Look, all you have to do is pull out your checkbook and write a check for $200,000. Oh, and make it out to me. No strings attached. That should give you the inner peace you have been searching for. In return for your donation, you'll receive absolutely nothing, and I'll never ask you for a donation again. True, if you do this, I will lose my job. However, if only five of you send the money, I'll be able to retire. ...

NEW YORK—WPP Group's Hill & Knowlton, the giannt public relations agency charged with generating favorable images for clients, is having public relations problems of its own. The latest controversy surfaced last month, when the agency was forced to resign the $2 million Church of Scientology International account a week after a May 6 Time cover story labeled the church a "cult of greed" that had bilked its followers of millions of dollars. The church quickly began an ad campaign in ''USA ...

A bizarre run-in between Time magazine and the Church of Scientology has ensnared an unlikely victim: WPP Group's Martin Sorrell. Ever since Time ran a May 6 cover story depicting the Scientology group as a "cult of greed," the Scientologists have been striking back, criticizing the article as a "sensationalized attack" full of "falsehoods." In the past week, the Scientologists have broadened their attack. This time, in one of the stranger plot twists Madison Avenue has seen, their target is Mr. ...

NEW YORK (AP) — Some subjects of unflattering magazine profiles are content to write a letter to the editor or cancel their subscription. The Church of Scientology, pilloried in Time as "The Cult of Greed," is fighting back with a $3 million ad campaign. After several weeks of taking out full-page color ads in USA Today, the church has released a glossy, 28-page booklet that purports to refute Time's charges and expose its motivation for the May 6 cover story. Titled ...

The Church of Scientology International last week unleashed an estimated $2 million media blitz against Time in response to the magazine's May 6 cover article labeling the church a "cult of greed." The organization on May 28 broke a series of page color ads in Gannett Co.'s USA Today accusing Time of giving favorable coverage to Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, LSD and Prozac. Although the use of advertising for rebuttals isn't uncommon, rarely are such campaigns as prolonged and pricey. The ...

Last June, the Los Angeles Times published a damning series on the Church of Scientology. Scientologists responded by extracting a few good things the writers had to say about their organization and putting those quotes in foot-high letters on billboards all over town. On May 6 of this year, Time magazine published a cover story on Scientology. It had even fewer good things to say, and now the church has responded with an even more aggressive counterattack. Scientology's campaign of daily ...

A personal aide to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for eight of her nearly 20 years with the group says that fluoxetine (Prozac) and therapy have finally stopped the depression and suicidal ideation she had suffered since 1976. "I have to speak out." Hana (Eltringham) Whitfield told The Psychiatric Times. "The Scientologists choose the most prominent psychiatrists and the most successful drugs to attack. That's why they attacked Ritalin, and that's why they are now attacking Prozac." Although ...

ANOTHER interesting connection between the Church of Scientology and the Vancouver Stock Exchange has surfaced on Howe Street, this time involving former B.C. superintendent of brokers Michael C. Ross. Two weeks ago, Time magazine alleged that two Scientologists, Michael Baybak and Kenneth Gerbino of Beverly Hills, Calif., have been raising money for church activities through the Vancouver Stock Exchange. The magazine said Bayback has promoted several controversial VSE issues, including Neti Technologies and Wall Street Ventures, and that both Baybak and ...

Strange things seem to happen to people who write about Scientology. Journalist Paulette Cooper wrote a critical book on the cult in 1971. This led to a Scientology plot (called Operation Freak-Out) whose goal, according to church documents, was "to get P.C. incarcerated in a mental institution or jail." It almost worked: by impersonating Cooper, Scientologists got her indicted in 1973 for threatening to bomb the church. Cooper, who also endured 19 lawsuits by the church, was finally exonerated in 1977 ...

By all appearances, Noah Lottick of Kingston, Pa., had been a normal, happy 24-year-old who was looking for his place in the world. On the day last June when his parents drove to New York City to claim his body, they were nearly catatonic with grief. The young Russian-studies scholar had jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine. When the police arrived, his fingers were still clutching $171 in ...

Originally printed in "The Southern California Psychiatrist," May 1991, pp. 6-13. Dr. West has granted permission to upload this article to computer networks and bulletin boards In a previous article (SCPS Newsletter, July, 1990) I provided an historical account of the Church of Scientology. It is a pseudo-scientific healing cult that was formed in the 1950s, and has grown, with the help of extravagant lies and deliberate deception, into a multimillion dollar, international enterprise. Through its many publications, but especially through ...