THE church of Scientology defines deprogramming as "forcibly deconverting a person from their chosen faith". Scientology's Melbourne spokesman, Mr Chris Campbell, said the practice involved forcibly making a person change their beliefs. "It resembles a psychiatric depersonalisation mind-control kind of mechanism, similar to what you would have seen used by the Koreans and Vietcong on American soldiers to deconvert them from their beliefs," he said. "It's a similar type of practice where you continually batter a person on a mental level ...

The Church of Scientology promised a Michigan man he would achieve "spiritual immortality" - but first, according to a new lawsuit, he had to pay thousands. Clearwater is considered the spiritual headquarters for Scientology, which members say is a religion, but which critics say is a money-making outfit or a cult. It was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer and author of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. When he came to Clearwater, the lawsuit said, he ...

Pomona police said Friday they are investigating whether beliefs espoused by the Church of Scientology led a family to confine a mentally disabled woman in a cell-like bedroom at a Phillips Ranch house. While stressing that neither the church nor its beliefs are under investigation, police said they want to know if Scientology practices could explain why the woman was kept in confinement. Police and Los Angeles County mental health workers discovered Marianne Coenan, 31, locked in a sparsely furnished room ...

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A former member of the Church of Scientology is defying church lawyers and a federal judge by publicly alleging that the church held her captive and committed fraud by promising to cure her mental illness. Margery Wakefield, 41, is prohibited under a 1986 federal court settlement from speaking out against the cult, which has its spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. But she says she is ignoring the gag order so she can expose church practices and warn potential ...

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. ...

Margery Wakefield got $200,000 for settling a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology in 1986. In return, Scientology thought it had bought Ms. Wakefield's perpetual silence. She wasn't supposed to disclose the $200,000 figure. She wasn't supposed to talk about Scientology's lop-secret training techniques. And she wasn't supposed to make claims about alleged hypnosis and Satanism in the church. But Ms. Wakefield's been talking, going on Tampa Bay radio twice recently to discuss just these things. In so doing, she's testing ...

[...] Wakefield now repudiates the agreement, claiming she was pressured into signing it, and aggressively seeks forums — in the press, on radio shows, in churches — to denounce Scientology. "I don't care what the legal repercussions are at this point," she told the Tribune recently. "I want people in this area to know what Scientology is about. I want them to know it's a satanic cult." The church has been the center of controversy since it was founded by science ...

The Minutemen at the Ready [A 'suppressive person' is] Fair Game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by a Scientologist without discipline of the Scientologist [sic]. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed. —L. Ron Hubbard [Picture / Caption: "Minutemen" line courthouse halls.] On February 15, six police officers stood near the door of Leo Baeck Temple, awaiting the confrontation. They had been called by leaders of Freedom for All in Religion (FAIR), a group ...

CLEARWATER—Possibly the highest-ranking, most influential Scientologist to defect from the Clearwater-based, international sect has sued Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for more than $225 million. Citing physical abuse, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and the violation of his civil rights, Howard D. "Homer" Schomer, the 49-year-old former treasury secretary of the sect's Author Services Inc. branch, is demanding a jury trial and damages of $226,528,200. Schomer's claims, if proved true, offer a dark view of the ...

"Corrupt, sinister and dangerous" were the words used to describe the Church of Scientology in a judgment given by Mr Justice Latey this summer. He also referred to it as "immoral and socially obnoxious". But who controls the Church now? A major Sunday Times Magazine investigation into the activities of the cult in America and Britain has uncovered a disturbing and extraordinary story — the takeover of the organisation by a small band of youthful fanatics following the disappearance of the ...

The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office has dropped a charge of false imprisonment pressed in August against a security guard for the Church of Scientology, officials said. Roy Rodriguez was arrested Aug. 23 after he and two other sect guards chased 21-year-old John Williams of Clearwater on foot through downtown Clearwater, police said. The guard accused the man of throwing a rock through the window of the sect communications office at 500 Cleveland St., police said. Four sect guards were in the ...

The young man — by all appearances a teen-ager — crouched on the dark, narrow stairway as he scrubbed the sixth-floor landing in the former Fort Harrison Hotel, the "Flag Land Base" headquarters of the Church of Scientology. "Are you in RPF?" queried a reporter. "Sir?" he asked quietly, peering up from his work. "Are you in RPF?" "Yes sir, I am." RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which, depending on who is speaking, is either a businessman's approach to ...

It's ironic that Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth has accused Clearwater Sun Staff Writer George-Wayne Shelor of "bizarre behavior." Haworth has announced he will no longer respond to questions from the reporter. He accused Shelor of a long list of offenses, including an attempt to break into the sect's headquarters on S. Fort Harrison Avenue. And, Haworth added, Shelor was abetted in the attempted break-in by Clearwater Sun Managing Editor Sam Fenton. Flabbergasted by the charge, Fenton said he and Shelor were ...

A Church of Scientology security guard, charged with false imprisonment late Thursday after police said he tackled and handcuffed a 21-year-old Clearwater man, was released on $5,000 bond Friday. Roy Rosa Rodriguez, 30, who listed his address as the sect's headquarters at 210 S. Fort Harrison Ave., was arrested after he tried unsuccessfully to spray a suspected vandal with "Paralyzer" mace and subsequently tackled him and handcuffed the man's hands behind his back, police said. A Church of Scientology official refused ...

A man who told police he was detained at the Church of Scientology headquarters in Clearwater and later recanted that account will not be charged with filing a false police report. The Pinellas-Pasco state attorney's office declined to charge Daniel Cotrino, 30, of Brooklyn, N.Y., after reviewing a taped statement Cotrino made to police. Clearwater police had taken Cotrino to police headquarters for questioning March 5 after a police sergeant reported that he saw him being held by two Scientologists outside ...

The Church of Scientology faces mounting legal pressure in courts worldwide to explain its actions, policies, beliefs and inner workings. In the United States, Canada and Europe, Scientology is under ever-increasing scrutiny by law enforcement agencies, courts and even governments. And a ruling handed down last week by it Los Angeles Superior Court judge may complicate the legal proceedings involving the Clearwater-based sect. Judge Paul G. Breckenridge stated in an intended ruling Thursday that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is the ...

A former Church of Scientology archivist described for a Los Angeles judge on Friday his "paranoid" leave-taking from the organization after his realization that church founder L. Ron Hubbard was not the heroic scientist he claimed to be. The church is suing to recover thousands of pages of Hubbard's personal papers that it claims Gerald Armstrong took illegally to use in lawsuits against the group. Armstrong testified for the second day in his own defense in the non-jury trial before Superior ...

On Wednesday, Clearwater police released the transcript of a tape-recorded statement made on March 5 by a Scientologist, Daniel Cotrino, who claimed he was being held against his will by fellow members of the sect. The transcript reveals that on March 5 Cotrino was angry and scared. He told police that he had paid $7,000 for certain Scientology courses, which upon his arrival in Clearwater the sect refused to give him. What's more, according to Cotrino's taped words, the Scientologists poured ...

Clearwater police Monday released a transcript of a tape-recorded statement made last month by Daniel Cotrino, a New York Scientologist who be had been held against his will at the sect's 210 S. Fort Harrison Ave. headquarters. The transcript indicates the 30-year-old Cotrino, a Scientologist for 11 years, was frightened and angry at the time he made the statement. It is also clear that Cotrino did make the statements he later accused police of fabricating. The transcript of the tape was ...