We're not fans of the show, but it seems we somehow missed out on this theory that's been making the rounds for a while now. Last year, James Donaghy, in an article titled "My Name is L. Ron Hubbard" published in The Guardian, wrote about the connection between Scientology and the My Name is Earl's cast and message. For one, its creator Greg Garcia, stars Jason Lee and Ethan Suplee, as well as recurring guests Juliette Lewis and Giovanni Ribisi--Beck's brother in law--are all Scientologists. (Garcia has since denied being a Scientologist by stating he "born and raised Catholic." Hmm...) As for its influence on the show, Donaghy writes,
"A practice central to Scientology is auditing, where a trained counsellor gets the subject to unburden themselves of past traumatic events (engrams) and, crucially, bad things they have done in their past. The confessions are recorded in preclear (PC) folders and kept permanently by the Church...So what, we might wonder, could be in Jason Lee's PC folder? And is this finally PC gone mad?
Then there's the concept of the "overt-motivator sequence". Crudely, this is what happens when a person does something bad then subconsciously causes something bad to happen to themself. It all sounds eerily like "Do bad things and it will come back to haunt you", Earl's karmic mantra. The entire series premise, in fact. So when Earl crosses something off his list of bad acts is he just clearing out his preclear closet? Maybe we're unwittingly witnessing an overt motivator sequence?"
Not us.
