Miami chiropractic office must quit making its staff practice Scientology following complaint

Lance Dixon ("Miami Herald," December 19, 2013)

A handful of employees — now ex-employees — of a South Florida chiropractic office say they got more than a paycheck for their labors.

The workers say they were force-fed an indoctrination in the rituals of Scientology, the controversial religion that counts such celebrities as Tom Cruise and John Travolta among its members. Those rituals, the workers complained, included occasionally having to sit perfectly still in a spare room at the office, facing one another for an eight-hour staredown — as well as yelling at ashtrays and talking to the walls.

They also had to devour the books of the late L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology’s founder, including his seminal work, Dianetics, the complaint alleged.

The result of their complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: one of the more unusual employment-discrimination squabbles to come along in South Florida — resolved when the business signed a consent decree agreeing to pay $170,000 and to quit trying to dictate its employees’ religious beliefs.

Dynamic Medical Services, with offices in South Miami and Hialeah, says it never did any such thing, but says it is settling to avoid the hassle.

“We deny all of the allegations brought against Dynamic Medical in the EEOC case. However, given the expense to litigate these types of things, we made a business decision to try and resolve it,” Dynamic said in a statement.

Four former employees of Dynamic — Norma Rodriguez, Maykel Ruz, Rommy Sanchez and Yanileydis Capote — alleged that their employer forced them to participate in activities that involved Scientology, and to study the religion on a daily basis or face consequences.

Beatriz Andre, an attorney with the EEOC, said Dynamic had the First Amendment right to express religious ideas, but not to mandate them for others.

Andre said it is far more common for complaints to involve employees looking to engage in religious activity in the workplace and their employers attempting to curb that.

Sanchez and Rodriguez said their decisions to go against the mandate cost them their jobs.

Sanchez said she was fired in 2010 after enduring years of courses in Scientology from books written by Hubbard, and after participating in various exercises.

The complaint said that Sanchez was required to attend church and read Hubbard’s The Way to Happiness and Dianetics: Original Thesis over the course of several months. She also allegedly went through an Electropsychometer treatment, described on the Scientology website as a “religious artifact” that “measures the spiritual state or change of state of a person.”

Dennis Nobbe, Dynamic’s owner, told Sanchez that he wanted her to be “purified.” When Sanchez expressed concerns, she was told, “Remember you work for Dynamic and Nobbe is paying for this,” according to the complaint.

She went along with the “purification” process, which required her to sit in a sauna for five hours and take 20 “vitamin” pills on a daily basis, the complaint said. Even after a fainting spell, she was required to return to the sauna.

Sanchez said she was fired months later, after she stopped attending the church.

Rodriguez also claimed that she was discharged in 2010 after she refused to go to a church of Scientology. She explained to her supervisor that she was a Jehovah’s Witness.

The EEOC said Rodriguez was made to do exercises like walking up to someone in a shopping mall, stopping them and staring at them without speaking. She also attended courses at a church of Scientology on a weekly basis.

The two other plaintiffs, Ruz and Capote, eventually resigned from the company.

Andre said that initially dozens of other employees were interviewed, but they declined to join the complaint. She added that some of the employees, both management and rank-and-file, were practicing Scientologists and felt that the exercises were business as usual.

If a court approves the consent decree, Dynamic will be subject to further action from the court if employees allege more discrimination. The decree would also establish a policy against discrimination and require all workers to receive anti-discrimination training.

“Any time an employee asks for reasonable accommodation for religious purposes, Dynamic has to report it to the EEOC,” Andre said.

Dynamic is listed as a member of the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises. WISE, in its president’s message is described as “a fellowship of thousands of business people across the globe who recognize that the organizational and management principles developed by author L. Ron Hubbard have application to all businesses.”

Scientology makes few waves in Israel

By Lauren E. Bohn (AP, November 8, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38538/

Tel Aviv, Israel -- The Church of Scientology has apparently found one place where its presence doesn't set off alarms, protests and demonstrations, and that place is one of the world's most religiously fraught countries - Israel.

In August, Scientology opened a gleaming new headquarters in the ancient port city of Jaffa, part of Tel Aviv. Since then, visitors and the curious have streamed through with no incidents.

And this in a country where Jews and Muslims harbor clashing claims over the same holy sites, sometimes sparking violence, and competing Jewish streams disparage each other openly and often.

Scientology has confronted charges in many countries that it is a dangerous cult that brainwashes its followers and confiscates their assets. Its leaders deny that.

"Like any new religion, people have misconceptions and much doubt, but we simply use logic to think life out for ourselves and are taught to question and debate everything," said Sefi Fischler, the church's spokesmen in Tel Aviv.

According to its website, Scientology believes man is an immortal spiritual being with unlimited capabilities. Its practices include spiritual counseling.

Created by American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, the Los Angeles-based movement claims millions of members worldwide, including celebrities like actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta. It has been blamed as the catalyst behind the well-documented breakup of Cruise and his ex-wife Katie Holmes.

Germany, France and Russia are among the governments that keep a close eye on Scientology, and court cases have been filed against the church in some places.

In contrast, there hasn't been much public opposition in Israel.

While a 1987 Israeli parliamentary commission declared it a cult, the practice of Scientology in Israel is legal. The new headquarters has some 200 staff and claims to serve thousands.

Eytan Schwartz, a spokesman for Tel Aviv's mayor, said the new center is a testament to Israel's spirit of religious tolerance.

"Within just a few blocks of the center, you'll find numerous synagogues, several mosques and churches, 4,000 years of Abrahamic monotheistic religions expressing themselves," he said. "The Scientology center is simply showing that Tel Aviv is one of the most pluralistic cities in the Middle East."

"When it comes to all we strive for, for freedom, to be included and embraced by one's fellow man, there is no group that better bears these marks than Scientology," Mohammed Kaabia, the prime minister's adviser on Bedouin Arab affairs said in a statement issued by the Scientology center.

Kaabia and another representative attended the August opening, but the prime minister's office has since distanced itself from the event, saying the two officials were not there in an official capacity, attending as individuals invited by an anti-drug organization.

Despite the lack of public protests at its new center, the church has no shortage of detractors. A group of Israeli Scientology defectors, claiming corruption within the church, started a breakaway center in the northern city of Haifa.

Yad L'Achim, an Israeli anti-missionary group, criticized the government for what it said was too warm a welcome.

"Politicians have diplomatically welcomed the center, because politics is all about being nice," says Daniel Asor, a spokesman for the group. "Scientology is a cult, and this is a dangerous development."

Israeli movie director Erez Meshulam said the presence of the new center is disastrous. "Scientology ruined my marriage by convincing my wife, in return for thousands and thousands of dollars, that her soul could be cleansed," he said. "I fear this means more people will be fooled."

Church officials dismiss such criticism as baseless.

Fischler said the center hopes to bridge gaps among religions in the country. He noted its anti-drug and literacy efforts and outreach programs to prison inmates.

"Now with the building open, we can invite everybody in and show them who we are," he said.

Tom Cruise, Scientology: Actor Reaffirms Faith At Exclusive Event

By ("Huffington Post," October 29, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38452/

On Saturday night in England, Tom Cruise put to bed rumors that he is abandoning Scientology when he was the guest of honor at the 28th anniversary Patrons Ball for the International Association of Scientologists.

“Over 2,500 people paid as much as $3,000 to attend the event with Tom at the church’s U.K. headquarters at Saint Hill Manor near Gatwick,” one insider tells me. “Tom was seated in the VIP area, but his security allowed guests to come over and shake his hand.”

Tom, who looked relaxed and happy and was wearing his Freedom Medal of Valor, a gift from leader David Miscavige, even stood to sing the Scientology anthem before leaving the event, says the source.

“Any rumors that he was turning his back on his faith couldn’t be further from the truth,” a source inside the event says. “Like most religions, in times of need faith can help. This appears to be what was happening last night.”

Most Americans doubt Scientology is true religion: poll

By (Reuters, October 1, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38201/

Most Americans do not think Scientology is a true religion, more people would prefer to win an Olympic gold medal than a Pulitzer prize and celebrity endorsements do not carry much weight, according to a new poll released on Monday.

Seventy percent of respondents to the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll said the controversial Church of Scientology, which is popular with Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, was not a real religion, but 13 percent said that it was.

Religious surveys have estimated that less than 100,000 Americans practice Scientology, which is often branded a cult by its critics.

"It's a tribute to America's tradition of religious tolerance that Scientology is accepted throughout the country," the survey noted in its analysis of the results.

The poll also showed that brawn trumped brains with 40 percent of Americans saying they wanted an Olympic gold medal gracing their mantel, while 36 percent would prefer a Pulitzer prize and seven percent wanted an Oscar.

On the home front, the Obamas were the clear choice when it came to which family children might marry into, with 19 percent choosing the presidential family compared with 18 percent for the Kennedys and the 16 percent for the British royal family.

On the weightier subject of illegal immigration, 18 percent of people questioned said that, if they saw a family trying to cross the border from Mexico illegally, they would try to help them, but 41 percent said they would report them. Thirty percent said they would look the other way.

The poll also revealed that celebrity endorsements are irrelevant, with 89 percent saying they made no difference. And despite all the focus on personal technology, 70 percent of people said they would rather lose their smart phone than their wallet.

When asked about giving up chicken or beef, 32 percent of Americans said they would have the hardest time dropping beef, while 26 percent chose chicken. Pork and lamb were far behind, but nearly a third said they could easily give up all of them.

The telephone poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,027 adults nationwide in August and had a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Niece of Scientology leader plans tell-all book

By (AP, September 24, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38144/

New York, USA - A niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige (mihs-CAYV'-ij) is planning a tell-all memoir about the church.

Jenna Miscavige Hill has been a frequent critic of the Church of Scientology since publicly breaking with it in 2005. She has a deal with HarperCollins Publishers imprint William Morrow for "Beyond Belief: My Secret Life inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape."

Morrow announced Monday the book will come out in January. It says the 28-year-old Hill will reveal "strange and disturbing" details about growing up in the church and will provide a firsthand account of Scientology's "upper ranks."

David Miscavige chairs the board that oversees the church, founded in the 1950s by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Scientology teaches followers they're immortal spiritual beings who live on after death. Church members include Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

Scientology lawyer calls Vanity Fair 'bigoted' over Tom Cruise article

By Ben Child ("The Guardian," September 19, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38102/

Scientology's legal representative wrote an eight-page letter of complaint to Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter over the magazine's recent Tom Cruise exposé, calling it "shoddy", "bigoted" and potentially libellous.

In the missive, dated 16 August, Jeffrey K Riffer of Elkins, Kalt, Weintraub, Reuben and Gartside LLP also denied suggestions the organisation's leader, David Miscavige, might have interfered in the Top Gun star's love life since the former was far too busy travelling and being "the leader of a dynamic global religion expanding across five continents" to get involved in such minor matters. Vanity Fair's article, written by Maureen Orth and published earlier this month, alleged Scientologist leaders held auditions to find the Top Gun star a new partner in the wake of his split from Nicole Kidman in 2001. Cruise has subsequently denied the claims through a lawyer.

"Ms Orth's implications are demonstrably false," argued Riffer in his emailed letter. "If she had considered for a minute the respective travel and work demands placed on both Mr Miscavige and Mr Cruise, she would have dismissed outright this "third wheel notion" … Mr Miscavige is the leader of a dynamic global religion expanding across five continents. His duties are herculean and accomplishments monumental. He is not a 'third wheel' to anything or anyone."

Vanity Fair's story further alleged that Miscavige's wife Shelly recruited Iranian-born British actor Nazanin Boniadi to date the Oscar-nominated actor in 2004 following an exhaustive month-long process during which the latter thought she was being "audited", one of Scientology's essential components, via video interview for a training film. The piece suggests Boniadi was later punished for revealing the relationship to a third party.

"These alleged events never occurred – and, no credible person has ever said that they did," countered Riffer. "There are no authentic contemporaneous documents evidencing such events (because such events never occurred). To be absolutely clear, Mr Miscavige never videoed auditing sessions, never saw videos of auditing sessions (since there are no videos), never read session reports aloud (since there are no such reports), let alone ever used such information to 'manipulate' anyone."

Riffer goes on to accuse Carter and Vanity Fair of religious bigotry towards Scientologists and accuses them of ignorance. "Scientology is a new religion and its beliefs not as well known as those of more ancient history," the email continues. "That does not excuse you or Ms Orth for being ignorant. Rather, it demands you be even more sensitive to finding out what the true beliefs are of Scientology – which can only be told by the religion itself. Just because you don't think you are bigoted doesn't mean you aren't. Bigotry and ignorance go hand in hand and you are definitely and wilfully ignorant of the actual beliefs of Scientology and the activities of its churches."

Cruise and Scientology have been in the media spotlight lately due to the former's divorce from actor Katie Holmes and the US box-office success of the Paul Thomas Anderson Oscar contender, The Master, which features a protagonist based on Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard. Anderson has said his film is not about Scientology, but has admitted that Philip Seymour Hoffman's character Lancaster Dodd is partially drawn from Hubbard, as well as other figures.

Riffer's letter appears to have been a shot across the bows, as it was sent prior to the Tom Cruise article's publication in the October issue of Vanity Fair earlier this month. It assumes that the magazine "will not publish anything defamatory" and hopes "we will not need to meet at a deposition or in a court". There is no suggestion that Scientology has in fact taken such legal action in the intermediate period.

Holy Clones: Cloning --sacred or sacrilege?

By Dan Kapelovitz ("MEAN Magazine," March 1, 2001)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/14749/?&section=raelians

Ever since February 1997 when embryologist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announced that they had created a lamb named Dolly, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, theologians around the world debated the religious implications of cloning--especially human cloning.

As early as 1987, the Vatican argued for the banning of all human cloning. Religious arguments against cloning range from the belief that cloning humans is akin to playing God, to the concern that human clones would have no souls. Others oppose the separation of procreation from the human sex act, while some of the more liberal religions argue that cloning should not only be allowed, but may be even mandated by God if it can save lives.

President Clinton had the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) investigate cloning. Unconcerned with the separation of Church and State, Clinton devoted an entire day of the NBAC hearings listening to various religious leaders. The Commission concluded that there should be a moratorium on federal funding of human cloning.

But what do some of the lesser known religious movements, who weren't allowed to testify before the Bioethics Commission, think about cloning? For some religions, cloning is a significant part of their theology. They view cloning as a means to achieve eternal life. Other groups have received direct messages from Jesus telling them that cloning is wrong. There are even those who want to clone Jesus Christ back into existence.

One such group is the Second Coming Project. "Our intention is to clone Jesus by taking an incorrupt cell from one of the many Holy Relics of Jesus' blood and body that are preserved in churches throughout the world, extracting its DNA, and inserting into an unfertilized human egg," reads the group's web site (clonejesus.com). "The fertilized egg, now the zygote of Jesus Christ, will be implanted into the womb of a young virginal woman, who will then bring the baby Jesus to term in a second Virgin Birth."

"Christians will wait around FOREVER for Jesus to return unless we take matter into our own hands and bring him back ourselves!" declares their web site.

The group even uses the Bible to justify cloning. They contend that when Jesus at the Last Supper asks his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he is alerting them and future generations to preserve his body for cloning.

Most scientist believe it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to clone Jesus (assuming, of course, that Jesus even existed). Although the Second Coming Project claims Holy Relics exist of Jesus' body including his blood, his hair, and his foreskin, many believe that all of the relics are fake. Even if there were a relic containing Jesus' DNA, and a church was willing to give this DNA to the Second Coming Project, scientists believe the technology does not yet exist to clone from cells that are almost 2000 years old. Not all scientists agree. Presently, scientists are looking for preserved Mammoths in Siberia, hoping to insert the Mammoth DNA into a female elephant. As technology rapidly improves, so do mankind's chances of cloning Jesus.

Others worry that if someone could clone Jesus, then someone could clone Hitler. But most experts agree that a clone would not be exactly the same as the original person. In fact, the two would have less in common than even identical twins who were separated at birth. Not only would they have different experiences beginning from the womb, they would also grow up in different periods of time. Gnostics believe that Jesus already had a twin brother named Thomas, and if he wasn't the Messiah, than neither would a cloned Jesus.

Many Christians worry that a cloned Jesus not only wouldn't be the Messiah, but would in fact be a demonic being, perhaps even the anti-Christ. They believe the Second Coming Project may be involved in a Satanic plot to create such a being. As proof, they note that their web site, clonejesus.com, was registered by Feral House, the publisher of books written by Anton LaVey, creator of the Church of Satan.

"We did set up the web site because it's an article in Apocalypse Culture II, and I have it there to promote the book," admits Adam Parfrey, founder of Feral House, who contends that, other than including the article in his book, he has nothing to do with the cloning of Jesus.

This hasn't stopped hundreds of angry Christians from sending Parfrey hateful e-mail. "The e-mails say either they're gonna kill me, or God's gonna kill me. They want to prevent some weird Satanic entity from being created that's known as Jesus because humans cannot create it, it has to happen on its own."

Because of the many death threats he has received, Kristan Lawson, the mastermind behind the Second Coming Project, refuses to talk to the media.

Raël, leader of the Raëlian Religion, says Jesus has already been cloned. He was cloned by extraterrestrials who had preserved one of Jesus' cells prior to his crucifixion. "That's how he was dead and alive again a few days later," says Raël. "He was the first in history to be cloned, in fact."

In 1975, Raël hung out with Jesus who now lives on the Planet of the Eternals along with 38 other prophets including Moses, Ezekiel, Buddha, Mohammed, and Joseph Smith (Raël is the last of the 40 prophets).

The Raëlians, who claim 55,000 members in 84 countries, believe that humans were created by extra-terrestrial scientists referred to in the Bible as the Elohim. The Elohim have perfected cloning and many live eternally on the Planet of the Eternals with the earthling prophets. "There are two planets," explains Raël, who is the half-brother of Jesus. "One is the Elohim Planet where they procreate exactly like us, and the planet where I went to was the Planet of the Eternals where they have eternal life."

The Elohim who live on the Planet of the Eternals are forbidden to have children. "If you have eternal life and children at the same time, then you have over-population," explains Raël.

To become Raëlian, one undergoes a transmission ritual in which a Raëlian Guide places a hand on the convert's forehead transmitting his or her genetic code to the Elohim. The Elohim can then clone Raëlians, at a later date, enabling them to live forever on the Planet of Eternals.

When a Raëlian dies, he donates his body to science and medicine except for a square centimeter of the frontal bone which corresponds to the third eye. Here is where the DNA is most concentrated. Raël keeps these skull chunks in a safety box. "It can be used by human beings for cloning," says Raël. "It is not for the Elohim."

"Cloning is the key to eternal life," says Raël, who has written a new book, entitled Yes to Human Cloning. "I was the first to talk about it 27 years ago. This is just the first step. Right now cloning is just like having a twin brother or a twin sister. The next step is a new technique called Accelerated Growth Process where you can directly clone an adult copy of yourself. The third step is when you can upload or download your memory, your personality in the brain of the adult clone who is like a blank tape. When you reach this level you can have eternal life in another body, that is what is exciting, I think a baby is not very exciting."

"It is coming very soon," predicts Raël. "We are not talking about next century, it will be available between 10 and 20 years. If are less than 50 years old, you can expect to never die, and that's wonderful. You are very lucky, you will have eternal life."

What does Raël think about those who are morally opposed to cloning? "The Catholic Church is against everything," says Raël. "Against divorce, against contraception, against sexual freedom, against cloning. At the beginning they were against electricity and even more funny, the first people to use the fork were excommunicated. That's the Catholic Church, they condemned Galileo and everyone who said the Earth was not the center, and they are still the same.

"If you read the articles they wrote at the time of the first test tube baby, everyone was against it like they are against cloning now, saying it is like Frankenstein. Then they saw on TV a beautiful baby girl. It will be the same with cloning: after ten years, people will wonder why they were against it."

Three years ago, hoping to present a new scientific breakthrough baby girl to television audiences, Raël started the world's first cloning company, Clonaid®. A wealthy American couple, whose 10-month-old child died due to hospital error has hired Clonaid® to clone their dead daughter. Clonaid®, which is now run by Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, should produce the clone in one or two years, according to Raël.

Because there is much trial and error in the cloning process, 50 Raëlian women are lined up to act as the surrogate mothers.

On its web site, Clonaid® offers these reasons for cloning (they charge $200,000): "If you are a sterile couple with no more hopes to get the child you have dreamed of. If you are a homosexual couple deeply wanting to have a child carrying your own genes. If you want to be cloned, whatever your reasons may be, then Clonaid® has the right program for you."

They also offer Clonapet®: "The cloning of pets to wealthy individuals who wish to see their lost pet be brought back to life. This service will also be offered to the owners of racing horses, a very promising market given the outrageous prices paid for champions."

The only service that they presently offer is Insuraclone®; for $50,000, Clonaid® will preserve a client's cells in case the client ever needs to be cloned. "A Clonaid® representative will come to your place or the place of your choice to get cell samples of yourself and/or your beloved ones. This sample will then be placed in a safe and confidential place, under cryogenic temperature and will remain there until you decide to use them."

Another religion whose members view cloning as the key to eternal life is Summum. "We presently are the only people in the world that offer mummification," says Corky Ra, founder of Utah-based Summum which claims 100,000 members worldwide. "At the same time we preserve the genetics in the animals and humans that can be cloned at a later date. Most of our clients usually have a large living trust. Some spell out if they want to be cloned in the future. Some of them write out that they want to wait until there's a possibility for memory regeneration and also when it's possible to have some of their defects taken away when they are cloned."

Summum charges a minimum of $65,000 for their mummification services and recently built a mausoleum for a New York woman and her cats costing 11 million dollars. (Summum charges around $6000 to mummify a cat and as low as $1000 for a parakeet.)

The mummification process takes 77 days, during which they perform a transference ritual which guides the soul to a new life and destination. The Summum's transference rite is a cross between the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. (They will tailor the ritual to fit any religion if desired.)

"By combining the sciences of Transference and cloning, it becomes possible to direct the soul into a body specifically cloned for the reincarnation of this being," reads the Summum web site (summum.org). "It will be possible for individuals to incarnate into a body of their choosing. This is really nothing new. It was done once before as ancient hieroglyphs will attest. It will happen once again."

Ra believes that there are already human clones. "They aren't doing a lot of publicity on this until they [the clones] get a little older. The technology is already there. There's no reason why not to do it. We're not doing any cloning right now, but we've had a lot of people willing to do our cloning for us contact us."

Like Raël, Ra believes people will one day accept human cloning. "They were against cars when they came out," says Ra. "When they first started doing transplants, there was an uproar against heart and liver transplants, and they're doing those now. It just takes time for people's consciousness to catch on."

Ra believes that Jesus was a clone. "Christianity tells that they took a seed from the father and immaculately put it in the womb of Mary called the Virgin Birth and a child was born. That's what is called a clone." Their web site quotes Jesus as saying, "I am the Father, and I am the Son, and We are One" as proof that Jesus was indeed a clone.

Like the Summum, Unarius believes that human cloning existed thousands of years ago. But unlike the Summum, the Unarius are ardently opposed to human cloning. This El Cajon UFO cult believes that ancient cloning had dire consequences.

"This has all happened before in Atlantis and Lemuria," explains David Reynolds, Unarius instructor and webmaster. "That's why the authors of the Unarius text already had known what the deal is. For example, in Atlantis they developed clones for war. These clones were programmed to be super warriors." Reynolds believes that clones are easily programmable because they don't have a soul.

"The Space Brothers, through the Unarius text, have warned us that if we ever allow human cloning, then we will see some kind of negative effect in our future. Does that mean more birth defects, more mutants? I don't know."

Reynolds compares human cloning to nuclear power, saying that both adversely effect human evolution.

"When scientists get involved with cloning they are causing some serious karmic situations in the energy body," says Reynolds who, like Ra, thinks modern-day scientists may already have cloned humans. "They don't know anything about the energy body, so they are struggling blind with ignorance, not knowing they're going to damage the individual."

According to Reynolds the original person would suffer greatly if they were duplicated. "Their mentality, their IQ would eventually be depleted, similar to organ donation where you have two psychic bodies intertwining. Now you have the original person who now is going to be responsible for what the clone does. So if the clone goes out and murders a bunch of people because a bunch of sick people program it to, then don't you think that the original person has more karma to deal with?"

Although agreeing with Unarius about clones being soulless, Billy Phillips of the Kabbalah Center, who practices a form of mystical Judaism, is not concerned about the karma of the cloned individual. "Kabbalah doesn't care about the ethics or morals, doesn't get involved in that," says Phillips. "Kabbalah cares about the connection to the universal energy that connects all reality."

Phillips agrees hat cloning was done long ago. "The Zohar and the Talmud spoke about instances where the kabbalists actually created a Golem using the primordial DNA of the cosmos," says Phillips. "According to Kabbalah, when these Golems were created 2000 years ago, the problem with them was that they were soulless, they didn't have the spark of divinity, the soul. Only man has that."

"Many Kabbalists used the Book of Formation [written by Abraham] to clone and create a calf or a Golem," explains Phillips. "But it's not like anybody off the street could pick up that book and start cloning. You need a high spiritual level. There are built in protections. Tremendous meditative techniques are involved that are almost impossible to achieve."

Phillips sees modern-day cloning as a sign to show people the possibilities. "Cloning is happening today for the same reason why there were more technological advances in the 20th century than in all other centuries combined. It has taken place to help us raise our consciousness to realize that is within the power of a human being to regenerate his body. We re-grow our nails. We re-grow our hair. You should therefore re-grow a kidney. You should re-grow a healthy heart. As we grow spiritually, these blocks are removed which will pave the way for concepts as radical as immortality and regeneration of the human body. But physical cloning will not be the solution; it will have to be within the mind of man."

The Family, formerly known as the Children of God, is a communal Christian group who believe that any of God's creations, including clones, would have a soul. Even so, they are anti-cloning.

"We just believe that it is intruding on God's creation, and man should leave God's creation as it is," says Lonnie Davis, who does public relations for the Family. "In other words, God created man and woman in his own image, and the way he created them is perfect, and the method that he gave them to reproduce is also perfect."

Within all of the controversy surrounding Jesus and cloning--should we clone him, was he a clone, has he already been cloned--The Family (who regularly receives messages from the Messiah) claims to have obtained the last word from Christ himself:

"In this discovery, like so many others, I test and try the hearts of men. I see and know those who would use such things to help and to heal, and I know those who would use these things to hurt and to harm. I also know those whose interest is financial, and who care not whether a thing helps or heals so long as it is profitable. I the Lord see every thought and intent of the heart and mind, and I reward men accordingly. All reap what they sow. Those who do good reap reward, and those who do ill reap judgment. Let those who would meddle with life to harm life or to make merchandise of My creation beware, for they reap to themselves great judgment."

[Here are other quotes from religions on what they say about cloning that were put in a side bar after the article:]

Mormon statement:

"The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have declared that 'God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife. We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed.'"

Hare Krishna:

Rabindranatha, head priest of Los Angeles center Krishna: "In our society when a family wants to have children they pray to god to get the blessing of a nice child and raise a god-conscious person like that. If you do something outside of that, who knows what you're gonna get. People have a hard enough time raising children as it is. It will create confusion if someone asks you who's your father, who's your mother. Society is already mixed up as it is, it will just cause more problems."

"There are spirit souls everyplace. The example is given of the earth worm, you got an earthworm and you cut it in two, you immediately have two insects, so what happens is another spirit soul takes advantage of that body at that time and goes in the other part of the worm. Spirit souls are everywhere even in the air there are so many microbes, and according to somebody's karma, they could take place as a clone."

"It's not a matter of are we playing god. Are we creating life? No. Life is everyplace"

Islam Center of Beverly Hills:

Dr. Mirahmadi, the president of the Islam Center:

"The souls are all in a garden or something, and when the body formed at 6 weeks then god would call the soul up, 'Mr. X, your body is ready, go down,' and then he goes down and comes to that body."

"Cross gender in Islam is forbidden, if you take the sperm and ovum from two different people you can't do that unless they are married, so cloning is forbidden for humans. The lineage is the most important thing, everyone should know his or her lineage and that's why adoption is forbidden. If you adopt someone you have to adopt them with their name preserved. also sperm banks are forbidden."

Although human cloning is forbidden by Islam if done by humans, Allah will clone humans at the Day of Judgment. "Taking it one step further, they say on the Day of Judgment, how could a person be reproduced? 1400 years ago, 2000 years ago this was impossible to imagine, but now it is very easy to imagine that soul and life when they leave they have the DNA information so they can duplicate you anytime."

Scientology:

"The Church of Scientology is apolitical and would not have an official position on human cloning as a general proposition. However, depending on the uses to which it could be put, it could give rise to some serious potential human rights violations. The Church would oppose the human rights violations without taking a formal position on the technology itself."

"Scientologists believe that people are spiritual beings who inhabit their bodies.Any of these technologies can be used in a positive manner. Afterall, the person is not his body, so it really matters very little how the body was made."

"But these technologies can be abused to create human rights abuses which we would oppose: slave societies, people who are "superior races" because they have been modified genetically, "people" who are grown just for their body parts and who are otherwise kept chained up, "slave" mothers who are kept captive and pregnant with other people's children. Things like that. We would oppose human rights abuses like that very energetically."

Baha'i: statement:

"Nothing specific has been found in the bahai writings on genetic engineering, this subject is quite complex, and an informed opinion can be offered only when the scientific understanding is much further advanced than at present and the social implications are clearer with the emergence of adequate understanding, there will also me opportune to deal with the ethical issues involved" spokeswoman: "So our international governing body in the future may make a decision about human cloning but at this time there is none."

The United Christ Church (Rev. Ike):spokesperson: "we really don't like to get involved in that kind of thing as far as what's right and what's wrong. We view things a lot differently than most churches. We're into prosperity, everything's good, money, everything was put on this earth for all to enjoy."

Jehovah's Witnesses:

[from an aritlce they sent me]: "Since God is the Designer and Creator of life, it is fitting to consider what he has in mind respecting the quest for perfection. The Bible book of Genesis says that after creating life on earth, "God saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good." (Genesis 1:13) The first human couple were genetically perfect. It was because they rebelled against God that they brought imperfection and death upon themselves and their offspring--Genesis 3:6, 16-19; Romans 5:12

"Jehovah God wants to see an end to sickness, suffering, and death. Long ago, he made provision to rescue humanity from these problems. The Bible book of Revelation foretells a time when God will intervene in human affairs. Of that time, we read: "[God] will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away." These sweeping changes will not come as a result of the scientific breakthroughs of humans, many of whom do not even admit the existence of God, much less praise him. No, the passage continues: "The One [Jehovah God] seated on the throne said: "Look! I am making all things new."'—Revelation 21:4,5"

How Did Scientology Influence 'The Master'?

By Sheila Marikar ("ABC News," September 12, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38055/

Paul Thomas Anderson has downplayed "The Master's" connection to Scientology. At the Toronto International Film Festival, he reportedly rolled his eyes when asked about the parallels between his latest movie, which comes out in limited release Friday, and the polarizing religion founded by L. Ron Hubbard.

He was less dismissive at the Venice International Film Festival earlier this month. "I really don't know a whole hell of a lot about Scientology, particularly now," he said at a news conference. "But I do know a lot about the beginning of the movement, and it inspired me to use it as a backdrop for these characters."

A representative for the Church of Scientology did not directly respond to requests for comment, but sources versed in Scientology told ABCNews.com that the parallels between the religion and scenes from the movie are too strong to ignore.

A Tale of Two Men and Many Tests

In "The Master," Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Lancaster Dodd, the creator of a religion called "The Cause." That's also the name of his first book, a religious tome much like Hubbard's "Dianetics." Lancaster is known to disciples as The Master, and when a wayward naval veteran, Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), wanders onto his yacht, Lancaster takes him under his wing as his right-hand man and test subject.

Test No. 1 is "informal processing," a one-on-one interrogation in which The Master sits across from Freddie and asks him to look "back beyond" to "return to the prebirth era." He repeats questions, asking Freddie, "What is your name?" and "Do your past failures bother you?" five times. Stephen Kent, a sociology professor at the University of Alberta who specializes in Scientology, said the processing scene is nearly identical to the auditing exercises of Scientology.

"The repetition of questions, for example, often happens, so that people being audited can go back to an earlier related incident," he said. "The one-on-one process, sitting across from each other, it's hard to imagine what else they could have been modeling this on."

An anonymous machine ticks back and forth during the processing scene. "One has to think about an e-meter," Kent said, referring to the device that measures electrical resistance during Scientology auditing.

Later on, Freddie is subjected to a similar exercise in which he sits across from Lancaster's son-in-law, Clark, and is told that he must continue to look at Clark, without flinching, for one minute, no matter what.

Clark launches into a verbal attack on Freddie, disparaging his ex-girlfriend. Freddie initially lashes out, and The Master orders him to start over. This happens multiple times before Freddie sits back, calm, as Clark hurls slurs at his face.

Kent compared that exchange to bull baiting, an exercise from Scientology's communications course that teaches believers how to "handle upsets" and "be comfortable and confident in anyone's presence," according to the Church of Scientology of Los Angeles' website.

"People sit across from each other, and each has to say insulting things to each other up to the point where the other person is not reacting," Kent said.

The similarities extend beyond scenes. Details of the film appear to be ripped from the history of Scientology, from the type of boat Lancaster lives on -- a cattle trawler, the same boat Hubbard sailed on in the 1960s and '70s -- to a speech Lancaster makes in Phoenix about the power of laughter during processing sessions. In 1954, Hubbard gave a lecture on the theory of laughter and auditing in Phoenix.

Lancaster claims his processing sessions can treat diseases that started "trillions of years ago," such as leukemia. Kent said that dovetails with Scientology's weariness of modern medicine. "The assumption that Scientology makes, and it's in writing, is that 70 percent of illnesses are psychosomatic," he said. "A number of Scientologists, when people get sick, the first thing they do is go into auditing. The first instinct is not to go to a medical doctor."

Even Lancaster's appearance and personality bring to mind Hubbard in the 1950s. A robust, well dressed man with blond waves of hair, The Master fancies himself a party thrower and often croons while he carouses.

"Hubbard would, on occasion, have parties," Kent said. "He saw himself as a master entertainer and singer."

When Freddie first asks Lancaster who he is, The Master describes himself as a nuclear physicist, a doctor, and a man of many hats.

"That's straight Hubbard," Kent said. "Hubbard claimed he was a nuclear physicist. He also claimed he could heal people."

And then there's the year the movie takes place, 1950, when Hubbard's first edition of "Dianetics" was published. "1950 is a pivotal year for Scientology," Kent said. "It was the foundation for what became Scientology.

But while Scientology inspired "The Master," it isn't its focus. The rise of "The Cause" serves as a backdrop to the ebb and flow of Lancaster and Freddie's relationship. Whatever similarities exist between the film and Scientology, critics and Anderson have ended up emphasizing the performances of Hoffman and Phoenix, which come awards season, may prove to be "The Master's" legacy beyond the Scientology buzz.

"I look at these guys not like father and son. They're a little more like, not even master and servant," Anderson said in Venice. "I think we were just trying to tell a love story between these guys. And we had a lot of scenes that weren't about that and we just took them out and the narrative, for whatever the narrative ended up being, just ended up being driven by these two guys and their love for each other."

Scientologists step up campaign against The Master

By Ben Child ("The Guardian," September 11, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38049/

Scientologists have stepped up their campaign against Paul Thomas Anderson's controversial new film The Master in the wake of the film's critically acclaimed debuts at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, a US newspaper is alleging. The New York Post says the Oscar-winning producer Harvey Weinstein, who runs the film's distributor The Weinstein Company with his brother Bob, has increased his personal security.

The Master, which has long been billed as Paul Thomas Anderson's "new film about Scientology" has been the talking point of the autumn festival season so far. The film-maker himself has admitted Phillip Seymour Hoffman's snake-like charmer, the nascent cult leader Lancaster Dodd, is partly based on Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, but has also argued that his film does not deal with the organisation at a wider level. The film, which also stars Joaquin Phoenix as a drifter sailor who becomes one of Dodd's first followers, won the Silver Lion award for best direction and the Volpi Cup prize for best acting (split between Hoffman and Phoenix) at Venice on Saturday. It would reportedly have also taken the top Golden Lion prize for best film but for a technicality.

The Post's Page Six column also says that Scientologist leaders are planning a publicity drive to undermine the film when it is released in the US on Friday. It reports the words of "behind-the-scenes sources" but does not name or quote them directly. Other members of The Master's crew have also added extra security, the newspaper says.

During a press conference at Venice prior to The Master's screening, Anderson said: "This is a character that I created based on L Ron Hubbard, there's a lot of similarities to the early days of Dianetics … I don't know a hell of a lot about Scientology today but I know about the beginnings of that movement and it inspired me to use it as a backdrop for these characters. I can't be any more unambiguous than that.

"I think we were just trying to tell a love story between these two guys. We had a lot of scenes that weren't about that and we took them out."

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw handed Anderson's film a five-star review at Venice, calling it "an arresting and utterly absorbing psychological drama of marginal lives, an emotional history of charlatanism and gimcrack philosophy, a world of snakeoil truth salesmen offering self-medication of the spirit, all set in a postwar America realised with superb flair and confidence, utterly without cliche".

Xan Brooks, writing for the Observer, also gave the film five stars and described it as a "ravishing, unashamedly old-school American classic".

Did the Moonies really brainwash millions? Time to dispel a myth

By Eileen Barker ("The Guardian," September 4, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/38000/

The death of Sun Myung Moon has brought back to mind the panic that swept through the west in the 1970s and 80s. Moon was just about the last surviving charismatic leader of the "cults" that, it was widely declared, threatened to undermine our civilisation by brainwashing our youth and turning them into zombies prepared to do anything – including mass suicide and murder.

Apart from Moon and his Unification Church, there was David Berg and his Children of God, who became renowned for their practice of "flirty fishing"; Prabhupada and his International Society for Krishna Consciousness devotees, who could be seen dancing and chanting on the streets; Bhagwan Rajneesh, later called Osho, and his sannyasins; and L Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology – and literally hundreds of other men and women selling their spiritual wares in San Francisco, New York, Montreal, Paris, Tokyo and London.

Exactly what it was that was on offer varied enormously. But the general public was largely unaware of the differences, informed as it was by sensationalist media themselves fanned by a burgeoning number of so-called "anti-cult groups", which had started as gatherings of concerned relatives but developed into powerful lobbying groups that accumulated all the worrying stories about any one movement (and there were undoubtedly several to gather), and then generalised these into a conventional wisdom about "what all cults do" – forgetting that all these activities could just as easily be found in the traditional religions. Not, of course, that this would make deceptive practices, sexual exploitation or child abuse any less culpable.

But why were intelligent, well-educated young people joining the movements in droves? One answer was heard more than any other. Our youth had not chosen to convert to a new religion; they had been brainwashed into leaving their universities, abandoning promising careers, and severing ties with their families in order to live in secluded communities, working long hours for their "puppet masters" and, in the case of those who came to be called "Moonies", getting married by a Korean messiah in a mass wedding along with thousands of other couples to someone they had never met before and might not even speak English. Clearly, it was claimed, these were the victims of well nigh irresistible and irreversible mind-control techniques.

With hindsight, some of our views of these cults need correcting. Although the colourful devotees and sannyasins and the persistent Unificationists were highly visible in public places, people were not joining in anything like the numbers that were being alleged. While estimates of the number of Unificationists in Britain topped a million, there were in fact fewer than 150 in 1976.

It is true that thousands attended one or other of the residential weekends where the "brainwashing" was said to occur, but 90% did not join as a result. Of those who did, the majority left within a couple of years. Much as the movements tried to persuade people to join their ranks, and much as they would have like to have had greater persuasive powers, they demonstrably did not have access to the irresistible or irreversible techniques they were reputedly wielding.

But things have changed. It is not that there are not still thousands of new religious movements to be found around the world – there are. Inform, the government-funded organisation that provides information on minority religions, has on its files over a thousand new religions that are currently active in the UK. But most people would be hard pushed to name more than a handful of these. Why?

First, since 9/11, the public is now more concerned about Islamic terrorism than about cults. Second, although young (and older) people are still wanting answers to all sorts of questions about God, spirituality, the state of the world and their relations with others, they are less likely to turn to a new religion for their answers.

Next, the movements themselves have changed quite radically. Those that caught the public's attention during the latter half of the past century (and are now well into a second- or even third-generation membership that is no longer so concerned with recruitment but, more frequently, with getting on in the outside world).

Then the new ones that have since emerged tend to be more spiritual and far less institutionalised than the earlier movements. The Children of God no longer "flirty fish"; the vast majority of Krishna devotees are people of Asian origin who have found a place to carry out their traditional worship. Most Unificationists now live with their families and work independently of the movement. Those second-generation members that have stayed in the movement (although the majority have left) are likely to be married to someone their parents suggested, often with quite a bit of input from their children.

Scientology is, perhaps, one of the few "bogey cults" that remains in the public eye, due partly to the number of high-level members who have recently left, and, no doubt, to the high-profile antics of Tom Cruise. Perhaps The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's acclaimed new film on the origins of Scientology, will provide us with some further understanding of "the cult experience".

Scientologists fight back over latest Vanity Fair drama

By ("San Francisco Gate," September 4, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37997/

Church of Scientology officials have released a statement dismissing a new Vanity Fair article that suggests an Iranian actress was vetted as a potential partner for Tom Cruise and punished when she told friends about the failed romance.

The magazine’s editors released an excerpt of Maureen Orth’s expose, in which the investigative journalist names Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi as the former Church member who was “audited” as the movie star’s potential mate.

Scientology leaders quickly dismissed the report and now they’re calling the piece “hogwash” in an official statement.

In the statement obtained by WENN, a Church spokesperson writes, “The entire story is hogwash. There was no project, secret or otherwise, ever conducted by the Church to find a bride (audition or otherwise) for any member of the church.

“The allegation and entire premise of the Vanity Fair article is totally false. … We have been denying this ridiculous tale now since it first appeared in print four years ago.”

The representative also took aim at writer and filmmaker Paul Haggis, an outspoken former Scientologist, who backed up Orth’s Vanity Fair article and defended his friend Boniadi in an email to website Showbiz411.com on Sunday.

Haggis stated: “Naz was embarrassed by her unwitting involvement in the incident and never wanted it to come out, so I kept silent. However I was deeply disturbed by how the highest ranking members of a church could so easily justify using one of their members; how they so callously punished her and then so effectively silenced her when it was done.”

But, according to the spokesperson, Haggis is simply “attempting to grab headlines and falsely slander his former religion”.

The rep adds, “No Church members were ‘used,’ nor were they punished, nor silenced. This is totally false.”

Orth’s article suggests Boniadi was ordered to scrub lavatories with a toothbrush after allegedly breaching confidentiality agreements when she turned to friends for support following her reported dalliance with Cruise.

Religion: Back With a Vengeance at Venice Festival

By Roderick Conway Morris ("The New York Times," September 4, 2012)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37990/

Venice, Italy - Religion roars onto the screen as a subject for both mainstream and avant-garde filmmakers this season— a fact reflected in and out of competition during the first days of the Venice International Film Festival, which prominently featured dramas stimulated by the world’s three major monotheistic faiths and one based on a thinly veiled version of Scientology.

Outstanding among these was the Austrian director Ulrich Seidl’s in-competition “Paradies: Glaube” (Paradise: Faith). This is the second part of his “Paradise Trilogy,” the first of which was about a woman who goes in search of love as a sex tourist in Kenya.

“Glaube” focuses on her sister, Anna Maria, played by Maria Hofstätter, who after the failure of her marriage to a Muslim immigrant, has taken up an extreme form of Catholicism, constantly praying, mortifying her flesh by scourging herself and shuffling around her apartment on her knees until they bleed. She spends the rest of her spare time going from door to door with a plaster cast of the Virgin Mary, trying to persuade people to abjure sin and adopt a rigorous form of Christianity and to save them from damnation.

But Anna Maria’s routine is disrupted when her errant husband, Nabil (Nabil Saleh), returns, now wheelchair-bound and expecting his estranged wife to care for him and even to provide what he sees as her conjugal sexual duties.

Mr. Seidl’s films, like those of Mike Leigh, involve a lengthy process of research, rehearsal and improvisation during which a script emerges, and are even shot in chronological sequence. The documentary-like results are extremely powerful in drawing us into worlds that many of us find alien. Both Ms. Hofstätter and Mr. Saleh — this is his first role — are brilliantly convincing to an almost alarming degree.

Rama Burshtein’s in-competition “Fill the Void” is set in an ultra-orthodox sect in Tel Aviv, of which the director is a member. It is the story of a young girl, Shira (Hadas Yaron), who is about to embark on an arranged marriage, whose elder sister dies in childbirth, leaving a baby son. Shira soon comes under pressure to renounce previous plans and to marry her widowed brother-in-law.

Although more conventionally made than “Paradise: Faith,” this production too opens a window on a society unknown to most viewers, but avoids the issue of how such fundamentalist sects view and coexist with, not always happily, their more secular neighbors.

Faith played a key role in both Terrence Malick’s “To the Wonder” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s film “The Master,” both also shown in competition.

In the former, the first appearance at the altar of Javier Bardem, solemn-faced and in ecclesiastical robes, provoked an outburst of mirth among some at the premiere, presumably unintended by the director. Mr. Bardem’s struggle to maintain his faith is a sub-plot that runs through the movie, about a man’s relationships with two women, one of whom seeks and fails to find solace in religion when she is rejected by her lover.

“The Master” is the story of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who is inventing a new faith out of his wacky sci-fi inspired ideas and takes under his wing a disturbed and drunken ex-sailor, Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix).

Dodd uses his absurd cult procedures to try to reform Freddie, unsurprisingly without success, since his entire “faith” is founded on gobbledegook that he makes up as he goes along and is primarily designed to enrich and aggrandize himself and his sinister family.

Faith in other human beings lies at the heart of Susanne Bier’s life-enhancing out-of-competition “Love Is All You Need.” This kind of faith, Ida, enchantingly played by Trine Dyrholm, has in abundance. In real life this manifestation of trust in the rest of the human race may seldom be rewarded, but this being a romantic comedy, after many travails, it is.

Ida comes home from her latest medical consultation, after a grueling course of surgery and chemotherapy for breast cancer, to find her husband Leif (Kim Bodnia), having his way with a much younger work colleague on the family’s sofa. Ida and Lief were about to set off for their daughter’s wedding in Sorrento but her husband dumps her and Ida finds herself traveling alone.

In a state of agitation, she backs her car at the airport into the swish vehicle of an irascible (but ultimately vulnerable) businessman, Philip (played with feeling by Pierce Brosnan). Philip turns out to be the father of the young man that Ida’s daughter is about to marry. In the tradition of old-style romantic comedy, Ida and Philip take an instant dislike to each other but are now forced to endure each other’s company in view of the fact that they will both be staying at Philip’s Sorrento villa, which has been empty since the death of his wife, and where the wedding festivities are to take place.

To open the action of the film with Ida in consultation with her oncologist and a series of very funny gags sparked off by this painful situation took some daring. But Ms. Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen, her scriptwriter, have clearly enjoyed working within a conventional format, while wittily and poignantly subverting expectations, to create a real gem of bittersweet comedy.

Couple loses forced labor suit against Scientology

By (AP, July 24, 2012)


Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37821/

Los Angeles, USA - A couple who claimed they were victims of forced unpaid labor by the Church of Scientology lost the latest round in their lawsuit against the church Tuesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Marc and Claire Headley, long time Scientology members, voluntarily worked at menial tasks without payment because of their commitment to the religion.

The three-judge panel, which upheld a ruling by a lower court, said the couple voluntarily abided by rules of Sea Organization, a division of Scientology with a gated campus 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles that operates as a nerve center for the church's most important business.

In a synopsis of the program, the judges acknowledged that members were forbidden to have children and Claire Headley said she had two abortions rather than risk banishment. They also had their mail censored, Internet access restricted and were required to make a symbolic one-billion-year commitment to serve the church.

The judges said members were told during training that they would be required to work long hours without compensation, to live communally and adhere to strict ethical standards.

"This demanding, ascetic life is not for everyone," said the ruling, and noted some members do decide to leave through a rigid process called "routing out" which can take weeks or months. The judges said the Headleys could have left many times.

Calls requesting comments from the couple's attorney were not immediately returned.

The judges suggested the Headleys sued under the wrong law and said other legal avenues are open to them. They sued under a statute designed to combat "transnational crime" of "trafficking in persons."

"Whatever bad acts the defendants (or others) may have committed the record does not allow the conclusion that the Church...violated the Trafficking Victims Protection act," the ruling said.

The judges said the Headleys might have fared better under other legal theories such as assault, battery, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, or "any of a number of other theories that might have better fit the evidence."

They also said that the lower court properly rested its rulings on the ministerial exception which says courts may not scrutinize many aspects of the minister-church relationship.

Weird, Sure. A Cult, No.

By Mark Oppenheimer ("Washington Post," August 5, 2007)


Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/25848/?&place=united-states&section=scientology

Washington, USA - Scientology, the controversial religion whose adherents include John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Jenna Elfman, can't seem to stay out of the news. Sometimes the church would rather not have the publicity, as when Germany, which considers Scientology a cult, recently refused to let Cruise shoot scenes for his new movie in government buildings. Other times, Scientologists court the attention -- as when Cruise brought his Scientology-influenced anti-psychiatry crusade to the "Today" show in 2005.

Some Americans may consider Scientology perhaps a cult, maybe a violent sect, and certainly very weird. But Scientology is no more bizarre than other religions. And it's the similarities between Scientology and, say, Christianity and Judaism that make us so uncomfortable. We need to hate Scientology, lest we hate ourselves.

When it comes to Scientology, there's a hunger for the negative. I suspect that's because Scientology evinces an acute case of what Sigmund Freud called the narcissism of small differences: We're made most uncomfortable by that which is most like us. And everything of which Scientology is accused is an exaggerated form of what more "normal" religions do.

Does Scientology charge money for services? Yes -- but the average Mormon, tithing 10 percent annually, pays more to his church than all but the most committed Scientologists pay to theirs. Jews buying "tickets" to high-holiday services can easily part with thousands of dollars a year per family. Is Scientology authoritarian and cult-like? Yes -- but mainly at the higher levels, which is true of many religions. There may be pressure for members of Scientology's elite "Sea Organization" not to drop out, but pressure is also placed on Catholics who may want to leave some cloistered orders. Does Scientology embrace pseudoscience? Absolutely -- but its "engrams" and "E-meter" are no worse than what's propagated by your average "intelligent design" enthusiast. In fact, its very silliness makes it less pernicious.

And what about the Xenu creation myth that anti-Scientologists are so fond of? Scientologists have promised me that it is not part of their theology. Some say they learned about Xenu from "South Park." Several ex-Scientologists have sworn the opposite. Given his frequent conflation of science fiction, theology and incoherent musings, I think that L. Ron Hubbard may have taught that eons ago, the galactic warlord Xenu dumped 13.5 trillion beings in volcanoes on Earth, blowing them up and scattering their souls. But I'm not sure that it is an important part of Scientology's teachings. And if Xenu is part of the church's theology, it's no stranger than what's in Genesis. It's just newer and so seems weirder.

Religions appear strange in inverse proportion to their age. Judaism and Catholicism seem normal -- or at least not deviant. Mormonism, less than 200 years old, can seem a bit incredible. And Scientology, founded 50 years ago, sounds truly bizarre. To hear from a burning bush 3,000 years ago is not as strange as meeting the angel Moroni two centuries ago, which is far less strange than having a hack sci-fi writer as your prophet.

That's not to say that all religions are "equal" or equally deserving of respect. I'm no more a Scientologist than I am a Swedenborgian or a member of the Nation of Islam, and I do have two criticisms of Scientology that one rarely hears from the Xenu-obsessed detractors.

First, while the introductory Scientology costs are not outlandish (for example, a member may pay about $200 for a dozen sessions of "auditing," to start out), the fees increase as adherents gain knowledge through advanced coursework (going "up the bridge to total freedom," in Scientology-speak) -- and it does make the religion resemble a pyramid or matrix scheme. More than one Scientologist explained to me that they don't have the financial resources of the Catholic Church that come from thousands of years of donations. They have to charge. Well, that's not the whole truth. The secrecy surrounding Scientology's higher levels of knowledge has no apparent analog in the Abrahamic faiths, and the steep financial outlay to get higher knowledge also seems unique. Catholicism doesn't charge people to become learned, nor does Judaism. In fact, the greatest scholars in those faiths are often revered paupers: penniless rabbis and voluntarily poor priests, monks and nuns.

Poverty is not Scientology's style, to say the least. That leads me to my second criticism: bad aesthetics. Whether the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles, the church off Times Square in New York or the local branch down the street from my house, Scientology buildings are filled with garish colors, flat-screen TVs showing silly, dull videos, and glossy pamphlets recycling the legend of the overrated Hubbard, whom Scientologists revere as a scientist, writer and seer of the first rank. In my opinion, Hubbard's books are bad, the movies they inspire are worse and the derivative futuro-techno look that Scientology loves is an affront to good taste on every level. It's a religion that screams nouveau-"Star Trek"-riche. For those of us who seek mystery, wonder and beauty in our religions, Scientology is a nonstarter.

But good taste, as the art critic Dave Hickey says, is just the residue of someone else's privilege. Catholicism has its Gothic cathedrals, Judaism its timeless Torah scrolls. Scientology is new, but it has played an impressive game of catch-up. In its drive to be a major world religion, it will inevitably go through a period when its absurdities and missteps are glaringly apparent. But someday it will be old and prosaic, and there may still be Scientologists. And when some of those Scientologists embezzle, lie and steal -- as they surely will -- they'll seem no worse than Christians, Jews and Muslims who have done the same.

Scientology numbers going backwards: Census

By Steve Cannane ("ABC News," June 30, 2012)


Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37609/?&section=occult

Australia - Figures released to Lateline from the Australian Census show that in 2011, just 2,163 Australians called themselves Scientologists, a decrease of 13.7 per cent from the 2006 Census.

In 2009, Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis told ABC's Four Corners program there were "tens, if not hundreds of thousands" of Scientologists in Australia.

The Church of Scientology would not grant an interview to Lateline, but in a statement said: "The Census figures are not an accurate reflection of the growing number of people visiting our churches and actively participating in Scientology both in Australia and internationally."

Paul Schofield, who was a member of the Church for 29 years, before leaving in 2008, says Scientology has a history of fudging their figures.

"Scientology is totally obsessed with statistics. If your statistics are not going up you get punished, and they are probably the world’s most creative people with numbers when it comes to increases.

Jedis on the up

While Scientology is going backwards, other minor religions have registered increases.

The number of Pantheists went up by 35 per cent, while the Rastafarian movement increased by 30 per cent.

Australians who describe themselves as Jedis, now number over 65,000, over 30 times higher than Scientology's figures.

Wiccans, who dabble in witchcraft, have topped 8,000.

The release of the Census figures follows more bad news for the Church of Scientology.

Wendy Honnor, one of the most prominent Scientologists in Australia, has quit the church.

In an email to friends Ms Honnor wrote, "The only way out is out. I am free."

Ms Honnor is a previous winner of the International Association of Scientologists' Freedom Medal.

The Freedom Medal is considered the highest honour a Scientologist can achieve and has previously been awarded to Tom Cruise.

Wendy Honnor is thought to be the only winner of the Freedom Medal to quit and publicly distance herself from the church.

In her email Ms Honnor wrote: "I agree with all the points raised in the New Year 2012 email of Debbie Cook."

Debbie Cook is a former church official in the United States who was critical of the corporate culture of Scientology and the church's leader David Miscavige.

In a statement, the Church of Scientology said "Religion is a matter of personal choice and Ms Honnor has always made her own decisions in her life."

Scientologists plan Hollywood TV studio

By Ronald Grover and Lisa Baertlein (Reuters, July 11, 2012)


Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/37715/?place=united-states

The Church of Scientology, the religion whose followers include actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta, plans to start a religious broadcasting center to promote its teachings over TV, radio and the Internet.

The center, located near the church's West Coast headquarters in Hollywood, would occupy the nearly five-acre studio property the church bought last year from Los Angeles public TV station KCET for $42 million. The station would elevate the public profile of a religion that has mostly relied on pamphlets and books by its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, to proselytize for new members.

"The church plans to establish a central media hub for our growing world network of churches and to move into the production of religious television and radio broadcasting," said Karin Pouw, a spokeswoman for Church of Scientology International, in an email.

She said there is no timetable for when operations would begin.

Scientology TV could be similar to Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network or the Trinity Broadcast Network. Trinity creates Christian programming at a production center in Irving, Texas, and airs it on TV stations and cable channels, said Rick Ross, whose non-profit Rick A. Ross Institute in Trenton, New Jersey, maintains an online archive of data on cults and controversial movements.

"Hollywood is a major hub for creative talent and some of them are Scientologists," said Ross. "They'd have a lot of talented folks who could produce shows and stars like Tom Cruise who would appear on them."

Elayne Rapping, a pop-culture expert and professor of American studies at the University of Buffalo, told Reuters she is not surprised by the church's move.

"Having their own TV is a good idea since they can spin things their way," she said. "They are after good PR which they can control to offset the bad publicity surrounding them in other media."

Former members of the 60-year-old church accuse it of being a cult and have alleged that it abuses members and separates parents from children, among other things. The church denies such accusations.

The celebrity of controversial members like Cruise and Travolta is a double-edged sword for the church, Rapping said.

Cruise is one of the world's biggest movie stars, but his divorce from actress Katie Holmes has fueled speculation that the couple disagreed on raising their 6-year-old daughter, Suri, as a Scientologist and sparked a flurry of news coverage about the church.

John Travolta was recently sued for libel by a Los Angeles man who wrote a book about his alleged homosexual encounters with the "Saturday Night Fever" and "Pulp Fiction" star.

The Hollywood studio would complement the church's existing production facility, Golden Era Productions, near Hemet, California, which produces DVDs and "other audiovisual materials that comprise a large part of the Church's religious and educational materials," Pouw said.

Scientologists are likely to buy time on local TV stations to air shows as other religions do, said Bill Carroll, vice-president of Katz Television Group, which advises TV stations on programming.

They could create their own cable channel, he said, but could also get a license from the Federal Communications Commission to operate a broadcast channel by adhering to FCC rules on children's programming, news and other regulations.

The church took physical control of the broadcast center, located on Sunset Boulevard near Hollywood, in April when KCET employees moved TV station operations to a rented facility.