In defense of Scientology.

November 22 rolled around again. Forty years now since the hammer shattered the windshield of the American Dream. I always have to do something unique to commemorate the occasion. I couldn't locate a decent reproduction of Jackie's pink dress and hat ensemble, and I'm temporarily bereft of an LSD source, so I rolled a joint and headed to midtown to see A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant at The Tank on 42nd St.

It's no secret that I am soft on Scientology. Some of my best friends are Scientologists, and I admire their pluck and their ethics. L. Ron Hubbard was the last of the great buccaneers in a country founded on the principles of the buccaneer communities of the Carribbean, the very avatar and apotheosis of the grand American tradition of gonzo spiritual exploration.

Scientologists get a lot of guff for being new, just like the Mormons did a hundred years ago. A hundred years from now, they'll be mainstream and everybody will laugh at the goofy paranoid anti-Scientology propaganda that accompanied the advent of Hubbard's legacy. As an apostate Satanist and an unrepentant dope fiend, I respectfully decline the Scientology tech?for now. My religion is my own. I'm comfortable in my own skin, as Bart Simpson is wont to say. The Scientologists I know are among the most ethical people in my social sphere.

I didn't expect much, hence the pre-show joint. I was anticipating a lot of really low blows and recycled hyper-paranoid, anti-cult nonsense. "Cult," after all, is a word we apply to religions we don't like, and it is an eternal truism that witch-hunters are far more dangerous to a community than witches. They also tend to fall toward the bottom of the bell curve when it comes to humor. I am also extremely wary of any construct that inflicts religious ideology as such upon children. If children ask questions about religious issues, they should be answered, but biasing a child one way or another toward a particular religion constitutes a form of intellectual child abuse, as far as I'm concerned. I'm in good company on this. The Unitarians take pretty much the same position. So I went in feeling unsettled by the idea of using children to spoof a religion.

I was pleasantly surprised by this show, at first. The kids are terrific and the music is good. Little Alison Stacy Klein was wonderful, with a poise and radiant talent that brilliantly illuminated her depiction of the Angelic Girl. The kid playing young Hubbard is energetic and upbeat, really fun to watch; I wish the program identified him. The twins Emma and Sophie Whitfield do a very funny number as the analytical and reactive minds. They do some very funny bits centered around Ron's preference for using the initial "L" instead of the given name Lafayette, and there's a good recurring riff on his wide variety of endeavors?"teacher, author, explorer, atomic physicist, nautical engineer, choreographer, and horticulturalist."

Things take a turn for the worse about midway through the production, however, when the children start reciting the same tired old anti-Scientology propaganda that's been circulating since the 1960s. There's an incredibly clumsy sequence in which the production attempts to "reveal" the "inner doctrine" of Scientology via a barely coherent science-fiction sketch that falls flat. So much has been written with regard to the OT III documents by people who have no understanding of them whatsoever that I am not going to add to the din by recapping any of it here. Suffice it to say that I've read them, and there is nothing in them that is any more or less fabulous than what I've found in my examination of other religions whose antiquity has earned them a measure of respect from outsiders.

Far less esoteric is the condition known as "Clear" among Scientologists. They are disinclined to discuss OT III with "preclears" for pretty much the same reason as a Jesuit might decline to get into a discussion on transubstantiation with a non-believer. It's like trying to explain James Joyce to a cat. But Clear is, actually, fairly easy to grasp and articulate: a Clear is someone who has gained mastery over their "reactive mind." The "reactive mind" is along the lines of what most of us refer to as "baggage" or "issues."

The show stumbles badly in its presentation of Clear as a state of flattened affect. I know plenty of Clear Scientologists, and they're as capable of emotional response as anyone else. Their responses tend to be more rational than most people's, but they do indeed respond. I don't know where people get this idea that Scientology consists of some kind of loss of personhood, but it is a very traditional way of demonizing a religion. Take a gander at all the nonsense that gets spewed about the Jews. Or, the current take on Islam so very popular these days?an even better example.

What's most troubling about this show is the use of children in what amounts to a propaganda exercise directed against the proponents of a perfectly valid religious belief. I get the impression that Les Freres Corbusier, the creators of this extended skit, are trying to be shocking and provocative while at the same time avoiding any truly dangerous targets. Bashing Scientology is a mediocre pursuit.

The truly dangerous religions are the ones at war right now. Scientology isn't pushing anybody off their land, waging any sort of crusade or promoting any kind of jihad. For that alone, we should be grateful.