A TOP Scientologist who escaped the cult has given the most explosive insight yet into the shady "celebrity religion". A-list followers including Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley and John Travolta believe their faith is the secret of their success. But for John Duignan it cost him everything and everyone he held dear after he become a leading figure in the church's British branch. John says he was so brainwashed that he would have killed for Scientology. And he claims another member was ...

Rocker Beck is still trying to make sense of the deaths of two acquaintances that have been linked to his Church of Scientology faith. Theresa Duncan died of a drug overdose in July 2007 after telling friends she feared Scientologists were stalking her for trying to help Beck escape from the Church. Her grief-stricken fiance Jeremy Blake committed suicide a week later. Beck maintains he knew Blake socially but only knew Duncan through a film script she handed him, about a ...

CLEARWATER — Shawn Lons­dale, who carried on a one-man crusade against Scientology in 2006, was "sick, depressed, broke and tired of it all" when he took his life in February, according to a suicide note released Friday. Police discovered him on Feb. 16, a garden hose stretching from the exhaust pipe of his car into a window of his home at 510 N Lincoln Ave. Online speculation coursed through anti-Scientology circles that he did not kill himself. On Friday, however, police ...

The daughter of a member of Norway's parliament committed suicide hours after she received what her family claims were "devastating" results from a personality test administered by the Church of Scientology. Police in France, where the young woman was studying, are investigating. Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported Tuesday evening that French police are checking alleged links between the suicide of Kaja Bordevich Ballo, age 20, and the Scientologists. Ballo's father, Olav Gunnar Ballo, is a member of the Norwegian Parliament for the ...

I spent a few days with Prof. Stephen Kent, of the Sociology Department of the University of Alberta, a couple of months ago. He is one of the few really brave academics willing to face up to mind control cults of the Scientology ilk, study, and expose what they really are and the damage they do the people they control. I spent many hours with Steve, describing my 20-year experiences within the cult’s fanatical, militant and secretive inner circle, an organization ...

On a rainy October night in Washington, D.C., the friends and family of Jeremy Blake gathered for a private memorial service at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Blake, an art-world star acclaimed for his lush and moody “moving paintings,” shape-shifting innovations mixing abstract painting and digital film, had ended his life on the night of July 17, walking into the Atlantic Ocean off Rockaway Beach, Queens, never to return. “I am going to join the lovely Theresa,” Blake, 35, had written ...

The homeland of legendary church reformer Martin Luther said over the weekend it will seek to ban the Church of Scientology – an organization considered to be in conflict with Germany’s constitution. High level German officials, including all 16 state interior ministers, agreed to give the nation’s domestic intelligence agency the job of preparing necessary information to ban the organization, which is considered by most Christians a cult, according to The Associated Press. The ministers, including federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, ...

Re: Kyle Brennan Investigation Content of conversations: Victoria Britton and Detective Steve Bohling of the Clearwater Police Department. August 27, 2007 After Kyle passed away, family members were upset and puzzled as to why we had never received a phone call from the Clearwater Police Department. We thought for certain they would have some questions to ask us regarding Kyle. It was also questioned why Kyle’s physician “Dr. Steven McNamara” was not contacted by the Clearwater Police Department or the medical ...

This was a bit like a special interest group coming out in Old Yelleresque, foaming-at-the-mouth opposition to the Bald Eagle, Betty Ford and the Gerber Baby. But there he was, a chap by the name of Ken Kramer, growing more apoplectic than Alec Baldwin getting ready for visitation day at the prospect the Florida Legislature might create something called the Statewide Office for Suicide Prevention, charged with - well, you know, preventing suicide. Kramer attempted to organize a letter-writing campaign, encouraging ...

Great scoop in The New York Post today: Tom Cruise is hosting a Scientology benefit on April 19 in New York for the group’s controversial detox program for 9/11 survivors. But here’s a flash. I wrote this story on December 22, 2006: The New York Fire Department does not support the program, and there is much hostile feeling toward Cruise. The latest public endorsement of Scientology and its programs — decried by experts as pure "hooey" — may be the last ...