Furious doctors who were invited on board a flight to Haiti sponsored by Scientology (and allegedly paid for by John Travolta) were left stranded at the airport as their medical supplies flew to Haiti without them.
Apparently, as the Church has been sending packs of its “Volunteer Ministers,” with a few seats on each flight reserved for doctors invited to go along. While Scientology’s PR machine is in full crank congratulating itself for sending medical supplies and personnel to the ravaged country, some seventy doctors were left stranded at the airport as the plane loaded with their supplies sat on the runway:
“I think they’re doing a good thing. But it wasn’t done right today and people have died in Haiti because of it,” said volunteer Jake Bevilacqua.
“They need to help us get these pain medications and equipment and antibiotics to the people who are dying, literally,” said volunteer Doreen Evans.
Doctors and nurses from as far away as Brazil arrived at JFK Saturday morning with thousands of dollars worth of medicine and medical equipment. They say they were confirmed on the Church of Scientology flight, but during the boarding process they say the passenger manifest was misplaced.
A total of 119 people boarded then the doors of the plane closed, leaving about 70 people behind
Curiously enough, none of the stranded appear to be members of the Church, and the PR blog set up to report on the Volunteer Ministers in Haiti (and beg donations) carries no mention of the incident.
Scientology’s PR machine has been in overdrive this year, apparently in a losing bid to counter some of their avalanche of negative press. Most of these are “feel good” stories involving new buildings or their “Volunteer Ministers” bringing much-need emeters and Dianetics pamphlets to disaster sites.
Most unfortunately, the poor soul they hired to write these exercises in puffery appears to have fallen victim to his own hype. Not only are Volunteer Ministers getting in everyone’s way helping with relief efforts, they’ve taken charge of the relief efforts. This is either the looniest thing I’ve ever read, or a very nicely crafted prank- it’s hard to tell.
Update: A link on the “Volunteer Minsters” Blog soliciting donations for Haiti relief leads directly to Scientology’s general donation fund. Fishy stuff.
The BBC today has a fascinating article on the history of Cadbury chocolates. Founded by Quakers as an alternative to alcoholic drinks, the company’s ethical business practices caused it to became a runaway success:
Ms Rowlands says evidence shows the new ethical stance led to a successful business, but it was unclear how other firms viewed it at the time.
“[The Quakers] were not the only people doing that kind of thing but they were in the vanguard of it. The connection between faith-based motivation and business was very clear and perhaps less overt amongst others.”
The story of Cadbury also contrasts with other businesses that serve to promote religiously motivated causes.
Sikhs will celebrate the birthday of Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and last of the human gurus. Guru Gobind instituted the Khalsa Order, and declared the Guru Granth Sahib the perpetual living Guru, thus ending the succession of human Gurus.
In the Baha’i Faith calendar, today is the Feast of Sultan, the first day of the nineteen-day Baha’i month celebrating the divine attribute of sovereignty.
Because Scientology’s “Volunteer minsters” can now get down to the important business of poking people and getting in the way of relief workers much more quickly, now that John Travolta has volunteered the use of his personal aircraft.
Much of the coverage of the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake has tried to relate the success of relief efforts to to the religious attitudes of the country. Virtually all of it is paternalistic and poorly informed (as in the apparent decision at the Times Online that the best opinions to seek on the attitudes of Haiti’s believers were their theological opponents in Europe.)
Some of it is outright insulting, like a recent Reuters story that addresses complaints from “Voodoo priests” who object to mass burials of the dead:
“Dumping the dead in hurriedly excavated mass graves without proper rites is seen as desecration in a country where many believe in zombies — dead bodies brought back to life by supernatural forces who could persecute the living.”
The Reuters story implies that Beauvoir met with the Haitian president to relay houngans’ concern over zombies.
Voodoo is a real religion, with a strong emphasis on the afterlife. The care of ancestral spirits is very important in Voodoo, and proper respect must be given to the dead, because they are still present in spirit form. Funerary rituals prevent spirits from becoming ‘lost’ or forgotten, separated from the living forever. It would probably be unusual to find a faith that didn’t have similar objections to the rough handling of the dead.
There’s also the rudeness in referring to houngan Max Beauvoir as the “main leader of Voodoo” instead of using a proper title, but even that seems relatively minor compared to the condensation of a complex social issue into a condescending dig about superstition.
Today is the feast day of Ogun.
Ogun (Ogoun) is the chief of the Warrior Orishas in Santeria and an important Loa of Vodoun, the God of War, blood, and iron. He is the guardian of the forge, and the patron of civilization and technology. Not just a martial deity, Ogun is the archetypal force that drives technological advance. He is responsible for tools of progress such as farming implements and surgeon’s knives. He is movement, impetus, force. Because of this, Ogun is often associated with locomotives, and offerings are often made to him at railroad tracks. In Candomble, he is associated with St. George, the dragon slayer; in Lukumi, he is syncretized with St. Peter.
Because of his association with blood, Ogun is often petitioned for aid with blood diseases. However, because Ogun enjoys blood offerings, it is considered inadvisable to petition Ogun while menstruating or with a bleeding wound.
Ogun is one of the Seven African Powers and the patron of blacksmiths and farmers.
Predictable, but funny: An Australian pizza chain called Hell Pizza (no strangers to controversy) is attracting the ire of local churches on the opening of a new branch. Apparently, the pastor of the “Springfield Christian Family Church” thinks the brand will send children a “confusing message about hell.” I wonder how he feels about Buffalo wings.
The Pastor opines:
“You open your mailbox and there is the word hell right in front of you.
“It’s a confusing message for children especially.”
One of Springfield church’s eight core principals is a belief in the devil.
Today is celebrated as
World Religion Day by members of the Baha’i Faith, one of the handful of religions who recognize the contributions of other faiths.
Well, I’m not sure. My best guess is a creatively challenged J Peterman employee with an “on this day” calendar:
So buy a sign, because Salem was sorry for hanging witches. Or something.
I seem to remember a time when a natural disaster or human rights catastrophe was viewed by Christians as a call to serve their fellow man. Maybe it still is, but it’s drowned out by people like Pat Robertson, whose depth of failure and hugeness of mouth seem to magnify with every passing second.
What did the Haitians do to incur God’s wrath this time? Apparently, it’s a delayed reaction to Haiti’s revolt against the French:
“You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”
Apparently, after a 200-year nap, God decided to lay down some whoop-ass on a few thousand children because some slaves got uppity two centuries ago. Die in a fire, Pat.
Robertson is probably referring in some oblique way to Haitian’s adoption of the Vodoun religion, but doesn’t go into any detail. In any case, he’s a major ass, but he’s only doing what he always does. What really infuriates me is the major news outlets that flock to the man’s door and breathlessly repeat every retarded word.
Today is the traditional date of the ancient Norse Midvintersblot, celebrated today by followers of the
Asatru faith. The day is sacred to the god
Tyr (Tiw).
Thousands of pilgrims have flocked to Benin, the ancestral home of the
Voodoo (Vodoun) religion, to celebrate the annual “
Voodoo Day” celebrating what is now the official religion of Benin. The celebrations include ritual dancing, singing, sacrifices, baptisms, and bathing in sacred mud.
Today is the birthday of Samuel Liddel Macgregor Mathers, the driving force behind the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the influential magical group that revived Western esoteric traditions and influenced much of modern magical practice. Mathers introduced the kabbalah to Victorian society, and translated numerous works of kabbalah and ritual magick into english.
Mather’s students included Aleister Crowley and WB Yeats. The Golden Dawn magical and initiatory systems are used by dozens of modern magical organizations. (The Golden Dawn was so influential that faiths as diverse as Wicca, Thelema, and Scientology would not exist today without its contributions) By strange coincidence, today is also the anniversary of the death of Mather’s initiate Dion Fortune.
Practitioners of Vodou in Haiti, begin the annual three-day “Casse Gateaux,” or “breaking of the cakes,” a communal offering of food (Mange Loa) to the Loas.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Scientology’s had a very rough year, what with ongoing protests, high-level defectors, and the publication of every last shred of their “confidential” documents.
About the only thing left in the drawer was a mysterious set of papers detailing the “Babalon working,” a magical operation undertaken in 1946 by Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley acolyte Jack Parsons.
Hubbard’s start in the OTO has been pretty well documented, but the Church of Scientology has long insisted that Hubbard was not participating in ritual magick, but in fact on a secret government mission to break up a “Satanic cult.” Try hard not to laugh, but until now, it was their word against everyone else’s, so members of the church were free to accept that explanation.
A record of the working exists in the archives of the Warburg Institute Library, and has remained unpublished until now- an intentional act that makes for an interesting story. It seems that after a brief mention of the working in the British press, the documents were rescinded by then-owner Gerald Yorke, a secretary of Aleister Crowley. On Yorke’s death, the papers were returned, under condition they not be published for twenty-five years. The papers will reportedly be unsealed on Jan 4, 2010. Here’s hoping they made copies…
