Isaac Hayes: not dead, just resting between gigs

ISAAC Hayes – music pioneer, actor, author of a cookbook, the voice of the cartoon chef in South Park, oh, and a 24-carat Scientology nutjob – is dead at 65.

Well, not really. According to wacky Scientology dogma, he has moved on to claim another body – or “meat” as the Scientologists so delicately put it.

Said Tommy Davis, a long-time friend of Hayes and a spokesman for Church of Scientology International in Los Angeles:

One carries on lifetime after lifetime.

Hayes, who “died” on Sunday at age 65, will be remembered at a memorial service on Monday at Hope Presbyterian in Cordova. With mourners expected from around the globe, a Scientology minister will lead the service to wish well to Hayes as his “spiritual being” moves into a new life and body.

In July 1997, Hayes and fellow Scientologist Lisa Marie Presley founded the Church of Scientology in Memphis.

Reports Lindsay Melvin, of the Commercial Appeal:

In many ways, the religion is geared toward ultra-talented people, teaching that great artists, painters and musicians are a cut above ordinary men.

Scientology a religion? For pity’s sake, get a grip Lindsay, it’s a C-U-L-T! A money-grabbing, sanity-destroying headfuck of a cult!

Hayes’ spiritual beliefs received national attention in 2006. As the voice of Chef in the animated TV comedy South Park, he quit after an episode lampooned the Church of Scientology and its most famous follower, Tom Cruise.

At the time, Hayes said:

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs of others begins. Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honoured. As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.

South Park co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply, saying:

This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology… He has no problem — and he’s cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians.

Stone told The AP he and co-creator Trey Parker:

Never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.

According to the Scientologists, his soul will be “born again into the flesh of another body. The actual details of how that rebirth occurs are not fully understood by church outsiders, according to this report, but some core beliefs of Scientology are that every human being is really an immortal spiritual being known as a thetan and that the “meat bodies” we inhabit are merely vessels we shed upon death.