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 In 1950, L. Ron Hubbard published the book that changed his life, transforming him from a well known writer of pulp fiction into an even more well known leader of a worldwide organization that came to be known as the Church of Scientology.
That book was Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and for some time we’ve had plans to examine it in weekly installments, using a first edition copy of the book that was given to us by researcher Jeff Jacobsen. Today, we launch that project, and announce the best part of our plans: we’ll be making use of the invaluable help of ex-Scientologist, Bay Area lawyer, and writer Vance Woodward. Continue reading Blogging Dianetics, Part 1: Vance Woodward Helps Us Parse L. Ron Hubbard’s Masterpiece
A tip of the hat to Jane White, who spotted this disturbing photo at the Facebook page for Clear Ghana, which describes itself as a “group of Scientologists working…to bring this technology to as many people of Africa as possible.” That apparently includes presenting the standard Sea Org contract to a couple of youngsters who don’t look much more than 10 years old. The sad truth is, we’ve documented cases of children that young signing the commitment form, which asks them to serve Scientology for a billion years. Continue reading Scientology Brings Hope to Africa!
 Scientology is a very small, if wealthy, organization of probably no more than about 40,000 people around the world. But one of the reasons it garners so much attention, particularly online, is the way it repeatedly has taken on the Internet as one of its chief foes.
In the 1990s, Scientology tried to keep its secret teachings off of Usenet, and tried to crush the people who kept putting them there. It also handed out software to its members to keep them from visiting certain websites with negative information about the church. And to this day, members police each other on Facebook, making sure they don’t accidentally “friend” people who have been excommunicated. In the last couple of years, however, we’ve noticed that Scientology has been making better use of the Internet, and has been encouraging its members to take advantage of its jim-dandy whizzer features. And now, with a new “IAS sponsored Scientology Internet Campaign,” the church is ready to join the early 2000s! Continue reading Scientology Giving this “Internet” Thing a Whirl
 Simi Valley sent us a remarkable e-mail a couple of weeks ago. She wanted us to know that she’s no longer an “independent Scientologist” — she’s out all the way.
“It was a year ago that Debbie Cook sent out her e-mail and I finally woke up. But now a year later I’ve really woken up all the way,” she said in a phone conversation we had a few days ago. We thought we’d start off 2013 by writing about Simi’s journey, which reflects a trend we’ve been watching for the last couple of years. As much as the growth of a breakaway “independent Scientology” movement has been a huge part of the crisis gripping the Church of Scientology, we’ve noticed a tendency for some ex-church members to spend only a short time as “indies” before they ditch Scientology altogether. “On January 1, 2012 I was off the Miscavige Kool-aid. But now, a year later, I’m off the Hubbard Kool-aid,” Simi told us. Continue reading Another Indie Goes All the Way: Simi Valley Ditches Scientology For Good Advertisement
…this is how you send a message to Dear Leader out in front of the Scientology building in Los Angeles. Comedy writer Seth Madej snapped this photo on Monday afternoon and posted it to his Twitter feed with this message… Continue reading You Might Be in a Cult If…
 On January 7, BBC reporter John Sweeney’s book about Scientology, The Church of Fear, hits bookstores, and he thought of a great way to promote it.
About a month ago, he flew to the US and joined former church member and Blown for Good author Marc Headley for a trip to the Trementina vault in New Mexico. Earlier this year, we put together a comprehensive article about the strange vaults that one of Scientology’s most secretive entities, the Church of Spiritual Technology, has also dug in California and Wyoming in order to secure L. Ron Hubbard’s writings and lectures against nuclear attack. For our piece, we had the help of a former CST employee, Dylan Gill, who gave us some rare insights about these strange facilities. As his Sun article indicates, Sweeney and Headley were stopped at the gate before they could get inside the base and look around. What a shame. After all, Sweeney has demonstrated that he can put on a good show when he’s let in the door! Continue reading John Sweeney and Marc Headley Visit Scientology’s Odd New Mexico Vault
 With our year in review finally over, we’re left with one last Sunday in 2012, and what would a Sunday be without Funnies?
Our tipsters have been terrific this year, and we’re still getting great stuff from them every day. So let’s send 2012 out in style by looking at the latest fundraising mailers that Scientology has sent to its members. Now, if you live in the Los Angeles area — and many of the dwindling remainder of Scientologists do — then you know all about the Rose Parade, the thing you do your best to wake up for and watch bleary-eyed on your television while fighting a nasty hangover. Or, if you’re actually in Pasadena, you might secure your seat next to the parade route by partying all night on New Year’s Eve on Colorado Boulevard. We’ve done it, and a great freaky scene of street drunkenness it is. Continue reading Final Sunday Funnies of 2012: Scientology Targets the Rose Parade!
 Tiziano Lugli does his best Tom Cruise And so we come to the end of this lengthy year in review, which no doubt has already gone on far too long for some readers. If we’ve been longwinded, our excuse is that 2012 has been such an exceptional year for Scientology, and there were so many disasters for the church right up to the last few weeks. On December 10, with Gawker’s help, we brought to the world a very unusual video. During our recent visit to Los Angeles, former church member Tiziano Lugli played for us a funny song that featured several ex-Scientologists rapping about what it was like to work for David Miscavige at the International Base. We thoroughly enjoyed the rap stylings of Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder (seriously, it was dope), but what made the video go viral was that one of the people who performed on the song was Nazanin Boniadi, and she specifically name-checked the church’s three big celebrities, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Kirstie Alley. Boniadi had become famous in Maureen Orth’s Vanity Fair story in September, but here was the first evidence of Boniadi speaking out on her own about her disillusionment with Scientology. Continue reading Scientology’s 2012 in Review: Parting Shots from a Year David Miscavige Won’t Soon Forget
 Oh Belgium, how we love you We sure picked a great day to go for a long hike. Turns out, minutes after we left for our day-long stroll, we received an e-mail from a newspaper editor friend of ours in Ghent, Belgium. He wanted to make sure we had seen a Flemish-language story breaking the news that the Belgian government is going to prosecute the Church of Scientology as a criminal organization. Twelve hours later, we finally saw our friend’s e-mail. Ah well. Better late than never, anyway. OK, so you may have already heard elsewhere, but it’s still pretty interesting news…
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BELGIUM IS PROSECUTING SCIENTOLOGY AS A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION!! Continue reading Belgium Prosecuting Scientology as a Criminal Organization [UPDATED]
 We’re still looking back at this amazing year for Scientology watchers, refreshing your memory about what got our attention in 2012.
We hope you have plenty to say as we look back at the stories that mattered in the past twelve months… As the fall began, we were enjoying all the speculation by reviewers about the Scientology content in Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie The Master. (Those that actually knew some church history recognized that the film is shot through with it.) We pointed out how Anderson’s script was even more vicious about Hubbard and his invention than the finished movie, and we heard great suggestions from our readers about who the Joaquin Phoenix character, Freddie Quell, might be based on. Continue reading Scientology’s 2012 in Review: The Master Goeth Before a Fall
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