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Elron

Ronald M. Wade

    I was on my way to Dallas and dropped by Max’s place to see if there was anything I could pick up for him. Max had been reading a book of some kind when I walked in and barely glanced up at me when I walked in and passed him to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. I got my coffee and went back to the den and sat down, waiting for him to get to a stopping place.
    He finally closed the book and shaking his head, said, “There really is a sucker born every minute!”
    “What is that you are reading?” I asked.
    “It’s a treatise on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology,” he replied. “You talk about someone selling a load of poles? That guy could sell Coppertone to Shaka Zulu!”
    “Really? Is that the guy that started out as a science fiction writer?”
    “None other. Hubbard, or Elron as the faithful refer to him, convinced enough people he had the inside track on spirituality and psychology to finance the establishment of a church and convince the federal government it’s legitimate and is entitled to paying no taxes. If anyone ever thought we don’t have religious freedom in this country, they should read about old Elron. That will remove all doubt. Good grief! That’s not religious freedom, it’s religious license.”
    “The big con, huh?”
    “The biggest,” Max said. “He started out with the book Dianetics. It’s sort of a takeoff on yoga, pop psychology and carnival sideshow hocus-pocus. And it was secular, kind of a self-help program. But somewhere along the line, that Dianetics thing sold so well, he decided to take George Orwell at his word and really start making money; so he turned the whole thing into a religion.”
    “Orwell? You mean 1984 Orwell?”
    “Yes, George Orwell said the best way to get rich was to start your own religion or words to that effect. And by golly, old George knew whereof he spoke. It worked like a charm.”
    “What’s the basic idea or premise of this religion, anyway?
    Max chuckled. “I’ll try to remember how it goes. There’s nothing remotely logical or believable in the whole thing:
    “It seems that 75 million years ago, a galactic warlord who went by the name of Kenu, if you can believe that, was in charge of 76 overpopulated planets. Apparently, he wanted to get rid of the overpopulation problem, so he transported billions of the aliens to the planet Earth; only I think he called it Teegeeack.
    It was at that point I broke up and Max had to wait till I stopped giggling.
    “Anyway,” giving me an impatient look, he went on, “Kenu dumped all these beings into volcanoes then vaporized them with hydrogen bombs. This scattered their souls all over hell and half of Georgia. By the way, these souls are called ‘Thetans.’ Then somehow or another, someone rounded up all these Thetans with some device and implanted bad ideas in them, and don’t ask me whose. Anyway, these Thetans are still around and they attach themselves to humans. Because they are pumped full of bad stuff, they cause various problems like alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and all kinds of social ailments. Now when you catch one of these things, or rather it catches you, the only way to get cured is go to a Scientologist who uses an e-meter on you. And by the way, these treatments cost big bucks.”
    “They charge for the treatments?”
    “Big time,” Max said, thin-lipped. Scientology is the only religion I have ever heard of that treats their gospel like intellectual property and charges for it.”
    “S’cuse me,” I said. “They charge their members for being let in on the secrets of their doctrines and their gospel?”
    “They sure do. It’s like if Christians did the same thing, before you could hear about the martyrdom of Jesus, it would cost you several thou.”
    “They get away with that?” I asked. “And these people are considered a non-profit church?”
    “Verily, I say unto you,” Max intoned, “the IRS can’t touch ‘em. But there’s more.”
    He cleared his throat and said, “In 1982 Elron wrote an official Scientology bulletin called Pain and Sex. In it, he stated that the biological act of sex and the body’s ability to feel pain were ‘the invented tools of degradation’ created by psychiatrists millions of years ago. He says that ‘When sex enters the scene, a being fixates and loses power.’ He also said ‘Lovers are very seldom happy.’”
    I sputtered. “He must not have been able to get it up the night before he wrote that one. Is he making money out of this thing?” I asked.
    “Max replied, “No, he’s dead. But the church lives on and apparently does extremely well in the fiscal department. My assessment is that old Elron took a look at Christianity and said to himself, ‘If people believe in all that hocus-pocus, let’s see how far I can stretch it; the farther the better.”
    “That’s a poke at Scientology and Christianity,” I said disapprovingly.
    “You noticed that, did you?” he answered.

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