This is Religion News Blog's news page on Scientology. See our front page for more religion news.

In Australia the Scientology cult has been hit by a fresh wave of allegations, likely to give added weight to calls for a Senate inquiry into the church.

Several Australians have spoken out for the first time about their experiences with the church, accusing it of forced abortions, holding slave labour camps and exploiting child workers.
» Full Story

The Church of Scientology has a lengthy history of hate- and harassment activities against critics and former members. The St. Petersburg Times has faithfully investigated the cult, and most recently ran a series of special reports in which former top-Scientologists alleged abuse at the hands of the organization’s top leader.

Now the cult does what it has always done: go after its critics.
» Full Story

On Friday, six ex-scientologists spoke out about their experiences inside the Church of Scientology at a Press Conference in Hollywood.

Their tales of harrowing abuse suffered in the Scientology organization are the latest in a long list of exposes about the cult.
» Full Story

In Scientology: The Religion of the Stars author Ian Halperin goes undercover to reveal never-before-told secrets of the strange, science-fiction inspired church of the stars.

Halperin infiltrates the Church of Scientology posing as a gay actor attracted by the church’s claim that it can cure homosexuality. Rebuffed until he claims that his uncle is a rich millionaire thinking of joining the church, he is given unprecedented access and allowed to video his entire experience. The results are explosive.
» Full Story

”I challenge the Church of Scientology – if they are so confident of their position, they should welcome a Senate inquiry where they can give evidence,” Senator Xenophon said yesterday.

The ‘Church’ meanwhile portrays a group of its critics as a ‘hate group’ — an act of hypocrisy given Scientology’s lengthy history of hate- and harassment activities.
» Full Story

A DNA test was ordered today for William Rex Fowler, a 58-year-old businessman and founder of an Adams County software company accused of killing his former business partner.

Fowler’s wife, Janet, reportedly told investigators that her husband is a Scientologist “and would not have gone without a fight.” [video]
» Full Story

Among the mysteries in software firm founder William Rex Fowler’s alleged killing of ex-partner Thomas Ciancio is whether Fowler’s self-professed devotion to the Church of Scientology played a role in the workplace shooting.

Employees told investigators that Ciancio quit the firm in November because he was upset that Fowler had allegedly taken $200,000 from the company “without permission and gave it to a church or some type of charity,” the arrest warrant affidavit said. [video]
» Full Story

After 33 years as a Scientologist, the past 13 as the star of Scientology’s recruitment video, Larry Anderson is walking away.

He says the church failed to deliver the spiritual gains it promised.

Naturally he wants his money back…
» Full Story

A leading critic of Scientology is to travel to Australia to support Senator Nick Xenophon’s campaign for an inquiry into the tax-exempt status of the church.

As a Scientology, Gerry Armstrong tried to debunk criticism of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard but says, “I discovered that the lies that I was trying to debunk were actually the truth and that Hubbard had lied…”
» Full Story

In Italy, the pre-Christmas release of the book “The Courage to Speak Out – Stories of ex-Scientologists” was met with a promise from the National Church of Scientology of Italy to bring legal action against the author and “whomever has assisted her.”

The publisher’s press officer says “it won’t be up to the reactions of Scientology to determine the choices of the editor and this is not because we wish to be noticed, but because we carry out a service to the Church and to society.”
» Full Story

More than 1,000 unreleased recordings of lectures by L. Ron Hubbard and reams of corresponding writings have been unveiled in the culmination of a 25-year project to locate, restore and transcribe lost pieces of the Scientology founder’s work.

Records show that the science fiction author made up many details of his own life.
» Full Story

The Church of Scientology in Italy has announced it is initiating legal proceedings against the Daughters of St. Paul and Maria Pia Gardini, a Catholic author who was formerly a Scientologist and has returned to the Catholic Church.

In 2007 the Daughters of St. Paul’s publishing house published Gardini’s first book, ” I miei anni in Scientology” (“My years in Scientology”).

The first week of December, 2009 they released her second book, “Il coraggio di parlare – storie di fuoriusciti da Scientology” (“The Courage To Speak Out – Stories of Ex-Scientologists”).
» Full Story

The sue-happy Scientology Church is coming to Sandy Springs, Georgia — but the cult is also suing the town because it won’t get all the space it asked for.

The controversial church, recently convicted in of fraud in France, will pursue a ‘religious liberty’ lawsuit.
» Full Story

Judith Richmond, 41, was having a mental breakdown when she tried to “heal” nine-year-old Millie of cerebral palsy by plunging her in the water.

The top florist, whose clients included royalty and pop stars, had bi-polar disorder and became obsessed with Scientology
» Full Story

A senate inquiry into Scientology will not go ahead after the Rudd Government told the church it believed the Tax Office and police were the most appropriate authorities to investigate any complaints.

But Senator Xenophon was undeterred, saying yesterday that in February he would call for a vote for an inquiry and did not accept the Government’s argument.
» Full Story

New South Wales (Australia) police are investigating allegations of abuse and bullying in the Church of Scientology made in a series of letters from former members tabled in Federal Parliament by independent senator Nick Xenophon.

Xenophon staff has gathered ‘hundred more allegations’ of abuse since he gave his speech.
» Full Story

Independent senator Nick Xenophon last week said correspondence from former members had implicated the church in a range of crimes, including forced imprisonment, coerced abortions, intimidation and blackmail.

Eight letters from former members of the church were tabled in parliament, including one from Paul David Schofield, who said his toddler daughter Lauren fell down some stairs to her death after being allowed to wander around one of the church’s Sydney buildings.
» Full Story

Edward McBride took his own life in 2007. His family believe the Church of Scientology played a major role in his death, and have spent the past two years trying to find answers.

Police investigating his younger brother’s death in 2007 had been repeatedly stymied by the church, which failed to provide personal audit files as requested, Stephen McBride said.
» Full Story

‘Scientology is evil; its techniques evil; its practice a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially; and its adherents sadly deluded and often mentally ill.”

The above statement was not made by Nick Xenophon under the privilege of the Senate this week, but by a Victorian barrister, Kevin Anderson, QC, who had led a two-year government inquiry into the Church of Scientology in the 1960s. Then, as now, former Scientologists alleged that ”mind control”, physical and emotional abuse, and financial deception were standard practices, not exceptions, and integral to the church’s ”brainwashing” of its parishioners.
» Full Story

Dangerous dismissal of psychiatry and mental health problems must be part of a Senate inquiry into the Church of Scientology, a Melbourne cult-counsellor said yesterday

Cult Counselling Australia director Raphael Aron said Scientologists put vulnerable people at risk by taking them off psychiatric drugs and treatment, instead treating them with vitamins and E-meter readings.
» Full Story

Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd raised concerns about the Church of Scientology yesterday, as police began investigating complaints from seven former Scientologists.

As highlighted by senator Nick Xenophon, the former cult members allege abuses including coerced abortions, assault, imprisonment, the covering up of sexual abuse, the embezzlement of church funds and blackmail. [video]
» Full Story

A New Jersey man will serve a 366-day federal prison term for conducting a cyber attack on Church of Scientology Web sites in January 2008, Associated Press reports.

At a hearing Wednesday in Newark 19-year-old Dmitriy Guzner of Verona also was sentenced to two years’ probation after his release from prison.
» Full Story

The Australian Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has used a speech in Parliament to raise allegations of widespread criminal conduct within the Church of Scientology.

Senator Xenophon says he’s received letters from former followers of the religion detailing claims of crimes and abuses. [video]
» Full Story

The arrest of a member of an anti-Scientology group on terrorism-related charges last month thrust Las Vegas into the forefront of a worldwide dispute between the group and the celebrity-laden church.

Authorities say they believed acts of violence were about to be committed against the Las Vegas Scientology church, which is creating a new 36,845-square-foot center on Eastern Avenue to cater to celebrities.
» Full Story

I knew Scientology was in trouble when the media moved on from the usual silly gossip about its celebrity members to much darker, disturbing issues at the heart of the movement – issues, as I have come personally to understand, that actually matter, Jonny Jacobsen writes in Herald Scotland.

After a Paris court last month convicted several Scientologists and two organisations associated with the movement in France of organised fraud, and amid other investigations in France looking at a suicide and an alleged abduction, Oscar-winning film-maker Paul Haggis, a long-time member, quit Scientology.

Haggis, who wrote and directed Crash, denounced the practice of “disconnection“, which sees members forced to cut off contact with anyone – even their loved ones – if they are deemed an enemy of Scientology.

In Edinburgh in the early 1990s, I found out just what the practice of disconnection could do to ordinary people when a close friend became involved in Scientology. It was an experience which marked me so profoundly that I have been tracking the movement ever since…
» Full Story

1. Travolta's attack on BBC man in Scientology expose
2. Tom Cruise is banned from second Berlin location
3. Woman denied psych treatment by Scientology parents: I just butchered my family
4. John Sweeney explains: Row over Scientology video
5. A church accounting: Joyce Meyer's $23,000 toilet, Scientology, and more...
6. Cultic Studies Association receives donation on behalf of Tom Cruise
7. Scientology's Ambulance Chasers, Gemstones from heaven, and Old Time Religion
8. A Legacy of Craziness
9. Scarlett Johansson escaped Cruise's plans
10. Scientology's love affair with Hollywood

---

Headlines by Email or RSS

---

RNB's RSS feed | What is this?

Subscribe by Email | What is this?

---

Use Our Headlines

---

Free: Place RNB Headlines on your website! It's easy: just copy and paste