From a sociology of religion perspective, I’ve long been fascinated with Scientology. Ten years ago, I was Room 237-level obsessed with finding the hidden Scientology references in Tom Cruise’s Vanilla Sky.
Travolta’s Battlefield Earth is the most obvious example of overt, scientology-themed, subliminal messaging.
Vulture has a piece on the Scientology symbolism in closet-Scientologist Will Smith’s new turkey After Earth.
The main parallels:
- The movie’s villain is emotion (aliens as psychiatry)
- Will “audits” Jaden over the course of the movie
- Levels of ‘revealed knowledge’
- Will’s spaceship looks like the Douglas DC-8 style ship that Xenu brought kidnapped souls to Earth in.
- Volcano symbolism at the end of the movie. Hubbard deliberately placed an active volcano on the cover of Dianetics believing it would trigger ancient memories among the masses.
More at the Daily Mail.
