In the mid-1980s, more than ever before, television advertising was about big budgets and excess. Bucking that trend was Scientologist and marketing whiz Jeff Hawkins, whose understated, minimalist TV ads for L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics helped launch the book onto the best-seller list—and arguably sparked a worldwide interest in the religion. Hawkins' ads featured simple questions like, "Why are you unhappy?" in white print against a black background, backed by edgy music supplied by Hawkins' friends, and finally, a shot of ...

Six years ago, when I was a reporter at New Times LA, ''I’d written several stories about Scientology (Los Angeles is one of its headquarters), and I was about to uncork the longest one yet—a 7,000 word piece about an embarrassing, $8 million defeat Scientology had just suffered, when the weekly paper suddenly folded. That unpublished story has been sitting in storage ever since. Fast forward to 2008, and the world of reporting on Scientology has changed radically, thanks in part ...

Greg Bashaw's father respected him and trusted him to make wise choices. Even after he chose to devote his life to Scientology. While the shock and grief of his son's suicide were still fresh, Bob Bashaw read back through their decades-long correspondence, looking in particular for references to Scientology. "I wanted to see what there was here I missed," he says. His son Greg had been a member of the Church of Scientology for more than 20 years. During that time ...

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR PINELLAS COUNTY, STATE OF FLORIDA GENERAL CIVIL DIVISION Case No. 00-5682-C1 Section 11 ESTATE OF LISA McPHERSON, by and through the Personal Representative, DELL LIEBREICH Plaintiff, vs. CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION, INC.; JANIS JOHNSON; ALAIN KARTUZINSKI; and DAVID HOUGHTON, Defendants. —– APRIL 2002 AFFIDAVIT OF JESSE PRINCE STATE OF FLORIDA COUNTY OF HILLSBOROUGH BEFORE ME, the undersigned authority, personally appeared JESSE PRINCE, who after being duly sworn ...

ON JULY 28, an appeal court in Lyon reduced the sentences of six members of the Scientology movement charged with responsibility for the suicide of one of their followers. The court also ruled that the "Church of Scientology" was entitled to call itself a religion. In so doing, the appeal court gave the movement created by the science-fiction writer Lafayette Ron Hubbard in 1954 a seal of approval it probably did not expect. The court justified its decision by invoking an ...

Title "The S Files" [S as in Scientology Logo] [Presenter Dermot Murnaghan (DM henceforth) no relation to any other DM] Tonight we're going to expose serious financial crime in one of the Scientology cult's most successful operations in Britain. We show how they cooked the books, made false statements to obtain bank loans, and changed invoices to fiddle their VAT. [Extract from "Trust" ad] This advert for the Church of Scientology was recently shown on cable TV. It was a major ...

Macomb resident contends he was duped while attending vocational school. PONTIAC — Former Scientologist Linda Hostetler isn't the first metro Detroiter to hold a financial and emotional grudge against the Church of Scientology of Michigan. Since the Detroit branch was founded in 1969, at least 14 lawsuits have been filed against the church, according to circuit court records. Of the 14 cases, which sought damages ranging from $10,000-$60,000, six have been filed since the church moved to Royal Oak in the ...

Exclusive A former cult security guard blows apart the star's squeaky clean image with claims of shocking abuse HOLLYWOOD megastar Tom Cruise has been sensationally named in a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the United States alleging receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illicit perks from the controversial Scientology religious cult. The 32-year-old Oscar winner is alleged to have turned a blind eye to the use of slave labour to build him a gym, an apartment and other gifts ...

IN THE second part of his special investigation into the Church of Scientology, Argus chief reporter PAUL BRACCHI talks to a man who travelled 3,000 miles to join the Sussex-based cult. [A very small picture of Mr. Bracchi is shown, as in yesterday's article. A large picture, in the center of page 6, is shown of a man wearing a neat denim shirt, labelled: "Above: Nowell Matandirotya. "I feel I was exploited" A smaller picture shows a grim stone mansion, with ...

CLEARWATER — Church of Scientology officials are installing concealed cameras and microphones in at least 69 counseling rooms where church members reveal their innermost thoughts, a church spokesman confirms. What transpires behind the closed doors of an auditing session — one-on-one counseling — is as confidential as a confession from a parishioner to a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, said Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth. "It's subject to what's called the priest-penitent privilege," Haworth said. Occasionally, be said, sessions are videotaped ...

A PIECE OF BLUE SKY. By Jon Atack. Lyle Stuart. 428 Pages. $21.95. It has been 17 years since the Church of Scientology secretly bought the historic Fort Harrison Hotel and established a base for an important arm of the church in the city of Clearwater. And it has been nearly 10 years since critical public hearings — which detailed allegations of a slew of Scientology wrongs — captivated city residents for more than a week. The church professes to have ...

Have you ever been stopped on Dizengoff by a friendly, earnest young person inviting you to take a free personality lest? Did he or she mention the possibility of learning more about yourself at a special "college?" If the answer is yes, you may well have been stopped by one of Israel's Scientologists. "Osnat" and "Yaron" (not their real names) are two youngsters who did decide to take the test. Osnat, the daughter of an observant Jewish family, was 17 when ...

By all appearances, Noah Lottick of Kingston, Pa., had been a normal, happy 24-year-old who was looking for his place in the world. On the day last June when his parents drove to New York City to claim his body, they were nearly catatonic with grief. The young Russian-studies scholar had jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine. When the police arrived, his fingers were still clutching $171 in ...

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 ...