The growing popularity of the Internet has spawned discussion groups that offer something for just about everyone, from lovers of Jean-Luc Picard (try alt.sexy.bald.captains) to haters of a certain children's television program (alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die) to obsessives consumed by politics, computer lore, comic books or the hidden messages embedded in a single rock song (alt.meter-maid.lovely.rita). Few newsgroups, though, have drawn the kind of following now evident on alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.), an international debating circle concerning the Church of Scientology. Always controversial, in recent months ...

IN THE ONLINE BRAWL OVER SCIENTOLOGY, INTERNET USERS DISCOVER THAT VIRTUAL REALITY BITES BACK.SHOWDOWN IN CYBERSPACE THE BATTLE OVER SCIENTOLOGY'S SECRETS IGNITES A HOLY WAR ON THE INTERNET. Lawrence Wollersheim's hands shake as he reads his notes, ticking off the damage done to his computers. Surrounding the 46-year-old Boulder resident is a cluster of reporters and, beyond that, a ring of glowering, dark-suited men (and one woman wearing a clerical collar), all packed into a hallway of the federal courthouse in ...

[A classic: Heber Jentzsch going nuts to prevent Dennis Erlich from disclosing information about Scientology's secret levels]

In regard to the April 10 Letters to the Editor from Marcia Rudin and Herbert Rosedale that accompanied my letter in response to the criticisms of Scientology in a March 22 article: For Ms. Rudin to use the word "cult" shows a mentality of bigotry that should be foreign to Americans aware of the Constitution. Our war with bigotry is over, as is the conflict over religious recognition. The IRS's full recognition of the churches of Scientology has been done after ...

Scientology, the California-based religion with ties to the entertainment world, seems to be making a push for even greater mainstream acceptance. In the past few weeks, both Fox News and Hard Copy, the Paramount-produced tabloid news show, have run strangely upbeat pieces about the new Scientology center in Kansas and the group's recent benefit concert at Isaac Tigrett's House of Blues in Hollywood. The hooks for both pieces were the newly accessible Scientologized celebrities John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston and ...

One thing was undisputed in your March 22 page-one article, "How Allstate Applied Scientology Methods to Train Its Managers," about management seminars delivered to agents at Allstate Insurance Co.: the management technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard works. As one of the sales managers who took the seminar summed it up, Mr. Hubbard's management technology is "very powerful in its simplicity." This sentiment is echoed by hundreds of thousands of business owners, executives, employees and professionals around the world. It seems ...