Scientology wants David Miscavige removed from a wrongful death lawsuit. CLEARWATER — Appealing to judges on both sides of Tampa Bay, the Church of Scientology on Tuesday continued its fight to keep its worldwide leader out of the legal fight over the 1995 death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson. The church goes to court this morning to ask a Hillsborough judge to remove David Miscavige as a defendant in the wrongful death lawsuit. In a separate action, the church filed a lawsuit ...

The rulings say the Church of Scientology's actions in respect to Lisa McPherson are not protected by the Constitution. © St. Petersburg Times TAMPA – In a ruling that stunned the Church of Scientology and its lawyers, a Hillsborough County judge said Friday that religious rights are not a central issue in the 1995 death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson. Circuit Judge James S. Moody Jr. also said it is not clear whether McPherson consented to her treatment by Scientology staffers before ...

In yet another fine weekend for protest groups, the anti-scientology group FactNet has warned that "lawsuits may soon be flying" over John Travolta's upcoming Battlefield Earth. FactNet accuses the movie - adapted from a sci-fi novel by cult founder L Ron Hubbard and starring celebrity scientologist Travolta - of accommodating "subliminal messages to surreptitiously recruit new members from the movie audience". FactNet goes on to allege that the would-be religion - beloved of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and other film stars ...

Dr. John G. Clark of Weston, a psychiatrist who was among the first to note the damaging effects of cults, died Thursday in Belmont Manor nursing home. He was 73. Dr. Clark was a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the staff at McLean Hospital in Belmont. He maintained a private practice in Weston. After several families consulted him in the early '70s about their children's membership in fringe religious groups, he became convinced that the young people ...

The man credited with being the father of the American underground press is to close the paper that smashed taboos and helped start the hippie movement more than 40 years ago. Paul Krassner, once described by the FBI as a "raving, unconfined nut", says that social change and the arrival of the internet means the Realist is no longer needed. He has decided that his newspaper, which covered and exposed scandals from the Kennedy assassination to the Monica Lewinsky case with ...

When A Piece of Blue Sky, a book critical of the Church of Scientology, suddenly disappeared from Amazon.com's online catalog early this year, newsgroups such as alt.religion.scientology buzzed with conspiracy theories. Then, in June, Amazon.co.uk, the online bookseller's British division, expunged a controversial book, The Committee, which implicates David Trimble, head of the Ulster Unionist Party, in atrocities against Catholics. Amazon's decision to remove two books from its online list demonstrates the perils of balancing a billion-dollar book business with a ...

The Scientologists prepare to open a studio in Gilman Hot Springs. Films will be educational and won't star Tom Cruise. Talk of movies and Scientology usually leads to mention of John Travolta and Tom Cruise. But don't expect to see the church's best-known members on the set when its new $7 million film studio in Gilman Hot Springs opens Saturday. Golden Era Productions makes religious training and education films, not blockbusters needing big-name talent to sell tickets, general manager Ken Hoden ...

A book removed from Amazon's site because of alleged legal troubles is now among the top 150 books sold by the online bookstore. The book, a controversial exposé of the Church of Scientology, languished deep in Amazon's list of 4.5 million titles before being dropped in February. A Wired News report on that decision prompted Amazon to reinstate the book late last week. The book jumped to No. 700 before hitting a high of 148 on Tuesday. Author Jon Atack, reached ...

SEATTLE — Responding to e-mail complaints, Amazon.com says it will restore a book critical of the Scientology movement to its online catalog. The book, "A Piece of Blue Sky," by British writer Jon Atack, was banned by a British court following a successful 1995 defamation lawsuit against Atack. Amazon.com pulled the book in February, but said this week that it would reinstate it. "While the decision in February seemed the right thing to do at the time, we thought we could ...

Amazon.com has removed a controversial book from its listings, a book well known for angering the Church of Scientology. A Piece of Blue Sky, by UK writer Jon Atack, is an exposé of the Scientology movement from its creation in 1959 until the death of founder L. Ron Hubbard in 1986. The book disappeared from Amazon's site only recently. On alt.religion.scientology newsgroups, participants are questioning Amazon's decision, angrily pointing out that it is still legal to sell the book in United ...

[...] Maloney doesn't say which religion (perhaps his?) he would like to bring back into the schools, but it likely would not be the Church of Scientology, which boasts among its ranks several well-known purveyors of Maloney's "violence, hatred and sadism" and has used the shootings to promote its own agenda. Calling itself the Citizen Commission on Human Rights International, a Scientology-backed group showed up at the American Psychiatric Association's annual convention in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to blame psychiatrists for ...

The Church of Scientology International has settled a long-standing legal battle to repossess about 2,000 unpublished and copyrighted documents and keep them from being accessed by computer users in the future. Under a settlement reached in a U.S. district court earlier this month, a Colorado-based nonprofit group called FACTNet is permanently enjoined to pay the church $1 million if FACTNet is found guilty of future violations of church copyrights. FACTNet, started by former Scientologist Lawrence Wollersheim, also promised to return all ...

Scientology leaders say they want peace. They say they want to stay out of court. But with both foes at home and foes abroad, that goal may be elusive. The spiritual home of the Church of Scientology is in Clearwater, but for many years now its leaders have had worldwide ambitions. But as disciples have carried L. Ron Hubbard's teachings away from America's shore, the reception has been almost universally chilly at best – and at times openly hostile. At one ...

Scientology leaders say they want peace. They say they want to stay out of court. But with both foes at home and foes abroad, that goal may be elusive. Leaders of the Clearwater-based Church of Scientology say they hope the years of heavy legal expenses are over. That may not be a realistic hope. While the number of cases Scientology is currently pursuing is down in the United States, a survey of the cases still under way shows a persistence and ...

Around the clock, from Norway, the Netherlands, Australia and every corner of the United States, the critics of Scientology discuss the controversial organization and its practices. A court decision in Sweden is quickly posted to the news group, followed quickly by a full translation. Daily transcripts of a trial in Northern California are up before daybreak the next day, and news accounts from all over the world are quickly translated and reproduced. Many of those who post messages to the central ...

NEW PORT RICHEY – Two members of the state physician's board are questioning whether a health-food store with ties to Scientology is practicing medicine illegally by offering a church-sanctioned vitamin regimen. The treatment, called "purification rundown," is one of the first steps Scientologists take upon joining the church. Church members tout the rundown as a purifying routine that enables people to kick drug abuse and "think more clearly and have more energy." Some physicians, and a former Scientologist interviewed by the ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Supreme Court today left intact a $1.08 million award against the Cult Awareness Network over the 1991 abduction and attempted deprogramming of a young Kirkland man. The justices, without comment, rejected an appeal that challenged the award as illegal and unconstitutional. Lawyers for the now-defunct, Chicago-based network said that holding the nonprofit group legally accountable for the act of one unpaid volunteer was "unprecedented and unsupportable." The appeal said the award threatens other advocacy groups "across ...

outside Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles; magazine “Bay Guardian” with cover story “Scientology secrets revealed in 2 million dollar consumer fraud case”; outside AOLA building in Los Angeles; news footage from Julie Christofferson Titchbourne trial in Portland, with Scienos picketing VO: The ’80s saw a series of lawsuits brought against the Church of Scientology. Ex-members united, claiming they had been lied to and bilked out of millions of dollars. In 1985, an ex-Scientologist was awarded $39 million after she claimed the ...

picture of LRH; pictures of books “L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman?”, “Bare-Faced Messiah] VO: Scientology lost its founder in 1986. And the news that Hubbard was no longer sparked a flurry of unofficial biographies. Russell Miller walking down road; picture of LRH RUSSELL MILLER (voice of and on camera): I knew that there was some question mark over L. Ron Hubbard’s background. The church presents a picture of L. Ron Hubbard as being a very extraordinary individual, and was almost ...