Is the Church of Scientology a religion, or a multimillion-dollar corporate cult? Some former Scientologists have spoken of spending thousands of dollars or working long hours without food or sleep to pay off debts to the church. The church characterizes itself as misunderstood and persecuted, emphasizing testimonials and community outreach activities, while attempting to discredit critics. "Scientology is a racket," says Bloomfield Hills attorney Constance Cumbey, who has handled four Michigan lawsuits against the church. "That's not to say that everyone ...

Scientologists and their critics are colliding in cyberspace. The critics started the fight, creating an electronic bulletin board dubbed alt.religion.scientology on the Internet, a worldwide web of computer networks with an audience pushing 25-million. Then they downloaded their knowledge and opinions in e-mail messages that just about anyone with a computer, a little money and a modem can view. "As you will see, Scientology is astronomically prohibitive," one anonymous writer said on a.r.s in a message that reprinted the church's price ...

[Picture / Caption: The founder: L Ron Hubbard.] Scientologists have been active in Chichester for at least 10 years and their English base is in East Grinstead. They stepped up their role in the city after their Portsmouth offices closed a few years ago. The cult was founded in 1950 by American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who had been involved in black magic. Its main beliefs is that humans are 'thetans', clusters of spirits who were banished to Earth ...

Louise Samways has spent the past decade investigating the many mind-control techniques of Australia's cults, gurus and personal development courses. She is also familiar with their tactics to keep critics quiet. The brick that slammed through the psychologist's car windscreen recently was a reminder that there are other, older methods of persuasion. She was frightened: "I'd like to hope it was just schoolkids playing stupid games, but when these things come one on top of the other, I don't think I'm ...

A new six-story training and counseling center is planned for Clearwater. WASHINGTON — Hoping to expand to "every city on earth," the Church of Scientology plans to spend $185-million during the next five years to renovate and acquire properties, plus another $112-million on a campaign to spread its message around the world. The Scientologists' spiritual headquarters in Clearwater would get the biggest chunk of construction money over the next few years, the Church of Scientology said in documents filed with the ...

Forget, for a moment, the corporate spying, the illicit attempts to discredit its opponents. Forget the seized Church of Scientology documents that revealed a plan "to fully investigate the Clearwater city and county area so we can distinguish our friends from our enemies and handle as needed." Forget the "church" members who bugged U.S. Internal Revenue Service offices and stole files from government agencies. Consider merely the practical effect of the IRS' decision to grant tax-exempt status to 153 Church of ...

In 1975, the Church of Scientology used a front company to secretly buy the historic Fort Harrison Hotel in downtown Clearwater for $2.3-million. There has been controversy ever since. Shortly after making the hotel its worldwide spiritual headquarters, Scientologists issued an internal directive outlining a plan to "fully investigate the Clearwater city and county area so we can distinguish our friends from our enemies and handle as needed." It called for protecting "ourselves against any potential threat by taking control of ...

CLEARWATER — Church of Scientology officials are installing concealed cameras and microphones in at least 69 counseling rooms where church members reveal their innermost thoughts, a church spokesman confirms. What transpires behind the closed doors of an auditing session — one-on-one counseling — is as confidential as a confession from a parishioner to a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, said Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth. "It's subject to what's called the priest-penitent privilege," Haworth said. Occasionally, be said, sessions are videotaped ...

Scientology's leaders say the best defense is a good offense. DID THE CHURCH of Scientology kill a judge's dog during a trial? Did the judge, who is now dead, think church members did? Did that lead him to be prejudiced, and bias the jury against the church? These and other issues are part of an intense battle by the church's litigation machine to overturn what remains of a $30 million verdict won in 1986 by former church member Larry Wollersheim. Mr. ...

The Church of Scientology is asking its members for $40-million in donations so it can pay for the new building it plans to put up in downtown Clearwater. The church has received at least $7.4-million, including three donations of more than $1-million each, according to a flier mailed recently by the church. But the flier asks members to contribute more, because the building would help expand Scientology worldwide. The Church of Scientology has its international spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. Some denounce ...

And now, the next Walt Disney Studios— the Church of Scientology! That is, if entrepreneurs connected with the Hollywood based cult can muscle into the film business with their proposal to homogenize films by tailoring them to the tastes of the unwashed masses. It all began last July, when Future Films, a new, eccentric studio, began running ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter touting its revolutionary ideas. No one knew what to make of it all. The grand concept, to ...

Eleven-year-old Laura Hutchinson went to Girl Scout camp scared. Not scared of camp. Camp would be fine. Laura was scared that when she returned, Mom and Dad might be divorced. Tom and Carol Hutchinson, self-employed commercial artists in the Atlanta area, had been having marital problems. When Tom started getting counseling at Atlanta's Dianetics center, affiliated with the Church of Scientology, Carol objected. The parents fought as Laura left. But when Laura came back, her parents were together. By then, both ...

[Picture / Caption: Kristi, left, and Beth Erlich grew up in the Church of Scientology, but eventually left. In the top photo, taken by their mother when Kristi and Beth were children, the two girls perform TR-Zero, Scientology drill that calls for two people to stare at each other "without any compulsions todo anything." The routine is designed to improve communication skills.] When Beth Erlich was 11, she signed her first contract. A billion-year contract. Beth didn't understand it too well. ...

[Picture / Caption: Happy Scientologists: Marie C. Gale poses with her husband, David, son Philip and daughter Elizabeth.] Marie C. Gale is raising her children the same way her parents raised her: using the principles of Scientology. "Considering my parents and grandmother, my children are fourth- generation Scientologists," Mrs. Gale, 36, said in a letter. Mrs. Gale, of Clearwater, is one of many local Scientologists who say their religion offers benefits to their families, their children in particular. Members say Scientology ...

L. Ron Hubbard was a writer who conjured up tales of time travel and rocket ships to Mars. But science fiction was not all that sprang from Hubbard's pen. He also wrote the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. In it, Hubbard described a new kind of counseling, which he said could help people increase their IQs, cure themselves of arthritis, allergies, asthma and migraine headaches, and reduce their chances of having a car wreck. The book was published ...

A personal aide to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for eight of her nearly 20 years with the group says that fluoxetine (Prozac) and therapy have finally stopped the depression and suicidal ideation she had suffered since 1976. "I have to speak out." Hana (Eltringham) Whitfield told The Psychiatric Times. "The Scientologists choose the most prominent psychiatrists and the most successful drugs to attack. That's why they attacked Ritalin, and that's why they are now attacking Prozac." Although ...

Two American cult-busters recently flew to Australia to try to reclaim a young man from Scientology. JACQUI MACDONALD watched as they tried to unlock his mind, hour by hour, inch by inch. The names of the family and the cult-busters have been changed. FOR TWO days Peter Nolan has rehearsed how to greet his son. Peter and his wife Mary have planned how they will open the flywire front door and smile at the son they have not seen for several ...

WHEN a royal commission last year exposed atrocities at Chelmsford Private Hospital in New South Wales, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights scored dual victories: one public, one private. The first came with the release of Mr Justice Slattery's 12-volume report into the nightmarish "cuckoo's nest" of Chelmsford — a private hospital where the commission found that at least 24 people died as a result of deep-sleep therapy. Another 24 patients survived the treatment but later took their own lives, 19 ...

The Church of Scientology promised a Michigan man he would achieve "spiritual immortality" - but first, according to a new lawsuit, he had to pay thousands. Clearwater is considered the spiritual headquarters for Scientology, which members say is a religion, but which critics say is a money-making outfit or a cult. It was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer and author of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. When he came to Clearwater, the lawsuit said, he ...

The ruling says the law does not apply to donations the Scientologists receive for "auditing and training." Auditing is a Scientology counseling process. [Heber Jentzsch] said almost all donations the Church of Scientology receives are for auditing or training. "That's the whole of Scientology," he said. "That's really what we do." Asked if the organization received donations for any other purposes beside auditing and training, Jentzsch said, "I don't know."

The Church of Scientology began as a pseudo-scientific healing cult, Dianetics, described by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, in his best-selling book "Dianetics: The Modern science of Mental Health" (1950). At first, Dianetics attracted followers by promising to cure psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders through a procedure called "dianetic auditing," based on pop-psychology, hypnosis, and cybernetics. Hubbard's theory as based on the principle that people can achieve health through abolishing ("clearing") negative influences ("engrams") from their minds by going back ...