Cult classic in the making

So, Tom Cruise and Kate (formerly Katie) Holmes have been doing some couch-jumping as of late, and are now expecting her to give birth. Well, she'd better have good tolerance for pain.

No drugs. No screaming. No crying. Elron Hubbard insisted in Dianetics that any sounds made during birth (hell, even before birth...from conception on) could be misunderstood by the fetus/child/thetan and create engrams. The Dianetics ritual has been discussed in various reports in recent days.

A Scientology web site attempts to put Hubbard's birth claims on par with breakthroughs in obstetrics, despite officials claiming that Scientology is an applied religious philosophy that does not try to impinge on medicine:

while it has taken five decades for the scientific and medical communities to begin to catch up with the discoveries of L. Ron Hubbard in recognizing the awareness of the unborn child, they are now virtually part of the medical mainstream.

One Scientologists' birth-focused web page makes claims inspired by Hubbardian musings:
- "A Swedish study [not cited] showed that those who have a traumatic and painful birth are more likely to end their life with violent suicide."
- "constant crying puts babies at high risk for child abuse."
- "Crying infants are frequently drugged to keep them quiet. "
... the site goes on to plug Hubbard's books.
Anyway. I was a bit surprised to hear of TomKat's pregnancy. Some critics have been citing sworn affidavits from former Scientologists outlining what could be a policy of coerced abortion for those in the CoS' Sea Organization -- the hard-as-nails lifers who sign billion-year contracts and survive on beans and rice for the sake of getting Ethics in on this planet. Children don't produce, and in Scientology, stats are everything. Besides, when you're up 'til 2am Thursday morning making up inflated stats to send to head office (so you don't get demoted to a lower Ethics Condition and lose privileges), there's no time to take care of kids.
In other news, the new newsroom is very cold. Brrr. One more day of rehearsals, then we're live to air on Tuesday. I'm goin' home. G'nite.