Kabbalah vs. Scientology

Inspired by both my curiosity of alternate religions and the slew of celebrities so bloated in their self-importance they think they have hit the "one true faith" nail on the head I have been reading up on Kabbalah and Scientology; because if there is someone out there whose advice I trust to lead the lost sheep to trascendence it's Madonna and Tom Cruise.


KABBALAH:
I have been on their website for damn near an hour now and the best thing I can compare it to would be shopping in a store where the staff all work on commission but no one knows the products at all:


Customer: Hi I was looking to see if you knew where we come from and what our purpose on Earth is?
Kabballah Associate: Those questions can be found in our courses starting at $19.99
Customer: Oh my bad I don't have that much on me, I didn't think I would have to pay for enlightenment.
Kabbalah Associate: Oh, well for a smaller donation you can have this red bracelet that is specially created to ward off the evil eye.
Customer: By "specially created" do you mean mass produced at a sock factory in Laos?
Kabbalah Associate: .....yes

Much like the Simpsons' Movementarians or those late-night buy & sell infomercial schemes, er.. ventures, they make a lot of awesome promises: "Imagine if there was a miraculous source of power so profound, so powerful, it could totally heal and transform your life and genuinely change our world for the good - forever!" Holy Shit that sounds awesome! Tell me more! Kabbalah reveals all the spiritual and physical laws that govern the cosmos and the human soul. It answers questions. It provides solutions. It unravels puzzles. It deciphers codes. Awesome, I am totally up for some code deciphering, or as the brilliant Jason Mulgrew stated: "Kabbalah is so wonderful that it is like bowling a 300 game, meeting Jesus Christ, winning the lottery, and receiving oral sex from the entire female cast of 'Baywatch' rolled into one, and extended forever throughout time and space until the end of time and beyond and into infinite space forever."

Vague promises, marketing tie-ins, and the fact that it's Jewish mysticism minus all the, you know, Jewish stuff makes this the best pseudo-faith ever. Pass the Kool-Aid!


SCIENTOLOGY:
I wanted to keep an open mind, I really did; but this --> is based on one of L. Ron Hubbard's texts. The man who promises Scientology can bring about positive changes in states of health, ability and intelligence is also the author of Battlefield Earth. But I wanted to be fair, Scientology must be comprised of something beyond cheesy sci-fi and Cruise's couch-jumping fanaticism right? Well if it is they certainly don't make it easy to figure out.

Much like Kabbalah the actual basis and purpose of the faith is shrouded in mystery. Wait, scratch that, not so much shrouded in mystery as shrouded in answers that can be accessed with a valid credit card number and/or PayPal account. If your way of life is truly as kick-ass as you make it out to be, why the hell is it so hard to get some free, official information. The Church of Scientology's wesbite declares, "The Scientology religion is about the individual man or woman. Its goal is to bring an individual to a sufficient understanding of himself and his life and free him to make improvements where he finds them necessary and in the ways he sees fit." What the hell does that even mean? Any time you click on anything to learn more you are presented the awesome opportunity to order some of their "suggested reading".

Fine, don't tell us. As long as Tom Cruise is telling women that post-partum depression is treatable with simple vitamins (thanks Tommy, It's good to hear from someone who knows), and John Travolta is blasting through space with his white man dreds I think the majority of the population will see you for what you are. I mean sure, many of us take marital advice from a man who's not only barred from marriage but from any sexual thought at all, and follow a church that decrees the poor and meak are God's chosen people from their pedestals of marble and gold, but if I want to know the jist of Christianity I can attend a public service, reach for the drawer in my hotel room or drive through the vast majority of the Southern United States, and I assure you, I will find more than enough people to tell me.