Scientology

Small wonder that L. Ron Hubbard had the creative chops to parlay his 1950s self-help system, Dianetics, into a worldwide religion — and a very lucrative one at that. Hubbard was, after all, a science-fiction writer, a dreamer, a charming teller of tales and the inventor of much of his own history: He fabricated or embellished aspects of his military service, education and personal adventures, not least of them his purported run-in with a polar bear in the Aleutians. His most famous invention, of course, was Scientology, a controversial religion-without-a-deity that has its own "technology," galactic story line and quirky vocabulary.

The Church of Scientology and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, to spread a little Christmas cheer, sponsored a mule-drawn Santa's sleigh which toured some 75 miles through the valley, Pasadena and South Los Angeles, finally ending up at L. Ron Hubbard's Winter Wonderland on Hollywood Boulevard, where it gave free rides to kids up and down the boulevard, reviving an old Hollywood tradition. The sleigh, before arriving in Hollywood, stopped at the VA Hospital in the valley, shopping malls and schools, giving out candy canes and brightening the eyes of over 12,000 children in its whirlwind tour of the greater Los Angeles area.

I read the Column Left by Alexander Cockburn (March 13) and his account of the Church of Scientology's troubles with the German government. I have seldom read a piece in which the writer attacked his adversaries with such abandon, meanwhile having such little insight into his own prejudices. At the end I was not sure whether, as he said, he was "try(ing) to put some perspective" into the debate or was trying to demonize the churches (especially Catholic), Boeing Corp., the German government and several others.

Financially strapped KCET-TV has sold its landmark Sunset Boulevard studio to the Church of Scientology for an undisclosed price, the station said. KCET will remain at 4401 W. Sunset Blvd. for as much as a year while searching for a new base of operations. The station is in discussions with several production facilities it might move into as a tenant or owner, President Al Jerome said. "We are now implementing Phase 2 of our transformation from a PBS affiliate to an independent public media center for the 21st century," Jerome said Monday in a statement.

Financially strapped KCET-TV is in talks to sell its landmark Sunset Boulevard studio to the Church of Scientology, according to people who know about the pending deal. The Los Angeles television station, which is struggling to rebuild viewership after its recent split from PBS, plans to move its operations to a smaller location, real estate brokers said. Station officials have been touring potential sites, brokers said. Terms of the potential deal were unavailable, but the 4.5-acre property at 4401 W. Sunset Blvd.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Church of Scientology's confidential teachings are not protected by California trade secrets law, dealing a blow to the organization's hard-fought campaign to block former members from operating rival churches where courses are offered at a fraction of the cost. In its unanimous opinion, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the state law protects economic, but not religious, secrets.

When he was a UCLA student 15 years ago, Mario Majorski was a committed enough Scientologist that he helped file a federal lawsuit against a professor who called the church a cult. On Sunday, Majorski stormed the church's Celebrity Centre in Hollywood with a sword in each hand. He was shot dead by a security guard who police say had every reason to fear for his life and the lives of hundreds of others gathered on the property. The reasons for Majorski's transformation from fervent believer to attacker remained a mystery Monday.

"The Master" takes some getting used to. This is a superbly crafted film that's at times intentionally opaque, as if its creator didn't want us to see all the way into its heart of darkness. It's a film bristling with vivid moments and unbeatable acting, but its interest is not in tidy narrative satisfactions but rather the excesses and extremes of human behavior, the interplay of troubled souls desperate to find their footing. PHOTOS: Celebrity photos by the Times Its writer-director, of course, is the all-out visionary Paul Thomas Anderson, an all-in filmmaker whose previous work like "Boogie Nights" and "There Will Be Blood" explored strong and compelling personal conflicts.

A long-simmering dispute over digital copyrights between the Church of Scientology and its critics has boiled over in recent weeks after video clips turned up on the Internet from a 2004 interview by the church's most famous member, actor Tom Cruise. When Scientology officials complained the clips were copyrighted and requested their removal from YouTube and other websites, a shadowy organization of online troublemakers sprang into action. The group known as "Anonymous" posted an eerie video on the Internet featuring a computer-generated voice announcing a campaign to destroy the church and calling for worldwide protests Feb. 10. It was all for laughs, said a member who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It was a triumph of galactic proportions: Science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard had discarded the body that bound him to the physical universe and was off to the next phase of his spiritual exploration -- "on a planet a galaxy away." "Hip, hip, hurray!" thousands of Scientologists thundered inside the Hollywood Palladium, where they had just been told of this remarkable feat. "Hip, hip, hurray! Hip, hip, hurray!" they continued to chant, gazing at a large photograph of Hubbard, creator of their religion and author of the best-selling "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health."