Superman can sleep soundly tonight. The FBI, which is apparently aware of his secret identity, has decided to keep things under wraps, acknowledging the Kryptonian’s right to privacy ultimately outweighs the public’s need-to-know.
The rise of widely accessible streaming video platforms has allowed niche organizations to spawn media companies that pump out propaganda content that they can beam directly to your living room. If you need a break from the gun-porn of NRA TV, but still want a glimpse into a strange apocalyptic alternate reality, you…
Empire-building has been part of many a religious group’s strategy throughout history. But no one does it better than Scientology. The documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, which debuted on HBO last night, offers the first in-depth survey of Scientology’s practices, including its ongoing quest…
You probably knew that William S. Burroughs had experimented with some unusual ideas during his time — but did you know he joined the Church of Scientology? Pop Apocalypse author and English professor Lee Konstantinou reveals the secret history of how Burroughs almost became an Operating Thetan.
Supreme court judges in the UK have ruled that Scientology is a "place of meeting for religious worship." Louisa Hodkin launched a suit after officials refused to register a Scientology chapel as a place for marriage. The judges said religions don't require a God — potentially paving the way for Jedi marriages.
The Church of Scientology has reportedly spent roughly half a billion dollars buying up buildings in U.S. cities over the past few years—but, in many cases, these huge buildings have remained vacant. Now, the city of Philadelphia is taking the church to court over an empty tower.
Any day is a good when the government's most futuristic R&D lab starts cavorting around Twitter with Scientology superstars. And this is one of those days.
The Church of Scientology held an event for the opening of a new facility in Portland over the weekend. The crowd was around 450-750 people. But the church claims it was more like 2,500, and it Photoshopped in the proof.
World War II is often the go-to historical moment for alternate history novels. But in Jake Arnott's novel House of Rumour it becomes the focal point for a secret history that's stranger and more elaborate than just "What if the Nazis won?" Arnott weaves figures like L. Ron Hubbard and Virginia Woolf into a…
One of the weirdest historical confluences you can imagine took place in Pasadena, California, in the 1940s. There, a darkly handsome young man and chemistry autodidact named Jack Parsons had just made a bundle of money by inventing solid rocket fuel and selling it to the military. He was part of a group of…
You've seen the insane video of Tom Cruise blasting Scientologists with his truth beams. You've heard the rumors. But now, you'll get the full story. Over at the New York Post, Maureen Callahan has a fascinating article about journalist Lawrence Wright's new book about Scientology, called Going Clear: Scientology,…
In Paul Thomas Anderson's Scientology-inspired movie The Master, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a self-help guru who's in the process of turning his therapeutic practice into a full-fledged spiritual movement. The Master shows us how Hoffman's character creates the mythology that underpins his new faith, even as it…
Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master promises to be one of the year's most intense movies, using the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard as a jumping-off point to look at post-World War II trauma and people's eagerness to believe in some weird-ass cosmology. After two teaser trailers, here's your first longer…
According to the Telegraph, the Church of Scientology is planning to launch a religious broadcasting center to promote its teachings over TV, radio and the internet, all based in a studio complex purchased last year.
The biggest question mark hanging over P.T. Anderson's The Master has always been: How close to a movie about Scientology is this going to be? Rumor had it that Anderson tweaked the script a lot to take it away from being a straight-up portrayal of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard — but the Hubbard vibe is still…
Back when queer activist Kate Bornstein was a boy named Al, she was a leading member of the Church of Scientology. She served aboard L. Ron Hubbard's flagship, and even worked directly with Hubbard on a campaign to control Scientology members more completely. Bornstein's new memoir A Queer and Pleasent Danger explains…
Joaquin Phoenix is amazingly deranged and sparky in the first trailer for The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's troubled-but-fascinating movie that's at least loosely based on Scientology. You can already see from this brief teaser that Phoenix's character is going to have impulse control issues as well as a flawed…
If you have kids, better watch out for free educative apps with ads in them. Apparently, they can be a backdoor for R-rated messages about hot dating, guns and, even worse, scientology. Check out the image for a small sample.
This is one of the greatest things I've seen this week. Back in 1969, Scientology's magazine Advance! put out an article about how great things would be in the year 2010... but just to hedge their bets a little, the article is set on another planet. Find out how the introduction of Scientology made everything "groovy"…
Scientology has never been more high-profile than in the past several years, thanks to celebrity adherents like Tom Cruise. But the brainchild of science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard remains mysterious and controversial.
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