Because the number of idealistic, self-sacrificing college students is particularly high, U.S. college campuses are the prime recruiting grounds for potentially dangerous cults, according to the director of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. Louis Joylan West, who is also psychiatrist-in-chief at the UCLA Medical Center, talked about "totalist" cults and their methods of coercive persuasion last week as part of the Learn-at-Lunch series. "Totalist" cults are those that use deceptive and harmful coercive techniques to draw in new members. Approximately 25,000 cults ...

Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard told his followers early on that they should use civil litigation to harass, silence or even to destroy opponents. From the defamation suits filed four years ago by Scientology's Calgary, Edmonton and Old Strathcona Missions, however, seven weary but very determined Albertans last week emerged unsilenced and undestroyed. The $100,000 lawsuits against them (the figure, incidentally, specifically recommended by scientologist Hubbard) were thrown out of court without coming to trial. Even so, lawyers say, ...