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 ...

"The DEFENSE of anything is untenable. The only way to defend anything is to ATTACK, and if you ever forget that, then you will lose every battle you are engaged in, whether it is in terms of personal conversations, public debate, or a court of law." — L. Ron Hubbard For more than a decade, the worldwide Church of Scientology, one of the burgeoning new religions of the 1960s and '70s, has conducted sophisticated intelligence and propaganda operations on an international ...

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. ...

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.

The Church of Scientology attempts to reform individuals through its counseling and teaching techniques. It also has a large operation dedicated to reforming society. This comes under the heading of traditional religious activism, Scientologists say, but various government agencies say it goes far beyond. In this, the fourth and final segment of a series on Scientology, the Valley News explores the legal and political entanglements of the church. By BRIAN ALEXANDER The "applied religious philosophy" of Scientology has political as ...

The Church of Scientology offers a free personality evaluation to persons interested in its counseling services. Valley News staff writer Brian Alexander took the test at the Sherman Oaks Scientology center, posing as a college student and using an assumed name. As the second segment of a four-part series on the church, he tells what happened. —– The Church of Scientology's free personality test is like a warm handshake, but the grip is too tight. The counselor who evaluates ...

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 ...

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 ...

The former head of the Church of Scientology in Calgary said Thursday she has been used by the organization to talk Calgarians out of more than $200,000 — perhaps as much as $350,000. Rev. Lorna Levitt, who resigned from the church April 19, said: "I was being used by the organization to exploit people by promising then in tangibles that I had been indoctrinated into believing Scientology could and would deliver for a price." The price currently varies from $50 per ...

AFTER ALMOST 10 years of what only can be called harassment by the Food and Drug Administration the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington, D. C., has emerged from the courts victorious.

In reply to a written question in the of Commons a few days ago, the Secretary of State for Social Services, Sir Keith Joseph, declared that he would be making an announcement about the publication of the Foster Report on Scientology "soon". However soon "soon" may be, he has certainly taken time about it. For the report, which was commissioned by his predecessor, Mr Richard Crossman, in January, 1969, has now been in his hands for the best part of ...

The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that since the Scientology organization had made a case—uncontested by the Government—that it was a religion, a 1963 raid on its headquarters was illegal because it violated its constitutional rights. In a much-publicized raid on Jan. 4, 1963, agents from the Food and Drug Administration seized so-called "E-meters" and stacks of literature from the headquarters of the Founding Church of Scientology here. The FDA charged at the time that the Scientologists made false claims ...

Fed Dist Judge G A Gesell condemns use at 'E-meter' but permits Ch of Scientology to continue using instrument in its religious practices; rules that L R Hubbard's claims for meter are 'quackery' but says that Scientology does meet qualifications of being religion and is entitled to protection under 1st Amendment of Const; orders FDA to return 100 'E-meters' and 2 tons of printed material seized in '63; rules that only Scientology mins will be permitted to use 'E-meters' and that ...

An aggressive modern religion that has taken on the U.S. government and the psychiatric profession has come to the Peninsula. The Church of Scientology, which established a study group here last August, has now opened a counseling center at 604 Lighthouse Ave., Monterey. Still a mission of the San Francisco church, the local congregation is training a minister and conducting lectures and personal counseling sessions. Court Fight The church, founded only 16 years ago, has been engaged in a court fight ...

A young man and a middle-aged woman stared silently at each other across a long, narrow table in a room in a tan brick building in Washington, D.C., one day last week. A guide explained that they were engaged in an exercise known as "training rudiment zero" so as to make them "more able to confront another life source." At the end of the table another young man was busy making little clay models. He, too, was engaged in a spiritual ...

NEW YORK (AP) — An unconventional, modern-made religion, the Church of Scientology, is going strong today, in followers, facilities and systematic financing. But it also is having to fight recurrent government interference for the right to pursue its methods. "The road has been rocky," says the Rev. Kenneth J. Whitman, of the organization's Los Angeles headquarters. "But we keep growing because we're helping people." Incorporated just 16 years ago, under direction of its founder the iconoclastic American scientist-thinker [[../scienos/hubbard1.html L. Ron ...

USE OF DEVICE CHALLENGED: The "E-meter," an electrical instrument similar to the lie detector, used by Scientologists, being demonstrated by group's head, the Rev. Robert H. Thomas. Food and Drug Administration case contends , group made false statements about "E-meter's" use. At right is Rev., Arthur. J. Maren, minister or sect. WASHINGTON, June 7—The eight-year legal battle between the Food and Drug Administration and the Church of Scientology moved into the Federal District Court here today with the Government arguing that ...

The Electrometer is not much bigger than a breadbox but has been the object of an eight-year court battle — to be resumed Monday in U.S. District Court — between the Food and Drug Administration and the Church of Scientology. Eight years ago U.S. marshals raided the headquarters of the scientologists headquarters here, and the FDA charged that the device and it s accompanying literature made false claims of cures for everything from cancer to radiation burns from atomic explosions. ====NO ...

The head of the Baltimore office of the federal Food and Drug Administration has been visited by a group of ministers and parishioners from the Church of Scientology in connection with a U. S. District Court case being pressed by the FDA against the religious body. The eight-year-old case, which is slated to go to court Monday, June 7, in Washington, stems from a raid on a Scientology church In the nation's capital in January, 1963, by a group of FDA-deputized ...

People who feel good work better, play better and enjoy others more. People who feel good also climb out of old ruts to face new challenges easier. Understanding this, the first thing Dr. Harold Thibodeau wants to know is "How are you feeling?" When the answer is negative, the well-known Santa Ana, California Chiropractor and Scientologist: OT VII says with calm assurance, "Let's do something about it." With a thorough examination, including x-rays of the entire spine, Dr. Thiboudeau locates the ...

A TV DOCUMENTARY of John Brodie, the 49er quarterback, was seen on Channel 7 the other night. Brodie came across as a pleasant family man, blessed with deep logic about his trade of professional football, and definitely a person with his feet on the ground. He made his daily golfing trips seem perfectly sound . . . after all, if one earns a substantial sum for subjecting one's blind side to onrushing linemen, it would be well to remain in condition. ...

It was more than eight years ago, here in Washington, on Jan. 4, 1963. that a group of Baltimore longshoremen who had been deputized by officials of the Federal Food and Drug Administration staged one of the most bizarre raids in American history. The contingent, escorted by motorcycle policemen, entered a church on 19th Street NW and the residences of its ministers and began grabbing the church's scriptures, confessional aids and documents, loading them into two waiting vans. Some of the ...