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New and Updated Information at Scientology LiesCynical Sales in Scientology
April 3, 2000: Professional Danish sales representatives strongly distance themselves from the methods employed by Scientology in selling their message. - It's a cynical, brutal and hard sales method. People are pushed into a corner, and their only way of getting out is to say "yes, please", says Dennis Rasmussen, advisor in "Danske Saelgere" - the organization of professional sales people.
Dianetics Group to Quit City Because 'We're Not Wanted'
April 3, 1951: The Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation, target of a suit accusing it of operating a medical school without a license, is moving its national headquarters out of Elizabeth because it has no desire to remain where it is not wanted. Transfer of the national headquarters to Wichita, Kan., effective April 15 was announced by the foundation. A spokesman indicated the principal reason is the pending District Court suit.
Lee Recounts Sect Horrors
April 4, 1982: A woman they called "Lee" recounted her 12 years in the Scientology and her emotional and physical struggle to break away from the sect. After four months in Clearwater, still finding no success with OT Level exorcisms, she was "physically and mentally in bad shape," but afraid to leave the church.
2 Judges, 2 Counties, and a Lot of Baloney
April 9, 2000: How to explain the mental nose dives of the medical examiner and the chief circuit judge when they were confronted with the story of the slow, miserable death in 1995 of Scientologist Lisa McPherson at the Fort Harrison Hotel? This is the part I gag on: The Internal Revenue Service gave Scientology the tax-exempt protection of a religion. If what they do at Scientology headquarters in Clearwater is a religion, then I'm a planet. Saturn, say, rings and all.
Suit Against Church Whittled
April 2, 1982: A District Judge has dismissed seven of 14 allegations of wrongdoing against the Church of Scientology by a Boston-area woman and said he will consider whether the First Amendment bars some of the remaining allegations in the $200 million class action suit. The claims were filed by a former member of the church, La Venda Van Schaick, who claimed she was induced into joining the church by false representations, defrauded, subjected to emotional distress, locked in a room, and harassed in many other ways.
Hubbard's Absence Leads to Dismissal of Scientology Suit
April 2, 1985: A Los Angeles federal judge dismissed Monday a $2-million libel suit by the Church of Scientology of California against a Boston lawyer because of the failure of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard to appear at a court-ordered deposition. A Scientology attorney claimed that Hubbard was not available to be deposed. Waving a Scientology advertisement, the judge asked, "Then why do you advertise that he can be reached?"
U.N. Derides Scientologists' Charges About German 'Persecution'
April 2, 1998: A United Nations special investigator today rejected charges by the Scientology movement that the German Government is using Nazi tactics of persecution and ill treatment against it. "This comparison between modern Germany and Nazi Germany is so shocking as to be meaningless and puerile," the investigator said in issuing his report. The report counters criticisms made by Scientologists, and by the United States State Department in its annual human rights report.
Judge Rejects Church Argument
April 8, 2000: In a ruling that stunned the Church of Scientology and its lawyers, a Hillsborough County judge said Friday that religious rights are not a central issue in the 1995 death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson. Hea also said it is not clear whether McPherson consented to her treatment by Scientology staffers before she died in their care. That question should be left to a jury, the judge said.
Scientology Suit For Jury To Decide, Circuit Judge Says
April 8, 2000: A judge says issues of consent - not religion - are at the core of a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology. As criminal charges against the Church of Scientology over the 1995 death of Lisa McPherson hang in the balance, a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the church by McPherson's family grinds toward a June trial. McPherson, 36, died after a 17-day stay at the hotel. Lawyers for McPherson's family contend the 13-year Scientologist was held against her will and force-fed medication.
Legislators Press Yeltsin over Premier
April 1, 1998: Russia's leftwing-dominated parliament threatened to block the nomination of Sergei Kiriyenko as prime minister unless the government agreed to consult it. They demanded that Boris Yeltsin meet the legislature's chiefs to discuss Kiriyenko, whose nomination was a surprise, The nomination could be complicated by revelations that he attended Scientology seminars.
Chief Of Police Fires Warning At Scientologist
April 1, 1994: Police Chief Sid Klein is warning a prominent Church of Scientology official not to interfere in a police investigation again. Richard Haworth, Scientology's spokesman in Clearwater, could have been booked into the county jail March 24 for obstructing an investigation into an alleged battery of a Scientologist that night, Klein said Thursday in a letter.
An Unwelcome Proclamation
March 31, 1991: Gov. Edgar's rescinding of "L. Ron Hubbard Day" two weeks after it was held makes many wonder what possessed the governor to declare a day for L. Ron Hubbard in the first place. Some might say that when it comes to "helping," the late Hubbard's Church of Scientology is a ripoff that helped itself to thousands of dollars members paid for so-called counseling sessions. Others say the organization is a cult.
One Family Goes To Tax Court To Fight For Tax Breaks For Religious Education
March 31, 2004: Michael Sklar, a California accountant and Orthodox father of six, will appear in a United States tax court in Los Angeles in October as he pursues a long legal struggle to claim the cost of his children's religious education as a tax deduction. Sklar notes that the IRS allows followers of the Church of Scientology to write off the cost of religious instruction, which many say violates the First Amendment establishment clause banning government support of a religion.
Why Kathy Won't Come Home
March 31, 1995: Ten years ago, a British judge described Scientology as "immoral, socially obnoxious, corrupt, sinister, and dangerous". Two weeks ago, a jury at Lewes Crown Court acquitted a man of trying to abduct one of its members. The man said he was trying to rescue his friend, Kathleen Wilson, 23. He said she had been brainwashed and would have left if she had had any free will. The jury agreed: she had been brainwashed. The Scientologists have never suffered such a setback.
Arrest Gives Pair Fine New Engrams
March 27, 1953: Two Dianetics practitioners were arrested and released in Detroit. Police are deciding whether to bring charges, and what charges to bring. Six E-meters were seized.
Author Here Sues Scientologists
April 1, 1972: Paulette Cooper, a freelance writer, has accused the Church of Scientology in a lawsuit filed here of "intentional interference" with her constitutional freedom of speech and press, charging that the organization threatened her in the form of libel suits and wiretapping after her critical book about the quasi-religious organization was published last fall.
True Story Of A False Prophet
March 30, 1997: A 'religion' once banned and branded evil may soon be granted charitable status in Britain; a religion built upon the lies and fantasies of its guru, L Ron Hubbard. Scientology's dirty little secret, assiduously covered up over the years, is that its founder was a charlatan, an inveterate liar and a confidence trickster who shamelessly re-wrote his own life in order to bolster his credibility after he had decided that the best way to make money was to start a religion.
State says two chiropractors illegally fired workers who didn't join Scientology Church
March 30, 1990: The Minnesota Department of Human Rights says two Twin Cities chiropractors illegally fired three employees after they refused to join the Church of Scientology. The department also said that the former employees were repeatedly exposed to Scientology materials and teachings at work to the point where it became a condition of their employment.
Zilboorg Denounces 'Dianetics' at Forum
March 30, 1951: The practice of "dianetics," a theory for the treatment of psychosomatic and other ills, was attacked as "dangerous" by Dr. Gregory Zilboorg, psychiatrist. Dr. Zilboorg declared the book was "unfair to human beings" in promising the hope of cures by persons without scientific or medical training.
Mayors sign 'cult' petition; Leaders criticized for adding names to drug campaign
March 23, 1990: Gloucester Mayor Harry Allen and Cumberland Mayor Brian Coburn are among "hundreds" of local opinion leaders who have signed an anti-drug petition sponsored by the Church of Scientology. Two years ago, the church offered "millions of dollars" to help drug addicts, the poor and the elderly if the Ontario government would drop criminal charges arising from a 1983 raid on the organization's downtown Toronto headquarters. The government refused. The church and 15 of its members were charged with the theft of photocopied government documents detailing church activities.
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