Scientology in the UK Media

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Scientology: A town they took over

Sunday Mirror, 27 June 1968, by George Martin

[Front page]

Master-mind

"Scientology is evil; its technique is evil; its practice a serious threat to the community."
From the report of an official inquiry in Australia

[photo of LRH]

Lafayette Ron Hubbard.. 'Falsely claims academic and other distinctions and whose sanity is to be gravely doubted' Two -page report begins on Page Four

Scientology: Sex, hypnotism and security checks

"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.

"Its founder is Lafayette Ron Hubbard, an American... who falsely claims academic and other distinctions and whose sanity is to be gravely doubted."

While the British authorities hummed and hawed, an official inquiry in Victoria, Australia, in 1965 condemned Hubbard and his organisation in these unmistakeable terms.

Intimate

It branded Hubbard a fraud and Scientology as "a delusional belief system, based on fiction and fallacies, propagated by falsehood and deception."

When the Minister of Health, Mr. Kenneth Robinson, last week in the House of Commons finally announced steps to curb the activities of the Scientologists in Britain, he cited the Melbourne report and added that there was "little point in holding another inquiry."

Mr. Kevin Anderson, QC, who headed the Victoria State investigation, and his colleagues blasted the Cult of Scientology throughout 159 pages of their report.

The appeal of Scientology, they found, was often deliberately directed towards the weak, the anxious, the dissappointed, the inadequate and the lonely.

Many of its processes were hypnotic, "wherein normal inhibitions and restraints are in abeyance."

Sexual matters, normal and abnormal, were frequently dealth upon extensively and erotically.

Many people have paid large sums - amounts of over £1,000 were "not uncommon" - for processing by Scientologists.

Evidence

As well as causing financial hardship, the cult bred dissension, suspicion and mistrust among members of the family, and had caused many family estrangements.

Another disturbing aspect, said the investigators, was the filing of detailed records of "intimate disclosures" made by thousands of people when they were revealing "their most secret hopes and fears, their shame and grief and guilt."

Some of the evidence given to the board, and the files they examined, gave examples of "quite shocking mental depravity."

Notes made by "auditors" - Scientologists putting new recruits (or "pre-clears") through the cult's complex processes - often contained such comments as, P.C. gets often the urge; and "disturbed because he came to have auditing and now wants to have intercourse."

A woman being "audited" recalled living on the island of Lesbos, and believed she was the original Lesbian.

She also believed she was Karl Marx in a previous lifetime; and a man being "audited" at the same time thought that he was her wife when she was Karl Marx.

A man giving evidence - whose file contained a large number of references to "disgusting matters" - was asked: "Did the sex of the auditor affect you in that regard?"

"What do you think?" he replied. "A luscious doll sitting in front of you, and you have to cough up these horrible sex withholds. Of course, it did."

Guilty

The Melbourne report also reproduced a Scientology "security," [sic- should be Security Check] designed to ensure that staff and Hubbard organisation did not deviate. AMong the 150 questions it contained were:

• Are you guilty of anything? Do you have a secret you're afraid I'll find out? Have you ever assaulted anyone, practiced cannibalism, been in jail?
• Are my questions embarrassing?
• Have you ever plotted to destroy a member of you family? Has a member of your family been in an insane asylum, ever been pronounced insane, looted any place, conspired with anyone, practiced fraud, ever had anything to do with Communism or been a Communist, been a newspaper reporter?
• Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology?
• What unkind thoughts have you had while doing this check?

Debased

A town they took over

A Sunday Mirror report on the evil cult at last curbed in Britain

Scientology chiefs are staging an all-out drive to get new British recruits - despite Government action to curb the "harmful" cult.

So far the chief effect of the Goverment clampdown is to restrict foreign students going to the "mind-training" cult's world HQ at St. Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex.

Under existing laws no action can be taken to ban British Scientologists, although Health Minister Kenneth Robinson has promised to "consider other measures should they prove necessary."

This is small comfort to the residents of East Grinstead - a town virtually taken over by the weird sect.

Residents say foreign students can easily find ways to avoid the new entry rules, and that most of the foreign-born Scientology chiefs have lived in Britain long enough to be residents anyway.

Mr. James Ellis, 51, landlord of the Rose and Crown public house in East Grinstead, which was recently "outlawed" by the Scientologists, had this to say about the situation:

"All now depends on how much sense we British people have got.

"If the Scientologists could get many British recruits is could have some effect.

Badges

"Most of the people at St Hill Manor are Americans, Australians and South Africans.

"You can sell an American anything if the price is high enough, but I don't think our people will fall for it despite this recruiting drive."

Mr Ellis added: "Let's face it. You'd have to be barmy to wander around twon with big badges pinned to you saying 'Please do not speak to me - I am under process.' "

Mr Ivor Jones, 43, a local councillor whose

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