The True School and the Jefferson Academy, two Clearwater schools that use educational methods devised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, declined to allow the St. Petersburg Times to interview students, graduates, teachers, administrators or parents. But the True School did provide what it said were testimonials from some of the school's students and staff members. In addition, Church of Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth arranged for Scientologists to write letters and send them to the Times. Here are excerpts from the ...

[Picture / Caption: Kristi, left, and Beth Erlich grew up in the Church of Scientology, but eventually left. In the top photo, taken by their mother when Kristi and Beth were children, the two girls perform TR-Zero, Scientology drill that calls for two people to stare at each other "without any compulsions todo anything." The routine is designed to improve communication skills.] When Beth Erlich was 11, she signed her first contract. A billion-year contract. Beth didn't understand it too well. ...

[Picture / Caption: Happy Scientologists: Marie C. Gale poses with her husband, David, son Philip and daughter Elizabeth.] Marie C. Gale is raising her children the same way her parents raised her: using the principles of Scientology. "Considering my parents and grandmother, my children are fourth- generation Scientologists," Mrs. Gale, 36, said in a letter. Mrs. Gale, of Clearwater, is one of many local Scientologists who say their religion offers benefits to their families, their children in particular. Members say Scientology ...

L. Ron Hubbard was a writer who conjured up tales of time travel and rocket ships to Mars. But science fiction was not all that sprang from Hubbard's pen. He also wrote the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. In it, Hubbard described a new kind of counseling, which he said could help people increase their IQs, cure themselves of arthritis, allergies, asthma and migraine headaches, and reduce their chances of having a car wreck. The book was published ...

The tangled murder-suicide case of a British stripper and her husband has prompted the slain man's children to file a civil suit against a psychiatrist whose handgun was used in the Sherman Oaks couple's deaths. The suit filed Friday in Van Nuys Superior Court also seeks unspecified damages against Eli Lilly & Co., the maker of the controversial antidepressant Prozac, claiming that Victoria Howden's use of the drug contributed to her June 10 murder of the children's father, Charles House, and ...

The Food and Drug Administration has denied Scientology's Citizens Commission on Human Rights' (CCHR) petition to withdraw fluoxetine (Prozac) from the market, indicating in its report that CCHR's evidence was primarily based on five "unsubstantiated cases that cannot be adequately evaluated." The agency said that its Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee will review all pertinent data linking suicide and antidepressants in a late summer or early fall meeting. Although most of the media coverage has been about fluoxetine, the committee will look ...

INDIANAPOLIS —The Food and Drug Administration weighed in heavily on the side of Ell Lilly & Co. in rejecting claims that the popular anti-depressant drug Prozac is connected to murder, suicide or other maladies. The FDA action follows a yearlong campaign against Prozac by the Church of Scientology that had sought to persuade the federal agency, through a formal petition, to ban U.S. sales of the Lilly drug. But the FDA found that a Scientology-founded group called the Citizens Commission for ...

The June 1 letter on Prozac by Doug Johnston is another example of the campaign of misinformation that Scientologists are spreading on Prozac and other treatments prescribed by psychiatrists. Johnston refers to research carried out by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Hubbard initiated his "research" with the premises that all psychiatric treatment is damaging to all patients and that psychological problems can be dealt with only by training the mind to forget, using a form of self-hypnosis. He conveniently ...

Prozac, a commonly prescribed anti-depression drug made by Eli Lilly and Co., has been under attack from the Church of Scientology and lawyers who have developed the so-called "Prozac defense" — blaming the drug for their clients behavior. They and some former users charge that the drug causes bizarre mental side effects and can lead to suicide. ''Mitchell Daniels, Eli Lilly's vice president for corporate affairs, defended the drug and attacked the attackers Monday in a meeting with USA Today's editorial ...

The following is the first of a two-part series to be concluded in the next issue. The impact of Scientology's ongoing war on psychiatry, now focused on the antidepressant drug Prozac, was a topic of discussion in the corridors and lecture halls of this year's annual meeting in New Orleans. Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA) director Frederick Goodwin, M.D., discussed the anti-Prozac campaign of the Scientologist's antipsychiatry affiliate, the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). "The disingenuously named ...

A personal aide to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for eight of her nearly 20 years with the group says that fluoxetine (Prozac) and therapy have finally stopped the depression and suicidal ideation she had suffered since 1976. "I have to speak out." Hana (Eltringham) Whitfield told The Psychiatric Times. "The Scientologists choose the most prominent psychiatrists and the most successful drugs to attack. That's why they attacked Ritalin, and that's why they are now attacking Prozac." Although ...

Originally printed in "The Southern California Psychiatrist," May 1991, pp. 6-13. Dr. West has granted permission to upload this article to computer networks and bulletin boards In a previous article (SCPS Newsletter, July, 1990) I provided an historical account of the Church of Scientology. It is a pseudo-scientific healing cult that was formed in the 1950s, and has grown, with the help of extravagant lies and deliberate deception, into a multimillion dollar, international enterprise. Through its many publications, but especially through ...

After a whirlwind love affair with the media, fluoxetine's (Prozac's) fall from grace has been just as spectacular. Just over a year ago it was featured on the cover of Newsweek as a "wonder drug" that not only helped patients overcome major depression, but improved their social life, their careers, and their marriages. Patients testified on talk shows and in newspaper interviews that the drug made them feel even better than before they were sick. A small case report of six ...

Internal documents from the Church of Scientology, the parent organisation of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, indicate that behind the church's public battle to expose abuses of psychiatric patients lies a hidden plan of retribution. The documents contain evidence that some Australian Scientologists apparently have remained committed to a 30-year-old doctrine of revenge and intimidation against people the church describes as enemies. And while church members in Australia have been speaking out against psychiatric abuse, courts in the United States ...

WHEN a royal commission last year exposed atrocities at Chelmsford Private Hospital in New South Wales, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights scored dual victories: one public, one private. The first came with the release of Mr Justice Slattery's 12-volume report into the nightmarish "cuckoo's nest" of Chelmsford — a private hospital where the commission found that at least 24 people died as a result of deep-sleep therapy. Another 24 patients survived the treatment but later took their own lives, 19 ...

Scientologists Claim Prozac Induces Murder or Suicide, Though Evidence Is Scant Campaign Dismays Doctors INDIANAPOLIS—L. Ron Hubbard, the late founder of the Church of Scientology, long harbored a profound and obsessive hatred for psychiatrists, who, he declared, were "chosen as a vehicle to undermine and destroy the West!" Five years after Mr. Hubbard's death, Scientologists are still waging war on psychiatry. The quasi-religious/ business/ paramilitary organization's latest target is Prozac, the nation's top-selling medicine for severe depression. The group is calling ...

As part of its strategy, the movement created a nationwide uproar over the drug Ritalin, used to treat hyperactive children. In recent years, a national debate flared over Ritalin, a drug used for more than three decades to treat hyperactivity in children. Across the country, multimillion-dollar lawsuits were filed by parents who contended that their children had been harmed by the drug. Major news organizations—including The Times—devoted extensive coverage to whether youngsters were being turned into emotionally disturbed addicts by psychiatrists ...

Pomona police said Friday they are investigating whether beliefs espoused by the Church of Scientology led a family to confine a mentally disabled woman in a cell-like bedroom at a Phillips Ranch house. While stressing that neither the church nor its beliefs are under investigation, police said they want to know if Scientology practices could explain why the woman was kept in confinement. Police and Los Angeles County mental health workers discovered Marianne Coenan, 31, locked in a sparsely furnished room ...

Most local residents now realize that all those people in white uniforms scurrying along Clearwater's downtown streets are Scientologists, although some tourists still ask whether we have a U.S. Navy base in town. But even locals were mystified by the new outfit — black shorts with black T-shirt or tank top. So I called Bill Daugherty, a Scientology spokesman here, who said those black-attired people are part of the "estate crew." They do gardening chores and cleanup work at Scientology's many ...

Scientology grew out of the ashes of L Ron Hubbard's 'new science' of Dianetics, which enjoyed a brief vogue in the America of the 1950s then faded to bring its founder close to bankruptcy. In this second extract from the book the Church of Scientology tried to ban, RUSSELL MILLER describes the bizarre, science-fiction basis of the new, highly profitable religion and Hubbard's self-appointed mission to 'save the world' —– L RON HUBBARD had often said: "If a man really wanted ...