12/7/09
It was a long flight, but I enjoyed it. It’s amazing how different travel is when you’re not in a lot of pain. I got a wretched headache at one point on the flight from Philly to San Francisco, but outside of that, it really wasn’t bad. I used to have so much back pain and head pain and stomach pain, but it’s really improved this year.

Melbourne is a beautiful city; we walked only a bit through it, and I already fell in love. It feels like spring here right now; yesterday it was 70 degrees and sunny, and everyone is walking around in their summer clothes, musicians are playing on the promenade by the river, so much is going on. It’s just alive, and that’s such a shock compared to spending time in Collegeville. I can’t believe how nice it is just to see people, and to see them relaxing is especially nice. Back home, everyone is so embroiled in their work or what have you, they’re just cut off. It’s nice to slow down.

It was about a twenty or thirty minute walk from our hotel to the exhibition center. Walking there, we saw bhikkunis headed in the same direction as us, and we saw folks in selwar kameez and kurta pajama, and Sikh men and Muslim men, and it was just very refreshing. I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps my longing for India?

A gentleman was outside doing some kind of ritual with beautiful smelling incense, next to what looked like a big dead dragon. There was a gentleman in a hazmat suit standing with a sign that said, “A dead planet will have no jobs.”

Walking in, there were tons of booths, talking about so much. Christian things, Zoroastrian things, New Age things, Indigenous things, Pagan, UU… The Sikhs, and the Scientologists had really fancy set-ups with huge screens playing things, and the Sikhs had a map of the world covered in sparkling LED lights.

Despite not having slept in a very long time, I felt really good in that area. It had a very calm, warm vibe, which I’m surprised I felt, since I don’t ordinarily pick up on such things. Perhaps my jet lag was contributing somehow. Nonetheless, I felt freaked out somewhat. I was worried that people would approach me and try to convert me, and there were a number of New Age and Japanese things that I found very disturbing.

I was worried about the Scientologists with regard to this, but I was also very curious to see how they presented themselves, so headed over. They had a declaration of their beliefs about rights (the right to free expression, the right of the soul over the right of the man [still dunno what that means, maybe I can ask], and a lot of other ones that sounded good), things about Thetans and dimensions and definitions of Scientology (the study of knowing). Emotional grades and stuff, too. Really fancy displays, really huge. There was a woman sitting with two kids in front of what I guess was an e-reader, and I felt very averse to this, the way she was acting with these kids. I don’t know that she was doing a reading or anything, but it seemed very business-like. I didn’t get to look at everything for too long, because a tall gentleman in a suit approached me. I’ve forgotten his name, it was something like Robert Adams, and after I said I was a Religious Studies major from Philly, he talked a lot about how he was a former Pittsburgh Steeler, he had studied religion, he was now the Vice President of Scientology International. He talked for a bit too long about the beauty of studying cultures, studying meaning, and so forth, and how things were going great for Scientologists in 165 countries. He seemed like a nice guy, but I was exceedingly distrustful. I kept finding my mind probing his face to find some sign of profound tension, some sign that he was untrustworthy, some way to legitimate my prejudice, I suppose. But he just looked ordinary, no more tension than anyone else, and no less, either. I didn’t feel threatened at all by what he said, even as I kept preparing for him to say something where my guard would have to go up.

As I was talking to him, I realized how defensive I was being, and I felt a little bad about that. I was being very prejudiced. I find something viscerally frightening about the idea of a cult, even though I realize that the idea of a cult often goes far beyond the reality. I think that the main thing that I fear about Scientology, New Age movements, and these Japanese things is that their world views seem so deeply incongruent with what I experience, and in particular, they have an optimism about their tradition that I feel I cannot trust. In Oboler’s Sociology of Religion class, we read an article by a guy who was asking people to reconsider the stigmatization of cults, and the only real criticism he expressed was exactly what freaks me out about them: that they profess to so happy, so content, and they invite you to join them in it, but they don’t look happy. It looks forced. I’ve seen it a lot, among people from all backgrounds, not just in what folks call cults. There is something else in their face that tells you that the weight of the world is still there, that they’re not so liberated as they seem.

I guess there’s something about that kind of emotional denial that I find distrustful. I think that there’s an assumption that what a person’s subtle body language is telling you is what is more true than what their voice is telling you, and though I don’t have any particular reason to know that to be the case, I genuinely feel like that’s true. If they can make their lips into a smile and say they are happy, but their eyes and demeanor still seem tense, I feel like they are not so joyfully free as they make themselves out to be.

And so I find myself fearing such people, because I find that kind of emotional disparity very disturbing. I’d like to shout at them, “But you don’t look happy!” I feel that way towards people in a lot of religious groups, and even exercise programs and dietary regimens.

I have to say, though, that there’s something complicating it. These people are able to do some beautiful things because of their optimism. They support some endeavors that are really admirable, and that disturbs me, too. Part of me does not want to see such emotional denial yielding such good worldly results. Is it really better, then, to live in accord with one’s deeper feelings, but to be paralyzed by them?

I think so, and for a number of reasons, but I have to get going. I think I will spend some more time around these folks who I find off-putting. It seems like a good thing to study.