"Secret Lives - L. Ron Hubbard" (hosted at XenuTV)

[Hubbard] probably always knew he was running a con. He must have known that much of the stuff he was talking about was a lot of rubbish. But I think that after a while, when he found there were thousands of people, with the adulation around the planet for this man, I think they started to take him over. I think he began to believe that he was, if not God, then very close to God.

The author's experience of Scientology stretches over a period of 14 years from when it was a little known and interesting form of psychotherapy, to September 1968 when he was declared an S.P. (Suppressive Person). This meant that he was considered 'Fair Game'. As Sir Elwyn Jones Q.C. said in the recent Scientology libel case, S.Ps. 'could be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist. He could be tricked, sued or lied to, or destroyed.' The direct cause of this action was the breakdown of the author's marriage and separation of his children.

Mr. Vosper, who was a senior official at the Scientology H.Q. at Saint Hill, East Grinstead, Sussex, believes that it is time for a close and accurate inspection of Scientology so that people know the full facts before they consider joining it.

This is less a book than a stick of dynamite. Never before has there been an inside report on Scientology. The public have, so far, only vague newspaper reports and rumours to put against the sophisticated propaganda of the Scientologists. [...]

The Church of Scientology of Canada has advised some libraries that they may be cited as party defendants in a libel suit unless they remove certain books from their shelves, Steven Horn, council member of the Canadian Library Association said Wednesday. [...]

Mr. Horn said the church has told members of the association that actions for libel have been begun by the church against the authors, publishers and distributors of three books before the Supreme Court of Ontario.

The libraries were advised that if they did not remove the works from circulation until the courts had settled the actions, they could be cited as party defendants and be liable for damages.

The books are: Scientology: the now religion, by George Malko; Inside Scientology by Robert Kaufman and The Mind Benders by Cyril Vosper. [...]

Mr Cyril Vosper, a former Scientologist-turned-cult "deprogrammer" who had studied in London under the church's late founder, L. Ron Hubbard, is regarded as one of Scientology's greatest enemies.

Mr Vosper, who now lives in Melbourne, said that at various times he has been under long-term surveillance — his movements apparently filmed and photographed — by people making no attempt to hide their interest in him. "They want you to know you are being watched, that itself is intimidating," he said. [...]

Cyril Ronald Vosper (7 June 1935 – 4 May 2004) was a Scientologist and later a critic of Scientology. He wrote The Mind Benders, which was the first book on Scientology to be written by an ex-member and the first critical book on Scientology to be published (narrowly beating Inside Scientology by Robert Kaufman).

Vosper was born in Hounslow, Middlesex and lived his early life in Britain. He joined the Church of Scientology in 1954 and was expelled in September 1968.

After leaving Scientology, he was a deprogrammer in Europe. In November 1987, while a Committee member of the British cult-awareness group, FAIR, he was convicted in Munich of "causing bodily harm" to Barbara Schwarz in the course of one of his many deprogramming attempts against people's wills.^[1][2][3] Later, after moving to Melbourne, Australia, he was an exit counsellor with the Australian anti-cult group CultAware. He also did frequent press, radio and television interviews as an expert on Scientology from the 1980s through to his death, and demonstrated against the Church of Scientology in the late 1990s.

He died in 2004 of a heart attack and advanced cancer. [...]

This case was of great importance in English copyright law. The Church of Scientology tried in 1971 to ban Cyril Vosper's book The Mind Benders on the grounds that it made illegal use of copyrighted material and represented a breach of confidence. However, their case was rejected, not least because the Church was held to be "protecting their secrets by deplorable means"; the public interest of exposing such material outweighed the other considerations. The ruling has since been applied in a number of subsequent cases.

After the dismissal of this case, the Church of Scientology attempted to have Cyril Vosper and his publisher, Neville Spearman, imprisoned for alleged contempt of court, on the grounds that publication of The Mind Benders was deliberately and knowingly calculated to impede the various libel writs which the Church had pending against a number of people. This too was quashed and most of the writs were abandoned shortly afterwards as a "goodwill gesture". [...]

JOSEPH: Cyril Vosper back in the seventies wrote a book about Scientology and just to give a very brief background Cyril used to be in the hierarchy in London as one of the Scientologists and decided to leave and wrote a book and the Church of Scientology took him to court to try to prevent the book being published, and he had all sorts of difficulty. Came out to Australia, lives, and he's on the line now.

JOSEPH: Now you are doing it again. What's the occasion this time? You're a bugger for punishment.

VOSPER: Yes, I agree. The thing is it isn't just me and just Melbourne. These are being held all over the world outside every Scientology organisation and it is to ... In order to try to bring to the attention of the public the fact that Scientology is using pretty sort of nasty methods to silence people, really. And has done this for years and it is about time this were [sic] known widely. [...]