In an interview with Playboy, Kirstie Alley answered a few questions regarding Scientology. I was about to take the liberty of bolding the silly parts, but once I started I realized that I would be bolding basically the entirety of her first two responses. I’m serious. Just read it:

Q 16

PLAYBOY: What’s left out of everyone’s story on Scientology? For instance, what don’t the Germans get about it?

Kirstie Alley: That it’s fun. Say you have a problem in your life: a compulsion to strangle mice. [Pauses] That just came up. No reason. Anyway, say you wake up every day and you just can’t wait to find a mouse, and it’s taking up a lot of your time. You’d have a couple sessions in Scientology and soon you wake up and decide you’d rather go to Home Depot. You’d see a mouse on the way and not have any desire to strangle it. You’re just, “Hey, there’s a mouse.” Scientology takes barriers out of your life and lets you have more fun. What I’m saying is that it’s fun to have control, to solve problems, to eliminate compulsions. I define compulsion as anything you feel like you have to do that you don’t necessarily want to do. It all boils down to whether what you’re doing gives you more survival or less survival. If it gives you more survival, then it’s a good thing.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: Sounds like you have all the answers. Where do we go when we die?

Kirstie Alley: We just pick another body. We go to the nearest hospital where women are giving birth, find some good-looking parents and jump in. I don’t think there’s a rest period, though there might be a confusion period if you were killed in an accident and knocked out of your body. It would all depend on the shape you’re in as a spiritual being, which is our natural state. The better the shape you’re in, the less confusion. At least that would be my hope. This is just a prison planet–and here’s what it takes to get out: a Get Out of Jail Free card or a Get Off of Planet Earth Free card. You should have one in your wallet or purse at all times, just in case. You know how we’re all looking for the big secret in life? That’s it.

Q 18

PLAYBOY: As a Scientologist, you must own an e-meter. What happens when your non-Scientologist friends come over and want to play with it?

Kirstie Alley: I own three. I do the pinch test with them. When somebody’s not a Scientologist, they want to know what an e-meter is. All an e-meter does is help a person locate moments of pain or unconsciousness and disagreement. It doesn’t tell right or wrong, it locates moments. For the pinch test I have them hold the e-meter cans. Then I show them the meter face, the dial. Then I pinch them. When I do, the dial reacts. The needle jumps. Then I say, “OK, good. Recall that pinch.” They think of the pinch and the needle jumps again–without the actual pinch. You think again and again about the pinch, and each time the needle jumps less until the memory of it isn’t painful anymore. Finally I’ll say, “Recall that pinch,” and the needle will “float,” just move back and forth, and my friend remembers no pain. A new pinch starts it all over again, but that would be a new pinch.

Alright, after a good laugh I’m now ready to move past the strangling mice gaff. I’m sure that many others will not do so quite so quickly, though, as it just begs for knee-slapping laughter. It also suggests a partial explanation for the success of L Ron Hubbard’s scam: a target market of Scientology is people who have very peculiar psychological and socially-isolating psychological disorders. Scientology does, after all, go after people struggling through drug rehabilitation and people with criminal pasts.

While I can quickly move past the strangling mice example, Alley’s assuredness that she knows what happens after death – and with razor precision – is something that I, as an active secular humanist, have trouble swallowing quite so quickly. And a Get Out of Jail/Earth Free Card? Is that supposed to be what Scientology is? Because last time I checked, Scientology isn’t free! As is the case in all religion/cults, the theological beliefs are based not on evidence but are matters of faith passed from person to person, with the most common directions of information being from higher status to lower and older to younger. Alley, of course, was fed this particular brand of faith-based nonsense from other deciples of LRH (L Ron Hubbard). It’s just amazing how completely she has bought the bullshit story. Well, I guess after buying years of bullshit services, buying a few bullshit stories seems like a bargain.

Questions 16, 17, and 18 were the only ones which tapped Scientology. Interestingly, though, the response that probably jives best with most readers in considering Kirstie Alley with respect to Scientology was given in response to question 19 (bolding mine):

Q 19

PLAYBOY: When you were a kid, what did your friends say about you that you hated but which has now become an asset in your life?

Kirstie Alley: I’ve always been told I’m crazy. Always. When I wanted to come to Hollywood to be an actress, I was crazy. When I was at a party and wanted to do something, I was crazy. I’ve always believed I was sane but extroverted. And when I look back on the things I’ve done, I can honestly say that very few of them were harmful or destructive. They were crazy but fun. I guess being called crazy is a good thing.

For more on Scientology, click here.