As for Scientology, I guess this summer has been an interesting one in that they�ve gotten a lot of national/worldwide media attention. The navy uniforms are pretty freaky. One of my co-workers, a former Angeleno, is pretty bitter about the couple weeks he spent checking out the group.
Taijiquan is a pretty good thing to learn, though it�s important to check around and do your research to make sure you have a good, authentic teacher and not someone whose just an ex-hippy granola guy. Even if you�re not looking for a combat system, finding a Taiji teacher who can convincingly show that he knows how to use Taiji as a martial art is a good test, since that means he�s complete his training.
As to your questions about Xingyi, it is purely an internal art. In fact, it�s one of the big three internal arts, along with Taijiquan and Baguazhang. Xingyi is the oldest one, then Taiji, then Bagua. If we think of the internal arts as those that emphasize training, developing and using muscles that are not usually trained or even necessarily under conscious control in order to generate �internal power�, then xingyi specializes in developing a kind of power in which every part of the body explodes at once into one focused point each time you strike; taiji specializes in using every muscle/muscle group/joint as a link in a chain, generating power via a chain reaction (think of an energy wave that picks up power increases in amplitude the further it goes along). And bagua emphasizes power generated through coiling and uncoiling motions. The power generation methods are pretty evident in beginners, but it becomes more and more internalized and casual-looking as you get better � though I�m sure if a guy took his shirt off before demonstrating and you looked closely, you�d see how it was done.
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