Not many modern religions can claim the distinction of being denounced by a major European government as "socially harmful . . . a potential menace to the personality" and "a serious danger to health." Yet those were the words chosen by Britain's Health Minister Kenneth Robinson when he took the floor of the Commons last month to censure the little-known and less understood Church of Scientology. Dreamed up by L. Ron Hubbard, a onetime science-fiction writer, Scientology originally surfaced as "Dianetics," ...

A DEVASTATINGLY critical account of Scientology appears today in the New York publication Women's Wear Daily, which is devoted essentially to fashions, but often explores matters far afield from them. "A new and quite apparently phoney 'religion' called Scientology is beginning to emerge from the lower depths," it says. "In the United States it is still basically unknown except to cultists and a few curiosity seekers. But in recent days, Subway posters have appeared in New York urging everyone: "Step ...

THE Church of Scientology of California was told by Mr. Justice Fisher in the High Court yesterday that it cannot continue libel actions against three newspapers unless it pays their costs incurred in preliminary proceedings which it has now abandoned. Costs are estimated at more than £500. Mr. Justice Fisher had earlier been told by Mr. Leon Brittan, counsel for the church, that it was no longer seeking injunctions sought at a previous hearing, restraining further publication of the alleged libels ...

The Church of Scientology of California was ordered in the High Court yesterday to pay the costs of the publishers of three national newspapers whom they had brought to court to face injunction proceedings. Mr. Justice Fisher also ordered that the church could not proceed with libel actions against the News of the World Ltd., Beaverbrook Newspapers Ltd., and Daily Mirror Newspapers Ltd. until the costs are paid. At the start of yesterday's hearing, Mr. Leon Brittan, counsel for the church, ...

The Church of Scientology of California was ordered in the High Court yesterday to pay the costs of the publishers of three national newspapers whom they had brought to court to face injunction proceedings. Mr Justice Fisher also ordered that the Church would not proceed with libel actions against the News of the World, Ltd., Beaverbrook Newspapers, Ltd., and Daily Mirror Newspapers, Ltd., until the costs are paid. At the start of yesterday's hearing, counsel for the Church, Mr Leon Britton, ...

The Church of Scientology of California were ordered in the High Court in London yesterday to pay the costs of the publishers of three national newspapers they had brought to court to face injunction proceedings. Mr Justice Fisher also ordered that the Church could not proceed with libel actions against the News of the World, Ltd., Beaverbrook Newspapers, Ltd., and Daily Mirror Newspapers, Ltd., until the costs are paid. At the start of the hearing, counsel for the Church, Mr Leon ...

THE Church of Scientology of California yesterday abandoned its applications for interim libel injunctions against the Daily Express, News of the World and Sunday Mirror. Mr. Justice Fisher, in the Vacation Court, ordered the church — a foreign corporation registered in London under the Companies Act — to pay the newspapers' costs forthwith. He stayed further proceedings in the three libel actions until the costs have been paid. The writs were issued last Wednesday. In a judgment delivered for publication yesterday ...

NEW YORK — A new, and quite apparently phony "religion" called Scientology is beginning to emerge from the lower depths. For many weeks it has been a frontpage story in Great Britain where the government has been moved to act against the new cult. In the United States, it is still basically unknown except to cultists and a few curiosity seekers. But in recent days, subway posters have appeared in New York urging everyone: "Step into the world of the totally ...

ANOTHER Scientology jet charter flight to Scotland next month has been cancelled because of the Government's ban on the entry to Britain of followers of the cult. Caledonian Airways had planned to operate the charter. It was to have carried 186 members of the Hubbard Advanced College of Personal Independence from New York to Prestwick at the end of September. Two days ago, 186 scientology students should have arrived at Prestwick aboard a Caledonian jet charter but the flight was cancelled ...

The main Edinburgh practitioner, it seems, is a Mr Ernest Saren, and at the appointments he produces a personality "graph" showing the questionnaire results on ten "personality dimensions" such as happy-depressed and capable-inhibited. The final column on the capacity analysis chart gives an I.Q. figure. Saren's qualifications for discussing people's problems on the basis of this questionnaire, according to a H.A.P.I. spokesman, are scientology qualifications only. One of those tested in the H.A.P.I. building this week, a 19-year-old apprentice who had ...

["Here's an amazing clip from the late 1960's addressing the growing concern around scientology."]

The only time Hubbard allowed an outside crew to interview him.

Scientology - or ratbagology as it has often been dubbed - made a bid to get started in Sydney this week, at a public meeting. The Hubbard Scientology Organisation is the mob of hustlers run out of Victoria last year and described in the British House of Commons two weeks ago as a group "extracting money from the weak and mentally ill." Boss of the show is L. Ron Hubbard - referred to as "L Ron, Mr Hubbard, Our Ron, Old ...

Saint Hill Manor is a traditional old English mansion that stands behind a high gateway on a quiet Sussex road some 30 miles south of London. Its size and age—it was built in 1728—give it an impressive but faintly brooding air. Before 1959 it was owned by the Maharaja of Jaipur, and before that by Mrs. Anthony Drexel Biddle. But it is a safe bet that in all its 236 years Saint Hill Manor has never seen anybody quite like its ...

"This is the greatest 'con' game since the pea went under the walnut," Leonard Conry, district attorney, said yesterday as he filed charges against Frank Clendon Metcalf, already in trouble with the City of Eureka for practicing and instructing courses in Scientology. The city has brought charges against Metcalf for practicing without a business license. The District Attorney's office yesterday filed another action under violation of the state revenue and taxation code. Conry contends that Scientology is a business and not ...

Is scientology another of those weird new mental cults that pop up from time to time, or does it have real value? Staff Writer Don Branning visited the local Scientology headquarters to find out. Read his account of the visit and draw your own conclusions. Some Miamians who are seeking something — but aren't quite sure what — think they may have found it in scientology. Scientology is an offshoot of dianetics. And dianetics is a mixture of psychoanalysis and mail-order ...

A practitioner of the Church of Scientology was jailed here yesterday on a charge of practicing medicine without a license. Edd Clark, 56, of 1811 N. First Ave., was named in a five-count complaint filed before Justice of the Peace Stanley Kimball. Clark was released after making $1,000 bond. County Attorney William P. Mahoney Jr. said Clark's arrest culminated a six-month investigation made by his office, city police, and sheriff's deputies. Clark, who claims to be nearly blind, readily admitted having ...

Dianetics is the title of a book (and a "science") which, for many months, held its place as a best seller in the non-fiction field. According to its originator and to thousands of dianetics adherents, it is "the new Modern Science of Mental Health." Dianetic research institutes have been founded in many cities, with the dual purpose of studying mental and psychosomatic ills in the light of dianetic theories, and of training potential practitioners or "auditors" to treat sick people by ...

THERE'S BEEN NOTHING like it since Canasta, Aimee McPherson, and the Pyramid Clubs. It's the new "science"—some call it cult—of dianetics, called by its founder and major prophet, L. (for Lafayette) Ron Hubbard, 39, "the most clearly presented method of psychotherapy and self-improvement ever invented." Not one to court undue modesty, Hubbard flatly compares the creation of dianetics to the discovery of fire and the wheel. Hubbard's crusade started last May with the publication of a 452-page book (now known to ...

LOS ANGELES.—The latest craze in Hollywood—and therefore in a substantial part of America—is known as dianetics. It is described as "the new science of the mind," and the poor man's psycho-analysis"; and it has caused more of a commotion in the film city than anything since kidney-shaped swimming pools. DIANETICS is claimed to be a cure for alcoholism, colds, ulcers, and bad films; and a means of reducing Hollywood divorce and suicide rates. It preaches the belief that a patient can ...

State Senator Tom Smith spent time recently in a Mexican prison. And loved it. Now, Smith (who was just visiting the jail, not locked up in it) and some of his colleagues are clamoring for Arizona to be the first state to use an experimental drug treatment program for prisoners. Inmates would swallow massive amounts of vitamins, sweat in a sauna for up to five hours a day and massage each other. At Smith's urging, officials at the state departments of ...