L. Ron Hubbard, the pulp fiction writer who gave the world Battlefield Earth, as well as a nuisance known as Scientology, would have turned 97 years old this Thursday, March 13. Ron’s been worm food for more than a score of years now, so it probably won’t matter to him that the best birthday party being held in his name will take place a couple of days late. On Saturday, March 15, the surprisingly upstart, leaderless movement known as “Anonymous” will ...

The Church of Scientology, best known for its celebrity members, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, is planning to open a church in Carytown. It will be the first established Scientology church in Richmond. The church could open by December and will offer introductory lectures, meetings and a book store, said Sylvia Standard, director of external affairs for the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. Scientologists enter the religion as beginners and progress to higher levels as they increase ...

In the pantheon of D.C. area weird religious places to go and gawk, you’ve got the George Washington Masonic Memorial, the Oz-like LDS Washington D.C. Temple Visitors’ Center and now L. Ron Hubbard’s house. A bold, swanky sign went up less than a week ago in front of 1812 19th Street NW in Dupont, site of the “founding church” of Scientology that Hubbard set up in 1955. The house belonged to the church until the mid-’70s, when it was sold and ...

Jackson Wyan, a young Tom Cruise look-alike with short black hair and a black button-down shirt, greets people with laser-focused eye contact, a fixed smile and solid handshake at the Founding Church of Scientology of D.C. in Dupont Circle. His mission not-so-impossible: Recruit more members. Would-be Scientologists approach the landmark red building, also known as Fraser Mansion, at 20th and R streets NW, with regularity. Wyan, who's been with the D.C. church six years, gives tours that include a sweep through ...

Secret Flying Saucer Base Found in New Mexico? Maybe. From the state that gave us Roswell, the epicenter of UFO lore since 1947, comes a report from an Albuquerque TV station about its discovery of strange landscape markings in the remote desert. They're etched in New Mexico's barren northern reaches, resemble crop circles and are recognizable only from a high altitude. Also, they are directly connected to the Church of Scientology. (Cue theremin music.) The church tried to persuade station KRQE ...

For Maria Guy, renovation of the old Hart Hotel at Washington Avenue and West Van Buren Street has meant "10-to 12-hour workdays" since the Church of Scientology bought the building, gutted it and started turning it into a church facility in 2002. Guy, a petite woman and native of the Dominican Republic who moved to America in 1979, said she and a co-worker just finished installing 123 new windows in the building. The windows cost the church about $750,000. Guy also ...

When prospective students tour GW, one of the things they learn is how easy it is to start an organization. Tour guides chirp about the school's most famous alumni - Colin Powell and Jackie O, of course, and if the tour guide is feeling daring, he might throw Watergate's "Deep Throat" into the mix. But one name that prospective students do not hear is that of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology. Perhaps it's because students are ...

Leaders of the Church of Scientology have long had the reputation of being uncooperative with the media. Still, we were surprised at their tenaciousness in trying to control our stories. Whenever reporters delve into a topic that is even the least bit controversial, we take extra care in making sure we've pulled together as balanced a report as possible. Such was the case on a package of stories published last Sunday on the Church of Scientology, one of the most unusual ...

The sign advertising "Free Stress Test" beckoned Marian Prescott as she crossed Farragut Square, and she found herself settling into a chair beneath a yellow tent and taking hold of two metal poles hooked up to a device that the tester said could detect psychic strain. "What did you think of?" asked Kelly Turrisi, the tester, as the needle on the electrometer jumped to the right. Prescott tilted back her head and laughed. Work. Her husband. What else? Turrisi, 19, leaned ...

Nearly 22 years ago, Lawrence Wollersheim, a disaffected member of the Church of Scientology, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles accusing the church of mental abuse that pushed him to the brink of suicide. Teams of lawyers and various rulings came and went, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judgments against the church hit $30 million, then dropped to $2.5 million. But the Church of Scientology never paid — until yesterday, when officials wrote a check for more than ...

The geek-culture destination Slashdot.org said on Friday that it deleted a post in response to legal threats from the Church of Scientology. Scientology's notoriously litigious team of attack attorneys successfully pressured the site's editors into erasing a discussion board message, which allegedly contained copyrighted material. "While Slashdot is an open forum and we encourage free discussion and sharing of ideas, our lawyers have advised us that, considering all the details of this case, the comment should come down," co-founder Rob "CmdrTaco" ...

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Dec 6, 1998 - "I am L. Ron Hubbard," the woman on the hotel room bed announced in a robotic voice. "I created time 3 billion years ago." She rambled on and on, every outburst dutifully scribbled down by those assigned to watch her. "I can't confront force . . . I need my auditor . . . I want to take a toothbrush and brush the floor until I have a cognition." The jargon of Scientology was ...

WASHINGTON – After years of holding the U.S. government in contempt, the Church of Scientology is enlisting members of Congress, the U.S. State Department and even President Clinton to advance its agenda in foreign lands. Prodded by the Scientologists' paid lobbyists and its cadre of sympathetic entertainers, several lawmakers and the Clinton administration have criticized the German government for allegedly discriminating against Scientology practitioners. They even got their argument against Germany to the floor of the House of Representatives last November. ...

There are some Germans out there who don't trust John Travolta. Not only that, at least one of these Germans - actually a member of Germany's parliament - doesn't at all like the idea of Travolta talking with the president of the United States or his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, about the state of U.S.-German relations. The reason this German lawmaker worries about the popular movie actor getting to see the president and his advisers is that Travolta is a ...

On Oct. 8, 1993, 10,000 cheering Scientologists thronged the Los Angeles Sports Arena to celebrate the most important milestone in the church's recent history: victory in its all-out war against the Internal Revenue Service. For 25 years, I.R.S. agents had branded Scientology a commercial enterprise and refused to give it the tax exemption granted to churches. The refusals had been upheld in every court. But that night the crowd learned of an astonishing turnaround. The I.R.S. had granted tax exemptions to ...

A web of intrigue surrounds the high-stakes legal brawl between FACTnet and the Church of Scientology. Strange things happen around Lawrence Wollersheim. His businesses collapse. His Boulder apartment gets raided by federal marshals, his computers seized. When college students offer to help him rebuild his computer bulletin-board system, they receive threatening phone calls–anonymous voices urging them to stay away from Larry. A California judge who presided over a lawsuit in which Wollersheim was the plaintiff told reporters he'd encountered a lot ...

In 1995, a jury awarded Jason Scott $5 million, ruling that his civil rights had been violated during an involuntary "deprogramming" by Rick Ross, a Phoenix resident and well-known cult expert. That judgment eventually forced Ross into bankruptcy court, put an anticult group out of business and made national news. Last week, however, the case made a sudden and surprising about-face. Scott and Ross reached a settlement that requires the deprogrammer to pay Scott not $3 million–his share of the judgment–but ...

Lawmakers are looking at barring its members from teaching, police work, other government jobs. HAMBURG, Germany — As the politicians see it, Germany, is being threatened by an evil plot to infiltrate business and government. "A giant octopus . . . that will stop at nothing in its desire to spread its blind ideology" is how Labor Secretary Norbert Blum has described the plot against Germany. Claudia Nolte, another member of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Cabinet, warns, "They aim at world domination ...

Earle Cooley, the chairman of Boston University's board of trustees, wants you to know that he believes in freedom of expression. Never mind that the gruff, avuncular 64-year-old, one of Boston's top trial attorneys, has played a leading role in the Church of Scientology's efforts to use copyright law to keep secret church documents off the Internet. Although the church has won some significant courtroom victories, critics, legal observers, and even judges criticize the zeal with which it has pursued its ...

YOU ARE PERHAPS SICK OF HEARING that Kate Ceberano, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, John Travolta and various other luminaries owe their glittering fame and wealth to Scientology. You may also have noticed that Scientology is taking ads on buses. The days of the kids with clipboards eyeballing you on the street to ask if you would like to do a personality test are fading. Scientology is moving to big business and the Internet. The Church of Scientology tends to live by ...

The Founding Church of Scientology dedicated its new center last weekend in the renovated Fraser Mansion at 20th and R streets NW, near Dupont Circle. The mansion, built in 1890 for former representative George S. Fraser, will serve as a spiritual center for local members and as the East Coast center for ministerial training, spokeswoman Sylvia Stanard said. The church, with about 3,000 members in the area, will continue to operate its "celebrity center" on 16th Street NW for counseling purposes, ...