TOM CRUISE's leap of faith into Scientology is a visible example of the religion's hold on its followers — but the Church of Scientology already has a multimillion-dollar grip on Manhattan. The controversial group, now blitzing the media after Cruise became its most outspoken advocate, has a massive city empire used by tens of thousands of devotees. And New York's church president the Rev. John Carmichael said, "Interest is increasing markedly." Its huge seven-story city headquarters was opened last year at ...

Tom Cruise has become a top proselytizer for Scientology. Is it because of a new private conviction, or a new public role for the church itself? In the course of just a few months, Tom Cruise has made an astounding public leap: He has transformed himself from one of the world's biggest movie stars into one of the oddest. It's not just his sudden romance with and engagement to actress Katie Holmes, which has not yet managed to shake the air ...

For a second or so the needle proceeds smoothly along the dial. I watch its progress while clutching two can-shaped metal devices, wired to the small machine housing the dial. Suddenly, the needle jerks violently. 'What was that?' asks Janet Laveau, head of the UK Office of Special Affairs, the Church of Scientology's PR machine. I'm disturbed and temporarily impressed - the needle jumped just as I was thinking of a friend who is seriously depressed. How could the machine 'know' ...

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 ...

We don't have to tell YOU about L.Ron Hubbard, his book Dianetics, and the religion it spawned—Scientology. In fact, until just recently, most media outlets WOULDN'T tell you about it given Scientology's well-deserved reputation for litigation. Instead, let us tell you about Tory Bezazian. In 1969 Tory hitchhiked from Chicago to L.A. to become a disciple of Dianetics. She invested untold tens of thousands of hours and dollars in it (the annual price tag for a membership in the International Association ...

Tory Bezazian was a veteran Scientologist who loved going after church critics. Until she met the darkest detractor of all. Last year, Church of Scientology operatives received an alarming tip: During the upcoming 2000 MTV Movie Awards scheduled for June 8, a short South Park film parodying Battlefield Earth would feature the character Cartman wiping his ass with a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's sacred text, Dianetics. The tip was erroneous. Cartman would actually be wiping his ass with a Scientology ...

The CCHR is widely regarded by anti-cult activists as a front group for the Church of Scientology, a religion established by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Hospitals are not usually the targets of demonstrations. Health care is a controversial subject, but community anger is usually centred on funding issues. So the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights' (CCHR) hundred-strong march on the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Saturday 31 July was already unusual. They were protesting the establishment of a ...

THE MOST MAIL Daily Variety has received this year about a single article has come in response to a story that the newspaper will never run. The subject was Scientology and its influence on Hollywood. The story was in the process of being researched by our film editor, Dan Cox, who recently left the paper to accept a job as a literary agent without finishing the article. In approaching his story, Cox was impressed by the fact that the Scientologists, who've ...

From: jesse_prince@minton.org (Jesse Prince) Subject: What—–Who? Date: 1998/08/04 Message-ID: <35c67b4b.1795322@news.tiac.net> X-Deja-AN: 377691976 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: ARSCC Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: bob@minton.org Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology If you had the unfortunate experience of having had the "privilege" of paying tens of thousands of dollars for Scientology auditing, then you'll have an idea of what I'm about to say here. If not, I'll make it simple for you. When a Scientology victim progresses up to OT3, what do you find out? L. Ron ...

VOICES: "We were saving the world, we were convinced that Hubbard was the returned saviour and that his techniques and his knowledge and his majesty would eventually bring all mankind to an enlightened state and that was what we were doing..." "There were some things about him that I do feel were rather dangerous. I felt so much under his spell that I told my room-mate that if ever I told her that I was going to marry this man, she ...

PARIS: The Church of Scientology is battling charges in a Lyon courtroom that it is a manipulative and fraudulent cult that practices false medicine and hounded one of its followers to his death. The case could derail the sect's campaign to be accepted as a mainstream faith in several European countries. Last week, it began beaming satellite television advertisements to Britain, its biggest recruiting ground in Europe, despite not being recognized there as a bona fide religion. The advertisements stress a ...

To Scientologists, Steven Fishman is an apostate who's spread vicious lies about the church to which he used to belong. To church critics, he's a hero who's exposed the truth about Scientology. Evaluating Fishman's credibility is difficult, to say the least. He's an ex-convict who served a prison term for financial crimes that he claims he was ordered to commit. Church officials deny there was any such order, and they deny just about everything else Fishman has said about his old ...

It was last August 12, a Saturday morning, and Earle Cooley did not seem happy. Cooley was among several lawyers for the Church of Scientology who, accompanied by federal agents, had just raided the Arlington, Virginia, home of Arnaldo Lerma, a former church member who'd become a harsh critic. The lawyers took quite a haul: Lerma's computer, disks, a scanner, and other materials they thought he may have used to post secret, copyrighted Scientology documents on the Internet. The success of ...

[A classic: Heber Jentzsch going nuts to prevent Dennis Erlich from disclosing information about Scientology's secret levels]

It was 9:30 and Arnie Lerma was lounging in his living room in Arlington, drinking his Saturday morning coffee, hanging. Suddenly, a knock at the door — who could it be at this hour? — and boom, before he could force anything out of his mouth, they were pouring into his house: federal marshals, lawyers, computer technicians, cameramen. They stayed for three hours last Saturday. They inventoried and confiscated everything Lerma cherished: his computer, every disk in the place, his client ...

WHY DID LISA Marie Presley and Michael Jackson get married? Love, if you believe her press release, the one pledging to "dedicate my life to being his wife." Or, according to speculation from Hollywood, Jackson is rehabbing his image and simultaneously consummating the ultimate entertainment empire merger. But another possibility is circulating among the conspiracy-minded former members of the Church of Scientology. It's an astounding theory — that the church itself helped arrange the Presley-Jackson union. But these defectors say that ...

Special investigation by chief reporter PAUL BRACCHI [A very small picture of Mr. Bracchi is shown.] [A picture of a man in a long military coat with brass buttons is shown. Below the picture is this title: "A Scientologist out on liberty time in a miliary-style greatcoat."] THEY dress like naval officers. But the uniforms, complete with epaulettes and brass buttons, are not what they seem. These men and women do not belong to the armed services...they are Scientologists. Most of ...

Last week cult expert Jon Caven-Atack set up a meeting in Exmouth and persuaded a member of the Church of Scientology to return to her family. The Echo's Peter Hardy now talks to the man who has dedicated his life to exposing cults which he says brainwash their members. FOR NINE years, former rock drummer Jon Caven-Atack was under the spell of a "religious" sect known as the Church of Scientology. Now, outside the cult, Jon has pledged his life and ...