Weird Tract Number 88: L Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition Magazine and Exhibition Ticket (both circa 2000)

Troy Davis writes: 

I lived in Los Angeles the first decade of the 21st century. LA wasn’t my lady but there were a lot of great things about being an Angeleno. Mocking Scientology was one of them. All around town, Dianetics zombies set up card tables and offered “personality tests” and sometimes a chance to experience the E-meter’s mystical powers. This led to a steady stream of mockery from wags like me. A few of my choice digs:

• Could you get John Travolta to give me a part in one of his movies?
• I think I have a thetan cluster on my foot--or maybe it’s a really ginormous and smelly corn. If I took my shoe off, could you give me a diagnosis?
• I spoke to Xenu and he told me I was already Clear.
• (To a table with an E-meter) Ain’t nobody gonna hook me up to no jumper cables!

It was after I left LA that I created the Scientology-mocking comic book Cock-Tale: A Modern Tijuana Bible (read it here). 

The Church of Scientology has extensive real estate holdings in Los Angeles from their ill-gotten loot. In Hollywood, it spent lavishly on a museum, The L Ron Hubbard Life Exhibition, dedicated to a mythical ideal life of the deranged cult’s founder. The Church bought the historic 12-story former Guaranty Building on Hollywood and Vine. Like many pre-FDIC bank buildings, the first floor where the bank was located is an example of neo-classical architecture which gave then-depositors the feeling of substance, conservatism, and solvency. 

When I first got to LA, I took a tour (a friend told me to get baked first but doing it straight was enough of a trip). The lobby had a fountain with a sculpture of Hubbard. They wouldn’t let me take my camcorder in the exhibit. The museum was a series of impressive exhibits giving a whitewashed biographical portrayal of the Hubbard's life and career. There is a small movie theater in what used to be the bank’s vault that played a short film about the publishing of Hubbard's book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. The tour ended with walls of plaques Hubbard received from various cities and groups. It was a spectacle. 

After the tour, the Scientology people tried to sell me some overpriced Scientology tapes and books. I gave them my address and a few days later received the magazine. 

Here is the ticket to the exhibition.

 

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