Scientology Sunday Funnies: Countdown to LRH’s Birthday!

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 a few of them to gaze upon, hoping that it inspires you to wax eloquent in our comments section. So here we go…

Our countdown to LRH’s birthday continues! Here in America, we may have lost an hour as we Sprung Forward last night, but that has only propelled us even more quickly to Scientology’s big holiday.

The old man’s meat body would have turned 101 on Tuesday if he hadn’t wisely discarded it in 1986. As for his thetan, on Tuesday it turns 24 trillion quadrillion googolplex years old, so the candles necessary for his cake are going to have enough mass to create local gravitational issues. But that’s still a couple of days away. As you can see from this flier, Flag celebrated things early with a big party last night. (LA’s shindig is next week.) Anyone attend the festivities last night? Did DM get sauced? Let us know!

Not sure what’s going on in this next flier? Well, as Chuck Beatty explained it to us recently, these “OT Hatting” conventions are necessary because, well, you just can’t spend too much money preparing for your actual OT levels which will involve, um, spending a lot more money…

In this next flier, we see the true benefit of opening a new Ideal Org in Inglewood, California — so that Scientology can get a much-needed infusion of soul. As we all know, in the immortal words of David Miscavige, “most white folks wouldn’t have a clue what it means to be cool if it weren’t for Black America.”

And here’s a bonus mailer, if you had any doubt about the resolve of the Sea Organization!

Well, that should give us enough material for discussion this Sunday morning. So enjoy that piping hot cup of coffee, and share with us your thoughts on this glorious weekend.

(And remember, two more days to the holiest day on the Scientology calendar. Tomorrow, we have a big story that we think is really going to knock you out. And on Tuesday just wait until you see what we have as a present for LRH. It’s going to be so theta!)

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Tony Ortega has been the editor in chief of the Village Voice since March, 2007. He started writing about Scientology in 1995. You can catch his alerts at Twitter (@VoiceTonyO), at his Facebook author page, on Pinterest, and even this new Google Plus doohickey.

New readers might want to check out our primer, “What is Scientology?” Another good overview is our series from last summer, “Top 25 People Crippling Scientology.” At the top of every story, you’ll see the “Scientology” category which, if you click on it, will bring up all of our most recent stories. As for our regular features, on Thursdays we do a roundup of world press, on Fridays we visit L. Ron Hubbard on the yacht Apollo circa 1969-1971, on Saturdays we celebrate the week’s best comments, and on Sundays we publish Scientology’s wacky and tacky advertising mailers that people send us.

As for hot subjects we’ve covered here, you may have heard about Debbie Cook, the former church official who rebelled and is now being sued by Scientology. You might have also heard about the Super Power Building, Scientology’s “Mecca,” whose secrets were revealed here. We also reported how Scientology spied on its own most precious object, Tom Cruise. (We wrote Tom an open letter that he has yet to respond to.) Have you seen a Scientology ad on TV lately? We debunked some of the claims in that 2-minute commercial you might have seen while watching Glee or American Idol.

Other stories have looked at Scientology’s policy of “disconnection” that is tearing families apart. You may also have heard something about the Sea Org experiences of the Paris sisters, Valeska and Melissa, and their friend Ramana Dienes-Browning. We’ve also featured Paulette Cooper, who wrote about Scientology back in the day, and Janet Reitman, Hugh Urban, and the team at the Tampa Bay Times, who write about it today. And there’s plenty more coming.