Okay, so, I went to a movie last week, and the movie started at eight, and I clocked off work around six-thirty, so I figured I had an hour or so to kill, yeah? I figured I?d like, go to Borders on Oxford Street and chill out for a bit. Get a few books filled with photos of distant galaxies and find a chair in the in-house Starbucks with something chocolatey and caffeiney and wow myself out until it was movie time (seriously- this is a good way to spend an interesting hour).
So I?m walking down T Court Road towards Oxford Street and there?s this band of people accosting everyone who walk by them, saying: ?Free stress test!?
?Would you like a free stress test, sir??
I figured, well, I could trip out on Nebulae any old time.
?Yeah, sure.?
So, the stress test is as follows: You hold on to two iron bars, which are attached (by those rather scary looking ?we-can-electrocute-you-anytime-we-please? pterodactyl-headed wires that you?d normally use to jump-start a car battery) to a little device which has a needle on a gauge. I got the impression it used more or less the same principles as a lie detector- micro changes in my pulse would cause the needle to jump up, indicating stress. The guy was constantly adjusting the sensitivity so that the needle would hover at more or less the halfway point as a baseline- the lower the sensitivity required, the higher stressed you were, I guess.
?So, what?s on your mind?? the guy asked. ?Anything stressing you recently??
I told him about an odd social situation that I?d be thinking of frequently that week and I had, in fact, been thinking of just moments before.
The needle jumped up to its maximum tolerance. Tick-tick-tick, it bounced against the casing.
?Woah! Looks like there?s definitely some stress there!? He laughed and adjusted the baseline, bringing the needle back down to centre. "How about your love life??
Again, before even answering, the needle rocketed to the right again. Tick-tick-tick.
I summarized the disastrous end to my last relationship. He adjusted the baseline again.
?Okay, so tell me about your family...?
Tick-tick-tick.
By now I was starting to get a little embarrassed. Ask anyone who knows me- I?m a fairly laid-back guy. Sure, I?m like, excitable and energetic, but I don?t exactly stress out about things. Most worries tend to roll off my back pretty quickly. But the story I was telling this guy made me sound like one of the more interesting characters in Days of our Lives (not the one who got memory loss and came back as someone else who then turned out to not be him at all when the original actor returned from hiatus. Bo, I think).
Anyway, as anyone who?s ever had a conversation with any stranger in London can attest, the guy?s next move came as no surprise. It was a pretty good strategy really- chat to someone about their worries, and hope they?re one of those lost-soul folks who?ll latch on to anything that might give them a direction. I?d had similar conversations with Christian fishers-of-men, just without the fancy gimmick.
?So Daniel, as you can see you have a stress-factor of six, which is above average. But I?ll tell you something that can help with that...?
From behind the machine, he brandished what appeared to be an airport novel (it had the picture of a huge volcano on the cover). His face beamed. Bless.
?It?s called Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard. Have you heard of him??
?Yeah, he started that Scientology cult, right??
It was at this point I noticed that we were, in fact, sitting outside a building quite clearly marked: The Church of Scientology.
?Yes!? my stress-scientist praised me like a first-year teacher who still gives a crap. ?...and Dianetics is the guiding principles of...?
?He wrote Battlefield: Earth as well, didn?t he??
?Yes!?
?That movie was awful! It was so bad it wrapped round past good and back to bad again!?
?It had some problems, but the principles behind it...?
?No! There is no defence for that movie! No buts, and or ifs! It flat out sucked. It was one of the worst movies I?ve ever seen. There?s no way I can join a cult started by anyone who had anything to do with that colossal waste of my time.?
To the man?s credit, he somehow managed to disassociate the movie from the wacky cult. I imagine they must have started giving special classes in just that problem after the film came out.
?So anyway,? he said, flustered from the effort of trying to bring me round again, ?Dianetics may have the answers you?re looking for. Would you be interested in reading it?? he pushed his two hands, cupping the book, slightly in my direction.
?Yeah, sure, I?ll give it a look.? Anything to get this wacko off my back.
?Great!? Aww, look at his happy little hamster face. This mustn?t happen often. ?That?ll be ten pounds.?
?What? Hang on mate! Scientology is a religion, and from what I can tell, Dianetics is its Bible, right??
?Yes.?
?Well, bloody hell, I can get Bibles for free* pretty much any hotel I?d care to go to- the Gideons see to that. In fact, I even got given a copy of the Hare Krishna** in an airport one time. There?s no way I?m gonna pay ten pounds for your guys? Bible! You know how much beer I could get for that?? (Curses, I should have added: Now that?s stress relief. You only ever think of these things after the fact).
d
* Although, according to Neil Gaiman, the Bible is the book that is most frequently shoplifted, throughout the land. Which makes no sense whatsoever.
** Yeah, I know, it?s actually called the Bhagavad-Gita, but these facts don?t always spring to mind when you?re making a point and you have to go with what you?ve got at your disposal.
This is a 
Battlefield: Earth, the book, is only marginally better than the film. By 'marginally better' I mean of course 'a tiny bit less shit'.
'Dianetics' (for I have read it, or tried to anyway) is the biggest load of shit, EVER. It's a bunch of nonsense claiming to be 'scientific theory', which is backed up by precisely ZERO facts or references. Link above goes some way towards explaining the unexplainable. Basically it's akin to a steaming pile of shite, in book form.
I quite liked the book actually. Thought it was quite good. And his 10 volumn series whatever that was.
However if you we're in any doubt as to how much of nutters they are
The story of Xenu is covered in OT III, part of Scientology's secret "Advanced Technology" doctrines taught only to advanced members. It is described in more detail in the accompanying confidential "Assists" lecture of 3 October 1968. Direct quotes in this section are from these sources. (See also Scientology beliefs and practices). 75 million years ago, Xenu was the ruler of a Galactic Confederacy which consisted of 26 stars and 76 planets including Earth, which was then known as Teegeeack. The planets were overpopulated, each having on average 178 billion people. The Galactic Confederacy's civilization was comparable to our own, with people "walking around in clothes which looked very remarkably like the clothes they wear this very minute" and using cars, trains and boats looking exactly the same as those "circa 1950, 1960" on Earth.
But when you compare the B:E book to any other good sci-fi book from theat era or any other era, it's not that good. Ok it has some interesting bits, but overall it doesn't merit a place in my sci-fi book collection.
As for your quote from 'Dianetics', as I said, steaming piles of horse-poo. Apparently we all originate from other planets, and various other nonsense. And Xenus' 'space-planes' look strangely like DC-3's.
I didn't tell the guy that I have, in fact, read B:E. It wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't great, either. It was better than the movie....because everything ever written is better than the movie (except A Prayer for Owen Meany, that's poo).
I particually like the fact they found Earth on DC-10s.
I like the fact that, in B:E, the rebels who grew up in an oppressed agrarian society suddenly know how to fly Harriers!