This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.


The Church of Scientology maintained its omnipresence at the LAT Festival of Books this weekend, where we encountered at least three COS-sponsored booths. Two of the booths offered e-meter stress tests as a respite from the thetan-attracting activity of perusing books not authored by L. Ron Hubbard (copies of Dianetics were handy for those flunking the test). While Tom Cruise was obviously busy with more pressing missions, the booths were not without their own brand of star-power, as The Sandlot's Patrick Renna (pictured above; IMDb, homepage, favorite Hubbard quote) pitched in and helped administer some of the tests.

This image was lost some time after publication.


Elsewhere, chipper Scientology "booth dudes" and "booth babes" handed out free bookmarks while trying to lure passers-by into a booth promoting Hubbard's shoddily-written science fiction. Here, a couple of kids are drawn in by the books' vividly illustrated covers, then are forced to listen to a canned lecture on how a childhood Ritalin dependence rendered Spongebob a semiretarded slave to the psychiatric drug industry.