On August 19, 2009, Tommy Davis, the chief spokesperson for the Church of Scientology International, received a letter from the film director and screenwriter Paul Haggis. “For ten months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego,” Haggis wrote. Before the 2008 elections, a staff member at Scientology’s San Diego church had signed its name to an online petition supporting Proposition 8, which asserted that ...

A COUNCILLOR hauled before a disciplinary hearing after calling the Church of Scientology “stupid” has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Cardiff council’s standards and ethics committee decided there was no evidence John Dixon had failed to comply with the its code of conduct. The executive member for health and social services was in London last May buying his wife-to-be a wedding ring, when he posted on website Twitter: “Didn’t know there was a Scientology ‘church’ on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried ...

Last week, the Senate Privileges Committee permitted the Church of Scientology to respond in Hansard to issues raised by Senator Nick Xenophon in November last year. The Scientologists promptly issued a press release declaring they had responded to Xenophon “in Parliament”, as if they had some sort of elected status. In allowing the Scientologist response into Hansard, the Privileges Committee has allowed itself to be made party to an attack on individuals who were brave enough to raise their treatment at ...

I knew Scientology was in trouble when the media moved on from the usual silly gossip about its celebrity members to much darker, disturbing issues at the heart of the movement. After a Paris court last month convicted several Scientologists and two organisations associated with the movement in France of organised fraud, and amid other investigations in France looking at a suicide and an alleged abduction, Oscar-winning film-maker Paul Haggis, a long-time member, quit Scientology. Haggis, who wrote and directed Crash, ...

LISA MCPHERSON TIMELINE: This is part of a St. Petersburg Times special report on Scientology. For the full report, see tampabay.com/scientology. 1994: Lisa McPherson, a longtime Scientologist, moves from Dallas to Clearwater with her employer, AMC Publishing. The company is operated and staffed mostly by Scientologists who want to be close to the church's spiritual headquarters. September 1995: In a ceremony at the Fort Harrison Hotel, Lisa McPherson is publicly declared "clear," a state in which a Scientologist is said ...

The night after Lisa McPherson died, the leader of the Church of Scientology sent word for one of his top lieutenants to wait by a pay phone at the Holiday Inn Surfside on Clearwater Beach. When Marty Rathbun answered the ringing phone in the lobby, David Miscavige let him have it: Why aren’t you all over this mess? The police are poking around. Do something. "Yes sir," Rathbun said. McPherson, a 36-year-old parishioner in apparent good health, had spent 17 days ...

Sunday night, Tom Cruise rewarded high-ranking members of the Church of Scientology with tickets to a private screening of his new movie, "Lions for Lambs." This is the provocative anti-war movie which he executive-produced for United Artists with partner Paula Wagner. I rather doubt that director Robert Redford, who's also a co-star, and Cruise's other co-star, Meryl Streep, had any idea that the screening room at the Museum of Modern Art and the cocktail party following was full of Scientologists, including ...

Critics aside, they say Scientology's detox center cures ills. By Art Carey Inquirer Staff Writer Within days of beginning treatment, Mike Wire noticed changes. His pain eased. His mood brightened. His sense of smell returned, sharper than ever. A retired millwright from Bucks County, Wire, 60, is among thousands of rescue workers, firefighters and police officers who developed an array of serious ailments after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Wire spent 21/2 ...

Attorney General Abbott Charges Foreclosure Rescue Firm With Operating Unlawful Scam Court freezes assets of Foreclosure Assistance Solutions HOUSTON – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott today charged a business with operating an unlawful foreclosure rescue scam that targeted struggling Texas homeowners. As a result, the 408th District Court issued a temporary restraining order and froze assets belonging to three businessmen who organized the scheme. According to court documents, the defendants fraudulently advertised that they could save homeowners from imminent foreclosures. The ...

“I'm not here converting these men and women to Scientology. And I've got to tell you something—I've been a Scientologist 20 years. In Sacramento I, more than any other Scientologist, got new people into Scientology, me personally. I'm very good at converting people, if I want to.” Jim Woodworth is the director of the New York Rescue Workers' Detoxification Project, and he is bristling at the suggestion that his program is an arm of the Church of Scientology. He insists that ...

As early as the third grade, students in S.F. and elsewhere are subtly introduced to church's concepts via anti-drug teachings A popular anti-drug program provided free to schools in San Francisco and elsewhere teaches concepts straight out of the Church of Scientology, including medical theories that some addiction experts described as "irresponsible" and "pseudoscience." As a result, students are being introduced to somebeliefs and methods of Scientology without their knowledge. Anyone listening to a classroom talk by Narconon Drug Prevention & ...

David I. Minkoff loses his license for one year for improperly prescribing drugs for the Scientologist. TALLAHASSEE — Florida's Board of Medicine has sternly sanctioned Clearwater physician David I. Minkoff, finding he improperly prescribed medicine for a patient he had never seen — Scientologist Lisa McPherson. Minkoff, also a Scientologist, prescribed Valium and the muscle relaxant chloral hydrate at the behest of unlicensed Church of Scientology staffers who were trying to nurse McPherson, 36, through a severe mental breakdown. When they ...

A Times Editorial: Despite a reversal in the autopsy report of Lisa McPherson, the state attorney still has an obligation to prosecute those his office believes to be responsible in her death in a Scientology hotel room. The tragedy of Lisa McPherson's death in a Scientology hotel room has turned into a sad, convoluted mess that cries out for justice. An unexplained reversal by Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Joan Wood has prosecutors reviewing their case and raises questions about Wood's competence. Meanwhile, ...

Church of Scientology officials now admit they made a mistake in the case of the Lisa McPherson, who died in the organization's care, but questions remain. hen Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe filed two criminal charges against the Church of Scientology last week over Lisa McPherson's death, the reaction of church officials was unusually benign. "We'd like to see how to move forward and put this unfortunate incident behind us," said Mike Rinder, a top Scientology official known more for his ...

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Late on a November afternoon two years ago, a 36-year-old Scientologist named Lisa McPherson was involved in a minor traffic accident. She was not injured, but she inexplicably stripped off her clothes and began to walk naked down the street. A paramedic rushed her into an ambulance and asked why she had taken off her clothes. Ms. McPherson replied: "I wanted help. I wanted help." She was taken to a nearby hospital for a psychiatric examination, but several ...

The death of 36 year old Lisa McPherson while in the "care" of fellow Scientologists at the Clearwater headquarters has led to an ongoing investigation by Clearwater police and has been the focus of numerous stories in the Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, New York Times, local media, NBC Nightly News, and episodes on Inside Edition. Lisa's tragic story began when she joined Scientology upon high school graduation. But two weeks before Thanksgiving, 1995, Lisa "told friends that she was ready ...

CLEARWATER — Five pathologists say it is clear from key lab results that Lisa McPherson was severely dehydrated when she died after a 17-day stay at a Church of Scientology retreat. The Times interviewed the doctors after the much-publicized disagreement between the church and Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Joan Wood over how McPherson died. None of the doctors were previously familiar with the case. While many of their conclusions echo what Wood has said about McPherson's death, most of the doctors said ...

JOHN WOOD wants to tell your children the truth about drugs. He is the UK president of an organisation which claims it has been educating young people about the dangers of addiction for 25 years. It claims that message had been successful, and it claims it can also help those who have already fallen to drugs and drink. In fact, Narconon makes rather a lot of claims, and the group has targeted Sussex with literature and glowing tributes from grateful "clients". ...

NARCONON, THE drug rehabilitation group which has close links with the controversial Church of Scientology, allegedly "duped" Tower Hamlets Council into referring an alcoholic to them. Both the Council and the drug agency which placed the addict on Tower Hamlet's behalf said that they would not be referring anyone else to the group. The Church of Scientology has been consistently criticised by cult watchdogs for its recruitment techniques and financial dealings. Narconon's rehabilitation method is based on the teachings of L. ...

A GROUP which runs a national drug rehabilitation programme and gives regular lectures to schools is closely linked to the controversial Church of Scientology. Narconon, which bases its methods on the teachings of the Church's founder L Ron Hubbard, currently treats a small number of private-paying addicts each year. But it is has recently launched a major expansion programme, and Narconon claims that Tower Hamlet's social services department has paid the £500 per week fee for the three month treatment of ...

Jesus is a fantasy Implanted in our minds millions of years ago, according to the Scientology cult. And L Ron Hubbard, who founded Dianetics and Scientology, dabbled in anti-Christian rituals with a disciple of black magician Aleister Crowley. Former Scientologists Jon Atack and Bonnie Woods spoke to a Chichester audience of head teachers and representatives from churches, Scouts, local councils and the police. Mr Atack, who thought the city was the cult's latest target, said Scientology has "200 front groups" including ...

DONOVAN BESS Mr. Bess is on the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco This is the year of Apollo 11. It is also the year in which that psychological sophisticate, Richard Alpert, came back from his guru in India to reap a big following of inner-space explorers with his story of spiritual conversion. It is a lime of burgeoning meditation societies on the college campuses, and of passionate rebellion against the amorality of our technology. Thus it ...