There’s no doubt that the Church of Scientology has improved its image in the last decade or so. A little less secretive, a little less scary (although still creepy), more the butt of a good joke than a genuine threat.
Nonetheless, before you walk into a Scientology storefront on a drunken lark and fill out some paperwork, consider this:
My brother Kurt just received yet another piece of mail from the Church of Scientology, telling him “You are eligible for a free-six month membership in the International Association of Scientologists.”
Kurt’s been getting mail from Scientology for 29 years. As a 17-year-old living in St. Pete, he was briefly the drummer for a band that included a couple of Scientologists (the band was Tarkhill Firetower, just in case someone might remember).
Kurt — in his callow, impressionable youthfulness — attended a two-hour seminar or some such thing. He quickly decided it wasn’t for him.
But the mail started to come. And it has kept on coming, through more than a half-dozen moves. Kurt now lives with his family in a small town in central Tennessee, not exactly a hotbed of Scientological activity, and he’s more amused than anything.
He’s just glad they don’t have his e-mail address.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2008.