It was a warm August day in 1986. I was in my office on the third floor of the main building in the PAC Scientology complex in LA — "Big Blue." We had the windows open and the fans running, to try to suck in any vestige of a breeze that we could. Out the open window, I could see Fountain Avenue below me, and across the street, New York George’s, where I sometimes had a bowl of chili. A simmering ...

Bruce Livesey investigates how former inner-sanctum member Gerry Armstrong became the Salman Rushdie of Scientology. The first time I met Gerry Armstrong, I thought he was paranoid. I’d driven down from Vancouver, summer 2007, into the verdant Fraser Valley to Chilliwack, BC, a somnolent, wind-blown town surrounded by jagged mountain ranges. A place as far removed from Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Scientology’s loopiness as one can possibly get. Armstrong and his third wife Caroline live in a walk-up, one-bedroom apartment ...

Tribal members are getting advice, free trips—and perhaps a new rehab program—from their connection with L. Ron Hubbard's church. Is this the help they need? In 1964, when Rayola Running Crane was just 13, her parents sent her away from her home in Browning on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. She and her friends were drinking alcohol on a regular basis, and she had already been in an alcohol-related car accident that caused her permanent back injuries. She says her parents gave ...

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 ...

In this article, we argue that Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, likely presented a personality disorder known as malignant narcissism, and then we establish that this disorder probably contributed to his creation of organizational policies against perceived enemies that reflected his narcissistic rage. We illustrate our argument by discussing Hubbard’s creation of an internal Scientology organization called the Guardian’s Office, which carried out a sustained and covert attack against a Scientology critic, Paulette Cooper. This attack, and the Scientology policies that ...

[Picture]'All lies': Cruise is considering a lawsuit Star's fury over claims by Diana author Andrew Morton: • Daughter by Katie Holmes "conceived like Rosemary's Baby" • Nicole Kidman "feared blackmail" over sex tapes made with Scientologists • Scientologists "planted meadown of flowers for Tom and Nicole to run through" • Cruise's next mission is to recruit David Beckham Tom Cruise has become the de-facto second in command of the Church of Scientology, according to a new biography - which makes an ...