The faithful inner core serve as thieves, decoys and spies. The shocking story behind one of the most dangerous “religious cults” operating today IN THE late 1940s, pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard declared, “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million, the best way would be to start his own religion.” Hubbard did start his own religion, calling it the “Church of Scientology,” and it has grown into an enterprise today grossing ...

AFFIDAVIT OF MARJORIE HANSEN I, Marjorie Hansen of Hanover, Massachusetts depose and state as follows: On or about April 16, 1978, I was walking on Boylston Street in Boston when I was approached by a man named Kevin, who asked me if I would consent to taking a "Personality Survey". Kevin stated that he was working on the survey for some college courses he was taking. He then led me to a building on Beacon Street which I later found out ...

DAVID BERESFORD investigates the activities of Scientology's secret intelligence unit whose director is based in Britain IT WAS a familiar beginning to an American public scandal: soon after 7 pm on the night of June 11, 1976, two burglars were caught in the US Court House in Washington DC. In the Watergate tradition frantic attempts were made to localise responsibility. But the cover-up finally cracked and disclosures followed which were to lead, not to the top of the Republican Party, but ...

Freelance writer Paulette Cooper is a finely honed, long-haired accumulation of nervous energy. She was dressed with a New Yorker flair that seemed out of context in the small windowless room in the grey dignity of the U. S. District Court building in Washington.

Confidential documents from various Ontario Government offices including an attorney-general's communication about police intelligence operations have been found in U.S. Church of Scientology files. The documents were part of the evidence submitted by federal attorneys in the Washington prosecution of U.S. leaders of the cult on charges of conspiring to steal government documents and obstruct justice by cover-ups and by kidnapping an informer. Of 12 indicted, including two in Britain and the informer, nine have been tried, convicted and sentenced by ...

A woman who was a member of the Church of Scientology for seven years and who has now filed a $200 million class action suit against the church, said of her experience that “it was a whole menagerie of lies.” Lavenda Van Schaick, a 29-year-old native of Texas who joined the church in Las Vegas, recited a list of experiences that her attorney, Michael Flynn, said, can only be described as “Orweilian,” referring to George Orwell’s depiction of a future society ...

BOSTON — A 29-year-old former member of the Church of Scientology filed a $200-million lawsuit Thursday against the church, charging that the group has cheated thousands of converts by subjecting them to "mind control." Lavenda Van Schaick of Somerville, Mass. contended in the suit filed in U.S. District Court here that the church misled her into divorcing her husband, paying about $13,000 for Scientologist instruction and working for the church without pay for nine years in Clearwater and Las Vegas, Nev. ...

The Church of Scientology plotted to purchase or otherwise "control" the Clearwater Sun by attempting to cut the paper's advertising revenue, discredit reporters and editors and rally readers against it, according to sect documents released Friday.

WASHINGTON — Top officials of the Church of Scientology considered Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney James T. Russell a major enemy because he pressed for an investigation about a gun found in Dunedin that may have belonged to sect founder L. Ron Hubbard. An April 14, 1977, memo between two sect "guardians," on file in the U.S. Courthouse in Washington, shows that Russell was dubbed a "suppressive person" making him a potential target for Scientology espionage and character assassination aimed at removing him ...

WASHINGTON — Six boxes of documents make it clear: People in Pinellas County — a newspaper editor, a reporter, a mayor, a state attorney — were targets three years ago of the "fair game" policy of members of the Church of Scientology. The documents were among thousands seized by the FBI in 1977 raids on church headquarters in Washington and Los Angeles. They were the basis for indictments against nine church leaders on charges of conspiring to steal government documents and ...

How a Portland jury got a crash course in one of the oddest "religions" ever created and awarded the plaintiff more than $2. million Note: This summer, a jury in Portland spent a month listening to testimony in a $4 million lawsuit over the practices of the Church of Scientology there. The plaintiff: Julie Christofferson, a young Portland woman who was a follower of Scientology in 1975 and 1976. The defendants: three local Scientology organizations and one of their leaders. ''Richard ...

"If anyone is getting industrious trying to enturbulate (sic) or stop Scientology or its activities, I can make Captain Bligh look like a Sunday-school teacher. There is probably no limit on what I would do to safeguard Man's only road to freedom against persons who . . . seek to stop Scientology or hurt Scientologists." — L. Ron Hubbard, Aug. 15, 1967 It was not the first time that private investigator Eual R. Harrow had interviewed jurors following a verdict, but ...

In the fall of 1971, author Paulette Cooper came out with a book called "The Scandal of Scientology" and, then, according to her lawyers, friends, family and lawyers, the following things happened to her: She received repeated telephone calls from anonymous people who threatened to kill her. Letters were posted on her neighbors' doors telling them she had venereal disease and should be evicted from her apartment. Her publisher was sued and harassed to the point that he withdrew the ...

In the last of a series on the Church of Scientology Bob McKee examines the aims and future [?] of the Church. "Gungho groups are the first Scientology attempts to build a world government. They are a foothold in the community by which to get eventually to govern. What is done in the Gungho Group is going to influence what the community thinks about Scientology." These were the opening remarks made by a former Scientologist called Ron McCann in a talk ...

The Church of Scientology has an effective way of dealing with those who "seek to destroy" it. In this, the third of a series Bob McKee examines some of its methods. There have been dissensions in every church that ever existed but few, if any, have resorted to as drastic a method in dealing with its heretics, as has the Church of Scientology. Not since the Inquisition has a church pursued so severe and uncompromising a stand in rooting out all ...

A typewritten letter to certain Pinellas and state Democratic party officials about Clearwater Mayor Gabriel Cazares was turned over to the FBI for investigation Tuesday, Cazares said. An apparently vaguely written letter about alleged activities by Cazares, Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in 6th Congressional District, was received by some state and local party officials last week, and a followup letter apparently was mail to other party members this week. Pinellas Democratic Party Chairman Howard Lawrence called the letter "a ...

The mystery began to unfold last fall in sleepy, sun-drenched Clearwater, Fla. The Southern Land Development and Leasing Corp. decided to buy the 270-room Fort Harrison Hotel, a downtown landmark, and a nearby bank building. Southern Land stated that the hotel would stay open, but another spokesman announced that it would become a center for the United Churches of Florida, a new ecumenical outfit that soon won endorsement from twelve local clergymen. When 200 tight-lipped strangers moved into the hotel, rumors ...