What are they trying to do with their worship anyway?
"Look Xenu, we know you blew up our souls in a volcano a while ago, but we love you anyway, how about a hug?"
I see the "logic" of Islam, Christianity, etc, but Scientology I don't get it. Anyone mind to explain?
Scientology 101:
They don't worship Xenu. He's not a deity. They don't worship anything officially (not the way Christians do), although you could call their take on Hubbard a form of worship.
The story of Xenu is a fable (a scientifically proven 'fact' if you're a scientologist) that explains where the body-thetans came from, how they joined with people, why they act the way they do, and why we must ultimately audit them all back into conformity for the sake of the human race.
Prior to OT3, you are aware that you have "evil spirits" and "bad feelings" within you, and that through the practice of auditing using an e-meter, you can cleanse these bad spirits. OT3 and the fable of Xenu bring a more focused understanding of these spirits, or thetans.
Auditing "works" the same way psychiatry often does (which is why scientologists hate psychiatry. The same reason Ford hates Honda.) It can be therapeutic for most anyone on earth to simply talk about their problems. E-meter audit sessions ask you to focus on bad or traumatic events and ask you to go into great detail about them. The e-meter itself is pure baloney but the actual act of "confession" that people go through in an audit session can often times, very truly, make them feel better when the session is over. This is the crux of it all. The first one is free. Want to try it again? Cough up the cash. If a session "fails", then you didn't do good enough and you should "try these courses" (for a nominal fee) to help you focus and understand more about the "tech" of auditing.
From there they slowly ramp it up until eventually you've dumped your savings, disowned your family, signed yourself up for indentured servitude to the church in exchange for free courses, and become a hopeless slave.
As a new member you aren't supposed to know about OT at all, let alone Xenu. This is why they sue the piss out of anyone who mentions it. As a newbie, your goal isn't OT, because you don't even know about OT. Your goal is "Clear". You've cleansed yourself of bad body-thetans, wtg. Only then do they hit you with something like "You've only just begun! Now it's time to become an OT!"
Miscavige is supposedly the only OT8. Hubbard of course being the only one to ever reach OT9 (and he did it all on his own! OMG he's soooo cool!). At OT8 you are rumored to finally learn that Hubbard was indeed the physical manifestation of God on earth, DUH!
That's the basic breakdown of it all.
*EDIT*
The OT3 revelation of Xenu works because by the time they finally hit you with it, they've got you by the balls so hard that it has not only become impractical for you to reject it, but illogical. They of course have "courses" and bookwork and shit you have to do, but at any level of the whole chain, they can deny you entry into the next "step" arbitrarily using any excuse they want. If you pass the OT2 course, but they feel you still might balk at Xenu, you won't graduate to OT3 until they have worked you down enough to the point where they feel you will accept Xenu. A lot of people leave at OT3 either because they balk at Xenu, or they get frustrated with the fact that they can't get there.
Higher level OTs almost certainly are aware that the whole thing is a scam designed to make the top people rich. But by that time, you ARE one of the top people....not to mention the ever-present "I got you by the balls" thing.
And another "almost" certainty is that celebrities aren't even on the same path as regular folks. So Whatsherface, although listed as an OT5 and should be aware of Xenu, may likely be being honest when she says she's never heard of such a thing, because she was excluded from that path of teaching on purpose. Either that or she's lying. We're still waiting for a high-profile celebrity defection and expose.