Gawker.com
January 19, 2010

Scientologists have mobilized to seize on the promotional and recruitment opportunities presented by the horror going on in Haiti, and John Travolta has personally arranged to fly "volunteer ministers" to Haiti to inflict his junk science on victims there.

Anywhere people are suffering, Scientology's yellow-shirted "volunteer ministers" can be found lurking near news cameras and claiming to help people with their bullshit technology. They performed "purification rundowns" on recovery workers sifting through the ruins of the World Trade Center after 9/11, administered "touch assists" to victims of the tsunami, distributed literature after the Virginia Tech shooting, and are on the ground in Haiti right now warning the starving, dehydrated populace about the dangers of psychiatry.

John Travolta is using his air miles to help the Haiti relief effort by planning a mercy mission to the earthquake ravaged nation.

The movie star and celebrity member of the Church of Scientology has become the latest big name to dig deep to help the victims of Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude tremor.

He says, "I have arranged for a plane to take down some volunteer ministers and some supplies and some medics.

"I hope that inspires others as well. It's needed."

So precisely what does this desperately needed help consist of? To be fair, Scientology claims to have airlifted some actual medical professionals to Porte-au-Prince, a move that is hard to argue with even if the doctors are cultists and are accompanied by a retinue of recruiters and glorified masseuses who are there not to help but to carry on their "crusade to build a better world," as the web site for the cult's volunteer ministers program puts it, through the application of L. Ron Hubbard's paranoid and power-mad fantasies.

Here's how they do it:

* The "Purification Rundown": After 9/11, Scientology set up a clinic in downtown Manhattan where firefighters sat in saunas, worked out, and took niacin and other vitamins, a regime that toxicologists have derided as "quackery."
* "Touch Assists": Scientologists descended on India in the wake of the Tsunami to save lives with "touch assists," which, according to this Washington Post story, consisted of a mechanic from Michigan touching people and saying "feel my finger" over and over and over again.


* "Locational Assists": After traumas, people sometime's forget where they are maybe? To remind earthquake victims that they are still stuck in Haiti, volunteer ministers will be performing this vital medical procedure, quoted here verbatim from the Scientology Handbook:

5. Continue giving the command, directing the person's attention to different objects in the environment. Be sure to acknowledge the person each time after he has complied.

For instance, you say, "Look at that tree." "Thank you." "Look at that building." "Good." "Look at that street." "All right." "Look at that lawn." "Very good." You point each time to the object.

6. Keep this up until the person has good indicators and a cognition. You can end the assist at this point. Tell the person, "End of assist."

* "Nerve Assists": This is basically a back massage, which if performed properly will dislodge the "standing wave" of trauma that is preventing horribly wounded and completely bereft Haitian earthquake victims from leading normal, satisfactory, psych-free lives.