Church of Scientology

Despite employing teachers who are members of the Church of Scientology and using teaching methods developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, administrators at Will Smith's new private school insist that it isn't a Scientology school.

Both Mr. Smith and Jada Pinckett Smith say they do not belong to the church and the New Village School's director, Jacqueline Olivier, told The Los Angeles Times' Carla Rivera that while some of its staff members are Scientologists, the school has no religious affiliation. Members of its staff are also Muslim, Christian, and Jewish.

"We are a secular school and just like all nonreligious independent schools, faculty and staff do not promote their own religions at school or pass on the beliefs of their particular faith to children," she said.  read more »

The L.A. Times’ Web Scout blog posted a story last night about a group of Web types protesting the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles and dozens of other cities around the world—including the church’s Manhattan location on West 46th Street (see video above!).

This mysterious group goes by the name Anonymous and has called for a war on Scientology, the uniform for which, at least from this video, appears to be a Guy Fawkes mask like the one the protagonist in the Wachowski Brothers’ V for Vendetta wore.

When Web Scout asked the Church of Scientology about the protests, the organization released a statement: “’Anonymous' is a group of cyber-terrorists who hide their identities behind masks and computer anonymity,” that statement read in part. “[It] is perpetrating religious hate crimes against Churches of Scientology and individual Scientologists for no reason other than religious bigotry."

Judge for yourself: On Jan. 21, the group posted an eerie video with a computer-generated voice on YouTube that laid down the gauntlet when it said: “Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed.”  read more »

Today brings some added conspiracy surrounding the all-too-infamous Tom Cruise Scientology video. A recent item published on OnlineAthens.com, the Athens Banner-Herald’s official Web site, claims that after local satirist and TV producer Waco O’Guin posted his own spoof of the Cruise clip, his Web site was hacked.  read more »

CBS’ Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson was not allowed to air the Tom Cruise video that has been on the tips of innumerable tongues this week. So, he went and made his own version. As impossible as it sounds, Mr. Ferguson's version, complete with lots of strange acronyms, double-chin laughs and a karate chop or two, might be better than the original.

Hallelujah! We’re not sure how long it’ll stick, but the Tom Cruise Scientology advertisement we reported on earlier has been restored to the Web. In it, the Lions for Lambs star wants to know: Do you have what it takes?

“If you’re on board, you’re on board like the rest of us,” Mr. Cruise assures his viewers in the clip. “Now is the time! Being a Scientologist, people turn to you. So you better know it, and if you don’t, go and learn it!” Oh, yeah, and “being a Scientologist, you see things the way they are in all their glory and complexity.” In short, Mr. Cruise’s reality—alien beings and all—is way more realer than yours.

Rumors suggesting that Will Smith is a Scientologist have been swirling and growing as he is seen in public more and more with Tom Cruise, a well-known member of the organization. There was even an item about it on Page Six today. But now, the likelihood that the I Am Legend star is in fact an L. Ron Hubbard disciple seems a bit greater. It turns out the Will Smith Foundation, which gives away hundreds of thousands of dollars to various causes, donated $20,000 to the Church of Scientology’s home-schooling program, called the Hollywood Education and Literacy Program. Recently on Access Hollywood, Mr. Smith reiterated what he told Men’s Vogue, saying, “I was introduced [to] it by Tom and I’m a student of world religion.”

The Church of Scientology has purchased more property on 125th Street, and one of the buyers is listed in city records as Richard Fear. We kid you not.

The L. Ron Hubbard-founded religion recently closed on 230 and 232 125th Street for $10.2 million, according to city records. The latter address was formerly the site of the St. Samuel Church of God.  read more »

Yesterday, I caught up with Councilman Hiram Monserrate, who has come under fire for supporting a Sept. 11 first-responder detoxification program associated with the Church of Scientology.

Scientology's most famous booster, Tom Cruise, held a fund-raiser last night for the program.

Monserrate, a former cop, told me he spoke with Sept. 11 rescue workers who have benefited from the program, and said that critics are motivated by their own agendas.

"The bottom line is the program provided a better quality of life for hundreds of rescue workers that have taken the program," he said. "I myself personally have spoken to dozens of them who've had serious ailments, problems with upper respiratory infections, breathing problems."

He added, "I think it's unfortunate that some of the pundits, some of the pro scientists, some of the industries, who have their own reasons for having their own opinions clearly -- right, the pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession in particular -- question an alternative means of providing health care.

"This is the same type of thing they said about chiropractors twenty years ago. The same arguments that they're using here."

I asked Monserrate, who introduced a Council proclamation to declare last Thursday L. Ron Hubbard day, in honor of the science fiction author who created Scientology, if he would ever consider becoming a Scientologist.

"No," he said. "Councilman Hiram Monserrate is Christian, who was raised as Evangelical Christian. That's my faith. That's not on the table. This has zero to do with Scientology. The program has zero to do with Scientology. They don't espouse it. They don't promote it."

May I point out a small error that David Mamet—and practically everyone else in the country&md  read more »

May I point out a small error that David Mamet—and practically everyone else in the country—is m  read more »

George and Hilly  read more »

George and Hilly  read more »

Margarita Lopez may not have made it into the Municipal Building this round, and the Scientology stuff seems to have dented her chances of a Bloomberg commissionership. But the campaign, it appears, continues: one reader caught a Lopez for Borough President ad on CNN...yesterday, four days after the polls closed.  read more »

Ed Koch takes a step closer to endorsing Margarita, sort of.

According to The Villager:

" 'I am not a Scientologist. I am Jewish,' Koch said. 'I may have some private thoughts on Scientology, but that would not affect who I endorse.' "

The Villager goes on to write: "The assumption among Villagers in the know was that former Mayor Ed Koch would also endorse Lopez if Bloomberg did."

In other Koch-related news, Slant Point asks 'How'm I doin?'  read more »

POSTDATE: Koch squashed this whole Margarita endorsement thing earlier, as several of you politely pointed out to me, in Monday's New York Post: "I don't know who I'm going to endorse, but it's not going to be her."

For those who can't get enough of the Scientology scandal, some crafty Photoshop artist is now offering Margarita memorabilia.

So far as a pieces of political posterity go, how will these shirts compete with the snazzy Hillary Clinton numbers from Marc Jacobs? And does anyone know who's hawking these things?  read more »

[UPDATE: The page is still there, but someone killed the shirts and graphic...though according to the tenets of Scientology, they must have eternal life somewhere. Anyone?]

The Democratic primary for Mayor of New York is just a month away, but none of the four candidates r  read more »

The Democratic primary for Mayor of New York is just a month away, but none of the four candidates r  read more »

The Post's series on Margarita Lopez's support for a Scientology-linked health program was, of course, not exactly good news for her campaign.

But Lopez's supporters are particularly displeased by, and suspicious of, the timing:

The news broke just in time, it appears, to scuttle serious discussions between Lopez's campaign and Mayor Bloomberg, who has long had a better relationship with Lopez than with virtually any other local politician.

Bloomberg, The Politicker has learned, was close to endorsing Lopez.

The straight, impassive white billionaire and the vocal, emotional Puerto Rican lesbian make something of an odd couple, but the endorsement would have been a real coup for Lopez and would have propelled her well into the first rank of candidates.

Now an endorsement would add a Scientology link to the slow-burning fire over his Independence Party support.  read more »

Now Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser says: "We don't expect to make an endorsement in the Democratic primary."

While the Scientology support was not exactly a secret -- Lopez contributors listed the Church of Scientology as their employer -- Lopez's backers are left to wonder who, if anyone, passed such well-timed research on to the Post.

It's worth adding one footnote to today's Post story on the tight relationship between Margarita Lopez and groups affiliated with the Church of Scientology. (Short version: She steers city funds into their, er, unconventional health programs; they give her campaign money.)

Margarita is a proudly out lesbian, but Scientology has a rather, well, complicated relationship with homosexuality, detailed in this Wikipedia entry. The bottom line is that they appear to see it as a curable condition, though the group seems to be getting more pro-gay.  read more »

The church's late founder, L. Ron Hubbard, had this to say:

"The sexual pervert (and by this term Dianetics, to be brief, includes any and all forms of deviation in dynamic two such as homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism, etc., and all down the catalog of Ellis and Krafft-Ebing) is actually quite ill physically."

In today's New York Post, Michael Kane writes about a religious movement even stranger than Scientology: The Cult of The Klosterman.

Like this summer's other much covered alternative religion, The Cult of The Klosterman has a writer and self-styled expert on everything at its core: SPIN editor and Esquire columnist Chuck Klosterman, whose new book, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story was released in late June.

Kane scans a reading Klosterman gave at a Barnes & Noble and identifies his people:

These are the Klostermaniacs, the ever-growing Cult of Chuck that includes bookworms, bloggers and even uber-goober Seth Cohen on "The O.C.," who hailed Chuck's geek wisdom on an episode last season.

Like L. Ron Hubbard, this godhead has vocal detractors as well: In 2003, The New York Press' Mark Ames called Klosterman the a "metaphor for everything vile in [his] generation."

A close reading of Kane's Post article reveals that Klosterman is clearly a metaphor for everything nerdy in his generation. A tally of vocabulary used in the thousand-or-so word article:

Nerd or its variants (e.g. 'nerdy') : 7

Hipster: 8

Geek or its variants (e.g. 'geeky'): 4

Dweeb or its variants (e.g. 'dweebiac') : 2

Glasses, as in "Buddy Holly glasses": 3

iPod: 2

Goober: 1  read more »

—Matt Haber

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