism aficionados, requesting "well-built men, 18-30, who would like to be eaten by me." Eventually, a man responded and his intentions were serious. He was a Bernd-Jurgen Brandes, a gay (though not publicly out) professional who was living with his partner at the time in Berlin, but had somehow decided that he wanted to be eaten. He met with Meiwes at his secluded and, by all the neighbors' account, creepy-looking house, where he had been building a separate slaughter room in the hidden upstairs section.

Brandes doped himself on sleeping pills, painkillers and Schnapps. Meiwes suggested they slice off Brandes' penis and try to eat it. Brandes agreed. After the removal, Brandes climbed into a bathtub and proceeded to bleed profusely, while Meiwes attempted to fry the appendage. After burning it and finding it inedible, he went to check up on Brandes, who was bleeding to death. At this point, Meiwes drove a knife into his throat, slaughtered him and began to eat him. Over the next few months, Meiwes consumed 44 pounds of Brandes' dead body. The cannibal was eventually arrested, tried and convicted...of murder, but not cannibalism. Further still, is it technically murder if the person being eaten (an act in which death is inevitable) consents to being eaten? 

Perverted need or survival necessity, cannibalism is a part of our society, whether we like to admit it or not. Its proliferation, both in real life and popular culture, begs the question: How close are we to consuming each other without seeing the act as an ultimate taboo? After all, we eat pigs, who have demonstrated to possess the intelligence and understanding of a small child. As the creator of Hannibal himself, Brian Fuller, pointed out in a recent interview: "Pigs are even smarter than dogs and more sophisticated emotionally. So if you are having a brouhaha about cannibalism, next time you order that pork slider, you are eating a five-year-old human being." Chew on that.