For one thing, the underlying cause of the seizures was unclear.

John Travolta said his son had Kawasaki disease. But at least one doctor says the disease does not cause seizures.

One disease that is associated with elevated risk of seizures is autism. In 2006, celebrity writer Mark Ebner cited five anonymous sources who said Jett had that disease, not Kawasaki disease ("a media rep from the Autism Society of America (ASA), an executive from Cure Autism Now, a major Hollywood producer and parent of an autistic child, and a Hollywood actor-parent").

This weekend the Mirror cited an anonymous "close friend" of John Travolta's brother Joey. The source said Joey, who made a documentary about autism, strongly believed John's son Jett had the condition.

But movie star John, a high-ranking member of the Church of Scientology, would not likely have embraced an autism diagnosis; by all accounts, the church does not recognize the disorder as requiring medical treatment (as with any other illnesses the cult deems "psychosomatic").

Even if the diagnosis was sorted out, there's the issue of medication. We know Jett was on Depakote for several years, then removed. Travolta's lawyers said the decision was made by Travolta and Jett's Scientologist mother Kelly Preston "after consulting neurosurgeons."

But one most also consider than the "church" in which Travolta and Preston have reached the exalted rank of "Clear" made a practice of removing patients from anti-seizure medication specifically. In the clip up top (odd visuals are from the YouTube source), Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard discusses the process:

Sometimes they really seize and sometimes its just slight... the doctors keep them on something to prevent this. Its just a tranquilizer and they keep them on that one year, year in and year out. And then you come along as an auditor and you try to audit the pc and you tell the pc that hell have to go off that drug. And then all of a sudden... the doctor will call up plaintively asking you to please put her back on the drug because she needs this... Now I've been using a lot of medical words here or chemical words really. Just dont pay any attention to them because they're mostly gobbledygook.

It would be heartening to believe that Jett's parents listened to credible doctors rather than this sort of Scientology propaganda. One hopes so, if only to make their own grieving at least a bit less difficult. But persistent reports they dodged an accurate autism diagnosis for their own son raise, at the very least, some doubts.

Jett's parents, Travolta and Kelly Preston, are both "clear" — an exalted, expensively attained status in Scientology. Critics of Scientology have long known that the pseudo-religion, based on Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, discourages adherents from seeking medical help for problems they deem "psychosomatic." That old line about it being all in your head forms the basis of Scientology's weird belief system; most problems, even if they manifest themselves physically, are spiritual in nature, stemming from the patient's "reactive mind." Even aspirin is deemed a mood-altering drug to be avoided — too bad if you take it to prevent blood clots.

Hence the controversy over Jett Travolta's apparent death from a head injury, likely incurred after he suffered a seizure in the Bahamas condo where the Travolta family and their two nannies were staying. John Travolta and Kelly Preston have long claimed Jett developed Kawasaki disease after exposure at a young age to carpet-cleaning chemicals, which resulted in seizures, a claim medical experts find unlikely. At the time of his death, he was under the care of Jeff Kathrein, a wedding photographer whose main qualification for the nanny post seemed to be a course he completed in Scientology and a kiss he shared with Travolta.

Whatever the cause of his seizures, a Travolta family lawyer now says Jett had been taking Depakote, an anti-seizure medication, but had to stop it because of liver damage. Liver damage from Depakote is rare; more recently, the FDA has been concerned about its link to suicidal thoughts — exactly the kind of condition Scientologists they believe they can treat through the religious coursework they call "auditing."

Travolta's actor buddyTom Cruise has made the church's stance infamous through his wildly unpopular tour of the talk shows in which he tried to advance Scientology's anti-pyschiatry views. His badgering of NBC's Matt Lauer on the Today show pales in comparison to his crazy-laughing-guy turn in a private Scientology video. He's since declared that he's not going to share his Scientologist beliefs with the public, a decision which seems to have boosted box-office returns for Valkryie, his latest film.

Good for Cruise, bad for Scientology, which desperately needs Cruise's star power to spread the church's message. As well as his money, rumor has it — the church, once a financial powerhouse, is said to be strapped for cash.

Travolta and Preston surely loved Jett, and are as grieved by his death as any parent would be. But the accusation will linger that they privileged their adherence to Scientology over their devotion to their son. The death of Lisa McPherson, a 36-year-old Florida Scientologist who died after church members removed her from a hospital where she was due to receive psychological care, received little attention outside of local newspapers. Jett Travolta's death, on the other hand, is winning international attention, and raising the question of Scientology's anti-medicine stance. Could the quest of Hubbard's cult to spread the faith by courting Hollywood celebrities have backfired once and for all?

Through fast prototyping made possible by HP's Indigo line of industrial printers. Thanks in part to the Indigo 5000, Bridge can print, bind, and shrink-wrap 22,090 copies of Scientology: A New Slant on Life in as little as a week. And as acolytes move up "the bridge to total freedom," they are required to buy further materials for study that, because of the increasingly elite membership, necessitate small runs. Thankfully, print-on-demand technology is here! When some sucker ponies up the five-figure sum necessary to pass through the "Wall of Fire" in order to become a level three "operating thetan," Bridge can whip up a copy of the Xenu myth in no time flat.

And since all of the print production is done in-house, it allows leader David Miscavige and his disciples to keep a tight lock on potential leaks of "secrets" written in the embarrassingly bad prose of Hubbard. At the upcoming discussion, among the topics panelists address will be staffing and employee retention. There aren't a lot of press operators familiar with such cutting-edge technology. Luckily for Bridge, members of the church's paramilitary Sea Org — the true believers who often work as peons — have all signed contracts to serve for eternity. They couldn't jump ship for a rival printer or publisher if they wanted to — that old-time religion matched with the latest in HP's technology combine for a serious business advantage.

There's no surprise that Scientology is run like a business. Making a profit was the reason why Hubbard came up with the religion in the first place. But here's what's really disturbing: Could HP be helping Scientology proselytize? The church has a history of recruiting members in business settings. If Silber talked about more than just print-on-demand technologies at his seminar, is should raise eyebrows among HP's many non-Scientology customers.

We don't know what the hell it is, either, but we'll all learn together after the jump.

[S]tudy technology focuses on three principles. First is the use of "mass" (manipulatives and hands-on experiences) to foster understanding - children need to see and feel what they are learning about. Second is the attention to the "gradient," which ensures sure students master one level before moving on to the next. Third is the "misunderstood word," in which students master word definitions and are taught not to read past words they don't know the meanings of in order to understand completely what they are reading and learning. NVA uses study technology as an umbrella methodology woven through the subjects.

We presume that "umbrella methodology" is a euphemism for at least six of its faculty and staff having achieved various degrees of Scientology study — and would you expect anything less for your $12,500 per year? And does this mean Jaden and Willow won't be home-schooled any longer? Do they get free rides for their Dad's philanthropy? Would any teacher ever give them less than an A? Do they even get letter grades? Or just OT levels? Just how "open" is open house, anyway? So many questions!

• New Village Academy

If our clip left you salivating for more nutcases, don't fret. All 35 freaky minutes of the video can be found here. And there's no shortage of crazies: everyone from "watercolorists" to "country western singers" and "deep sea divers" wax on about how Hubbard's system of Dianetics and self-improvement therapies have allowed them to realize their dreams. Eerier still is the suspicious authenticity of these members, all dressed according to their respective careers a little too well. The difference between this video and those 4am infomercials for business-suit-wearing graduates of online GSD programs is practically nil.

• Scientology Orientation Video [Videosift.com]