Oh, for Xenu's Sake: Scientologists 'Helping' Vietnam's Agent Orange Victims By Providing 'Hubbard Method' 'Detoxification'

Via Washington Post:

Vietnamese with ailments linked to Agent Orange are undergoing a “detoxification” treatment involving saunas and vitamins that was developed by the Church of Scientology and which has been criticized as pseudoscientific.

Scientologists use the “Hubbard Method” to try to cure drug addiction and alcoholism. The church set up a center in New York after the 9/11 attacks offering a similar service for first responders who may have been exposed to toxins.

A group of 24 people arrived for treatment at a military hospital in Hanoi for a month, free of charge, Dau Xuan Tuong, deputy administrator at the Vietnam Association of Agent Orange Victims, said Thursday. He said 22 people underwent the treatment in 2011 in northern Thai Binh province.

“Their health has improved after the treatment, and some saw their chronic illnesses disappear,” he said. “We need to do more scientific research to determine its impact.”

Ya think, Doc? You do realize that science and Scientology don't really have anything to do with each other, right?

And who's funding this garbage?

U.S. Embassy spokesman Christopher Hodges said Washington was not funding the program and said “we are not aware of any safe, effective detoxification treatment for people with dioxin in body tissues.”

It wasn’t known what other medical care the participants were receiving. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard opposed psychiatry and the use of drugs for mental illness and addictions, but church members accept conventional medical treatment for physical conditions.

Actor Tom Cruise co-founded the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, where participants were each given vitamins and nutritional counseling and participated in daily exercise and sauna sessions. He defended it at the time as helping the workers recover.

Critics, many of them scientists, have said there is no evidence the “Hubbard Method” does any good.

It was unclear if the Vietnamese government was aware of those concerns before agreeing to try the project.

Full story here.

When Religious People Call Scientology Weird

In the wake of the recent split of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, there has been an increase in column inches devoted to Scientology. (The split also prompted some Twitter nastiness from Rupert Murdoch).

A recent Us Weekly article speculated on Tom Cruise's Scientology superpowers:

Having practiced Scientology for 30 years, Cruise has traveled the so-called "Bridge to Total Freedom" to achieve, through intense "auditing" sessions and other practices, a rarefied sense of enlightenment. Scientologists mark the path to the "Bridge" with ascending grades or stages, and, Janet Reitman's Rolling Stone story reports, Cruise is at the very advanced "OT VII" stage. Operative Thetans, Reitman says, have "have total 'control' over themselves and their environment. OTs can allegedly move inanimate objects with their minds, leave their bodies at will and telepathically communicate with, and control the behavior of, both animals and human beings." The more advanced Cruise and other Operating Thetans become, Reitman reports, they reach a God-like state: "At the highest levels, they are allegedly liberated from the physical universe, to the point where they can psychically control what Scientologists call MEST: Matter, Energy, Space and Time.

That's certainly some pretty weird stuff. Especially since there is no evidence whatsoever for psychokinesis. Magician and skeptic James Randi has offered $1 million to anyone who can produce a paranormal event, such as psychokinesis, in a controlled, mutually agreed upon experiment. Other organizations have come forth to offer prize money totalling $2.6 million for evidence of the paranormal. That money has been sitting there unclaimed, and I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon.

So yes, we all get a good laugh out of Scientology, just as many of us get a good laugh out of Mormonism. A lot of what drives the skepticism and ridicule is the fact that these religions are based on dubious narratives and extraordinary claims for which there is no evidence.

Why, then, are adherents of other religions so quick to call Scientology kooky? Don't they embrace some fairly outlandish beliefs as well?

Part of what seems silly about Scientology is its newness (not to mention the fact that the founder was a science fiction writer). Humans also are heavily influenced by tradition, and many of us are born into our religions. Something can't be that kooky if it's been around for 2,000 years and if we were born into it, right?

That depends on your perspective. To those who do not entertain supernatural notions, religions are all different shades of unbelievable.

A Tom Cruise-related story over at Discovery touches on this observation:

Though many elements of Scientology theology (written by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard) seem strange, it’s fair to note that many religions include paranormal or supernatural beliefs including virgin birth, walking on water, miraculous healings, garments and amulets that protect the wearer from harm, and so on. One man’s miracle is another man’s superstition.

Plus, there are many reasons for religious people to call Tom Cruise crazy without goofing on his religion.