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 festering dispute between a nontraditional religion and an anti-cult group has escalated to the point where each camp is accusing the other of using Nazilike tactics. Chances of a truce between the Church of Scientology and the Cult Awareness Network appear slim. Each denies the other's allegations of employing techniques that fleece victims of money and inflict psychological damage. The two have been at odds for at least a decade. The faceoff heated up in a recent solicitation letter from ...

The Church of Scientology is often denounced as a cult profiting from the blind faith of its members. But arguments over its true nature — Scientology a religion or a cult? — seem irrelevant except when referring to its legal status, because the organization has features common to mainstream religions as well as to so-called cults. The Church of Scientology has won the legal right to function as a religious organization, and therefore is entitled to tax-exempt status in most states. ...

Some extremist religious sects and a number of related self-help therapies employ communication techniques that may over time "alter or impair fundamental information-processing abilities" and may result in severe physical, emotional and mental disorders, a team of University researchers announced at a press conference Tuesday. Authors and research associates Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman released a study titled "Information Disease," presenting findings of a nationwide study on the effects of covert induction and deprogramming. These results are the culmination of four ...

"To try to stop people from listening, the Chaos Merchant has to use words like 'cult,' " says L. Ron Hubbard (founder of the Church of Scientology) of his enemies. "That's a closed group, whereas Scientology is the most open group on Earth to anyone." Cult or religion? Scientology has been called both. A note prefacing most of Hubbard's books defines Scientology as "a religious philosophy containing pastoral counseling procedures intended to assist an individual to gain greater self-confidence and personal ...

CLEARWATER — Unlike some of his colleagues in the Clearwater business community, developer Alan Bomstein doesn't regard the Church of Scientology as a threat to the city's economic future. But he does agree that L. Ron Hubbard's 32-year-old, self-styled "religion" has an image problem. "The Church of Scientology," Bomstein says, "is the classic, textbook example of bad public relations." On the eve of City Commission hearings into church activities, there is little doubt that Scientology is the least popular institution in ...

Because they don't have to file annual financial reports with the IRS, unscrupulous sects can — and do — ignore the law with impunity. Let's close this tax loophole HOW CULTS BILK ALL OF US SOME THREE MILLION AMERICANS have joined cult churches in the last decade, a phenomenon attributed to everything from the breakdown of the family to loss of faith in traditional institutions. One thing is certain: these cults could not have experienced their spectacular rise to wealth and ...

A group of concerned Calgarians ex-Scientologists and parents of youngsters of the various mind-warping, brainwashing cults such as Hare Krishna and the Unification Church (Moonies), have got together and formed an organization. Its main functions will be to combat such cults, to help parents cope with and understand the situation when their children fall prey to them and, where possible, to rescue the victims and help them get their heads back together. They held their first meeting recently, with 17 people ...

Toronto ON — Members of Hare Krishna, Unification Church and the Church of Scientology paraded outside Queen's Park yesterday to protest against what they call a witchhunt by the Ontario Government. About 80 protesters carried placards saying, Don't Kill My Religion and Investigate Abuses Not Churches. They were objecting to remarks made March 2 in the Legislature by Health Minister Dennis Timbrell, who said his ministry was considering legislation to impose control over such groups. Mr. Timbrell said that one of ...