They run summer camps for children and teach them all about love, modesty, and safe sex. They even hand out awards. Yet, it turns out that behind the volunteers of the Association for Prosperity and Security in the Middle East stands the disputed Scientology sect. Association members insist they are not missionaries. 'Our aim is to teach values,' they say. The surprised parents are not convinced. 'How come they run such activities without even asking us?' "Don’t be promiscuous. Sex is ...

The blog Boy Culture ran into (an all too common these days) "Travolting display" in the subway system over the weekend. Scientologists! The religion cult "legendarily opportunistic Church Of Scientology" is back underground giving out free stress tests. Though police kicked them out in 2005 for violating New York City Transit rules about vending in the subways, it seems they've still had a presence down there and, from this photo (taken in late 2006), they're still selling Dianetics (translated in 50 ...

They're ubiquitous at almost every disaster zone, assisting the wounded and consoling grieving families, from Ground Zero to Indonesia to New Orleans and now Minneapolis. The Church of Scientology and its globetrotting team of volunteer ministers have been active over the last several years, arousing the ire of critics who read unholy motives into the group's charitable works. Soon after Wednesday's bridge collapse, at least 20 Scientology volunteers in Minneapolis and surrounding areas headed to the disaster zone, according to a ...

VICTORIA'S Scientology population has almost doubled in a decade, figures reveal. There are 629 Scientologists in Victoria, compared with 324 in 1996. Census data prepared for the Herald Sun shows that Melbourne's Yarra Ranges and Whitehorse areas are the state's Scientology capitals. Australia-wide, there were 2507 Scientologists in 2006, up from 1489 a decade ago. Experts say the religion's popularity is in line with the growth of other alternative religions and has been boosted significantly by Scientology's celebrity links. High-profile Scientologists ...

A former employee of a Southland telecommunications company claims the company's required training included courses "designed to indoctrinate employees" in Scientology, and when she objected to the religious aspects of the training she was fired. Margaret Warfield, of Montgomery, filed her religious discrimination lawsuit in federal court Monday against BTI Communications Group. According to the company's Web site, BTI Communications Group is a business telephone and communications technology company headquartered in Lemont, with branch offices in Santa Fe Springs and Sacramento, ...

For the past week, they set up big yellow tents with three snow-cone points and little flags on top on the Common right behind City Hall. From a distance you'd have thought that the circus had come to town. It didn't. It was the Church of Scientology's International Volunteer Minister Pioneer Cavalcade, a kind of roving revival tent show to spread the word of church founder L. Ron Hubbard. Emblazed across the front of the tents were the words: "Do Something ...

The controversial Church of Scientology is planning to target students at Scottish universities and colleges in a new recruitment drive. Leaders of the church, which is largely regarded as a cult and believes humans descended from aliens, have revealed they intend to send workers into campuses to seek out impressionable youngsters. Ironically, they believe recent bad publicity after the movement featured on the BBC's Panorama programme has helped attract new converts. Following the programme screening two weeks ago, which featured presenter ...

The Church of Scientology has been accused of using British artists as a front for recruiting members. The Stuckist movement, which rails against conceptual art, is in turmoil over claims that sales of its artists' paintings are effectively funding Scientology, a religious sect accused of brainwashing its followers. The row has led to disquiet among artists as far afield as Germany. Charles Thomson, who founded the Stuckist movement in Britain, admitted to the Evening Standard he was wrong to give the ...

Scientologists address man as a spiritual being and say they help people to improve their lives. BLACKSBURG – Brian Grogan, 26, was chomping on a hot dog before heading to work Wednesday when he noticed people in canary yellow T-shirts handing out religious pamphlets. A moment later, he realized they were Scientologists. "They're leeches," Grogan said. "They show up wherever something bad happens and use that to spread their propaganda." Scientologists say they're no different from the Southern Baptists, Catholics or ...

The criminal cult literally has VT in their crosshairs. As quoted in today's Daily News Rush & Molloy column, Scientology's anti-psychiatry front group spokeswoman says, "We prohibit our people from proselytizing." Hollywood, Interrupted calls BULLSHIT, and can now release an internal Scientology memo proving that proselytizing at the shooting tragedy site is exactly what they are doing. As first posted on the excellent anti-Scientology clearing house site Xenu.net, here is an excerpt from the cult's current recruitment and publicity ...

A Springfield woman has alleged in a federal lawsuit that she was fired in 2004 from a Branson West company for refusing to convert to Scientology, the chosen religion of her boss and several co-workers. Brianne Shahan filed the suit against Richmond Monroe Group Inc. in U.S. District Court last month. Shahan claims her former employer violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by allegedly pressuring her to divorce her husband and become a Scientologist. According to its ...

CINCINNATI — It is a church that critics believe is dangerous, but members say it's completely misunderstood. You may not realize it, but during this holiday season, a visit to the mall may come with an invitation to a religion that sparks passion and controversy. Sylvia Stanard/Scientology Spokeswoman: "It's really the religion of religions." To those who believe, it's both a church and a lifestyle. Worker #1: "I know that this works." To critics, it's a money machine and mind-controlling cult. ...

Reporter Elodie Harper goes undercover to reveal the tactics used by Scientology followers in the immediate aftermath of traumatic events.

EDMONTON - A drug and alcohol treatment program backed by the controversial Church of Scientology is promising addicted Albertans an extraordinary 70-per-cent success rate. The Narconon program is marketed as "100-per-cent natural," and prescribes intensive saunas, exercise and high doses of vitamins to cleanse the body of "radiation, drugs and toxins." Advertisements for the Narconon program have appeared in recent months on Edmonton's CKUA radio and in weekly newspapers throughout the province. Addiction experts and academics in Canada, the United States ...

Jackson Wyan, a young Tom Cruise look-alike with short black hair and a black button-down shirt, greets people with laser-focused eye contact, a fixed smile and solid handshake at the Founding Church of Scientology of D.C. in Dupont Circle. His mission not-so-impossible: Recruit more members. Would-be Scientologists approach the landmark red building, also known as Fraser Mansion, at 20th and R streets NW, with regularity. Wyan, who's been with the D.C. church six years, gives tours that include a sweep through ...

If a high-ranking LAPD official can be believed, perhaps the Scientology-affiliated The Way To Happiness should take a page from its own teachings. Two of the Glendale-based nonprofit organization’s 21 guides to achieving happiness are “Be Worthy of Trust” and “Seek to Live the Truth,” neither of which were followed apparently in the group’s dealings with the LAPD and a city in Texas. Officials with the group, which over the past two decades has distributed booklets of the same name to ...

The sign advertising "Free Stress Test" beckoned Marian Prescott as she crossed Farragut Square, and she found herself settling into a chair beneath a yellow tent and taking hold of two metal poles hooked up to a device that the tester said could detect psychic strain. "What did you think of?" asked Kelly Turrisi, the tester, as the needle on the electrometer jumped to the right. Prescott tilted back her head and laughed. Work. Her husband. What else? Turrisi, 19, leaned ...

Colombo, 10 June, (Asiantribune.com): Sri Lankans did not invite Scientologist to come to Sri Lanka and or sought their support and assistance. They came and saw the situation after tsunami favorable to them and in the pretext of helping the affected people; they started exploiting the human misery and began to proselytize Sri Lankans. Shame on them - said Venerable Medagama Dhammanda of the Asgiriya Chapter, Kandy. The Venerable Medagama Dhammanda of, has challenged Scientologists to refute allegations made against them ...

[Picture / Caption: Richard Perry/The New York Times Subway riders have become used to Scientologists' offer to gauge their stress level. But the city has ejected the group for selling books.] A corridor of the Times Square subway station may not seem to be the ideal spot to conduct a carefully controlled psychological experiment. For one thing, the soundproofing is entirely inadequate. The confluence of a dozen subway lines creates constantly shifting sonic interference, ranging from mild to deafening, that an ...

Months after the poster incident, the NY Times heads to the bowels of the Times Square subway station where the Scientologists are trying to de-stress New Yorkers. Whatever you may think of the Scientologists (Tom Cruise! Aliens! John Travolta! More aliens!), Gothamist has to give it up to them for picking one of the more insane subway stations to prey upon traumatized commuters and naive tourists who think "Wow, the secrets to a stress-free life are in that folding chair with ...

Recruitment time in Aceh Not all who have responded to the pleas from the Acehnese of Indonesia for aid in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami have put their self-interest aside, reported Vaudine England in the Hong Kong Weekly Standard (January 22/23). "Some groups are widely seen as cults, pushing a quasi-religious doctrine of healing and feeling. Other groups, particularly American evangelicals ... focus on a personal and direct relationship with a defined God through literal adherence to ancient texts. ...

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — In a tent near the center of town, under a banner that reads ''trauma center," volunteer ministers from the Church of Scientology administer their brand of grief counseling to tsunami victims, which includes massages. In another tent, at a mosque several miles down a main road, members of a militant Islamic group known for attacking bars and nightclubs during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, prepare to give thousands of homeless people a heavy dose of religious counseling. ...

A church group is recruiting members in a downtown park, but some are concerned about the religious tent being set up on city property. The Church of Scientology has placed a large, yellow tent at Beaver Hills Park, blocking most of the Jasper Street entrance. There are no signs alerting people to what the tent is for until they get inside. "Everybody has their own opinon about religion. I won't push mine in your face, you don't push yours in mind," ...

TAMPA — How many roving Scientologists are too many? The church, which has been criticized for aggressive canvassing in Ybor City, met with its neighbors this week and discussed that very question. After the meeting, Ybor civic leader Vince Pardo was pleased. The Scientologists, he said, had agreed to dispatch no more than two people at a time to recruit new members from the streets of Ybor. But church spokeswoman Ana Tirabassi didn't remember it that way. She said the church ...

Narconon, a drug treatment program with Scientology backing, now wants taxpayer assistance. CLEARWATER – At Tampa Bay's newest alternative to mainstream drug treatment, the license issued by the state hangs next to commendations from the Church of Scientology. Narconon, a controversial drug treatment program based on techniques developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, has opened its first Florida facility in Clearwater in a commercial park off U.S. 19. Past the meticulously clean lobby are classrooms where recovering addicts take a ...

LOS ANGELES — Its detractors have compared the Church of Scientology to a cult, but the controversy that often surrounds it did not deter Horizon Media from taking on the business. "It's freedom of speech," said Zach Rosenberg, evp and general manager for Horizon in Los Angeles. "Everyone has a right to market a belief, and we want to help them." The independent agency won media responsibilities for the church's account following a review that included incumbent URI, Beverly Hills, Calif.; ...