By Tom Glaister
Source: Consumer Affairs
Tom Cruise has been much in the news lately. A renowned Scientologist, he got in some trouble for condemning Brooke Shields for taking anti-depressants to treat her post-natal blues.
Apart from an intuition that there were any number of more serious issues facing the world, the report struck me as particularly ironic as Tom Cruise was quoted as calling psychiatry a "pseudo-science."
While the pharmacology market is undoubtedly driven by the desire to make a buck, for a Scientologist like Cruise to talk about pseudo-science is really for the pot to call the kettle black.
My first contact with Scientology was in the street where I was invited to come and take a "free stress test."
Not much in life comes for free but I had an hour to kill so I took up the offer of a shiny Scientologist called Steve to sit in a plastic chair on the sidewalk and answer some questions.
I was seated in front of a black device that looked like a cross between a CB radio and a games machine from the early 80's -- the E-Meter. Two wires ran to a couple of narrow tin cans that I was instructed to hold in my hands while Steve fired at me questions about my personal life. I answered as best I could and a little needle picked up electric signals from my body. Steve took down the measurements with a grim nod of the head.
"You need help," he eventually declared.
I did?
"You bet. But don't worry -- read this best-selling book "Dianetics" by L. Ron Hubbard and we'll get you on course to a new life. Look at me -- ten years ago I was a wreck, depressed, addicted to drugs like coffee and nicotine, but then I found the Church of Scientology..."
In short, it was the same rap that I'd heard from Herbalife salesmen, "born-again" evangelists and Hare Krishna devotees knocking on my door over the years.
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