MORE than 15,000 schoolies on an annual party invasion will be bombarded with safe sex and anti-drug messages. A drug information booklet sponsored by the Church of Scientology, and free condoms from a health provider will be available to school-leavers letting off steam when official celebrations start on Saturday. About 7000 Victorians will flock to the Gold Coast, at least 5000 will party at Lorne and Torquay, and up to 3000 teens are anticipated at Phillip Island after exams finish today. ...

Merlin, the Irish-based publisher of The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology, which was pulled from Amazon.co.uk for including "defamatory" content, has "emphatically denied" the allegations. Aoife Barrett, editorial director at Merlin, said the claim was "vexatious". Amazon.co.uk removed the title from sale last week. The online retailer said: "Unfortunately, we have had to withdraw The Complex by John Duignan in the UK because we received a specific allegation that a passage in the book ...

Author and former Scientologist John Duignan will be joining us to discuss his new book, The Complex: An Insider Exposes The Covert World Of The Church Of Scientology. John, a 20+ year veteran of the Church's super-secret sect, the Sea Organization, will discuss his life inside, how he got out and how the Church uses its power to oppress members and destroy its critics.

When people first heard Will Smith and his wife, Jada, were donating $1 million to a new private school, there were cheers all round, however, the press has changed its tune after discovering the facility will be run on Scientology principles. The New Village Academy, which will open later this year, has reportedly hired a team of Scientologists to help integrate Scientology teaching methods into the school curriculum – although the dreaded 'S' word isn't mentioned anywhere on the school's website, ...

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Abstract: Scientology has never been a stranger to controversy and now an alternative prison rehabilitation center based on Scientology drug treatment stirs concern with medical experts. The Second Chance Center is a small facility outside Albuquerque, N.M., which uses the Scientology-based drug treatment program called Narconon. It is the first prison-based rehabilitation center in America that was designed specifically to foster the Narconon system, and its founders hope that it will be the model for more centers around the country. The ...

[Picture of Scientology stress-test table]STRESS-TESTES: Mange barn syns det er morsomt med stress-testen på Karl Johan. Kirken avviser at de forsøker å verve barna. - Vi lar dem prøve for moro skyld, sier pressetalsmann Matthias Fosse. Foto: Roar Dalmo Moltubak KARL JOHAN (VG Nett) Fra denne standen på Karl Johan i Oslo forsøker Scientologi-kirken å verve nye medlemmer med en egenkomponert stress-test. Lørdag formiddag stoppet et titalls forbipasserende, deriblant flere barn og unge, og tok plass på stolene foran standen for ...

"David" from the web-based activist group Anonymous talks to Paul about about what he wants from the Church of Scientology: honesty and transparency would do very nicely thanks.

In this article, we argue that Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, likely presented a personality disorder known as malignant narcissism, and then we establish that this disorder probably contributed to his creation of organizational policies against perceived enemies that reflected his narcissistic rage. We illustrate our argument by discussing Hubbard’s creation of an internal Scientology organization called the Guardian’s Office, which carried out a sustained and covert attack against a Scientology critic, Paulette Cooper. This attack, and the Scientology policies that ...

The building at 505 N. Wabasha St. in downtown St. Paul isn't your average piece of property. Most buildings don't come complete with a 300-seat theater – the former Omni Theater, a forerunner of today's IMAX theaters. When it opened in 1977, the building was the new home of the Science Museum of Minnesota. After the Science Museum moved to its new home along Kellogg Boulevard in 1999, the Minnesota Business Academy took up residence in the building. The academy closed ...

It was April 4, just two months ago, although to me it feels like two years. It was an ordinary spring Wednesday to the world at large, but with my wife due to give birth to our first child, everything in my world was heightened. And I was a bit of a mess. Despite feeling upbeat and mostly unconcerned about the upcoming event, I kept getting these recurring attacks of wooziness; small but disorienting brain clouds of differing strength and unknown ...

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 ...

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 ...

Dec. 28–The Church of Scientology is eager to move to a new Sacramento address. But 14 months after buying the downtown Ramona building for $4.75 million, with plans of converting it into its new local headquarters, the church has yet to call the movers. "Many things need to get done" before the 77-year-old Ramona is ready to physically accommodate its new owner, church spokesman Mike Klagenberg said last week. The list includes: getting City Hall's permission to begin a planned $3 ...

Members of the Church of Scientology considered buying RISC OS in 1998 because they wanted to "try something different", it was claimed earlier this month. When Acorn management pulled the plug and broke up the company, Scientologists allegedly pondered stepping in to purchase the intelluctual property rights to the platform to expand their commercial activities. In the end, the operating system was licensed to various clients of Acorn so they could continue to use the technology, and eventually, Pace Micro and ...

Hugh B. Urban is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the Department of Comparative Studies, Ohio State University, 431 Hagerty Hall, Columbus, OH 43210. From Tom Cruise’s wedding to South Park’s scathing cartoon parody, the Church of Scientology has emerged as one of the wealthiest, most powerful but also most controversial new religious movements of the last fifty years. Remarkably, however, it has rarely been subjected to serious, critical study by historians of religions, in large part because of the ...

A year ago, Luis Leyva Jr. opened Luis Jr.'s Mexican Food Restaurant in downtown Sacramento. Housed in what used to be a Japanese eatery, Luis Jr.'s is in the Ramona building, a former hotel at Sixth and J streets. "This is my dream," Leyva said last week during an interview at the place bearing his name. "This is what I've always wanted - my own restaurant downtown." But Leyva may soon

In 1989, Fielding McGehee and I published The Need for a Second Look at Jonestown, a collection of essays written by those who had been involved with Peoples Temple. In this retrospective volume, people reflected on their experiences of the previous decade, as well as on their understanding of the Temple. Contributors included former members, relatives, and others who had had connections with the Temple, such as news reporters and social activists. Shortly after the book appeared, Chris Hatcher, the psychologist ...