Scientology Lies

October 29, 1993: The Church of Scientology's planned $24-million Super Power building could be delayed by six to 18 months if state planners decide it requires a special review aimed at large regional developments. Such a review, called a Development of Regional Impact study, would culminate in a vote by the Clearwater City Commission, which has battled Scientology in court over the years. It also could cost Scientology tens of thousands of dollars, planners said. The Super Power project has been delayed several times since it first was announced in March 1991.

October 28, 1993: 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.

October 28, 2007: The Church of Scientology is preparing to expand its creed to the north of England by opening a centre in Manchester next year. The church, which has been criticised as a cult, has paid Pounds 3.6m for a disused distillery in the city. It plans to turn the five-storey building, near Old Trafford, into "a place of worship and religious instruction".

October 28, 2006: While Scientologists describe their "applied religion" as an exact science which guarantees self-improvement, critics say the organisation is a personality cult based on the obscure beliefs of a man who said humans are aliens implanted into volcanoes trillions of years ago. Former members claim Scientology targets vulnerable individuals, persuading them into spending exorbitant sums of money on "auditing", a form of counselling. Posing as a student - Scientology's founder, the late science-fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, banned journalists from becoming members - the Guardian gained access to the church's newest centre of recruitment this week.

October 27, 1987: Concerned with what they say is a governmental intrusion into church counseling, several ministers Monday decried a recent state Court of Appeal ruling that clergy who counsel "suicidal individuals" have a duty to refer those individuals to psychiatrists or other authorities qualified to prevent suicides.

October 27, 1989: The state Supreme Court rejected challenges to a ruling that dramatically reduced a jury award of $30 million against the Church of Scientology for coercive practices that drove a former member to the edge of insanity and bankruptcy.

October 26, 1979: Two psychiatrists whose names appear on the letterhead of one of the arms of the Church of Scientology in Toronto say they didn't give the organization their permission to be listed as advisers. "If they had asked me I would have said, 'no.'" The MDs said that their only contact with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a self-appointed watchdog on abuses in psychiatric medicine, took place two years ago.

October 26, 1989: Verbatim quotation, the judge believed, was justified in order to prove points the author had asserted about Mr. Hubbard -- mendacity, bigotry, paranoia and other unlovely traits that could not be persuasively demonstrated without use of Mr. Hubbard's own words. "The biographer/critic," Judge Leval wrote, "should not be required simply to express . . . conclusions without defending them by example." In such circumstances, free-speech interests outweighed the interests of the copyright owner.

October 25, 1988: The St. Petersburg Times has asked a federal judge to unseal four court files pertaining to the Church of Scientology. The files, which otherwise would be available to the public, were sealed in 1986 by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Kovachevich at the Scientologists' request. The suits alleged that Scientologists invaded the plaintiffs' privacy and abused the courts by filing malicious actions. Tanja C. Burden of Las Vegas said Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, his wife, Mary Sue, and the Clearwater church enslaved her for more than four years. The sealing of the files put all record of the cases and any subsequent developments out of public view.