CLEARWATER — Complaints about the Church at Scientology unexpectedly surfaced again before the City Commission on Thursday, and some commissioners think they've heard enough. The commissioners two weeks ago presided over a stormy session in which a group of people spoke against the Scientologists, claiming the organisation is a cult. Scientologists denied those claims, and said they were offended by what they called attacks on their religion. On Thursday, commissioners heard a dialogue that was shorter, but similar. A Tampa couple, ...

The president of the Church of Scientology and 10 other members arrested in an investigation of alleged fraud and tax evasion have been released on more than $1 million bail, their lawyer said Sunday. A judge's order releasing church President Heber Jentzsch, an American, and the others came Saturday after facts were presented that "corrected" some allegations against the group, said the lawyer, Jose Luis Chamorro. Jentzsch, 53, a native of Salt Lake City, lives in Los Angeles. Judge Jose Maria ...

THE CHURCH of Scientology has mounted a campaign of intimidation and harassment against the author and publisher of a new book on the founder of the religious cult to be serialised shortly by The Sunday Times. Scientologists and private detectives have been used to put pressure on people in Britain and the United States involved in the forthcoming publication of Bare Faced Messiah: the True Story of L Ron Hubbard. Russell Miller, the author, who spent more than two years researching ...

THE CHURCH of Scientology cult has threatened worldwide legal action against The Sunday Times in an attempt to prevent the newspaper today publishing extracts of a new book on its founder. Lawyers representing the church last week said they would sue The Sunday Times and its distributors in more than 50 countries if extracts of a book by Russell Miller, published into today's Sunday Times, breach the copyright of the estate of the late L. Ron Hubbard, scientology's founder. The threats ...

THE author of a book that allegedly blows the whistle on the bizarre founder of the Church of Scientology says he has been terrorized by cult fanatics seeking to suppress the shocking exposé. "They've sent out thugs to intimidate me, threatened my family, tried to bribe us and even tried to jail the publisher," says Bent Corydon, author of L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah Or Madman? (Lyle Stuart). Corydon, a loyal disciple of Hubbard and his cult for nearly 22 years, now ...

L. Ron Hubbard wrote the 1950 bestseller Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health. It inspired a layman-oriented mental health movement which developed into Scientology, the most profitable of the money-making new religions. Hubbard was a bigamist who masterminded Watergate-style break-ins. He surrounded himself with adoring teenyboppers, uniformed in mini-skirts, bikini tops and high-heeled boots. He smoked opium and regarded himself as the successor to Aleister Crowley, self-proclaimed "Beast 666." These are but some of the facts about the man uncovered ...

Panorama's investigation into the Scientologists revealed an organisation which uses its founder's 'mixture of half-practical, half-gobbledegook psychological techniques' to draw large sums of money from its adherents, with threatening consequences if they opt out. Religious cults are a problem. They enslave the minds and empty the pockets of gullible young people, causing heartfelt grief to their families. The Moonies, the Children of God and the other cults have a poor public image, but they almost always operate within the law. The ...

Description of video is in italics. VO=VOICEOVER shot of Church of Scientology, Los Angeles; apparently group of ex-members VOICEOVER: The Church of Scientology, one of the largest and richest new religious movements, is being sued for a billion dollars by former members for fraud and breach of trust. They regard Scientology as a dangerous cult. group of Scientologists VO: Yet the church goes on expanding, making converts and claiming it is "The Road to Total Freedom". ''"Panorama" opening credits; while music ...

Scientologists and opponents of cults waged a war of leaflets last night as more than 100 angry parents confronted two representatives of a Park Ridge Montessori school that fired five teachers in a furor over teaching materials. Claiming their children had been traumatized by the abrupt firings, some parents threatened a breach-of-contract lawsuit. Parents said two-thirds of the more than 200 students at the school were withdrawn because the teachers were fired when they refused to use books designed by the ...

The Minutemen at the Ready [A 'suppressive person' is] Fair Game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by a Scientologist without discipline of the Scientologist [sic]. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed. —L. Ron Hubbard [Picture / Caption: "Minutemen" line courthouse halls.] On February 15, six police officers stood near the door of Leo Baeck Temple, awaiting the confrontation. They had been called by leaders of Freedom for All in Religion (FAIR), a group ...

The Church of Scientology's lofty claim to be the last outpost between the fragile frontier of religious freedom and the barren wasteland of religious oppression has significantly failed to rally other allegedly threatened religions to defend the embattled stockade. To the claim by Ken Hoden, president of the Church of Scientology of Los Angeles, that "If we, one minority, one religion, are attacked, then all religions are attacked," Rodney Page, who represents 13 Christian denominations as executive director of Ecumenical Ministries ...

The Church of Scientology in Portland waged an expensive, large-scale advertising campaign throughout the fraud trial that led to a $39 million verdict against the church and its founder, but jurors said they paid no attention to it. Printed advertisements appeared frequently in daily and weekly newspapers in the Portland area throughout the 10-week trial, and radio and television commercials were played on several local stations. Two jurors who were interviewed Monday said the jury's decision was based on long discussions ...

Local religious spokesmen Saturday disputed statements by Scientologists that a $39 million court judgment against the Church of Scientology represented a threat to freedom of religion. "This is not a freedom of religion issue at all," the Rev. Rodney I. Page, executive director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, said Saturday of the punitive damages awarded Julie Christofferson Titchbourne, who sued the Church of Scientology and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, for fraud. "This was a case in which someone's civil rights ...

CLEARWATER—Possibly the highest-ranking, most influential Scientologist to defect from the Clearwater-based, international sect has sued Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for more than $225 million. Citing physical abuse, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and the violation of his civil rights, Howard D. "Homer" Schomer, the 49-year-old former treasury secretary of the sect's Author Services Inc. branch, is demanding a jury trial and damages of $226,528,200. Schomer's claims, if proved true, offer a dark view of the ...

LOS ANGELES — Michael J. Flynn, a Boston lawyer, was piloting a light aircraft toward South Bend, Ind., in October 1979 when its engine quit mysteriously at 8,500 feet. After making an emergency landing, he said he found several quarts of water in the fuel tank. Since then, Mr. Flynn, who has led a legal battle against the Church of Scientology, a group that has long been the subject of Government investigations, says he has been followed by as many as ...

A HIGH Court judge yesterday delivered a damning indictment of the Church of Scientology. Mr Justice Latey described the Californian-based sect as 'corrupt, immoral, sinister and dangerous'. And of its methods, he declared: 'For those of us old enough to remember, it is grimly reminiscent of the ranting and bullying of Hitler and his henchmen.' He was giving judgment in the High Court Family Division at the end of a six-month 'tug of love' battle over two children whose father is ...

WHAT THE JUDGE SAID * THE CHURCH USED SEX TO SEDUCE PEOPLE HIGH IN GOVERNMENT * RAN A CAMPAIGN OF LIES AND PERSECUTION AGAINST OPPONENTS * AND USED SINISTER TRAINING METHODS AND IRON DISCIPLINE —– THE "sinister" Church of Scientology was dammed by its own undisputed evidence in yesterday's High Court case. Evidence from memos, letters, directives and bulletins presented to the court by a young mother desperate to win her children back from its clutches. The church, according to Mr ...

Certainly, L. Ron Hubbard exists, says Janet Kenyon, public affairs director for the B.C. Church of Scientology. He has an office in downton Vancouver. "Come on in," says Kenyon, unfastening the purple velvet cable that is hooked across the entrance to L. Ron Hubbard's office at 401 West Hastings. His name is on the open door in gold-colored letters. A gleaming gold, or brass, letter opener lies on his desk. There are pictures of his kids. There is an unopened package ...

[Picture / Caption: Scientology's headquarters in L.A. was formerly the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. The church purchased It for $5 million In 1977.] Last October in San Francisco, some 70 local leaders of the Church of Scientology gathered to hear nine church executives harangue them about their shortcomings. Styling themselves with titles that ranged from the quasi-military ("Commander," "Warrant Officer") to the quasi-lunatic ("International Finance Dictator"), the men announced that they represented the new hierarchy of the organization, and that they ...

The oldest son of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology, believes his father is either dead or mentally incompetent, according to a petition filed In Riverside Superior Court. The son, Ronald E. DeWolf, also claims in the court papers filed Wednesday that officials in the church have stolen millions of dollars, gems and securities either from his 71-year-old father or from Hubbard's estate in the last 12 months. DeWolf, 48, of Carson City. Nev., is asking the ...

In a story of international intrigue, a former senior executive of the Church of Scientology testified Saturday about a worldwide sect network involving infiltrations, conspiracies and smuggling. Scott Mayer, 38, told Clearwater city commissioners "I have personal experiences of all of these," in the forth day of the city's Scientology hearings, where legal consultant Michael Flynn paraded seven of his most damaging witnesses. Commissioners heard also from a former Guardian Office worker who said she used the sect's "confessional files" during ...

CLEARWATER. Fla. (UPI) — The father of a young girl who was killed in 1971 aboard a ship owned by the Church of Scientology in Morocco said Friday he doesn't believe the church officials who told him his daughter committed suicide. George Meister, testifying before the City Council, said he flew to Morocco and was shown a photograph of his bloodied daughter Susan and was told by church officials she had been found shot to death with a long-barreled .22-caliber pistol, ...