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 mystery began to unfold last fall in sleepy, sun-drenched Clearwater, Fla. The Southern Land Development and Leasing Corp. decided to buy the 270-room Fort Harrison Hotel, a downtown landmark, and a nearby bank building. Southern Land stated that the hotel would stay open, but another spokesman announced that it would become a center for the United Churches of Florida, a new ecumenical outfit that soon won endorsement from twelve local clergymen. When 200 tight-lipped strangers moved into the hotel, rumors ...

Robinson v Church of Scientology of California and Others Before Mr Justice Ackner Mr Kenneth Robinson, former Minister of Health, is to receive a substantial sum from the Church of Scientology of California as damages for libel in respect of statements published in various of its broadsheets. He sued the church; Mr Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, its founder; and Mr Peter Ginever, editor of the broadsheets. Mr F. P. Neill, QC. and Mr Michael Curwen for Mr Robinson; Mr James ...

Offices of the American Psychiatric Association are located in the seventeen hundred block of Eighteenth Street Northwest, Washington, D.C. The Founding Church of Scientology is at 1812 Nineteenth Street, one block farther out. Figuratively speaking, the world's largest mental-health organization is considerably farther out than that.Even its members will concede that it is far out. After a hurried interview with Miss Anne Ursprung, top executive of the Founding Church, I managed an extension of time by driving her and fellow staff ...

RELIGION OR BUSINESS? Practices of Scientology Being Investigated Again By John Dart Times Religion Writer [Picture / Caption: YOUNG INITIATES — The Rev. Robert Bobo talks with two children who are taking Scientology courses. The photo on the wall is of the founder of the worldwide group, L. Ron Hubbard.] The mimeographed notice looked more like a secret police communique than a church message. It informed "those concerned" that a certain 20-year-old girl "is hereby declared a Suppressive Person and assigned ...

Not many modern religions can claim the distinction of being denounced by a major European government as "socially harmful . . . a potential menace to the personality" and "a serious danger to health." Yet those were the words chosen by Britain's Health Minister Kenneth Robinson when he took the floor of the Commons last month to censure the little-known and less understood Church of Scientology. Dreamed up by L. Ron Hubbard, a onetime science-fiction writer, Scientology originally surfaced as "Dianetics," ...

LONDON, July 31—On successive days this week groups of Americans arriving in Britain have been turned back because they are followers of a semi-religious cult known as scientology. The ban on scientologists, as they call themselves, was imposed by the British Government after a study. The Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, said in the House of Commons that he was satisfied that "scientology is socially harmful." "Its authoritarian principles and practices are a potential menace to the personality and well-being of ...

LONDON — On successive days this weeks groups of Americans headed for Britain have been turned back because they are followers of a semi-religious cult known as "Scientology." The Bar on Scientologists, as they call themselves, was imposed by the British government after a study. The Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, told the House of Commons he was satisfied that "scientology is socially harmful." He said: "Its authoritarian principles and practices are a potential menace to the personality and well-being of ...

The Minister of Health, who announced the Government's plans to clamp down on the cult of scientology yesterday, must consider himself in imminent danger of a "noisy investigation". "Noisy investigations" were recommended to scientologists by their guide and mentor, Mr. Lafayette Ron Hubbard, a Nebraskan, two years ago as one way to deal with the cuIt's growing number of critics. "You find out where he or she works or worked—doctor, dentist, friends, neighbours, anyone—and phone 'em up and say: 'I am ...

The cult of dianetics, which was going strong a year ago (TIME, July 24, 1950), has some of the features of a new religion. Its founder, 'Science-Fictioneer L. Ron Hubbard, claimed that his "science of the mind" could cure all mental and most bodily ills, make supermen of truly devoted converts. Today, dianetics is suffering the standard fate of the cult: one of its earliest adherents has broken away and is accusing Hubbard of having strayed from the true faith. ...

[...] Divorced. Sara Northrup Hubbard, 25; by L. Ron (Dianetics) Hubbard, 40, science fictioneer turned mental healer; after five years of marriage, one daughter; in Wichita, Kans. [...]

[...] In a Los Angeles court, his wife charged L. Ron Hubbard, 40, disciple and founder of dianetics, "the modern science of mental health," with bigamy, cruelty and "systematic torture." He is also a paranoid schizophrenic, she added, and she wants a divorce. [...]

Critics may know what readers should read, but it is the booksellers who are sure they know what readers want. Last December, glooming over low fiction sales, Retail Bookseller bluntly expressed a credo of the trade: "The truth is that the public really doesn't want books worth buying so much as books that everybody is talking about ... a book like Forever Amber, a book that the righteous and the literary will deplore . . ." Four months later, as though ...

[...] Sir: We think, even though your description of the mechanics of Ron Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health [TIME, July 24] is fair and accurate enough, that as a whole your treatment is . . . unduly derisive. While it is probable that there are people who make a cult of dianetics, that fact is irrelevant. The only issue is whether or not it works toward making people more happy and more sane . . . Sane ...

A new cult is smoldering through the U.S. underbrush. Its name: dianetics. Last week its bible, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, was steadily climbing the U.S. bestseller lists. Demand was especially heavy on the West Coast. Bookstores in Los Angeles were selling Dianetics on an under-the-counter basis. Armed with the manual, which they called simply "The Book," fanatical converts overflowed Saturday night meetings in Hollywood, held dianetics parties, formed clubs, and "audited" (treated) each other. In many ways, dianetics-("the ...