Critic: Are you guys a cult? Mike Ferris, Public Relations Spokesperson, Church of Scientology of NZ: Depends on what you mean by a cult. Every religion in its forming stage was considered to be a cult, pretty much. Critic: You guys aren't in your forming stages though, you've been around for fifty years. You claim to be the only major religion that's emerged out of the twentieth century. So, are you a cult? Ferris: Not in the derogatory sense, no, we ...

The apparent campaign by the Church of Scientology to stamp out criticism on the Internet resulted in the ISP that hosts a Web site targeted by the Church for its critical standpoint having its upstream connection cut off. Netherlands-based ISP Xtended Internet said its connection to the Internet was terminated by its provider after threats of legal action from the Church. Paul Wouters, managing director of Xtended Internet, said he believed this was the first time an ISP had suffered such ...

Google was accused on Wednesday of effectively removing a Web site that is critical of the Scientology cult from the Web, after it told the site that it was deleting links from its search engine. Andreas Heldal-Lund, Webmaster of the Xenu.net Web site, said in a Usenet posting that Google was removing links to the site, which bills itself as Operation Clambake: The fight against the Church of Scientology on the Net. The term Operation Clambake comes in part, according to ...

Quaint Clarkson, tucked away on the westernmost edge of Mississauga, seems as unlikely a place as any to find L. Ron Hubbard, sci-fi-writer-turned-icon and founder of the much-vilified Church of Scientology. But here, just past the picket fences and over the train tracks where the old post office used to be, the portrait that graces Hubbard's opus Dianetics: The Modern Science Of Mental Health – sailor cap, face turned upward, blue sky in the background – hangs in the foyer of ...

WASHINGTON – After years of holding the U.S. government in contempt, the Church of Scientology is enlisting members of Congress, the U.S. State Department and even President Clinton to advance its agenda in foreign lands. Prodded by the Scientologists' paid lobbyists and its cadre of sympathetic entertainers, several lawmakers and the Clinton administration have criticized the German government for allegedly discriminating against Scientology practitioners. They even got their argument against Germany to the floor of the House of Representatives last November. ...

Scientologists emerge as creators of mystery-shrouded movie firm Is it just a movie company, this one owned and run by members of a controversial church? Or is it a front? Future Films, the mysterious movie company that arrived in Burbank and in Garland, Texas, last month with ambitious goals and a huge marketing splash, is financed and managed by a small group of high-level members of the Church of Scientology. Critics of the church, who label the religion a cult and ...

A 17-year veteran of the Church of Scientology told Clearwater city commissioners Thursday she lived through "horror" while staying at the former Fort Harrison Hotel three years ago. Lori Taverna, who said she broke with the sect two months ago, was asked by Mayor Charles LeCher to describe a "normal day" while she worked as a Scientology trainer. "Most of it was horror, so I don't know," said Mrs. Taverna, 39. But in about three hours of testimony during the second ...

Eighteen months ago, the U.S.-based Church of Scientology launched a global—and unsuccessful—campaign to prevent publication of a Reader's Digest report called "Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult." The church engaged a detective agency to investigate the author, Digest Senior Editor Eugene H. Methvin. Digest offices in a half-dozen nations were picketed or bombarded with nuisance phone calls. In Denmark, South Africa and Australia, the church sued unsuccessfully to prevent publication. In the months since the article appeared, in May 1980, a ...