[...] 1 The Church of Scientology of California (California Church), a California corporation, appeals from a judgment dismissing its action for libel. The suit is against the Pulitzer Publishing Co., publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, and James E. Adams and Elaine Viets, principal authors of the newspaper articles in question.1 The district court dismissed the action against appellees for lack of personal jurisdiction and ruled, alternatively, that the complaint fails to state a claim upon which ...

Like any other religion, Scientology has its trappings. Not crisp, rich-colored vestments. Not silver chalices, nor flasks of holy water. No, there are other things. Like personality tests and E-meters. E-meters? Scientologists rely heavily on counseling methods to cure psychosomatic ills and mental blocks. They believe in the powers of the "reactive mind" — a portion of the mind which records unpleasant experiences which may later be triggered by outside influences. TO CLEAR the mind of "engrams" (the unsavory experiences), Scientologists ...

Forgive the digression, but as a child, I had a fool-proof method for falling asleep. If I were lying wide-awake in bed, I would categorize my thoughts, imagining my mind was a room full of filing cabinets. Into each of these files (not unlike the ones where the Mouseketeers kept their cartoons) went one worry or problem. By the time the data was transferred, I would be asleep. The point being that I viewed my mind as something akin to a ...

The Church of Scientology contends that for more than 20 years it has been the target of a systematic campaign by the United States government, together with "vested-interest pressure groups" such as the medical professions, to "suppress the church's spiritual practice and expansion." The church advances this accusation as the fundamental rationale for its aggressive policies of defense-by-attack against individual critics, private groups and government agencies perceived as "harassing" Scientology. Church spokesmen, moreover, expand upon the allegation of systematic persecution to ...

"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 ...

On May 14, 1951, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard wrote to the U.S. attorney general to plead for help in fending off a Communist conspiracy, dedicated, he averred, to destroying him. "When, when, when," he wrote, "will we have a roundup?" Rambling through seven single-spaced typewritten pages, the letter was, to all appearances, the heartfelt cry of a troubled man. A successful science fiction writer in the 1940s, L. Ron Hubbard, as he signed himself, had gone on to bigger things. ...

Since its founding by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, Scientology has been among the growth stocks on the self-help market: a quasireligious, quasiscientific cult that has attracted three million U.S. followers (some highly touted celebrities among them) and estimated annual revenues in the hundreds of millions, much of it tax-exempt. Until recently Scientology's only certifiable vice was eccentricity, but within a week a federal grand jury in Washington is expected to hand down a bulging sheaf ...

Washington DC — Secret documents from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency were discovered when offices of the Church of Scientology in the United States were raided by federal agents last year, according to reports published here yesterday. The reports said that apparently original Internal Revenue Service documents were found during the raids, as well as confidential letters between members of the U.S. Cabinet. Also, it was discovered the church kept an enemies list, which included files on Senator Edward Kennedy, ...

The Church of Scientology, in its efforts to investigate and attack its "enemies," kept files on five Washington federal judges, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, other congressmen, Jacqueline Onassis, the Better Business Bureau and the American Medical Association, according to Scientology documents in the possession of federal investigators. The Scientologists' files, summarized in a 525-page inventory filed in court by the federal government, were in many cases marked "Eyes Only," "Top Secret," "Enemy Names" and "Battle Plans." Their contents were coded with ...

RON L. Hubbard, the American born founder of the Church of Scientology, who turned Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, into the world headquarters of the movement, was sentenced in his absence to four years in prison and fined 35,000 Francs for fraud by the Paris Criminal Court last week.

One hundred ministers, priests and rabbis in the San Diego area Monday presented a petition to a San Diego newspaper, declaring that "spying or deceitfully obtaining membership in a religious organization is unethical" and violates religious freedom. The petition, launched by the Church of Scientology of San Diego, was prompted by a two-part series on Scientology last month in the San Diego Union by reporter Leigh Fenly. Two Scientologists filed a $10,000 invasion-of-privacy suit in San Diego Superior Court Aug. 9, ...

SAN DIEGO — Two Church of Scientology members Thursday sued the San Diego Union for more than $10,000, alleging two articles that have not yet been published were an invasion of privacy. Union Acting Editor Peter Kaye described the lawsuit as "harassment aimed at preventing the paper from printing the stories." He said church leaders had offered to try to stop the lawsuit if the newspaper would kill the articles. The civil suit was filed in San Diego Superior Court by ...

The overnight sensation of Welcome Back Kotter is determined to be more than just an overnight sensation It happens every few years. The long arm of teen worship reaches out for an unsuspecting, sensual young actor and hurtles him into absolute superstardom. Huge sacks of fan letters pour in daily. Hysterical mob scenes materialize. Record contracts are offered, regardless of any particular ability. And then, as quickly as the fever had hit, the hunger moves on to someone else. Twenty-two-year-old John ...

Police confiscated a cache of weapons in a temporary Church of Scientology headquarters in Dunedin after the Scientologists abandoned the base, the Clearwater Sun has learned. All but four of the weapons, found "about 60 days ago" in the King Arthur Courts condominiums off State Road 580 just west of U.S. 19, are being held by Dunedin police. State and federal authorities are investigating. The one weapon sent elsewhere was a short-barreled Mauser, which was turned over to the U.S. Treasury ...

The sociology of marginal medicine is a neglected field of endeavor. There exist only a mere handful of brief accounts of unorthodox therapeutic practices and their development in Western societies. I shall seek, therefore, to provide a contribution to this scant literature, in the belief that such studies are not only of intrinsic interest but also provide insight into a number of strains and tensions generated by advanced industrial societies and into some of the less orthodox methods of coping with ...

WASHINGTON — (AP) — The Founding Church of Scientology sued the National Security Agency Wednesday, seeking release under the Freedom of Information Act of intelligence files the agency admits it holds on the church group. The security agency first told the church that it could not locate the files, but after the Central Intelligence Agency said it had been provided the files by the National Security Agency, the NSA Wrote to the church and said the files had been located but ...

"What is true for you is what you have observed yourself. And when you lose that you have lost everything. Nothing in Dianetics and Scientology is true for you unless you have observed it and it is true according to your observation. That is all. Our aims are a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights and where Man is free to rise to greater heights." L. Ron Hubbard ...

TAMPA — The Church of Scientology Monday filed a notice in U.S. District Court that it intends to take depositions from several newspaper executives, a reporter and employes of a Pinellas radio station. The depositions are being taken in connection with the church's $1-million libel and slander suit against Clearwater Mayor Gabriel Cazares. Cazares, who had earlier objected to giving his deposition to the church, will give his deposition today at the Pinellas County Courthouse in Clearwater, a spokesman for the ...

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 ...