THE CHURCH of Scientology failed in its attempt to become a registered charity yesterday because the organisation was not of "public benefit". The Charity Commission rejected the application for charity status after detailed consideration and despite taking a "broad and flexible" view of the law, it emerged. The Church of Scientology had sought to be registered as a charity on the grounds that "it was established for the advancement of religion or to promote the moral or spiritual welfare or improvement ...

A court in the French city of Marseilles has found five members of the Church of Scientology guilty on fraud charges over courses offered by the organisation. The former leader of the church in southern France, Xavier Delamare, was sentenced to two years in jail, including 18 months suspended, and fined 16,000 dollars for manipulating people into giving money to the church. He will not return to jail because he has spent 17 weeks in pre-trial detention. Four more people were ...

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 ...

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 ...

CLEARWATER — Two of the top candidates for mayor differed sharply on what traditionally has been a major issue in Clearwater, but it never came up during the recent campaign. Brian Aungst and Rita Garvey never discussed the Church of Scientology, which is expanding its downtown presence as never before and trying to shed its controversial image. Garvey, a longtime Scientology critic, made it a habit through the years never to speak with the church, which moved its "spiritual headquarters" to ...

outside Celebrity Centre; newspaper article titled “Scientology–A Long Trail of Controversy”; another shot of Celebrity Centre; part of newspaper article title “struggle for credibility” VO: Over its rocky 45- year history, Scientology has driven for mainstream acceptance. DAVID MISCAVIGE (interview): People have been searching for thousands of years for spiritual release and freedom, and what we have in Scientology is the answer. How to achieve that. JOHN TRAVOLTA (on movie set in Army camouflage outfit): Ultimately, the whole purpose is to ...

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Dec 6, 1998 - "I am L. Ron Hubbard," the woman on the hotel room bed announced in a robotic voice. "I created time 3 billion years ago." She rambled on and on, every outburst dutifully scribbled down by those assigned to watch her. "I can't confront force . . . I need my auditor . . . I want to take a toothbrush and brush the floor until I have a cognition." The jargon of Scientology was ...

She is one of an estimated 3,300 Scientologists who have migrated to Clearwater in the 1990s, the most dramatic period of growth for the church during its 22 years in Clearwater. In addition, the church has said it is "deadly serious" about its plans for the year 2000, which include tripling the size of its Clearwater staff to more than 3,500; launching a local Scientology "university" that would accommodate more than 10,000 students a week; and having "Clearwater known as the ...

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Late on a November afternoon two years ago, a 36-year-old Scientologist named Lisa McPherson was involved in a minor traffic accident. She was not injured, but she inexplicably stripped off her clothes and began to walk naked down the street. A paramedic rushed her into an ambulance and asked why she had taken off her clothes. Ms. McPherson replied: "I wanted help. I wanted help." She was taken to a nearby hospital for a psychiatric examination, but several ...

EDUCATION: Organizer of a conference being held today is a Scientologist, and that worries' some in the school-reform group. ORANGE — Leaders of Orange County's "back to basics" education movement are split over attending a conference tonight because the chief organizer belongs to the Church of Scientology. Orange County Department of Education board member Ken Williams said he withdrew from the "Back to Basics Education Crusade" because of discomfort with its organizers, not because of disagreement over the crusade's goals. "I ...

BONN, June 6 — The German authorities decided today to place the Scientology movement under nationwide surveillance for one year, their sharpest action yet in a long battle against a group they say is bent on undermining their democratic society. The decision, which critics called authoritarian and impractical, means that Scientologists' mail may be intercepted, their phones tapped and their offices infiltrated by undercover agents posing as adherents. The organization said it would contest the decision in court. By making public ...

WASHINGTON — The State Department's annual survey of human rights conditions around the world will contain expanded, toughened language criticizing Germany for restrictions on the Church of Scientology and its members, administration officials say. The report, to be issued Wednesday, will chastise Germany for what a senior administration official called "a campaign of harassment and intimidation" against the controversial church. He said the United States, seeking to protect religious freedom, has urged Germany through diplomatic channels "not to prosecute people for ...

Lawmakers are looking at barring its members from teaching, police work, other government jobs. HAMBURG, Germany — As the politicians see it, Germany, is being threatened by an evil plot to infiltrate business and government. "A giant octopus . . . that will stop at nothing in its desire to spread its blind ideology" is how Labor Secretary Norbert Blum has described the plot against Germany. Claudia Nolte, another member of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Cabinet, warns, "They aim at world domination ...

Since its founding in 1954, the Church of Scientology has sparked some fear, mistrust and controversy. This doesn't surprise the Rev. Lee Holzinger, 38, minister of the Santa Barbara Church of Scientology. "We are different from other churches in many ways," he said. "How could anything come along that is so fundamentally important to life and society and not rouse controversy?" The church was involved in a 40-year battle with the Internal Revenue Service that ended Oct 1, 1993 when the ...

Scientology is the religion everyone loves to hate. So how come so many movie stars are devout followers? Moves into the church's Celebrity Centre for an exclusive look at the starway to heaven. AT FRANKLIN AND BRONSON A LOGJAM OF LIMousines crawls toward the mock-French Normandy Chateau. At the grand doorway, celebrities, lawyers, producers, and the children of the well-heeled of the entertainment industry step onto the crimson-carpeted tarmac, chattering through the pink-and-gold lounge to the lawns and fairy-lit trees beyond, ...

As the Church of Scientology battles a band of cyberspace dissidents - seizing computers and papers from the homes of vocal online critics in the past two weeks - local defectors charge they are being harassed for speaking out against the church. Robert Vaughn Young and Stacy Young, longtime staff members who left the Church of Scientology in 1989, complained to police that Scientologists have picketed their house in West Seattle at least five times in the past two weeks. They ...

ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 13 — The Church of Scientology is battling a band of on-line dissidents who have used the Internet to mail out globally its secret scriptures, for which some members must pay thousands of dollars. On Saturday, as a result of a copyright infringement lawsuit, United States marshals here seized the computer of a former church employee who had electronically posted a 136-page text that he said was available in court records. The former employee, Arnaldo P. Lerma, 44, ...