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The Heinlein Letters: What L. Ron Hubbard’s close friends really thought of him

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at a 1949 letter written by L. Ron Hubbard which hasn’t received a lot of attention before. Russell Miller paraphrased the letter in his 1987 book Bare-Faced Messiah, but the full text of the letter has never been published in a book or news article, as far as []

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Scientologist (and Tea Partier) Brent Jones is elected to Nevada’s legislature

Our old friend Nathan Baca sent us a hot tip last night: He pointed out that Brent Jones had defeated incumbent Democrat James Healey in Nevada’s 35th Assembly district in Tuesday’s election, and no one had really noticed that it meant a Scientologist had managed to get himself elected to public office.

There’s precedence for Scientologists []

Scientology’s own plans show it paid $37 million for a building to serve only 87 people

We told you previously that one of the announcements Scientology leader David Miscavige made at an October 17 gala in front of a few thousand people under a giant tent in England was that he had plans for a new “Advanced Org” in Australia.

It’s a fascinating study in Scientology hubris. At a time when the []

Scientology and space opera: A new scholarly approach by Susan Raine

Just Saturday, Jon Atack was complaining about social scientists and their inability to understand how Scientology works. But there are academics who know their stuff, and at the top of that list is University of Alberta professor Stephen Kent.

Not only has Kent spent decades exposing Scientology’s abuses, he has one of the best collections []

Scientology outside the official church: ‘I’m quite happy with the world the way it is’

Mark Bunker has sent us another interesting clip from the many interviews he’s conducted for his upcoming documentary, “Knowledge Report.”

One of the things Bunker is documenting is the exodus of people who have left the Church of Scientology in recent years, many of whom grew disillusioned with church leader David Miscavige, but not with the []

Scientology’s ‘Mecca’ awaits: More tantalizing glimpses of Hubbardian Heaven on Earth

We have some fun odds and ends for you today while we nail down more big stories for you from the world of Scientology.

We’re chasing down all sorts of things — follow-ups to our previous stories, as well as big legal happenings on the horizon. But we can’t say too much just yet. We []

Finally, Scientology has an answer for last year’s Super Bowl power outage

SEE UPDATE, BELOW

If you’ve been with us a long while, you may look back fondly, as we do, on our series about “OT Phenomena” from old issues of Advance! magazine.

Once a week on Fridays, as part of our regular feature “This Week Aboard the Apollo,” we’d pull out the most fun tall tales that Scientologists []

L. Ron Hubbard explains to a friend the real reason he wrote ‘Dianetics’

Forrest Ackerman

In Russell Miller’s 1987 book Bare-Faced Messiah — the best book ever written about Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard — there’s a letter that Hubbard wrote to his friend Forrest Ackerman that Miller mentions briefly.

It was only recently, however, that we looked at the entire letter and realized how much Miller had []

Tom Cruise and his Freedom Medal of Valor: Where’s the tabloid press?

On Saturday night, just before midnight, we published a story about a remarkable photo of Tom Cruise that had been posted to Instagram. The photo had been put there by Luis Bascaran, a Venezuelan talent manager whose stable of actors includes a woman named Ruddy Rodriguez.

On Saturday afternoon Bascaran posted the photo of Ruddy and []

Scientology is turning Larry Hagman’s house into a drunk tank for celebs

Well, Mike Rinder called it, and on Friday night, Scientology leader David Miscavige confirmed it: After purchasing the hilltop Ojai estate of Larry Hagman from the actor’s widow last year, the church will be turning the place into a drug rehab clinic for celebrities who need to dry out.

That was one of several announcements made []