Scientologists and their critics are colliding in cyberspace. The critics started the fight, creating an electronic bulletin board dubbed alt.religion.scientology on the Internet, a worldwide web of computer networks with an audience pushing 25-million. Then they downloaded their knowledge and opinions in e-mail messages that just about anyone with a computer, a little money and a modem can view. "As you will see, Scientology is astronomically prohibitive," one anonymous writer said on a.r.s in a message that reprinted the church's price ...

JOHN WOOD wants to tell your children the truth about drugs. He is the UK president of an organisation which claims it has been educating young people about the dangers of addiction for 25 years. It claims that message had been successful, and it claims it can also help those who have already fallen to drugs and drink. In fact, Narconon makes rather a lot of claims, and the group has targeted Sussex with literature and glowing tributes from grateful "clients". ...

IT IS portrayed as a typical private school. But the glossy Greenfields brochure, which boasts of academic success and a happy environment for children, does not tell the whole story. One important word is missing from the booklet - Scientology. It is also missing from: * The handbook issued by the Independent Schools Information Service, which describes Greenfields as inter-denominational. * The Independent Schools Yearbook, which it is listed as non-denominational. * The school's 27-page constitution lodged with the Charity Commission. ...

NARCONON, THE drug rehabilitation group which has close links with the controversial Church of Scientology, allegedly "duped" Tower Hamlets Council into referring an alcoholic to them. Both the Council and the drug agency which placed the addict on Tower Hamlet's behalf said that they would not be referring anyone else to the group. The Church of Scientology has been consistently criticised by cult watchdogs for its recruitment techniques and financial dealings. Narconon's rehabilitation method is based on the teachings of L. ...

A BRISTOL man is suing an organisation which he claims taught him to lie and reject his family, whilst charging him over £7,000 for the pleasure. John Simpson, aged 24, (not his real name) is a former member of the controversial cult of the Church of Scientology or Dianetics, as it is otherwise known. He finally 'escaped' last month after seven months in the group. If you had quizzed him last year about his involvement with Scientology, he would probably have ...

[Picture / Caption: The founder: L Ron Hubbard.] Scientologists have been active in Chichester for at least 10 years and their English base is in East Grinstead. They stepped up their role in the city after their Portsmouth offices closed a few years ago. The cult was founded in 1950 by American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who had been involved in black magic. Its main beliefs is that humans are 'thetans', clusters of spirits who were banished to Earth ...

Louise Samways has spent the past decade investigating the many mind-control techniques of Australia's cults, gurus and personal development courses. She is also familiar with their tactics to keep critics quiet. The brick that slammed through the psychologist's car windscreen recently was a reminder that there are other, older methods of persuasion. She was frightened: "I'd like to hope it was just schoolkids playing stupid games, but when these things come one on top of the other, I don't think I'm ...

In the third part of his special investigation into the Church of Scientology, chief reporter PAUL BRACCHI reveals the true cost of one man's involvement with the cult. [A small picture of Mr. Bracci is shown, as on previous days.] HARD SELL... two words synonymous with door-to-door salesman, second hand car dealers, and estate agents. Two words you would definitely not expect to find in the vocabulary of any religion. But this is not any religion. It is Scientology. Today, we ...

Scientology course 'potentially dangerous,' says Oklahoma report A drug treatment program backed by a controversial church is trying to sell Alberta natives addiction-cure services that medical experts have warned are unsafe and ineffective. As many as 10 Alberta reserves have been approached by Narconon, a U.S.-based program associated with the Church of Scientology. The program — which costs about $18,000 US and prescribes daily saunas and megavitamin doses — has been rejected by a U.S. state board of health because it ...

TREMENTINA — High in the headwaters of the Rio Trementina, a reclusive sect of the Church of Scientology has established what is described as an archive to preserve for a millennium the words of its founder. In January 1984, the California-based Church of Spiritual Technology — one of the parent church's dozens of spinoffs during its 26-year legal battle with the federal government over tax exemptions — began buying the first of a dozen tracts of land some 50 miles east ...

A new six-story training and counseling center is planned for Clearwater. WASHINGTON — Hoping to expand to "every city on earth," the Church of Scientology plans to spend $185-million during the next five years to renovate and acquire properties, plus another $112-million on a campaign to spread its message around the world. The Scientologists' spiritual headquarters in Clearwater would get the biggest chunk of construction money over the next few years, the Church of Scientology said in documents filed with the ...

CLEARWATER — One thing about the Church of Scientology: the folks in charge sure do things the hard way. For 40 years, they feuded off and on with the Internal Revenue Service, which viewed Scientology as a for-profit brain-washing racket instead of just another religion in want of federal tax exemptions. At times, the feuding got awfully ugly, with Scientologists getting sent up the river for burglary and other niceties that church people don't normally commit — well at least those ...

Forget, for a moment, the corporate spying, the illicit attempts to discredit its opponents. Forget the seized Church of Scientology documents that revealed a plan "to fully investigate the Clearwater city and county area so we can distinguish our friends from our enemies and handle as needed." Forget the "church" members who bugged U.S. Internal Revenue Service offices and stole files from government agencies. Consider merely the practical effect of the IRS' decision to grant tax-exempt status to 153 Church of ...

In 1975, the Church of Scientology used a front company to secretly buy the historic Fort Harrison Hotel in downtown Clearwater for $2.3-million. There has been controversy ever since. Shortly after making the hotel its worldwide spiritual headquarters, Scientologists issued an internal directive outlining a plan to "fully investigate the Clearwater city and county area so we can distinguish our friends from our enemies and handle as needed." It called for protecting "ourselves against any potential threat by taking control of ...

Now [Nancy] Cartwright is appearing on television in another role: a 30-minute television program that the Church of Scientology hopes will expose more people to [L. Ron] Hubbard's message and increase the number of people seeking Scientology counseling. Now, next to those telephone-order woks and real-estate courses comes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, the 1950 self-help classic from Hubbard, whose writings and research are the gospel of Scientology. The group has its spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. Scientology is never ...

Church of Scientology officials are retooling designs for their $40-million counseling and training center on the site of the old Gray Moss Inn, across the street from the Fort Harrison Hotel religious retreat. A model of the six-story Technical Delivery Building features a broad domed roof and concentric white concrete circles around one side that recall the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Scientologists expect to break ground on the new building at 215 S Fort Harrison Ave. ...

Jesus is a fantasy Implanted in our minds millions of years ago, according to the Scientology cult. And L Ron Hubbard, who founded Dianetics and Scientology, dabbled in anti-Christian rituals with a disciple of black magician Aleister Crowley. Former Scientologists Jon Atack and Bonnie Woods spoke to a Chichester audience of head teachers and representatives from churches, Scouts, local councils and the police. Mr Atack, who thought the city was the cult's latest target, said Scientology has "200 front groups" including ...

The Church of Scientology is asking its members for $40-million in donations so it can pay for the new building it plans to put up in downtown Clearwater. The church has received at least $7.4-million, including three donations of more than $1-million each, according to a flier mailed recently by the church. But the flier asks members to contribute more, because the building would help expand Scientology worldwide. The Church of Scientology has its international spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. Some denounce ...

The tale of Jon and Stacy Roberts and the Church of Scientology is the story of a typical couple, in many ways, who were looking for answers. When the financial advice they sought turned into spiritual guidance, the couple began to regret the direction their search had taken. In the process, they gave more than $100,000 to the Church of Scientology and an organization connected with it. Now they want to warn others not to do the same. Jon Roberts filed ...

A controversial drug and alcohol abuse center in north-central Oklahoma achieved a big victory Friday in its two-year battle for state approval. Less than a year after calling Narconon Chilocco New Life Center's treatment program unsafe and experimental, the Oklahoma Board of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services voted unanimously Friday to exempt the facility from a state requirement to be certified. The decision came after Narconon showed it had gained approval from a private organization, the Commission for Accreditation of ...

The Church of Scientology uses private detectives and bulldog litigators to pursue its numerous detractors. It also hires low-key establishment lawyers who work quietly within the system. So who is directing the $416 million libel suit against Time? On April 27, 1992, lawyers for the Church of Scientology International filed a $416 million libel action in federal court in New York against Time Warner, Inc., Time Inc. Magazine Company [Time Warner is a partner in American Lawyer Media, L.P.], and writer ...

An Ontario prosecution sparked by police raids in California during the 1970s has led to the conviction of the Church of Scientology of Toronto and three of its members on breach-of-trust charges. A jury that deliberated for two days after a two-month trial also acquitted the Toronto organization of three charges and found two other members not guilty. Despite the verdicts, which will lead to a sentencing hearing Aug. 12 and 13, the legal battle over espionage activities by Scientologists for ...