The Church of Scientology contends that for more than 20 years it has been the target of a systematic campaign by the United States government, together with "vested-interest pressure groups" such as the medical professions, to "suppress the church's spiritual practice and expansion." The church advances this accusation as the fundamental rationale for its aggressive policies of defense-by-attack against individual critics, private groups and government agencies perceived as "harassing" Scientology. Church spokesmen, moreover, expand upon the allegation of systematic persecution to ...

The Church of Scientology, the invention of science fiction writer Ron Hubbard which has caused an unholy uproar around the world in the past, will hold a Canberra inaugural service at Red Hill tomorrow. The Church, established in 1953 by Mr Hubbard after his book 'Dienetics', published in 1950, attracted world-wide interest in the principles of Scientology. More than five million people in 54 countries are understood to have gone through the Scientology processing, a full course of which can cost ...

Since its founding by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, Scientology has been among the growth stocks on the self-help market: a quasireligious, quasiscientific cult that has attracted three million U.S. followers (some highly touted celebrities among them) and estimated annual revenues in the hundreds of millions, much of it tax-exempt. Until recently Scientology's only certifiable vice was eccentricity, but within a week a federal grand jury in Washington is expected to hand down a bulging sheaf ...