The Rosy Cross, appropriated in a similar form by Crowley and OTO

​Last June, we brought you the first review of The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion by Ohio State professor Hugh Urban, and then the first interview with the good professor himself.

During that interview, Urban told us that he was planning to continue his research into Scientology, and would be looking into a variety of areas. But we didn't know that one of those interests included a closer look at L. Ron Hubbard's wild occult history that preceded his publication of 1950's Dianetics.

Longtime Scientology watchers will be at least somewhat familiar with the tale: that after his involvement in WWII, Hubbard shacked up with Jet Propulsion Lab rocket scientist Jack Parsons, a man heavily into the occult, and in particular the teachings of The Great Beast, British occultist Aleister Crowley. You may even know something about the kinky things Parsons and Hubbard did trying to create a "Moonchild." But what Urban does in a new piece for the journal Nova Religio is produce a thorough, academic study of the ways that Crowley's "magick" found parallels in what would become Hubbard's most famous creation, Scientology.

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L. Ron floats his needle: that is one white dude.

​Fellow Scientology watchers, we're working on several big stories for you. In fact, we went out of town this weekend on a fact-finding mission, and we are planning to tell you about that soon.

But for now, those stories aren't quite ready. In the meantime, we were so happy to see how popular was Monday's special look at Advance! magazine, we're going to bring you some more of that nuttiness to tide you over.

Today, in honor of Scientology's most cynical holiday, CELEBRITY DAY, we've selected some really precious excerpts from way back in 1973, when being a Scientologist wasn't such a stigma, and could even get you laid, maybe.

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We can't get enough of Scientology's rap videos. The latest comes to us from Melbourne, which has been stepping up its game in a big way lately.

We recently published mailers from the Melbourne Ideal Org as it celebrated its first anniversary with parties that looked like they were off the hook. But now we also have this video from the "Melbourne Day Rap Battle Team" which is apparently designed to amp up the workers at the org as they take part in this year's "Birthday Game."

On March 13, Scientology will celebrate L. Ron Hubbard's 101st birthday, and in the annual Birthday Game, orgs around the world compete to see how much cash they can get out of suckers -- er, services they can deliver, rather -- to beat out their competing orgs. You can just feel the excitement!

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​Scientology watchers, we have a special treat for you this holiday Monday.

Recently, one of our readers who is a longtime former Scientologist mailed us a treasure trove: Copies of early Advance! magazines, a complete run from issue 11 in 1971 to issue 56 in 1979. (That's L. Ron Hubbard's photo of his daughter Diana gracing the cover of issue 12.)

This stuff is pure gold. Advance! is the publication of Scientology's "advanced orgs" where experienced church members pay for pricey "upper-level" teachings. As we've written before, one of the ways Scientology gets its members to fork over huge prices for auditing is to dangle the prospect of amazing superpowers. And one of our favorite things about Advance! (when we can get our hands on a copy) is the testimonials of high-level church members enticing new suckers -- er, aspiring OTs -- with tales of their abilities to affect the physical world with their minds!

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You know who!

​Scientologists don't really have a Sunday service. They like to say that they do, because they crave mainstream acceptance. But unless Xenu rested after six days and L. Ron Hubbard just forgot to mention it, there's no reason for Scientologists to treat Sunday any differently than every other day of coursework, detoxes, fundraising, and generally clearing the planet.

So here at the Voice, we've come up with a Scientology Sunday tradition of our own, and we call it Sunday Funnies! Our sources regularly send us Scientology's wacky and tacky fundraising mailers, and each week we choose three of them to gaze upon, hoping that it inspires you to wax eloquent in our comments section. So here we go...

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Somehow we're thinking Scientology's idea of "camp" isn't this fun

​It never seems to be a quiet week here in the underground bunker where we keep an eye on all things Scientology related. The cats had barely settled down from our brief trip to Texas when the bat signal on the Antipodean circuits went off, alerting us to an imminent bombshell.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The week started out calmly enough, with our usual roundup of hilarious Scientology mailers, Sunday Funnies.

And on Monday morning, we noted the weekend's worldwide celebrations of Project Chanology's 4th anniversary, as Anonymous once again raided orgs with their signs and masks and irreverent dance moves.

But then, Monday morning in the wee hours, that warhead from Down Under landed with full force...

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Debbie Cook, testifying last week

​Scientology took on Debbie Cook, Debbie Cook kicked Scientology's ass, and now...Scientology wins?

This afternoon, former Church of Scientology executive Debbie Cook posted a public thank you to her supporters at the blog of Marty Rathbun, who is also a former high-ranking church official.

She describes what we witnessed last week, that the church's attorneys threw in the towel after her day of dramatic testimony about Scientology employees being held in confinement at a California compound, where they were subject to abuse. (The church gave up on its attempt to keep Cook gagged, but the lawsuit continues, and Cook is being sued for a New Year's Eve e-mail she sent out that the church considers disparaging and a violation of a non-disclosure agreement she signed in 2007.)

Cook now says that her testimony Thursday was "a very small sample of the physical abuse committed behind the closed doors of the International Scientology Base."

For those slow on the uptake, that's another way of saying, "you want a trial? I'll give you a trial."

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​In November we started a new feature here on Fridays: the Voice has obtained hundreds of copies of L. Ron Hubbard's previously unpublished "Orders of the Day," which he gave to crew members as he sailed the Mediterranean. Our documents cover the period from late 1968 through 1971, and this time we're looking at what was happening the week of February 12 through 18 during those years.

After the jump, Hubbard threatens to hunt down a violator with sec-checking...

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​Last week, we had a bit of fun publishing detailed maps to Scientology's super-secret underground vault locations.

The vaults are the project of the Church of Spiritual Technology, a hush-hush entity inside Scientology that owns the trademarks and copyrights to L. Ron Hubbard's works, and that digs very expensive holes in the ground to store copies of Hubbard's writings so that they can survive a nuclear holocaust. Houses are also built near the vaults, and former CST employee Dylan Gill told us the purpose of these houses was to provide places for a reincarnated Hubbard to be raised in preparation of taking over Scientology.

After the story ran, Gill told us he noticed that readers wanted to know which of the "LRH Houses" the reincarnated Hubbard was most likely to return to. He told us the answer, and it turned out to be none of the places we showed on Monday.

So, after the jump: Where Hubbard is most likely to come back to Earth!

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Tom, your buddy David needs you now

​Dear Tom,

It's time for you to start talking publicly about Scientology again.

Your religion is in serious trouble.

In 2005, you ended a longtime policy of not talking about the church by suddenly bringing it up in interviews. Most memorable, of course, was the way you challenged Matt Lauer, telling him that you had a superior understanding of the evils of psychiatry because of your Scientology training. Some wondered if you'd gone off the deep end, especially after the episode involving Oprah's couch. Soon enough, however, you clammed up about Scientology again. But in 2008, a video of you the church had made four years earlier surfaced, and it had a huge effect, both on your reputation and the church's. For better or worse, your strange words about, for example, how only Scientologists can help out at the scene of a car accident cemented in the minds of many that you were not only the truest of true believers in L. Ron Hubbard's unusual religion, but that you had become, in fact, its public face.

And that's why, today, you must come forward and speak for a church in crisis.

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