Six years ago, when I was a reporter at New Times LA, ''I’d written several stories about Scientology (Los Angeles is one of its headquarters), and I was about to uncork the longest one yet—a 7,000 word piece about an embarrassing, $8 million defeat Scientology had just suffered, when the weekly paper suddenly folded. That unpublished story has been sitting in storage ever since. Fast forward to 2008, and the world of reporting on Scientology has changed radically, thanks in part ...

Bruce Livesey investigates how former inner-sanctum member Gerry Armstrong became the Salman Rushdie of Scientology. The first time I met Gerry Armstrong, I thought he was paranoid. I’d driven down from Vancouver, summer 2007, into the verdant Fraser Valley to Chilliwack, BC, a somnolent, wind-blown town surrounded by jagged mountain ranges. A place as far removed from Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Scientology’s loopiness as one can possibly get. Armstrong and his third wife Caroline live in a walk-up, one-bedroom apartment ...

Tribal members are getting advice, free trips—and perhaps a new rehab program—from their connection with L. Ron Hubbard's church. Is this the help they need? In 1964, when Rayola Running Crane was just 13, her parents sent her away from her home in Browning on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. She and her friends were drinking alcohol on a regular basis, and she had already been in an alcohol-related car accident that caused her permanent back injuries. She says her parents gave ...

La scientologie est une entreprise ultramoderne qui a aussi des activités séculières. Par exemple, en 1966, Ron Hubbard fondait avec un collègue Narconon une cure de désintoxication qui compte aujourd'hui plus d'une centaine de centres dans le monde, dont un à Trois-Rivières. En plus d'être une cure de désintoxication, Narconon s'est donné pour mission d'instruire les jeunes sur les méfaits de la drogue en donnant des conférences dans de nombreuses écoles de la province. L'atelier offert dans les écoles, appelé La ...

MP denies knowledge of endorsed organization's ties to Scientology Scientology denies ties to anti-drug organization Article online since March 5th 2008, 23:59 BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca West Island Liberal MP Bernard Patry defended his recent endorsement of anti-drug organization Narconon Trois Rivière's prevention campaign despite the latter's supposed links to the Church of Scientology. "I did not know that they might be tied into the Scientology church," said Patry, who represents the Pierrefonds-Dollard riding. "As a former physician, when I started ...

In this article, we argue that Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, likely presented a personality disorder known as malignant narcissism, and then we establish that this disorder probably contributed to his creation of organizational policies against perceived enemies that reflected his narcissistic rage. We illustrate our argument by discussing Hubbard’s creation of an internal Scientology organization called the Guardian’s Office, which carried out a sustained and covert attack against a Scientology critic, Paulette Cooper. This attack, and the Scientology policies that ...

I spent a few days with Prof. Stephen Kent, of the Sociology Department of the University of Alberta, a couple of months ago. He is one of the few really brave academics willing to face up to mind control cults of the Scientology ilk, study, and expose what they really are and the damage they do the people they control. I spent many hours with Steve, describing my 20-year experiences within the cult’s fanatical, militant and secretive inner circle, an organization ...