Inside Scientology's super power building

This weekend, 15 years after work began, the Church of Scientology opened its new "super power building", complete with time machine – a Mediterranean Revival-style palace in Clearwater, Florida. The $145m complex is thought to provide the first dedicated space for scientologists to practise founder L. Ron Hubbard's super power programme. Unfortunately, the 377,000 sq ft "Flag Mecca" centre is not yet open to the press or public. So here are some highlights from our speculative tour.Office of the commodoreTurn left past reception and take another left. Directions come courtesy of The Village Voice, which last year received hundreds of leaked architectural drawings. The Commodore is Hubbard, who died in 1986 but gets an office because, well, you never know. The drawings show more than a dozen chairs, so someone is definitely expecting a party.The auditing roomsMuch less grand because, after all, they have been designed for the living. These rooms, predominantly on the fourth and fifth floors, are where much of the hard labour of Scientology goes on: the removing of obstacles to progress and perception. They resemble the rooms in an urban spa, in that they appear to want to convey taste and nourishment in as small a space as possible. The walls are beige, the chairs are beige, the floor is pale brown and the book shelves are greige. There are shades of Kelly Hoppen.The super powers suiteThe hi-tech heart of Flag, up on the fifth floor. It is white because that is the most modern and timeless of all colours and you can't have a "Time Machine", as one drawing shows, without decorating for modernity. The fifth floor also houses a "motion quadrant", which spins you like a gyroscope. And an oiliness table. Does it help to explain that this is next to the friction table and the pivoting spike plates? Thought not.The smell wall and taste wallStaying in the super powers suite, this is where parishioners will come to improve their "perceptics" – Hubbard's word for the senses, of which there are 57. The smells - listed in the drawing as "Magnolia", "Orange blossom", "Lily of the Valley" and "Fig" - are clearly tributes to Jo Malone and other expensive candle shops. But the tastes are from a greasy spoon: "cheddar cheese", "spaghetti bolognese", "sauerkraut and sausage". If this means anything to you, please share.The Indoor Running TrackThe track runs in a circle on floor six. It reportedly accommodates 450 people. Parishioners run around until reaching a moment of enlightenment, or colliding with someone else or, perhaps, until they are summoned to the office of the commodore.(theguardian.com)ANN.Az