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Inside ‘Scientology speedruns,’ the viral trend prompting the church to bolster security
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Inside ‘Scientology speedruns,’ the viral trend prompting the church to bolster security

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ericka Buensuceso was walking along Hollywood Boulevard on Saturday when she came across an alien, two hot dogs and Jesus. The motley costumed crew was banding together with several others, united by the common goal of breaking into the nearby Church of Scientology information center and running through as much of it as possible. Buensuceso was witnessing “Scientology speedrunning” in real time, a familiar social media trend that has been sweeping TikTok for about a month — and raising security concerns for the church. She and her friend had just been talking about it earlier that day. “I felt an adrenaline rush because I was like, ‘No way this is happening right now for me,’” she said. “I’m about to witness something that I thought that I would only see on social media.” The trend took off in early April, with users on social media posting videos of themselves — sometimes inexplicably in costume — entering multiple properties owned or inhabited in some way by the Church of Scientology.…

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