[Parent document: Dianetics Foundation International (DFI): Form 1023 filing.]

The man who committed mass murder two years ago at Standard Gravure has become the centerpiece of a nationwide campaign to discredit and ban Prozac, the world's leading drug for treating depression. Joseph Wesbecker had taken Prozac during the five weeks before his shooting rampage inside the Louisville printing plant, and blood tests after his death found therapeutic levels of Prozac. Those test results have prompted a California group affiliated with the Church of Scientology to launch a high-profile, well-financed assault ...

Former Church of Scientology members say the organization runs its international operations from a state-of-the-art media center in this rural southern California community, a newspaper reported. Ken Rose, who in 1988 left the church after 14 years, told the Hemet News in a copyrighted series that Scientology's top officials use Golden Era Studios as their base for worldwide operations. He described Golden Era as "the think tank, the brains, the [...]

Four Palm Beach County financial talk-show hosts who tout their expertise on local airwaves have encountered static from customers and regulators for their off-air performance. James A. Barry Jr., Brian J. Sheen, Ken W. Brown and Norm Robbins are among about 20 South Florida financial talk-show hosts who use public airwaves to reach potential customers. But their off-air careers have been the subject of customer complaints and lawsuits or investigations by regulators, a review [...]

Robert Bosan said Wednesday, that he has agreed, for now, to stop advertising his Church of Scientology but he plans to apply again to run the mission on Streetsboro's far west side. On Tuesday, Bosan, of the 200 block of state Route 303, withdrew his application for a conditional use permit that would allow him to use a neighboring house as a Scientology mission. He said he intends to reapply, perhaps for a zoning variance, and [...]

A key element of the management techniques Scientologists sell to businessmen is L. Ron Hubbard's "organizational board." Used also by the Church of Scientology, the "Org Board" divides an organization into seven divisions–executive, personnel, sales, finance, training, marketing and qualifications. Each division's duties are spelled out, along with the basis for evaluating employee performance. In describing the Org Board's virtues, Scientology consultants omit Hubbard's colorful account of its origins–an account reminiscent of one of his science fiction tales. During a 1965 ...

Aides indulged his eccentricities and egotism. L. Ron Hubbard enjoyed being pampered. He surrounded himself with teen-age followers, whom he indoctrinated, treated like servants and cherished as though they were his own children. He called them the "Commodore's messengers." " 'Messenger!' " he would boom in the morning. "And we'd pull him out of bed," one recalled. The youngsters, whose parents belonged to Hubbard's Church of Scientology, would lay out his clothes, run his shower and help him dress. He taught ...

What is Scientology? Not even the vast majority of Scientologists can fully answer the question. In the Church of Scientology, there is no one book that comprehensively sets forth the religion's beliefs in the fashion of, say, the Bible or the Koran. Rather, Scientology's theology is scattered among the voluminous writings and tape-recorded discourses of the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the religion in the early 1950s. Piece by piece, his teachings are revealed to church members ...

[...] Wakefield now repudiates the agreement, claiming she was pressured into signing it, and aggressively seeks forums — in the press, on radio shows, in churches — to denounce Scientology. "I don't care what the legal repercussions are at this point," she told the Tribune recently. "I want people in this area to know what Scientology is about. I want them to know it's a satanic cult." The church has been the center of controversy since it was founded by science ...

Three workers at a prominent Silicon Valley electronics company claim they were forced by their superiors to take communications courses taught by firms connected with the Church of Scientology – with practices that included staring into co-workers' eyes for four hours at a time to "guide and control communication." The workers said they left Applied Materials Inc. of Santa Clara after being harassed over their refusal to take the courses. They [...]

A group that follows some of the teachings of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is setting up a national drug and alcohol rehabilitation program at the former Chilocco Indian School in northern Oklahoma, and that has some area residents worried. The Newkirk City Commission has scheduled a Monday night informational meeting about the Narconon International project, which over 25 years could bring as much as $16 million in lease payments to five Indian tribes in the Chilocco Development Authority. ...

The Church of Scientology lost a bid Thursday in a British court to ban a biography of its founder, the late science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. The secretive religious movement, which has a headquarters in Clearwater, had asked the Court of Appeal for an injunction against publication of Bare Faced Messiah by London journalist Russell Miller. Such a ruling would have reversed a High Court decision dismissing their application as "mischievous and misconceived."

Is the Internal Revenue Service out of order in trying to revoke the tax-exempt status of Jim Bakker's PTL ministries for three years? Is this IRS effort part of a campaign that picks on religious operations? Or is it a federal government agency doing its job, objectively challenging the outrageous spending practices of an organization set up for religious and charitable purposes? Anytime the IRS moves, the danger of abuse exists. Short of death or some uncertain judgment day, the IRS ...

Panorama's investigation into the Scientologists revealed an organisation which uses its founder's 'mixture of half-practical, half-gobbledegook psychological techniques' to draw large sums of money from its adherents, with threatening consequences if they opt out. Religious cults are a problem. They enslave the minds and empty the pockets of gullible young people, causing heartfelt grief to their families. The Moonies, the Children of God and the other cults have a poor public image, but they almost always operate within the law. The ...