A man who called a news conference Monday in Los Angeles on the 13th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre told reporters that he had falsely claimed to be a survivor of the Guyana tragedy in order to raise "hundreds of thousands of dollars" for the Cult Awareness Network in Chicago. Gary Scarff said that network personnel encouraged him to tell untrue stories about surviving the blood bath that claimed 914 lives in order to finance their cult deprogramming work. Cynthia Kisser, ...

Scientologists believe they are saving the world from insanity, war and crime. "Saving the world is an understatement," said former member Kenneth Wasserman. "Saving the universe" is more like it, he said. This intense sense of purpose explains why some Scientologists are willing to work 12-hour days for $30 a week. Others pay up to $800 for an hour of counseling, and one couple brought a $35,000 counseling package. Critics say this sense of mission has another consequence: Next to saving ...

Setting: Yaddo-Way-North, an artists and writers colony for the deceased. Folding chairs are arranged in a circle in a church basement. A coffeepot is perking away on a dilapidated metal table in the far corner. Slowly, one by one, the authors enter. They shuffle over to the coffeepot and pour themselves a paper cup of java. Each has a book tucked under his or her free arm. [...] Hemingway: Writers, writers, please, we're gathered here to help each other, to say ...

PAY-TO-PLAY MAY RULE ON THE SUNSET STRIP, BUT WOULD-BE ROCKERS WILL BE glad to hear that there's still one Hollywood hotspot where the gigs are free, easy to book, and where an enthusiastic crowd is guaranteed. Sound like a rock & roll heaven on earth? Actually, it's the Scientology Celebrity Center (5930 Franklin Ave.), where every Sunday night at 7:30 you can find an open-mike talent show that ain't fooling when it boasts "Everybody Is Welcome." Whether you're an Operating Thetan ...

A four-year investigation into the negligent practices of a former Vacaville dentist has left two dentists without their licenses and two more reprimanded by the Board of Dental Examiners. Former dentist Gregory Hughes' license was revoked because of "numerous counts of unprofessional conduct, including gross negligence, incompetence, repeated negligent acts, dishonesty, fraud, deceit and patient adandonment, involving 15 orthodontic patients," according to the board's press release distributed Tuesday. Hughes, who made waves in the local dental community in the mid-1980s with ...

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 ...

ROCKVILLE, Md. — A panel of experts told the Food and Drug Administration on Friday that there is no sound evidence to conclude that Prozac or any other antidepressant causes suicides or other violent behavior. The scientists said they were moved by the many stories they heard earlier in the day about suicides and other violence committed by people taking Prozac, but they voted 6 to 3 to recommend against any label changes for antidepressant drugs. A vote rejecting a link ...

Public relations superstar Frank Mankiewicz is only too happy to rattle off the rather murky international clients that his giant PR firm has received inquiries from—and rejected. "We turned down the government of Libya. We turned down the Contras. We turned down the government of Colombia," said Mankiewicz, now vice president at the Washington office of Hill & Knowlton and one-time architect of Sen. George McGovern's unsuccessful presidential campaign. "With international clients, we always look to see if their interests are ...

Church: The lawsuit accuses them of waging a 33-year campaign against the organization and a large number of its members. It seeks $120 million. The Church of Scientology International filed a $120-million federal lawsuit against 17 Washington- and Los Angeles-based Internal Revenue Service officials Monday, accusing them of waging a 33-year campaign of illegal acts against Scientology and a large number of its members. According to the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, documents obtained under the Freedom ...

The Church of Scientology has a long and undistinguished history of harassing its detractors — but that shouldn't stop the media or anyone else from speaking out against it, cult experts say. The church commonly threatens lawsuits, tries to have detractors arrested, and harasses sources and individual reporters, said Cynthia Kisser of the Cult Awareness Network in Chicago. And recent Sun stories linking the church — alleged by experts to be a dangerous, mind-control cult — to Narconon, a drug rehabilitation ...

INDIANAPOLIS — A cousin to the antidepressant Prozac may receive federal approval before the end of the year for treatment of obesity, representing a new wave of sales growth for this class of drugs. Prozac, now in its fourth year on the market and approaching $1 billion in annual sales worldwide, has been dogged for the past year by claims that it causes violent behavior including suicide. A Harvard researcher's study describing six patients who developed violently suicidal thoughts while treated ...

The Gentle Birth Foundation hopes that by Sunday night it will be able to deliver a lot of money to the Friends of the Gentle Birth Center. The foundation, led by actress Karen Black and Richard C. Wallace, founder of the International Artists' Guild, is sponsoring "Invest in the Best Celebrity Art Auction and Show" to benefit the Glendale birthing center, which has been under investigation by the state medical board since January. Local authorities have charged that non-certified midwives were ...

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 ...

Last June, the Los Angeles Times published a damning series on the Church of Scientology. Scientologists responded by extracting a few good things the writers had to say about their organization and putting those quotes in foot-high letters on billboards all over town. On May 6 of this year, Time magazine published a cover story on Scientology. It had even fewer good things to say, and now the church has responded with an even more aggressive counterattack. Scientology's campaign of daily ...

Petrolia — A few miles outside of this coastal community, a massive 400-foot subterranean vault constructed of steel and concrete lies beneath a peaceful knoll overlooking the Pacific. The breadth and dimension of the vault stagger the imagination: 100 feet longer than a football field and 20 feet in diameter, the two-story sarcophagus is almost complete. It is designed to withstand the ravages of nature as well as man-made destruction. Humboldt County is now home to one of the most impregnable ...

I ARRIVED FOR MY APPOINTMENT AT THE L. RON Hubbard Life Exhibition Hall a few minutes early. Unlike in other commemorative mausoleums, such as the Nixon Library and Birthplace, you're not allowed to walk around the Hubbard by yourself. Instead, you must sign up for an hour-and-a-half guided tour. Possibly they don't trust the unassisted viewer to fully reap the museum's rewards, though it might also be a matter of security. The presence of a young guard dressed in the Church ...

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 ...

On a 3,000-acre ranch in rural Humboldt County, devotees of Church of Scientology-founder L. Ron Hubbard are building a 375-foot-long underground vault. The vault is being built on the Sunset View Ranch in Petrolia, a small town located about 20 miles south of Ferndale, by the Church of Spiritual Technology (COST). COST is linked to the controversial Church of Scientology, whose operations, according to court documents, include a lack of financial records, public policy violations, deceptive practices and the maintenance of ...

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 ...

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 ...

CRESTLINE — When the Church of Spiritual Technology needed a safe place to store its religious documents and materials, staff members looked high and low. The church, which serves as archivist for the documents of the Church of Scientology, founded by the late L. Ron Hubbard, decided to build underground vaults at the 5,200-foot elevation la the San Bernardino Mountains. The organization, which has a staff but do congregation, purchased 33 acres in the Arrowhead Highlands portion of Crestline. The vaults ...

The principal of a Sherman Oaks elementary school has canceled an assembly by an environmental group because of fears that parents would object to the organization's connection with the Church of Scientology. The Sherman Oaks School's 927 students were scheduled to watch skits and hear songs Monday performed by Cry Out, an environmental group affiliated with Scientology. The event, which was to include an appearance by child actor Vonni Ribisi, was to kick off a yearlong study of environmental issues such ...

Investing: The Feshbach brothers of Palo Alto have made a fortune betting that stocks will go down. But some critics question their short-selling methods. PALO ALTO — One quick glance around the Palo Alto offices of Feshbach Bros. suffices to show that this is no typical bullish investment firm. First, there are the bears: stuffed Teddy bears, bronze bears, ceramic bears, crystal bears, paintings of bears. Then there is the bust of the late L. Ron Hubbard, self-styled management guru and ...

PARIS — The president of the French branch of the Church of Scientology and five colleagues have been arrested in a probe of alleged fraud and illegal practice of medicine, court and church officials said Saturday. The president, Daniele Gounord, was arrested Friday in Paris along with the church's treasurer and the head of a church foundation. They were placed under court supervision, but not jailed Three officials of the Scientologists' branch in Lyon were arrested there in the last 10 ...

The Church of Scientology began as a pseudo-scientific healing cult, Dianetics, described by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, in his best-selling book "Dianetics: The Modern science of Mental Health" (1950). At first, Dianetics attracted followers by promising to cure psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders through a procedure called "dianetic auditing," based on pop-psychology, hypnosis, and cybernetics. Hubbard's theory as based on the principle that people can achieve health through abolishing ("clearing") negative influences ("engrams") from their minds by going back ...

The Church of Scientology hates "squirrels." That is the scornful word L. Ron Hubbard used to describe non-church members who offer his teachings, sometimes at cut-rate prices. Most are ex-Scientologists who say they believe in Hubbard's gospel but left the church because its hierarchy was too oppressive. "We call them squirrels," Hubbard once wrote, "because they are so nutty." Hubbard contended that only church members are qualified to administer his self-improvement-type courses. Outsiders, he said, inevitably misapply the teachings, wreaking spiritual ...