Great religions inspire faith, community, passion, and imagination in their devout followers. Now these religions have something else in common: theme parks. There’s Dinosaur Adventure Land (where dinosaurs and the Bible meet!) and The Holy Land Experience, while evangelical Christians led by Pat Robertson are still bargaining with Jews to open up a theme park on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In this environment, the time is ripe for Scientologists to unleash their much anticipated Super Power:

Under wraps for decades, Super Power now is being prepped for its eventual rollout in Scientology’s massive building in downtown Clearwater… A key aim of Super Power is to enhance one’s perceptions - and not just the five senses we all know - hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell.

Senses such as “awareness of awareness”, “tasten colorn depth” and 55 others are mysteriously honed in the Super Power chambers. It’s all very secret, but here are a few tantalizing glimpses leaked by former Scientologists:

Super Power uses machines, apparatus and specially designed rooms to exercise and enhance a person’s so-called perceptics. Those machines include an antigravity simulator and a gyroscope-like apparatus that spins a person around while blindfolded to improve perception of compass direction [another super power, or “sense”], said the former Scientologists.

Meanwhile, somewhere else:

A video screen moves forward and backward while flashing images is used to hone a viewer’s ability to identify subliminal messages, they said.

Scientologist Ron Pollack, who donated $5 million dollars to the Super Power project, likened it to a “trip to Disney.” Only with more screaming children, one assumes.

Former Scientologists Bruce Hines and Chuck Beatty, once staffers at the church’s international base in Hemet, Calif., said that while on punishment detail [?!!], they made chairs of various sizes - ones big enough for a giant, others too small even for a child.

This chamber will be used to hone Scientologists’ sense of chairs. But really, I’m more interested in how “punishment detail” is assigned, and how building mini chairs ranks as punishment in comparison to, say, starring in Battlefield: Earth.

Super Power will be up and running next year. Can anyone say, “Woohoo, Spring Break 2007!”