Being Watched, aka Bad SciFi Writers

This happened on May 23rd and May 25th, 2010.

Scientology is considered to be a dangerous cult in Germany, about which you are warned at school and who might pose as the bogeymen in TV thrillers. They are not recognized as a church with tax benefits, because German church law states that the religious group has to have humanitarian goals. They are also, together with left winged extremists, right winged extremists, islamists, and foreign terrorist organizations a separate category in the yearly reports of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And probably the only group from that list I hadn’t visited yet. Anyways, Scientology often complains that they are treated unfair and compare the public view of them with the pogroms against Jews in the 1930s, which doesn’t make them any more popular in this country.

Scientology is the only group I will not visit in my hometown, because I am too afraid they would photograph or otherwise monitor me. Even this entry might be too much, but I guess it’s not really worth monitoring me because of this text, and even if they do, they wouldn’t bet he first organization doing it.

I used to live close to a Scientology center, but was afraid to go there, especially as a teenager. This was, of course, a long time before I started going to all kinds of groups, including what one might file under “dangerous cults”. One day, when I was maybe 15 years old, a Scientology member talked to me close to my home and gave me a flyer about some “awesome movie” about the earth. I asked him why it wasn’t in the local cinemas when it was that great and left. Sometimes, they would leave magazines at our porch which decried the “terrors of psychologists” and the “Nazi methods of Germany” against Scientology. I read some of the articles to have a good laugh. When I was 20, I bought a copy of Dianetics for two German Marks at the flea market and placed it next to the Satanic Bible in my bookshelf for laughs. I even read the first 10 pages, but it was too boring to read and I put it down and forgot about it.

In recent months, I saw some more documentaries about Scientology on TV, read some of their documents meant for internal use published on Wikileaks, and even passed the German headquarters, but my friends didn’t want to join me on my quest, so I didn’t enter.

 

Scientology's Info Point

One day, I was in some other city again and saw one of their information booths. I was intrigued, but then I saw something even more interesting next to it: a group of young people wearing masks like in the movie “V like Vendetta”. Anonymous. A group anonymously organized via internet message boards which make fun of Scientology by taking pictures of them and informing people of their dangers right in front of them. So I took pictures as well and even got a picture taken of me and Anonymous, which might have been a silly idea, because then, Scientology might have taken a picture of me, taking pictures of them, taking… now I’m confused. In any case, I didn’t go to Scientology’s information booth, because on some days you don’t feel like jumping from one weird group to the next and remain safe from agitation.

 

Anonymous in Action

The next time I would meet the cult, I would be even less prepared. Just two days later, I was walking home from a 13 hour work day. Two men approached me and asked me if I liked to read. Did I really look that nerdy? I was tired and walked on, telling them I had no time. Then I stopped. These were crazy dangerous cult people, weren’t they? Hare Krishna or Scientology or Transcendental Meditation. I turned around and smiled. “I am sorry, of course I love to read!”

 

They had a bunch of books under their arm, in various languages – I could make out that at least one of them was in a language using Arabic letters – and asked me if I knew the book. It was something about lists to answer to support your inner self, or something to that effect. Sounded like one of the books my boss at the time liked to read. I don’t approve of these books on an intellectual and theological basis, but flipped through it saying that after such a long workday I wouldn’t really be able to process this now, even after he told me that he could give it to me cheaper than in a store. One of the men, they both looked middle aged, and now I realized they were wearing windbreaker jackets with Scientology organization names, asked me if I knew the book, to which I replied that I have a copy of Dianetics. I told him the story of how I got the book, I just didn’t mention the other books I have around it. “You know, I have 200 or so unread books, it’s just one of them.” He said that there are housewives who read it every day and teachers who don’t get. I almost said “Yeah, I also don’t get it.”

Suddenly, one of the men asked me if I struggled with my baser instincts. “That’s a personal question and I won’t answer it to a stranger on the street.” Then he asked me what makes me want to help people. “I just met you, that’s a personal question, too.” Ah well, I guess Scientologists have enough training not to be disparaged by such answers, so they gave me a flyer and I wished them a good evening. The cover said something about having difficulties in life and looking for answers, the back had the local address. I will not visit them.

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