If you think you have problems with Scientology in England, you should see what's happening in the States. Here, they pass out their leaflets on the street corners of some of the most pukka neighbourhoods, urging innocent bystanders to try out Scientology. Those who have accepted the invitation have found themselves in one of their many dingy headquarters, listening to a dull lecture on Scientology, followed by a film of equal merit on its leader, L. Ron Hubbard. Those who didn't ...

How profitable Scientology has become is one of the organization's most closely guarded secrets, but estimates of the personal worth of founder L. Ron Hubbard have ranged up to $7 million. In 1963 the Internal Revenue Service claimed the church earned more than $750,000 in the United States from 1955 through 1959, the year Hubbard moved international headquarters from Washington, D.C., to England. There, according to the Los Angeles Times, world receipts rose to $140,000 weekly in 1968. —– In New ...

Today and tonight hundreds — perhaps thousands — of Californians will sit down in pairs and stare at one another. One of them will give the other commands such as "Tell me something you wouldn't mind forgetting." The one who is commanded will hold two tin cans attached by wires to an E-meter, a device that measures electrical resistance in the body. The commander will watch a needle on the device's circuit board in the belief that it measures emotional charge. ...

RELIGION OR BUSINESS? Practices of Scientology Being Investigated Again By John Dart Times Religion Writer [Picture / Caption: YOUNG INITIATES — The Rev. Robert Bobo talks with two children who are taking Scientology courses. The photo on the wall is of the founder of the worldwide group, L. Ron Hubbard.] The mimeographed notice looked more like a secret police communique than a church message. It informed "those concerned" that a certain 20-year-old girl "is hereby declared a Suppressive Person and assigned ...

When ministers of the Founding Church of Scientology told a Falls Church, Virginia couple that could teach the couple's defective son to talk and raise his IQ at same time, the man and wife, understandably in search of a miracle, willingly paid—in advance—the sum of $3,000 as a "contribution for spiritual guidance." The husband cashed a life insurance policy, sold some bonds, added the proceeds of a small bequest and "scraped around in various places." And then his son Paul's "processing" ...

Couched in pseudoscientific terms and rites, this dangerous cult claims to help mentally or emotionally disturbed persons—for sizable fees. Scientology has grown into a very profitable worldwide enterprise . . . and a serious threat to health. [Picture / Caption: L. Ronald Hubbard, Scientology's founder.] [Picture / Caption: Bust of Hubbard flanks "altar" in Scientology "church" near London. Among his accomplishments, Hubbard claims to have been dead and recovered, to have visited Venus and heaven.] LAST SUMMER in New York City, ...

The Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C. (The AMA News, Sept. 2, 1968 ) has lost its tax-exempt status because a federal court says its activities were too commercial. Donald E. Lane, trial commissioner of the U.S. Court of Claims in Washington, ruled that the church received substantial income from its "processing and auditing" services, and that the value of these services was over and above the organization's religious and spiritual aspects. Government officials have indicated the decision would signal ...

The main Edinburgh practitioner, it seems, is a Mr Ernest Saren, and at the appointments he produces a personality "graph" showing the questionnaire results on ten "personality dimensions" such as happy-depressed and capable-inhibited. The final column on the capacity analysis chart gives an I.Q. figure. Saren's qualifications for discussing people's problems on the basis of this questionnaire, according to a H.A.P.I. spokesman, are scientology qualifications only. One of those tested in the H.A.P.I. building this week, a 19-year-old apprentice who had ...

The only time Hubbard allowed an outside crew to interview him.

His name is John McMaster. Once he was a mess like the rest of us. Now he's a "clear", one of the saints of a new cult called Scientology — without a single "engram" left to bug him. SOMETHING VERY ODD is going on in Toronto. People are leaving the country, changing their occupations, giving up their children, leaving their husbands, wives, or lovers, changing their whole lives. All in the name of something called Scientology. The whole thing got started ...