John Travolta and his family recently were spotted in Hawaii. Janet Charlton's Hollywood blog reports the reason that Travolta was visiting the Aloha state was for the church of Scientology's Narconon program and a potential fundraiser. Narconon is a four part treatment that is taken in nine steps, which critics and Scientology watchdog groups claim there are major red flags. Some have raised serious safety concerns, while othersclaim it is based on wholly unscientific theories and virtually all are very closely ...

Religious Freedom Watch (RFW) has just put up an item on its website charging that in my New York Detox piece Scientology critic Dave Touretzky (left) could not defend himself from charges that he is a racist, but simply stated that the charges are untrue because they cannot be found via a Lexis-Nexis search. The RFW item can be found here. RFW is almost universally regarded as a front group for the Church of Scientology and devotes a considerable amount of ...

Here's a little source material for you all regarding my piece on the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project. In it, I mention a particularly strongly worded letter sent by Queens City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. to Rev. John Carmichael, president of the New York branch of the Church of Scientology. The letter was sent to Carmichael in response to Vallone's strong words about Scientology, which can be found here and here. Carmichael requested a meeting with Vallone, but that ain't ...

Apparently, I’m a hate-filled bigot. That would have to be the conclusion you would draw if you follow the dealings of the Church of Scientology, particularly the organization known as Religious Freedom Watch (RFW), which is almost universally recognized as a Scientology front group. In response to last week’s cover story on the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, the controversial alternative health clinic based on the writings of Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard, RFW has bared its teeth. Evidently lacking ...

“I'm not here converting these men and women to Scientology. And I've got to tell you something—I've been a Scientologist 20 years. In Sacramento I, more than any other Scientologist, got new people into Scientology, me personally. I'm very good at converting people, if I want to.” Jim Woodworth is the director of the New York Rescue Workers' Detoxification Project, and he is bristling at the suggestion that his program is an arm of the Church of Scientology. He insists that ...

The controversial Church of Scientology is planning to target students at Scottish universities and colleges in a new recruitment drive. Leaders of the church, which is largely regarded as a cult and believes humans descended from aliens, have revealed they intend to send workers into campuses to seek out impressionable youngsters. Ironically, they believe recent bad publicity after the movement featured on the BBC's Panorama programme has helped attract new converts. Following the programme screening two weeks ago, which featured presenter ...

Attention South Park writers looking for their next episode! (Comedy Central) While the verdict may still be out as to whether Scientology is a brainwashing cult or not, after a recent run-in with the BBC, two things are abundantly clear: Scientologists can't stand being called cult members, and they have the power to drive even seasoned journalists absolutely insane. BBC reporter John Sweeney, whose documentary "Scientology and Me" ends in a 40-second shouting match between him and Church spokesman Tommy Davis, ...

For a time in the late 1980s and early 1990s you hadn't arrived as a skeptic until you'd been sued by Uri Geller. The person who bore the brunt of most of the lawsuits was, of course, James Randi, the escape artist, stage magician, and paranormal investigator. I never got beyond threats - yet. On the first occasion, it was when I wrote a news story for New Scientist about the Randi/Geller law suits. I seem to recall a lawyer's letter, ...

After eight years of financial struggle, not once turning a profit or breaking even, Toronto businessman Murray Goldman has closed the doors to the Hockley Highlands Inn and Conference Centre. The announcement was made on Friday, the same day employees learned they no longer had a job. A former employee said although there was no advance notice of the closure given to employees they have had ample warnings over the last four years, as business continually declined and the inn lost ...

Should someone go to prison for stabbing a dog 27 times? That's been the topic of discussion within the Travis County district attorney's office in the case of Joanne Lee Hinojosa, 33, accused of seriously injuring her estranged husband's dog during an argument between the couple last year. The dog, a 20-pound mixed-breed named Marti, was later euthanized because of her serious internal injuries, a police affidavit said. Hinojosa's lawyer, Rip Collins, says she was suffering mental stress from the breakup ...

BBC reporter John Sweeney was last week seen losing his temper at the end of a sixmonth investigation into scientology. In 1994, The Argus published a damning exposé of the East Grinsteadbased "religion". Former chief reporter Paul Bracchi, who secretly infiltrated the cult, remembers how its followers relentlessly threatened and pursued him in revenge for criticising their deceptive and manipulative methods. Here Mr Bracchi, who now lives in London, tells the chilling story of how he was stalked and intimidated ...

As Chad Bloom can attest from firsthand experience, the Narconon rehab program can bring ‘ice’ addicts back to live a productive, drug-free life Lari Zelinsky-Bloom is proud of her recent graduate. No ceremony or lei hail his achievement, but thanks to celebrities Kelly Preston and John Travolta, there will be many others to follow in the footsteps of her son, 21-year-old Chad Bloom. Chad just graduated from Narconon, a drug rehabilitation center. After a harrowing nightmare suffering the effects of ice ...

The Church of Scientology has been accused of using British artists as a front for recruiting members. The Stuckist movement, which rails against conceptual art, is in turmoil over claims that sales of its artists' paintings are effectively funding Scientology, a religious sect accused of brainwashing its followers. The row has led to disquiet among artists as far afield as Germany. Charles Thomson, who founded the Stuckist movement in Britain, admitted to the Evening Standard he was wrong to give the ...

[Professor David Touretzky appears on the Glenn Beck show to discuss Scientology's increased encroachment into public classrooms. They are attempting to "Safepoint" Scientology which means to get the cult better accepted into society. Let's try to stop that until they reform.]

TAMPA — The red letters on the white sign in front of the Glorious Church of God in Christ read "Free Tutoring in the C.L. Kennedy Center." An arrow points to a building behind the church. Every afternoon after school, as many as 42 Hillsborough County public school students gather for tutoring in reading and math skills. Most start with a Learning to Learn course, which teaches the basics of L. Ron Hubbard's how-to-study program. The tutors, all wearing red vests, ...

Would you be able to kill small animals? Do you twitch during the night? Would you have more than two children, even if you couldn't afford them? Just three of the bizarre questions you are asked if you try to enrol in the Hubbard Academy of Personal Independence, the Scottish base of Scientology, the controversial sect with famous adherents such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Labelled a cult by its critics, defended as a bona fide religion by devotees, it ...

THE INLAND Revenue is being asked to investigate why British Scientologists are refusing to pay a tax on the grounds they do charitable work — even though the controversial religion has been refused charitable status. Scientology, which came under fierce attack on the BBC last week, was denied the special status by the Charity Commission eight years ago. In a 49-page landmark ruling, commissioners said the church had not demonstrated it was “established for the public benefit as to satisfy the ...

BATON ROUGE, La. — Inside the industrial looking brick walls of one of Louisiana's poorest performing middle schools, Scientologists finally have achieved a longtime goal. A study skills curriculum written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is being taught as mainstream public education. All the eighth-graders at Prescott Middle School are being taught learning techniques Hubbard devised four decades ago when he set out to remedy what he viewed as barriers to learning. The curriculum and textbooks used by Prescott's 156 ...

This week a BBC reporter was shown screaming in fury after being hounded by Scientology fanatics. Here, a Mail writer tells how he, too, was the victim of a vicious cult smear campaign. The voice at the end of the line was trembling. "Is that Mr Bracchi?" "Yes, it is," I replied. The caller could not have been more relieved. I was supposed to be dead. Someone had started a rumour that I had been killed in a fire. The same ...

Hilliker Corp. and Hagen Properties represented Vernon Holliday, Richard Maheu and Neal Josehart in the sale of a 60,000-square-foot institutional building at 2345 Lafayette Avenue, St. Louis, to Church of Scientology of Missouri, represented by St. Louis Premier Realtors Inc. Solon Gershman Inc. represented parties in these leases: 18,311 square feet of office space at 1350 Timberlake Manor Parkway, Timberlake Corporate Center III, Chesterfield, from Franklin Street Properties Corp. to AB Mauri Food Inc. d/b/a Fleischmann's Yeast, represented by Grubb & ...

RESPECTED Panorama journalist John Sweeney was this week seen on TV exploding in a fury during an interview with a leader of the Church of Scientology. Here he apologises but also reveals the other side of the movement ? what one one judge called “corrupt, sinister and dangerous” ? not to mention the stranger hiding in the bushes outside his recent wedding. THE Archbishop of Canterbury, MPs, Lords, top coppers and, for all I know, Wayne Rooney and the Beckhams: Anyone ...

Gays should be wary of ‘church’ that has helped advance the reckless idea that homosexuality can be cured. THE CULT OF Scientology is back in the news this week, after a video of a BBC reporter shouting down a church spokesperson hit YouTube. The BBC’s John Sweeney claims he was followed and harassed while working on a documentary about Scientology. The spokesperson in question is the son of actress Anne Archer. “I have been shouted at, spied on, had my hotel ...

BBC reporter John Sweeney apologises for losing his temper on tonight's Panorama programme on Scientology. He talks about the 6 months of intensive research behind the film and what it was exactly that drove him to lose it This was a disaster. I feel ashamed and, although I've been kicked around the Panorama office by the BBC, no one is more embarrassed about me losing it than me. I let my team down and I apologised when it happened and I ...

The Church of Scientology last night launched a fresh attempt to discredit the Panorama reporter John Sweeney, following the broadcast of a prime time BBC1 programme investigating its controversial beliefs and recruiting methods. As Panorama editor Sandy Smith took to the airwaves to defend Sweeney's investigation following the furore around his furious YouTube outburst captured by Scientology cameras, the war of words and online propaganda intensified. Mike Rinder, a director at Church of Scientology International, said it was considering legal action ...

JOHN Travolta is a halfwit. A statement of the obvious, perhaps, given his adherence to a cult which believes we're all infected with the souls of aliens who were banished to earth 75 million years ago by an evil galactic warlord called Xenu. But if anyone doubted it, the former disco-strutter confirmed his asininity by publicly urging the BBC not to screen John Sweeney's Panorama film about Scientology last night. Not to be outdone, Travolta's fellow- cultists gleefully posted on YouTube ...

Angry Scientologists are trying to get a BBC documentary about their faith scrapped amid claims of "gross bias" by presenter John Sweeney. The Panorama programme, to be shown tonight, investigates whether the Church of Scientology has moved away from its past as a brainwashing cult. But furious church members - including actor John Travolta - say the programme should be ditched because Mr Sweeney showed he was biased by losing his temper and shouting at a top scientologist. After the man ...

Aired May 14, 2007 - 22:00 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. Tonight, thousands of American troops in Iraq searching for three of their American buddies, searching their hearts out because they know all too well what the people who claim to have them can do and have done to captives in the past. We will have the latest on the ...

The BBC has hit back at accusations that it orchestrated a demonstration against Scientologists during which a "terrorist death threat" was allegedly made. It comes as a bitter row develops between the Corporation and Scientologists over a highly critical Panorama documentary about the religion, in which a veteran reporter lost his temper and screamed for 30 seconds at a Church member. The BBC has seriously reprimanded John Sweeney for the outburst, which the journalist has admitted was "wrong and stupid". The ...

The Panorama editor, Sandy Smith, has defended tonight's controversial John Sweeney investigation into the Church of Scientology. Mr Smith said tonight's Panorama would feature the YouTube clip of Sweeney losing his temper and shouting at Scientology representative Tommy Davis after he accused the BBC reporter of giving a critic of the faith an easy ride in an interview. Footage of the scene, which was filmed by the Scientologists, was posted on YouTube last week and Sweeney has apologised for the outburst. ...

NB: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT: BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY JEREMY VINE: Hello, I'm Jeremy Vine. It's 8.30 and this is Panorama. Scientologists say they are just like any other religion. TOMMY DAVIS: I have absolutely nothing to hide whatsoever, zero. JOHN SWEENEY: Really? DAVIS: Dig and dig and dig. SWEENEY: ...