Toronto ON — Four Ontario Cabinet ministers and a former minister have been accused in a lawsuit of a conspiracy "to bring about the demise" of the Church of Scientology of Toronto. The controversial cult claims that the ministers and others, including the Ontario Provincial Police and the Metro Toronto police, have violated its constitutional rights to freedom of religion, speech and assembly. Among actions cited as harassment is the provincial inquiry, headed by Daniel Hill, into the practices of cults, ...

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 ...

On Dec. 13, former Scientologist LaVenda Van Schaick filed a $200-million class-action lawsuit against the Church of Scientology in Federal Court in Boston, contending that the church falsely promises to improve the lives of its members. Since then, 10 other ex-Scientologists have filed affidavits in support of the suit, giving a glimpse of life within Scientology. The church has filed a motion to dismiss that case. It also sued Mrs. Van Schaick and others, contending that she is "motivated by malice." ...

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 ...

AFFIDAVIT OF JAMES GERVAIS I, James Gervais, state the following under the pains and penalties of perjury: 1. My introduction to Scientology was in July of 1973, when many representations were made to me concerning the benefits of "auditing" and Scientology. 2. The following representations were made to me relative to benefits allegedly provided by Scientology and "auditing". a) raise my IQ; b) cure diseases and mental illness; c) solve drug problems and other personal problems; d) stabilize and promote familial ...

Once again The Globe and Mail has published a most one-sided series on Scientology (The Scientology Papers - Jan. 22 et seq). I hope you will show your usual journalistic fairness in preparing another series by a different writer which explores such matters as: why Scientology has enjoyed such a phenomenal growth rate; what persons who have received Scientology services say of those services; why the Church of Scientology has apparently resorted to clandestine activities such as infiltration and wiretapping; and ...

New light has been shed on the Canadian operations of the controversial Church of Scientology by files made public by a U.S. District Court in Washington. The evidence refutes denials by Toronto cult leaders of information I reported more than five years ago in a series of articles based on internal cult documents and interviews with defectors. Other accounts since then of clandestine operations by the cult in Canada are also supported by the files, submitted in court after being seized ...

About 100 agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation learned on July 6, 1977, that they would be participating two days later in an operation unprecedented in the United States. The notification, described two years later in a Washington court room, said the agents would be raiding offices of an organization that some governments, in the United States, Canada and elsewhere, officially classified as a religion — the Church of Scientology.

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 ...

WASHlNGTON — Documents revealing a Scientology espionage campaign against government agencies ranging from the IRS to the Clearwater City Commission were declared open to further public inspection Friday afternoon by a federal judge. Scientology attorneys had argued strenuously that the papers should be sealed because they would cause "irreparable injury" to the church. The public availability of the dozen cartons of government-seized documents — the basis of last week‘s conspiracy conviction of nine top church officials — was in doubt until ...

WASHINGTON — A plan by the Church of Scientology to infiltrate federal agencies with "covert agents" and steal thousands of government documents over a period of nearly four years was outlined Thursday in an unusual document filed in federal court by prosecution and the defense. The 284-page "stipulation of evidence" against nine Scientology leaders was filed with U.S. Dist Judge Charles R. Richey, who is expected to render a verdict today. The defendants have said they expect to be found guilty ...

"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 ...

It started a little like Watergate. Late one night two years ago, two men made their way to the third floor of the U.S. courthouse in Washington. With stolen keys, they opened the office of assistant U.S. attorney Nathan Dodell and photocopied sheaves of government documents rifled from his files. They repeated the caper a few nights later, but when they showed up at the building again, a suspicious guard called the FBI. The two men, Gerald Wolfe and Michael Meisner, ...

"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 ...

Eleven high officials and agents of the Church of Scientology, including the wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard, were charged here yesterday in an allegedly widespread conspiracy to plant spies in government agencies, break into government offices, steal official documents and bug government meetings. Much of the evidence outlined against the church's officials in the 28-count criminal indictment appears to be based on the church's own internal memorandums and other documents. The memorandums directed church operatives to "use any method" in ...

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 ...

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 won a major victory Wednesday when a Washington, D.C., federal judge ruled that an FBI raid July 8 on the church's headquarters there was based on an illegally broad search warrant. U.S. Dist. Judge William B. Bryant ordered the FBI to return all those documents seized in the Washington raid, but then stayed his order for 10 days to give the Justice Department an opportunity to appeal his ruling. In previous hearings and again Wednesday, Bryant expressed ...

The Church of Scientology, founded 23 years ago by a science-fiction writer, does not believe in turning the other cheek. In a key church exercise called ''auditing," members are taught, for a handsome fee, to confront long-forgotten traumas—sometimes even from previous incarnations—and then to scourge these so-called "engrams" that have been troubling their subconscious. The church is equally assertive toward outside critics. Scientologists have filed scores of lawsuits against skeptical journalists, dissident former members and Government agencies, which have long suspected ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials say some parts of the government are remarkably easy targets for outside spies such as the Scientologists allegedly planted in government jobs to steal confidential files. "If they're qualified for a job and there's no arrest record, they can sort of swoop right in," said Justice Department personnel officer. Take the case of Gerald Wolfe. According to the FBI, the Church of Scientology planted Wolfe in a clerical job at the Internal Revenue Service so he ...

Church of Scientology offices in Hollywood and Washington, D.C., were raided Friday by scores of FBI agents searching for more than 150 documents stolen from the U.S. Courthouse in Washington in a series of burglaries last year. The dawn raids at three locations in the two cities netted an unknown quantity of the allegedly stolen documents, informed sources said. Using power saws, crowbars and boltcutters to knock down doors and cut open cabinets, FBI agents executed search warrants based primarily on ...

WASHINGTON — An obscure church group which had tax problems with the federal government successfully infiltrated and bugged the Internal Revenue Service, stealing hundreds of confidential documents, the Justice Department admitted yesterday. FBI agents uncovered the documents in simultaneous raids on Church of Scientology offices in Los Angeles and Washington after obtaining a search warrant. The affidavit for the warrant contended that the church, established in the early 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard, launched an "all out attack" on the IRS ...