Sunday, January 14, 2007

High-Tech Approach to Religion - Scientology in Berlin

Everyone is talking about the new Scientology Church in Berlin. Nasty politicians in Germany are pointing fingers at one another (especially the ones with their vested interests to protect) and the general public has just been pouring in to the building to find out what Scientology is all about. It has been at the top of Google.de news for the past 48 hours.

Now, that is where things get interesting -- especially from a technical standpoint. There's a curious problem that you get into when you're trying to explain to someone what your religion is all about. You're either very well versed in language, and can easily explain it in ways that someone can understand, and do this one-on-one, or you figure out a way to explain it much faster to more people.

Just try doing this for something like Shinto. What is it all about? You need to read a lot, and probably talk to some Shintos before you really grok it. Scientology is similar, in that you either have to talk to a Scientologist who's in the know for some time, or just go in to this new Berlin organization.

Inside the organization are some of the niftiest displays and films that have been devised specifically to solve this problem. Explained at a Scientology event by Mr. David Miscavige -- Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center, which is the holder of the Scientology & Dianetics trademarks -- this organization includes panels that literally let anyone walk in, touch a screen, and then by themselves -- with no input from others or person trying to explain anything -- get a full explanation of the various facets and practices of Scientology.

You can see some of this here:


A gallery of photos from the grand opening of the Church of Scientology of Berlin is available at the Scientology Berlin website.


The screens there just let you walk up, and visually get an explanation of the various principles of Scientology - such as the A-R-C triangle, which the average person got introduced to during Tom Cruise's wedding.

In any case, I would highly advise anyone who has been trying to find out what Scientology is really all about to actually just walk in to this new Berlin Church (or one of the other Scientology churches which have such panels in them) and just spend some time alone finding out what this movement is all about.

Other Churches I know of which have such panels are:

References for this article:

1 comment:

Blackfoot said...

We really need these displays in my home town in Boston. Imagine all the thousands of people on Newbury Street by Tower Records being invited to one of these hi-tech visual displays, getting all the questions answered. Definitely would rock!