J Gordon Melton

Despite what some non-Californians may think, it's not easy being a pagan in Los Angeles. The dark days of winter just aren't so dark in sunny Southern California. Grocery stores brim with fresh fruits and vegetables, whether or not you pray to the gods and goddesses for a good harvest. And then there are the urban distractions.

For a decade, lost souls have paid to enter JZ Knight's palatial fortress to learn from Ramtha, the 35,000-year-old warrior she claims to "channel," to find God within themselves. Now, after years in seclusion from bad press and ridicule, Knight is emerging and seems to be searching for something herself: acceptance from the religious and academic worlds outside. With a push from publicists, Knight's New Age work may be gaining some credibility.

Applied Scholastics International, the Hollywood organization that promotes the teaching methods of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, is spreading its ideas and school textbooks through inner-city communities in a partnership with a Baptist minister from Compton. The company has teamed up with the Rev. Alfreddie Johnson in a grass-roots campaign to bring Hubbard's "Study Technology" to church and community tutoring programs in low-income areas.

She's 24 years old, an MIT graduate working on a doctorate in cell biology at Tufts University. She's friendly, personable and religious. And at many colleges, Elsa Mak is not welcome. Mak belongs to the Boston Church of Christ, which in 15 years has swelled from 30 members to about 50,000 worldwide. It is how it became one of the nation's fastest growing churches that has stirred criticism and prompted dozens of colleges to ban it. Members say the church has flourished because of the appeal of its back-to-basics approach to religion.

Despite what some non-Californians may think, it's not easy being a pagan in Los Angeles. The dark days of winter just aren't so dark in sunny Southern California. Grocery stores brim with fresh fruits and vegetables, whether or not you pray to the gods and goddesses for a good harvest. And then there are the urban distractions.

In the drizzling rain of a predawn morning, a dozen practitioners inside the Zen Center of Los Angeles light a candle, burn incense, gently strike a bell and begin a silent sitting meditation on traditional Japanese tatami mats. Across town at the colorful Wat Thai Temple in North Hollywood, monks in bright orange robes begin their morning chants.

Della Reese, who played a down-to-earth heavenly being on "Touched by an Angel" isn't acting as she stands in front of a congregation on Sundays in West Hollywood. She's preaching -- in her own church. And her message has no mention of sin, no mention of good and evil and no endorsement of sacrifice if it means doing without. She talks about abundant living, not in the hereafter but in the here and now. "There ain't nothin' up there. If you would read that Bible you would know.

Christian Science, a church that claims spiritual healing as its forte, shows signs that it is ailing as an institution. Its organizational health chart continues to show downward trends with just a glimmer of hope for recovery. Seventeen percent of the Christian Science churches in the United States have closed in the last two decades, according to a count of congregations listed in the monthly Christian Science Journal.

The 39 men and women who died in an apparent mass suicide here left behind mystical computer postings and matter-of-fact videos explaining that they were eager to graduate from their human shells and ascend into heaven on an alien spaceship--and to speed their way, they planned to whip up puddings tainted with coma-inducing sedatives. Authorities investigating the case said Thursday that the victims, who ranged in age from 20 to 72, meticulously planned their deaths.

"The Great Depression of 1990." In bold, black letters the scary words leap off the white cover of this new best seller. The book's chilling prediction of economic catastrophe is suddenly a fashionable topic among economists and a fast-growing number of lay readers alike. Author Ravi Batra, a professor at Southern Methodist University, basks in overnight celebrity. A wave of publicity in newspapers and magazines keeps the royalties rolling in.