PETROLIA, Humboldt County — The people who have been allowed to see the colossal tube that's buried in a velvety green hill just up the road from Petrolia say it's the strangest thing they've ever laid eyes on. And the most mysterious. The huge, pipe-shaped vault is as wide and high as the cabin of a Boeing 747. It is more than 140 feet longer than one of the jumbo jets. Disciples of the late L. Ron Hubbard, founder of what ...

And now, the next Walt Disney Studios— the Church of Scientology! That is, if entrepreneurs connected with the Hollywood based cult can muscle into the film business with their proposal to homogenize films by tailoring them to the tastes of the unwashed masses. It all began last July, when Future Films, a new, eccentric studio, began running ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter touting its revolutionary ideas. No one knew what to make of it all. The grand concept, to ...

Eleven-year-old Laura Hutchinson went to Girl Scout camp scared. Not scared of camp. Camp would be fine. Laura was scared that when she returned, Mom and Dad might be divorced. Tom and Carol Hutchinson, self-employed commercial artists in the Atlanta area, had been having marital problems. When Tom started getting counseling at Atlanta's Dianetics center, affiliated with the Church of Scientology, Carol objected. The parents fought as Laura left. But when Laura came back, her parents were together. By then, both ...

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 ...

L. Ron Hubbard was a writer who conjured up tales of time travel and rocket ships to Mars. But science fiction was not all that sprang from Hubbard's pen. He also wrote the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. In it, Hubbard described a new kind of counseling, which he said could help people increase their IQs, cure themselves of arthritis, allergies, asthma and migraine headaches, and reduce their chances of having a car wreck. The book was published ...

THERE is grave concern in the family of multi-millionaire Adnan Khashoggi. His Italian-born second wife, Lamia, and their 12-year-old son, Ali, have come under the influence of the fraudulent so-called Church of Scientology. Lamia, the former Laura Biancolini, who became a Muslim on her marriage to the Saudi Arabian Mr Fixit, has become a regular visitor to the cult's centres in America. And the Scientologists — described in the High Court in 1984 by Mr Justice Latey as 'obnoxious, corrupt, sinister ...

Top management in a Winnipeg company operating a fund-raising campaign for Narconon — a drug rehabiliation program with ties to the Church of Scientology — have been involved with the church for years, former employees allege. Wellington Food Service partners Brian Knowles and Al Pringle Jr. have been cult members for at least three years, and have tried to convince company employees to join the cult, three men who worked for the company claim. "They were all into it really heavy. ...

Last week cult expert Jon Caven-Atack set up a meeting in Exmouth and persuaded a member of the Church of Scientology to return to her family. The Echo's Peter Hardy now talks to the man who has dedicated his life to exposing cults which he says brainwash their members. FOR NINE years, former rock drummer Jon Caven-Atack was under the spell of a "religious" sect known as the Church of Scientology. Now, outside the cult, Jon has pledged his life and ...

Look, all you have to do is pull out your checkbook and write a check for $200,000. Oh, and make it out to me. No strings attached. That should give you the inner peace you have been searching for. In return for your donation, you'll receive absolutely nothing, and I'll never ask you for a donation again. True, if you do this, I will lose my job. However, if only five of you send the money, I'll be able to retire. ...

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 ...

Have you ever been stopped on Dizengoff by a friendly, earnest young person inviting you to take a free personality lest? Did he or she mention the possibility of learning more about yourself at a special "college?" If the answer is yes, you may well have been stopped by one of Israel's Scientologists. "Osnat" and "Yaron" (not their real names) are two youngsters who did decide to take the test. Osnat, the daughter of an observant Jewish family, was 17 when ...

MEMBERS of the Church of Scientology, described as a thriving cult of greed and power in a recent Time magazine expose have been linked to Cyprus through offshore company Theta Management Limited, which deals in consultancy and investments. In a special report dated May 6, Time reporter Richard Behar said the Church, which claims to have eight million followers, squirreled away an estimated $400 million in bank accounts in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Cyprus. Theta Management Ltd was created on 29.10.1984, on ...

The Church of Scientology said it plans to tear down the Gray Moss Inn and build a six-story, $42-million religious training center in its place. The 170,000-square-foot building would be at 215 S Fort Harrison Ave., across the street from the Fort Harrison Hotel, which Scientologists use as an international retreat. Construction could start in May and last two years. The glass-covered building would feature a covered walkway above Fort Harrison Avenue, and a 65-foot-tall atrium in a lobby. A company ...

Five companies are suing the Church of Scientology for more than $127,000, claiming that the organization has failed to pay its bills for construction work and equipment. Besides those lawsuits, the Scientologists have settled five others within the past two years from companies that claimed they were owed more than $39,000 for items ranging from travel services to construction materials. Scientology was founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the author of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. Scientologists ...

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 ...

Call it one of the most remarkable success stories in modern publishing history. Since late 1985, at least 20 books by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard have become bestsellers. In March of 1988, nearly four decades after its initial publication, Hubbard's "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health" was No. 1 on virtually every best-seller list in the country–including the New York Times. Ten hardcover science fiction novels Hubbard completed before his death four years ago also became bestsellers, four of ...

Emerging from years of internal strife and public scandal, the Scientology movement has embarked on a sweeping and sophisticated campaign to gain new influence in America. The goal is to refurbish the tarnished image of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and elevate him to the ranks of history's great humanitarians and thinkers. By so doing, the church hopes to broaden the acceptability of Hubbard's Scientology teachings and attract millions of new members. The campaign relies on official church programs and a ...

Behind the religious trappings, the Church of Scientology is run like a lean, no-nonsense business in which potential members are called "prospects," "raw meat" and "bodies in the shop." Its governing financial policy, written by the late Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, is simple and direct: "MAKE MONEY, MAKE MORE MONEY, MAKE OTHERS PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MONEY." The organization uses sophisticated sales tactics to sell a seemingly endless progression of expensive courses, each serving as a prerequisite for the ...

What is Scientology? Not even the vast majority of Scientologists can fully answer the question. In the Church of Scientology, there is no one book that comprehensively sets forth the religion's beliefs in the fashion of, say, the Bible or the Koran. Rather, Scientology's theology is scattered among the voluminous writings and tape-recorded discourses of the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the religion in the early 1950s. Piece by piece, his teachings are revealed to church members ...

The Church of Scientology's genesis was the 1950 best seller by L. Ron Hubbard, "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health." Church officials claim there are 7 million Scientologists worldwide, but former members allege there may be fewer than 100,000. The church promotes Scientology as a religion — one not based on the worship of a god but on the belief in "scientific" principles applied to the mind. Hubbard argued in "Dianetics" that inner turmoil springs from subconscious mental images, or ...

The Gray Moss Inn, a turn-of-the century downtown hotel, has been sold to a California lawyer for $1.65-million. The hotel at 215 S Fort Harrison Ave. is across the street from another landmark Clearwater hotel: the Fort Harrison. The Fort Harrison Hotel is owned by the Church of Scientology, which has its worldwide spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. The buyer of the Gray Moss is Los Angeles lawyer Bert B. Babero. The sale was handled by state Rep. Gerald S. "Jerry" Rehm, ...

Six-month project Julie Edgar, 28, has worked for The Daily Tribune since 1987. Edgar, a Farmington native and graduate of the University of Michigan, wrote this report following six months of research and interviews. —– Church of Scientology members hawking free "personality test" used to be a common sight on Main Street in Royal Oak. That was before the church moved from its previous location at the corner of Main and Third streets to a building at Williams and Fourth streets ...

The Church of Scientology is often denounced as a cult profiting from the blind faith of its members. But arguments over its true nature — Scientology a religion or a cult? — seem irrelevant except when referring to its legal status, because the organization has features common to mainstream religions as well as to so-called cults. The Church of Scientology has won the legal right to function as a religious organization, and therefore is entitled to tax-exempt status in most states. ...

TAMPA — You shouldn't be reading this story. The tale of Margery Wakefield vs. the Church of Scientology is supposed to be a secret. Church officials say so. So does a federal judge. In fact, Wakefield could go to jail for talking about the 12 years she spent as a member of the cult, which has its spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. Wakefield, 41, is talking anyway, braving the threats of Scientology lawyers and testing the patience of a U.S. district judge. ...

[This is a reprint of an article published on December 23, 1988 in the St. Petersburg Times.]

ST. PETERBURG, FLA, - It was like something out of a science fiction script - but L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, claimed it was fact. "Xenu," he called the central character. Xenu ruled the 90-planet Galactic Confederation 75-million years ago, when overpopulation was a problem. So Xenu solved the problem: He trapped selected beings and flew them to volcanoes on Earth, then called Teegeeach. He then dropped powerful H-bombs on the volcanoes. The beings were destroyed in a wall ...