Wow, Scientology is so... boring!

"Right this instant, you are at the threshold of your next trillion years. You will live it in shivering, agonized darkness... or you will live it trimphantly in the light. The choice is yours... not ours."

Wow. I gotta join this COMPLETELY LEGITIMATE religion.

"If you leave this room, after seeing this film, and walk out and never mention Scientology again... you are perfectly free to do so. It would be stupid, but you can do it.

You can also dive off a bridge, or blow your brains out. That is your choice."

I'm glad interrobang wanted to spend 35 minutes watching that, because I sure didn't.

The very choicest parts were at the end.

Google zapped it already.

Still works for me; I've had it on pause for a while, never closed the window.

Is it weird that the younger, dumber guy looks like Tom Cruise?

Dianetics is "what the soul is doing to the body." Huh. Never knew that.

*checks to see what soul is doing to body, ends up turning around in circles; gets dizzy, falls down*

It all makes sense once you buy the eight hardcover "bestsellers" they recommend, mudpuppie.

And is it just me, or do "Ron's" secretary/communicator and the Tom Cruise guy look like they're about to rip each other's clothes off?

I mean, boom-chicka-boom.

Holy shit, I had no idea that Bart Simpson is a Scientologist.

I watched this in an actual org or base or franchise or whatever the fuck they were calling them in 1996 in Austin. Afterwards, the guy took me around and showed me the office that is reserved for Hubbard (who had given up his body a decade before at that point), the books that make up the fantastic management course that makes you a business superman, and the closet full of dusty boxes of unmailed fliers, because apparently the fantastic management course hadn't quite kicked in.

Needless to say I didn't feel threatened, but I did have trouble not laughing in the guy's face. And I was a mess at the time, the kind of person they love to get their hooks in.

Did this copy still have the shot of god holding a monkey to show how they unite religion and science? That and the bits that interrobang quoted stick in my mind as the best parts.

PST, I was in Austin in '96 too, and I always wanted to go in to that place on Guadalupe. Remember the baked potato place next-door? It was awesome.

Very, very vaguely pup: I was only in Austin for a few months, working with a theater company that a couple of college friends had set up (where I learned that the acting life was not for me), reading Philip K. Dick novels, and quietly losing my shit. Better now. You didn't miss much not checking out their storefront on Guadalupe, apart from this video. Funny thing: I actually went in looking for a job. If they hadn't been so totally incompetent, I'd probably be in the Sea Org today.

mudpuppie: The potato place was called Private Idaho. (And before that, it was a great little bagel shop called the Bagel Manufactory.) Two doors down was Le Fun arcade, and below street level was a mediocre but cheap Asian buffet called Wok N Go.

They've all gone out of business (Le Fun closed its doors for the last time in December), and the $cienos now have the run of the place.

*pouts*