According to Mark Hanna, missionaries are sometimes sent to Australia from the American Church of Scientology to look over operations and advise on improvements. The advice seems to be effective. Hanna says the Church has about 30,000 Australian members and is in the midst of an "unprecedented boom". During the day, the four floors of its Sydney headquarters at 201 Castlereagh St are occupied by about 60 Scientologists liaising with church offices in other states and training recruits. Off the foyer ...

CLEARWATER — A former Scientologist says he is about to form a group in north Pinellas County that will offer Scientology-related classes, but will not be affiliated with the controversial sect. David Findlay, who recently moved to North Pinellas, said he plans to begin offering the classes somewhere in Clearwater's Countryside area in the next two or three months. Like other splinter Scientology groups around the country, Findlay said he will largely draw on people who have left the Church of ...

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 ...

The young man — by all appearances a teen-ager — crouched on the dark, narrow stairway as he scrubbed the sixth-floor landing in the former Fort Harrison Hotel, the "Flag Land Base" headquarters of the Church of Scientology. "Are you in RPF?" queried a reporter. "Sir?" he asked quietly, peering up from his work. "Are you in RPF?" "Yes sir, I am." RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which, depending on who is speaking, is either a businessman's approach to ...

THE head of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, whose organisation was described by a High Court judge as 'dangerous, immoral, sinister and corrupt', has been ordered to stay away from Britain. The 74-year-old recluse, himself declared a 'charlatan' by the judge, had hoped to reverse a Home Office ruling which barred him from coming to this country to address his followers at the British headquarters of the sect, Saint Hill, at East Grinstead, Sussex. But when he refused to ...

LAFAYETTE Ron Hubbard's face stares down from practically every wall in the Church of Scientology's headquarters in East Grinstead, Surrey. It is not especially prepossessing. It is the face of a foxy charlatan and begs the question: would you buy a used cult from this man? In previous years an insult like this to the great Hubbard would have been enough to guarantee perpetual harassment and investigation by his Scientology sect whose code of honour states: "Never fear to hurt another ...

Editor: I am writing in response to the article on the Church of Scientology's E-Meter, by George-Wayne Shelor in your paper on June 13. There are several "quotes" from Ron DeWolf in the article expressing his view of the history of the confessional device that have been publicly repudiated by Mr. DeWolf himself in sworn statements. DeWolf testified under oath and later retracted those statements in a public repudiation of his testimony. Had Mr. Shelor bothered to check on DeWolf's ...

Although Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is credited with patenting the sect's E-meter, it is arguable whether the renowned author and adventurer actually invented the electronic device. Over the past 34 years, Scientology literature has referred to the E-meter as the "Hubbard Professional Electrometer," and many people have assumed the 73-year-old science-fiction writer actually invented it. However, Hubbard's estranged son—his father's disciple until a family falling out in 1953—recalls that a man named Volney G. Mathison actually invented the elaborate galvonometer ...

It's called the Hubbard Electrometer and is used as a spiritual guide during "auditing," a Church of Scientology practice somewhat similar to Catholic confession. The E-meter, as it is known, is said to be capable of measuring a person's "mental state and change of state" and can pinpoint deeply rooted, previously undetected problems in the brain. The small, simple electronic device, patented by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, may be the most visible of the "religious artifacts" associated with the Clearwater-based ...

TORONTO—A search warrant used to raid the Church of Scientology's headquarters here should be quashed because sect members could not commit a fraud while practicing their faith, the Clearwater-based organization's lawyer told the Ontario Supreme Court. Clayton Ruby said the Church of Scientology is protected by the guarantee of freedom of religion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Ontario Provincial Police used the search warrant to seize more than 200,000 documents from the group's Toronto headquarters in March ...

TORONTO—A lawyer representing the Church Scientology likened the 34-year-old sect to the Roman Catholic Church during hearing Wednesday in Ontario Supreme Court. Arguing that the Ontario Provincial Police had no right to seize Scientology files during a raid on the sect's Toronto mission last year, Clayton Ruby told the court that Scientology should be given the same respect and protection afforded established religions. "Should a new church be (treated differently) because its doctrines are not as well-known?" Ruby asked Justice John ...

The basic premise of the Church of Scientology is that humans can realize their full potential only if they clear away negative memories. The means of doing so were presented by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the best-selling book "Dianencs," which he wrote in 1950. Hubbard argued that by a process of counseling ("auditing"), negative memories ("engrams") could be erased. Auditing involves the use of an E-meter, a sort of lie detector on which, the subject holds two tin ...

LOS ANGELES—The horror, the degradation, the humiliation and the pain all caught up with Gerald Armstrong Thursday when he broke down in tears while testifying in Superior Court here about his 11 years within the Church of Scientology. The former sect archivist and subject of a suit Charging him with taking personal papers of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Armstrong shook with sob while recalling his 17-month term in the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), a form of Scientology punishment where he ...

Whereas other religions may hold out promise of salvation, founder Hubbard offers immediate solution to problems Joann Harvey paused when asked why she took her life's savings of $45,000 and turned it over to the Sacramento Church of Scientology. "That's an interesting question," she said with a sigh. "Being in Scientology gave me an anchor point. The philosophy works. I know it." Harvey was nearing middle age and undergoing marital problems when she discovered Scientology. Sacramento businessman Don Pearson, on the ...

A Flint-area physician who once had a promising career is now in a Colorado rehabilitation center, unable to take care of herself or communicate, the result of a suicide attempt. Her doctors report she may have suffered permanent brain damage from a self-administered overdose of insulin. Family members, her psychologist and her associates say she had been emotionally unstable for some time. They contend the local Church of Scientology and the Michigan Purification Project, a detoxification program, aggravated her condition. Glenn ...

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 ...

At first glance, the double-page ad in Daily Variety looks much like all the other congratulatory messages that routinely appear Hollywood's trade press. "Our Dear Friend Has Done Again!" the headline proclaims. Then "He has given us another incredible reason to make a fuss over him!" It's on second glance — on recognizing "our dear friend" 's name and face — that you realize how different this ad is. Instead of praising the latest effort of some show-biz functionary, this one ...

Scientology was recently legalised in Victoria. Wayne Crawford reports on a bid by Bob Allsop (pictured), its community Affairs Director in that State, to clear obstacles to Scientology in Tasmania. A 20th century religious confessional aid — or a high-priced but primitive lie detector? Can it really register the screams of terror of tomatoes about to be assaulted with a knife, as was claimed by its inventor, L. Ron Hubbard, an American science fiction writer? Used correctly, is it a useful ...

Several former policies of the Church of Scientology, founded by L. Ron Hubbard, have persistently tainted its public image. Scientologists say these policies were either "jokes" from the very beginning, or were misunderstood by the public — and in any case they have all been canceled. Most of these policies involve ways the Church deals with people it has labeled "Potential Trouble Sources" and "Suppressive Persons." The latter are "those who are destructively antisocial" or those who "actively seek to suppress ...

The year was 1950. The book was Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, written by a 39-year-old "pulp" writer of science fiction, L. Ron Hubbard. A few months earlier, Hubbard had outlined the book's tenets in a magazine called Astounding Science Fiction. And a year before that, at a lecture for science fiction writers, Hubbard had mused, "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way would be ...

The film would star a former science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard who founded a religion — or what his critics call a "cult." Also included in the cast would be Charles Manson, John Travolta, numerous former cultists turned "deprogrammers," and billions of Thetans, or immortal beings trapped in "meat bodies" on the planet earth — and don't forget Hubbard's renegade son, who works in a Nevada casino and suspects his father is either dead or hopelessly insane. Scenery in ...

The Church of Scientology has embarked on a citywide publicity campaign in the wake of five days of public hearings on the sect by the Clearwater City Commission, a church minister said Monday. At a 10:30 a.m. press conference, Scientology spokesman the Rev. Hugh Wilhere announced the beginning of an "open house" publicity campaign. Less than an hour earlier church attorney Paul B. Johnson of Tampa had told the Commission he would not use the four days set aside for church ...

The Scientology organisation's claims to be a religion were a sham, a Supreme Court judge said yesterday. Some of its services were grotesque, a mockery of religion, he said. Mr Justice Crockett made the comments in dismissing an appeal by the organisation, calling itself the Church of the New Faith, against a decision of the Commissioner of Payroll Tax not to grant it exemption from the tax as a religious institution. The Guardian of the Melbourne Church of Scientology, the Reverend ...

Carol Garrity and Dick and Janie Peterson don't call Scientology a church anymore. After dropping about $40,000 in five years into church courses and training, they left the church three weeks ago disillusioned, angry and humiliated. Is Scientology a church? "No!" they answer. "You never hear mention of God or any praying," Dick Peterson said of the church that won tax-exempt status only after a 19-year court battle with the IRS. "It doesn't operate like a church," Garrity added. "It's run ...