Scientology is both funny and frightening, at the same time. They're obviously wackos, and yet they're wackos in very large numbers, and with money. You don't imagine them holed up in some gritty compound in Idaho or Utah, but rather imagine them at swank parties in glittering black buildings with walls of chrome.

From this Rolling Stone story, perhaps the defining quote (for me): "'Scientologists see themselves as possessors of doctrines and skills that can save the world, if not the galaxy,' says Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, in Canada, who has extensively studied the group."

Thetans, unite!