The ABC News Closeup "New Religions: Holiness or Heresy?" which will air at 10 tonight on Channel 7 (KGO) represents a frightening erosion of journalistic standards and values. The title of the program promises a look on a spiritual level at the ideas, such as they may be, underlying some of America's new religious-philosophical wrinkles. Instead, the program labors for an hour in very secular ways to prove what a thinking person might agree to before an argument — that deeply ...

The controversial Church of Scientology's failure to gain tax-exempt status for $3-million worth of Pinellas County properties is only the latest chapter in a stormy history of legal battles over taxes. And the latest battle, which opened in the county courthouse last week, appears far from over. Scientology spokesmen vow to take their Pinellas tax case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. Pinellas officials, for their part, are just as determined to defend their denial of tax-exempt status for the ...

Attorneys representing Mayor Gabriel Cazares in his $8-million libel suit against the Church of Scientology have served the other side with a series of questions that, if answered, would resolve many of the doubts still lingering about the group. Perhaps the most bizarre question sent to the Scientologists' counselor, Sarasota attorney Clyde H. Wilson, involves Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Clearwater attorney Patrick D. Doherty has asked that representatives from the organization that owns the former Fort Harrison hotel and the ...

The Church of Scientology has announced it is selling its 3,287-ton yacht Apollo, the sometime home of founder L. Ron Hubbard and the mobile site of the worldwide sect's highlevel leadership training. [...]

[...] 16. RECOMMENDATIONS AND/OR CONDITIONS FOR CONTINUED STATE FUNDING a. Detoxification procedures should be stopped on the premises since their procedures are without proper medical supervision and may be dangerous. b. Three evaluation team members recommend cessations of State funding. c. One evaluation team member recommends continued funding if the following conditions are met: 1) Program must operate a facility that specifically and exclusively deals with the rehabilitation of narcotic addicted persons as required by their contract. Such condition should be ...

A Superior Court jury Friday awarded $300,000 to L. Gene Allard, 33, a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., artist, who claimed the Church of Scientology made him a victim of its "fair game" policy. Allard, the church's former bookkeeper in Los Angeles, sued for malicious prosecution after the Scientologists had him arrested in 1969 for allegedly stealing $27,713.90 in Swiss franc notes and its records. The criminal charges against Allard were dismissed Dec. 29, 1969, for lack of evidence. He denied ever ...

The John Brodie career is winding down. It has been a big one — long, distinguished, historic. No other, football player ever spent 17 consecutive seasons with the team that drafted him. And in another month it will all be over. Brodie has announced his retirement as of the end of this season. At 38, he is about to move from the pocket to the pulpit. The veteran San Francisco quarterback has determined to spend next year in graduate' work in ...

Robinson v Church of Scientology of California and Others Before Mr Justice Ackner Mr Kenneth Robinson, former Minister of Health, is to receive a substantial sum from the Church of Scientology of California as damages for libel in respect of statements published in various of its broadsheets. He sued the church; Mr Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, its founder; and Mr Peter Ginever, editor of the broadsheets. Mr F. P. Neill, QC. and Mr Michael Curwen for Mr Robinson; Mr James ...

Despite a 10-year running battle with the Food and Drug Administration and the American Medical Assn., Scientology appears to have finally arrived on the West Side. Aided by a 1971 federal district court decision, the Church of Scientology is not only a recognized religious science but the largest and fastest-growing pandenominational church in this area. And the greatest concentration of its members may well be here. There are 75,000 Scientologists in Los Angeles, according to the Rev. Glenn A. Malkin, executive ...

SCIENTOLOGY was banned in Victoria after an exhaustive 160-day inquiry in 1963-64, which yielded four million words of evidence. It was later banned in South Australia and Western Australia, and appeared on the decline. But South Australia has now decided to repeal its ban, and the Federal Opposition leader in the Senate, Senator Lionel Murphy, QC, says a Federal Labor Government would recognise the Scientology Church of the New Faith. Members of the Church of the New Faith intend to fight ...

Church of Scientology of California, the largest inter-denominational church in the United States with a membership estimated in excess of 3½ million, has announced the establishing of its newly formed Committee on Public Health and Safety. Function at the committee will be to work towards increasing the quality of health care and safeguards for the consumer. Spokesman for the committee, the Rev. Glenn A. Malkin, stated, "The committee will serve as a consumer information center and will provide the public with ...

Churches have been generally reluctant to engage in the expense and acrimony of lawsuits ever since St. Paul counseled the Corinthian church to avoid property litigation between members before pagan magistrates. (1 Cor. 6: 1-9) But an organization called "the church of Scientology" appears to have taken just the opposite course, in what seems to be a means of acquiring extensive publicity and at the same time frightening anyone inclined to expose their operations. Scientology, which focuses upon intimate interviews using ...

Representatives of the Miami Scientology Church, aderents of a controversial but growing religion, are to meet with state drug abuse officials soon. They want to put a Scientology rehabilitation program into the state's prisons. The subject of much criticism since its founding in the 1950s, the church has recently gained official status as a religion from the courts, and along with it permission to use a crude lie-detector device in its psychiatric counseling. Counseling is at the heart of Scientology. Scientologists ...

A TV DOCUMENTARY of John Brodie, the 49er quarterback, was seen on Channel 7 the other night. Brodie came across as a pleasant family man, blessed with deep logic about his trade of professional football, and definitely a person with his feet on the ground. He made his daily golfing trips seem perfectly sound . . . after all, if one earns a substantial sum for subjecting one's blind side to onrushing linemen, it would be well to remain in condition. ...

The true measures of the false prophet are an unrelenting certainty and a staggering income. The immediate impression of L. Ron Hubbard, the prophet of Scientology, which emerges from George Malko's "Scientology: The Now Religion," is of a windbag hustler. There is not a single question Hubbard cannot answer easily and definitively. This and the fact that Hubbard personally has been making something around $140,000 a week from Scientology (that is, as Malko tells is, week in and week out) I ...

A Perth Petty Sessions magistrate said today that he considered the Church of the New Faith "a religion." Mr C. Zempilas SM made the decision when he granted exemption from National Service to Jonathon Prismall Gellie (24) of Newnham-st., Leederville. Gellie claimed he was a minister of the Church of the New Faith, and as such was entitled to exemption from service under a section of the National Service Act which gave exemption to ministers of religion. Said the SM: "In ...