In the summer of 1950, an unusual book burst onto the best-seller lists and almost instantly became the focus of a national cult. "Dianetics," an extraordinary blend of Eastern philosophy, psychoanalytic technique and futuristic theory, had been concocted by Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, a sometime explorer, engineer and science-fiction writer. The book offered a self-help answer to all manner of psychic and bodily ills, and the medical and psychiatric community responded with alarm. Partly for protection from these attacks, Hubbard in 1954 ...

The "Church of Scientology," a highly profitable form of pseudo-psychoanalysis, has been investigated and exposed by numerous governmental agencies from Australia to England and the U. S. In California, however, this cult, founded by former science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, began last year to acquire a measure of respectabiilty. Somehow, famed San Francisco Forty-niner Quarterback John Brodie was converted. Then the Rev. Vaughn Young, the San Francisco Scientology franchise holder, managed quietly to obtain membership in the Communications Commission of ...

Growth and expansion come close to being an obsession of the Church of Scientology. From street pamphleting to sophisticated media exposure of such Scientology converts as professional football player John Brodie and singer Amanda Ambrose, Scientologists solicit new recruits in a promotional whirlwind more often associated with used car salesmanship than with religion. Local Scientology centers promote services and plan their expansion with the help of high-level directives outlining a variety of methods to bring in "the raw public by the ...

The John Brodie career is winding down. It has been a big one — long, distinguished, historic. No other, football player ever spent 17 consecutive seasons with the team that drafted him. And in another month it will all be over. Brodie has announced his retirement as of the end of this season. At 38, he is about to move from the pocket to the pulpit. The veteran San Francisco quarterback has determined to spend next year in graduate' work in ...

Despite a 10-year running battle with the Food and Drug Administration and the American Medical Assn., Scientology appears to have finally arrived on the West Side. Aided by a 1971 federal district court decision, the Church of Scientology is not only a recognized religious science but the largest and fastest-growing pandenominational church in this area. And the greatest concentration of its members may well be here. There are 75,000 Scientologists in Los Angeles, according to the Rev. Glenn A. Malkin, executive ...

Representatives of the Miami Scientology Church, aderents of a controversial but growing religion, are to meet with state drug abuse officials soon. They want to put a Scientology rehabilitation program into the state's prisons. The subject of much criticism since its founding in the 1950s, the church has recently gained official status as a religion from the courts, and along with it permission to use a crude lie-detector device in its psychiatric counseling. Counseling is at the heart of Scientology. Scientologists ...

A TV DOCUMENTARY of John Brodie, the 49er quarterback, was seen on Channel 7 the other night. Brodie came across as a pleasant family man, blessed with deep logic about his trade of professional football, and definitely a person with his feet on the ground. He made his daily golfing trips seem perfectly sound . . . after all, if one earns a substantial sum for subjecting one's blind side to onrushing linemen, it would be well to remain in condition. ...