It's that time of year again: apple season. Here in the Big Apple, farmer's markets are filled with them. The crisp color fruit augurs fall, holiday meals, American pies and the Garden of Eden. It's one of the most persistent elements of the story: Adam, Eve, apple, snake. At least,...

When most of us think of Scientology, we think of Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Not Janet Reitman, a Rolling Stone journalist who wrote a National Magazine Award-nominated investigation of the Church of Scientology in 2006.

She's spent the last six years digging into this unusual faith, and her...

Whenever the Mormon faith pops up in the media, it is usually introduced with a handful of doctrines that seem rigged for laugh lines: Joseph Smith spoke to an angel; Jesus visited America; and the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Mo. Now, these and other too-strange-to-be-true beliefs have...