Scientology

THE SOUTH Jersey suburb where David Miscavige grew up was utopian by design, a prefab paradise where footballs and fireflies floated over lush, green lawns and parents played pinochle long after the ice cubes melted in their cocktails. Miscavige's middle-class Catholic upbringing in Willingboro, N.J., abruptly changed four decades ago when his childhood asthma led the family to another utopian vision - that of L. Ron Hubbard. Miscavige, 51, a high-school dropout, today is the worldwide leader of the Church of Scientology, which Hubbard founded.

THE CHURCH of Scientology was founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, based on his books Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and Scientology: A New Slant on Life. Here are the basic tenets of Scientology, culled from the website www.scientology.org : * Scientology is a religion that offers a precise path leading to an understanding of one's true spiritual nature and one's relationship to self, family, groups, mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being.

LOOKS AS IF photogenic wonder Tom Cruise has his "Eyes Wide Shut" concerning Germany's position toward his beloved religion, the Church of Scientology. Still, he tried lobbying the U.S. ambassador to fight for the group's rights in Deutschland, diplomats said yesterday. Mr. Smile, as we well know, is an outspoken advocate of the California-based church, which was founded on the teachings of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise met with Ambassador Dan Coats, a former U.S. senator, in Berlin for more than an hour last week, making an appeal for Coats' support in improving the church's status, embassy officials said.

The word of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard will be stored in a huge underground vault built to last 1,000 years, a California newspaper reported yesterday. Citing documents filed by Hubbard's followers, the Press Democrat of Santa Rosa said the cylindrical container is almost complete - 14 feet below a cow pasture in Petrolia. It's as wide as the cabin of a Boeing 747 but 140 feet longer. Besides Hubbard's voluminous written works - Dianetics among his most famous - it will house his words recorded on audio discs made of gold, texts etched into stainless steel, steel phonograph records, and gas-filled titanium time capsules.

THE PUBLIC EYE'S focused on Scientology today. Hadn't planned it like that, but we bravely follow the news wherever it leads us. First up, a BBC News documentary, "Scientology and Me," scheduled to be broadcast tonight on the BBC One show "Panorama" (www.bbc.co.uk/panorama), has journalists and Scientologists in what the Brits might call a bit of a row. Scientology cameras caught BBC reporter John Sweeney screaming at Scientologist Tom Davis (friend of famously Scientological actor Tom Cruise and son of less famously Scientological actress Anne Archer)

Rod Keller was shocked when he arrived home Sunday night. But he wasn't surprised. He had spent the weekend at a demonstration in Clearwater, Fla., marking the 1995 death of Lisa McPherson, who died there after 17 days in the custody of the Church of Scientology. This was Keller's seventh demonstration in five years against Scientology, a Los Angeles-based organization that presents itself as a therapeutic alternative to psychiatry and psychology for the relief of human suffering.

L. Ron Hubbard, 74, the founder of the Church of Scientology who died Friday of a brain hemorrhage, will live on, the church president said yesterday, and will influence mankind for thousands of years. "L. Ron Hubbard lives on. He hasn't died," said the Rev. Ken Hoden, the church president. "In Scientology, we believe that man is a spirit, and when a body dies the spirit lives on. When a body dies, it is like discarding an old pair of shoes. That is one of the central tenets of Scientology, the most fundamental part of the religion.

One of the most expensive movies of all time, made by the biggest director in the world, and starring the most bankable star in the biz will open Wednesday. But the buzz this weekend isn't about whether War of the Worlds will be another monster for Steven Spielberg. The airwaves are ablaze with continuing fallout from Tom Cruise's remarkably hostile turn Friday on NBC's Today show, which has some wags wondering whether the star hasn't committed career suicide. The usually self-controlled Cruise was a furious dervish, clashing with Matt Lauer over Cruise's passionate - some would say intolerant - Scientology-based loathing for psychiatry, which he called "a pseudoscience.

Trouble in cyberspace woke Dennis L. Erlich on a recent Monday morning. The former minister of the Church of Scientology, now an outspoken church critic, was summoned at 7:30 a.m. by loud knocks at his door. Outside Erlich's suburban Los Angeles home was a gaggle of lawyers and police armed with a writ of seizure - a federal judge's permission to search his house and his computer and seize any copyrighted material of the Church of Scientology. A computer game, this wasn't.

Retailers, restaurants and other businesses are flocking to Center City. Now comes another flock. The Church of Scientology last month paid just under $8 million for a vacant 15-story office building and an adjoining one-story former toy store in the heart of downtown: the 1300 block of Chestnut Street - across the street from Macy's and next door to the furniture store Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. The Scientologists - outgrowing their modest home on Race Street - plan to combine and renovate the properties at 1312-16 Chestnut St. into a center that will include a chapel, offices, an academy, and displays on the church's community programs, said Bruce Thompson, public-affairs director of the Church of Scientology of Pennsylvania.

110 are missing after ferry sinks PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea - An air and sea search continued Friday for more than 110 people still missing in the sea off Papua New Guinea's east coast after a ferry sank with 362 people on board, officials said. Owners of MV Rabaul Queen, the Papua New Guinea-based Rabaul Shipping Co., said Friday there had been 350 passengers and 12 crew aboard the 22-year-old Japanese-built ferry when it went down Thursday morning while traveling from Kimbe on the island of New Britain to the coastal city of Lae on the main island.

THE SOUTH Jersey suburb where David Miscavige grew up was utopian by design, a prefab paradise where footballs and fireflies floated over lush, green lawns and parents played pinochle long after the ice cubes melted in their cocktails. Miscavige's middle-class Catholic upbringing in Willingboro, N.J., abruptly changed four decades ago when his childhood asthma led the family to another utopian vision - that of L. Ron Hubbard. Miscavige, 51, a high-school dropout, today is the worldwide leader of the Church of Scientology, which Hubbard founded.

THE CHURCH of Scientology was founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, based on his books Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and Scientology: A New Slant on Life. Here are the basic tenets of Scientology, culled from the website www.scientology.org : * Scientology is a religion that offers a precise path leading to an understanding of one's true spiritual nature and one's relationship to self, family, groups, mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe and the Supreme Being.

'No Hollywood types' at Haim funeral Lost Boys' lost boy Corey Haim was laid to rest yesterday at a funeral in his hometown of Toronto, attended by 200 friends and family members. "There were no Hollywood types there, just friends and family," an anon source tells People.com. "It was sad. The family is devastated. " The Toronto Star says a large contingent of fans stood quietly outside Steeles Memorial Chapel, site of the 45-minute service. Haim's longtime friend, Corey Feldman, was conspicuously absent.

TTHE FACES of the Anonymous protesters may be familiar to Philadelphians: Hundreds of them at a time have turned up in Center City over the past year to hold demonstrations against Scientology. Their uniform usually involves a mask, often a smiling Guy Fawkes mask a la "V for Vendetta. " It's unlikely that the masked faces that turned up at the Broadway debut of Katie Holmes Thursday night are the same as our own hometown weirdos-with-a-cause (the Anonymous group has held protests in dozens of cities)

ATTENTION: Don't start this column unless you promise to read it to the end. This disclaimer results from what occurred last week. Never before have I gotten so many hatriolic e-mails from so many knuckleheads representing such different perspectives, all of whom completely missed my point. So, this week, I'm writing more slowly, so they can follow along, lest there be further misunderstanding. Watching from my Barcalounger as Tom Cruise was bloodied by biographer Andrew Morton and pollsters found that many Americans wouldn't support a Mormon for president, I decided to defend the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Scientology.

If you've ever wondered what Scientology is all about, who Xenu is, and most important, what the "L" in L. Ron Hubbard stands for, Brat Productions' A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant, at St. Stephen's Theatre, just may be your path to enlightenment. Or not. It all depends on what you're willing to believe. Director Lee Ann Etzold, perhaps better known as one of the founders of and principal performers with New Paradise Laboratories, directs a cast of children in this musical journey that begins at the miraculous birth of the baby savior L. Ron and continues for eternity - well, for the next 50 minutes anyway.

Holloway suspect released An Aruban judge yesterday ordered the release of Joran van der Sloot, the last of three suspects re-arrested last month in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, ruling that the evidence was not strong enough to continue holding him. The three were the last people known to have seen Holloway alive before she vanished on May 30, 2005, but have denied any role in her disappearance. Germans look to ban Scientology Germany's top security officials said yesterday they consider the goals of the U.S.-based Church of Scientology to be in conflict with the principles of the nation's constitution and will seek to ban the group.