Teen-ager David Ray testified Friday he had a spectacular start with the Church of Scientology in California, but quickly became a rebel trapped in The Fort Harrison Hotel, relegated to cleaning rooms and stomping garbage. Casey Kelly, 23, testifying for the second day, said he "wasn't a very good Scientologist," either. "One thing you don't do in Scientology is joke around, so obviously I didn't make out very well," he quipped. Like one other witness called in the third day of ...

CLEARWATER — The Church of Scientology deceives, brainwashes and takes money from its followers, and its founder is a man who beat his wife and is preoccupied with sex, two witnesses told the City Commission Wednesday. The hearings are being held by the city to investigate church practices. One of those witnesses was the 47-year-old son of church founder L Ron Hubbard. Another witness was Ed Walters, a former high-ranking church official, who said followers are encouraged to donate all their ...

The same story makes the headlines again and again. An anguished family is trying to rescue its child, who has, the parents charge, been stolen by a cult, sometimes after only a single weekend of involvement. The parents describe the child as a humorless zombie - where formerly he or she was self-possessed, intelligent and completely normal. And, as family members begin to consult the clergy, lawyers and deprogrammers, they keep expressing confusion about exactly what has happened, and why. A ...

Some of Hollywood's biggest stars have been duped into endorsing a controversial drug rehabilitation program called Narconon, which is actually operated by the bizarre brainwashing cult, the Church of Scientology. More than 170 celebrities' names have been used as "Friends of Narconon." I Although a few are Scientologists — such as Cathy Lee Crosby, Priscilla Presley and Karen Black — others were shocked to learn Narconon was an offshoot of the weird cult. [Picture / Caption: "NARCONON ALL STARS" Gregory Harrison ...

A group of independent psychologists that took a rare inside look at the operations of the Church of Scientology in Toronto is critical of the organization's introductory testing and evaluation methods. The psychologists, hired by Scientology last fall to study its activities, found that the stress is on sales, that staff who interpret personality tests of newcomers aren't experienced, and that staff not only emphasize the negative aspects of the test results but suggest things will get worse without help from ...

On Dec. 13, former Scientologist LaVenda Van Schaick filed a $200-million class-action lawsuit against the Church of Scientology in Federal Court in Boston, contending that the church falsely promises to improve the lives of its members. Since then, 10 other ex-Scientologists have filed affidavits in support of the suit, giving a glimpse of life within Scientology. The church has filed a motion to dismiss that case. It also sued Mrs. Van Schaick and others, contending that she is "motivated by malice." ...

A woman who was a member of the Church of Scientology for seven years and who has now filed a $200 million class action suit against the church, said of her experience that “it was a whole menagerie of lies.” Lavenda Van Schaick, a 29-year-old native of Texas who joined the church in Las Vegas, recited a list of experiences that her attorney, Michael Flynn, said, can only be described as “Orweilian,” referring to George Orwell’s depiction of a future society ...

The Church of Scientology contends that for more than 20 years it has been the target of a systematic campaign by the United States government, together with "vested-interest pressure groups" such as the medical professions, to "suppress the church's spiritual practice and expansion." The church advances this accusation as the fundamental rationale for its aggressive policies of defense-by-attack against individual critics, private groups and government agencies perceived as "harassing" Scientology. Church spokesmen, moreover, expand upon the allegation of systematic persecution to ...

On May 14, 1951, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard wrote to the U.S. attorney general to plead for help in fending off a Communist conspiracy, dedicated, he averred, to destroying him. "When, when, when," he wrote, "will we have a roundup?" Rambling through seven single-spaced typewritten pages, the letter was, to all appearances, the heartfelt cry of a troubled man. A successful science fiction writer in the 1940s, L. Ron Hubbard, as he signed himself, had gone on to bigger things. ...

A group of concerned Calgarians ex-Scientologists and parents of youngsters of the various mind-warping, brainwashing cults such as Hare Krishna and the Unification Church (Moonies), have got together and formed an organization. Its main functions will be to combat such cults, to help parents cope with and understand the situation when their children fall prey to them and, where possible, to rescue the victims and help them get their heads back together. They held their first meeting recently, with 17 people ...

The Church of Scientology is an organization that fervidly shuns investigations. When probed, it attacks the investigators. When criticized, it makes the critics pay. Church attempts to stifle investigations and criticism include lawsuits, harassment, frameups and attempts to have critics jailed, or at least enjoined from talking about Scientology. If there is "a long-term threat" to Scientology, founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote in a confidential memorandum to his staff, "you are to immediately evaluate and originate a black PR campaign to ...

Though religious cults have existed elsewhere for thousands of years, their ranks have only begun to swell in America in the past few decades. They flourished particularly in the sixties, when celebrity involvement — by the Beatles, among others — helped make cult abbreviations like "TM" (for Transcendental Meditation) commonplace. Unofficial estimates place the number of cults in the United States today at 5,000, with an individual total of two million members. But as that number grew, so did the controversy ...

Government intelligence agencies have created and distributed false reports on the Church of Scientology for more than two decades, according to a 20-month study by an investigative panel within the religious group. Citing a documented, 380 page submission to the Church's Board of Directors, the Special Task Force on Religious Defense has charged the government with "malicious interference in the Church's affairs and with violations of its First Amendment rights," according to Kathleen Heard. The materials studied by the task force ...

Salvation calls for a bit of human programming, computer mind-blowing and lots and lots of money. It all started with Ron. Not the L. Ron Hubbard who started Scientology back in 1950 when he wrote Dianetics, but a groovy young cat named Ron who wears those sharp amber glasses and green suede shoes. At least, I think his name is Ron. He's in charge of a mission of the Church of Scientology. That's what they call it, a mission. ...

Scientology begins with Dianetic Release, leads up through Grade O, SOLO and eventually CLEAR. And, if you're among the lucky few, you might even emerge an auditor... one of the most valuable beings on the planet. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND? BY GEORGE MALKO Leonard Cohen's in it, and so is Tennessee Williams, read William Burroughs, and Cass Elliot got her Grades down in St. Thomas, and there's the rumor that's been around for years that Truman or Kennedy or ...