The controversial Church of Scientology has planted an unspecified number of its members within the FBI in an effort to leak information to the church, Justice Department attorneys charged in Los Angeles federal court Thursday. Asst. U.S. Atty. Richard Stilz said the FBI learned of the alleged infiltration by church members while reviewing some of the more than 23,000 documents seized in raids on two church locations in Los Angeles July 8. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that a ...

SAN DIEGO — Two Church of Scientology members Thursday sued the San Diego Union for more than $10,000, alleging two articles that have not yet been published were an invasion of privacy. Union Acting Editor Peter Kaye described the lawsuit as "harassment aimed at preventing the paper from printing the stories." He said church leaders had offered to try to stop the lawsuit if the newspaper would kill the articles. The civil suit was filed in San Diego Superior Court by ...

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 ...

The two-story brick building at N. Ballenger Hwy. and Sloan St. looks as if it should house an insurance agency or doctor's office. It is a well-built, well-kept structure. Inside, quality furniture and a quiet, professional greeting welcome the visitor. But this building houses a center related to a church that is under fire from federal agencies. Early this month, the FBI used crowbars and sledgehammers to enter offices of the Church of Scientology in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. Agents were ...

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 ...

FBI agents raided Church of Scientology headquarters in Hollywood and Washington at dawn yesterday. They seized some of the 150 documents allegedly stolen from the U.S. Courthouse in Washington in a series of burglaries last year. The simultaneous raids were conducted on the basis of information provided to the FBI by a onetime high-level official of the church who has admitted taking part in the burglaries in May and June, 1976. An FBI affidavit accompanying the search warrants states that the ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Meisner, disillusioned and frightened by the religion he once embraced, holds the key to FBI allegations that the Church of Scientology carried out a secret spy plot against the government. Meisner, who remains in protective custody under an assumed name, is being guarded around the clock because he and federal officials fear for his safety. Based largely on Meisner's statements to federal investigators, the FBI obtained a search warrant and raided Scientology church offices in Washington and ...

In the last of a series on the Church of Scientology Bob McKee examines the aims and future [?] of the Church. "Gungho groups are the first Scientology attempts to build a world government. They are a foothold in the community by which to get eventually to govern. What is done in the Gungho Group is going to influence what the community thinks about Scientology." These were the opening remarks made by a former Scientologist called Ron McCann in a talk ...

Thirteen years after the Victorian Government banned Scientology - branding its founder Lafayette Ron Hubbard a "fraud" - the Church of Scientology is planning a special "commemoration." Melbourne has been chosen for the 1978 international conference on Scientology - the first held in Australia. Mr. David Gaiman, world spokesman for the movement, said the choice was "fitting." He said: "There's a certain dramatic licence in holding the conference in Melbourne. It would mark the end of a cycle." Scientologists, whose annual ...

The Church of Scientology has an effective way of dealing with those who "seek to destroy" it. In this, the third of a series Bob McKee examines some of its methods. There have been dissensions in every church that ever existed but few, if any, have resorted to as drastic a method in dealing with its heretics, as has the Church of Scientology. Not since the Inquisition has a church pursued so severe and uncompromising a stand in rooting out all ...

LARGO—An 80-year-old Largo man who did not find the solution to his memory lapses in Scientology courses got his money back Tuesday. Hours after the Clearwater Sun contacted the Church of Scientology of Florida in Miami to ask about Erich Abraham's refund, a Scientologist called the retired machinist from Milwaukee to say his money—$3,691.73 for 60½ hours of training—would be refunded immediately. A Scientologist brought a check to his door Tuesday afternoon, Abraham said. Abraham, a 17-year resident of Largo, had ...

By Herald reporter Geoff Easdown who was tested today by Mrs Elaine Allen, Victoria's first registered minister of the Church of Scientology. Scientology is operating in a bigger way than before it was banned in 1965, its first officially recognised minister in Victoria claimed today. Controversial files are still kept on those who seek counselling from its ministers. The controversial E-meter is again in use. At the Church of Scientology, 724 Inkerman Rd., Caulfield, I was given an E-meter test today ...

Mrs. Elaine Allen, a former Sunday School teacher, has become Victoria's first registered Minister of the Church of Scientology. The State Government has relaxed its stand on the movement, outlawed 12 years ago after an inquiry described it as perverted, debased, ill-founded and harmful. The Chief Secretary, Mr. Dickie, last night confirmed that Mrs. Allen, of Balwyn, had been recognised as a minister of religion. But he said the Psychological Practices Act of 1965, under which the movement was outlawed, still ...

The first libel suit to come to trial over a 1971 book, "The Scandal of Scientology," was interrupted this week in Los Angeles Superior Court while Scientologists discussed the settlement of seven suits filed about the book [...]

Police and private investigators are probing the mysterious death of the Church of Scientology founder's son, found unidentified three weeks ago near McCarran International Airport in a coma, Coroner Dick Mayne said Monday. Cause of death is still unknown for Geoffrey Quentin McCally Hubbard, 22, of Clearwater, Fla. He was a student and counselor in scientology. The homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department Monday combed the scene where Hubbard was found, and discovered identification, license plate, car registration and ...

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 National Security Agency is the kind of operation in which the public affairs office telephone is answered with a four-digit number rather than a name, a practice that even the CIA has abandoned. So perhaps it wasn't surprising when NSA time after time told the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington that it could find no information in its files about the church, nor its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The church had made repeated requests over a number of months, ...