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The Forbidden Side of ScientologyBy the Reverend Murray Luther, Jan 28, 2005Religious Hard-Sell        A while back, I received a mailer from the Church of Scientology's Citizens Commission on Human Rights. The mailer offered, "You are invited to a CONFIDENTIAL closed-door Briefing and Dinner." I've been a Scientologist long enough to know that what they were really saying. Essentially, the message was "Come to our dinner and give us the opportunity to brow-beat you into giving us thousands of dollars."        L. Ron Hubbard describes this approach as "come-on promotion." The words confidential and closed-door are meant to induce, allure and attract...

The Forbidden Side of ScientologyBy the Reverend Murray Luther, Jan 24, 05Totalitarian Religion        In 2001, following the September 11 attacks, Church of Scientology Chairman of the Board David Miscavige promptly issued Inspector General Network Bulletin No. 44, titled "Wake-up Call." The Church's official position, although not exactly a denial of the facts, completely avoided one issue worth noting. Miscavige made absolutely no mention of the terrorists' radical religious extremism. I suspect that for most Scientologists, extremism is a concept that probably hits too uncomfortably close to home. Your average dedicated Scientologist, while able to perhaps recognize the dangers of suicide...

The Forbidden Side of Scientology By the Reverend Murray Luther, Jan 18, 2005 Unauthorized Correspondent for The Church of ScientologyIndoctrinated Tyranny    One of the first things a new Scientologist encounters when studying Dianetics and Scientology is the absolute authority of L. Ron Hubbard. There's a gradual indoctrination process that takes place in which the Scientologist eventually comes to the realization that everything Hubbard says is absolutely true and completely correct. Sooner or later every Scientologist arrives at a point where Hubbard's word becomes law, not to be questioned.     Every course begins with the same Hubbard Policy Letter, Keeping Scientology...

The Forbidden Side of Scientology By the Reverend Murray Luther, Jan 13, 2005 An Ex-Fanatic Speaks Out     This is the first entry in a series of reports and commentary on the ever controversial Church of Scientology. I've been a member for roughly thirty years, and as of this writing I still remain in good standing. I've received hundreds of hours of Scientology counseling, and have attained some of the highest spiritual levels that it offers. I've also done significant amounts of training in the delivery of Scientology counseling, as well as courses in the administration of Church management policies....

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers. But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania." A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the...

Today, while browsing the In-Tar-Net, a friend pointed out to me the website of a young lady who offered up what is quite possibly the oddest explanation for the Kerry defeat that I’ve read so far. She writes:Magical Election Tampering: SHUT IT DOWN! Ok, I can understand the restlessness I've been feeling since yesterday. There's a lot riding on this election, and passions are running high on both sides, so naturally eceryone and their naked brother who has an ounce of Power and no clue about Shielding is leaking energy like a hair dryer in a bathtub. So it's Shields...

DAVID CROSBY AND GRAHAM NASH ANNOUNCE THEIR CANDIDACY FOR JOINT PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE VENERABLE PAIR ARE RUNNING ON THE PARTY PARTY TICKET Shelburne, VT, July 21, 2004: David Crosby and Graham Nash have thrown their respective hats into the ring for the Presidency of the United States, entering an already crowded and diverse field with their bid on the Party Party ticket. What distinguishes the Crosby/Nash candidacy is that theirs is a campaign for a “Joint Presidency,” where the two will share responsibilities on an alternate day basis. When asked who would be named their...

Moscow's medical workers discovered a magnificent gift of a sixteen-year-old girl Natalya Demkina from Saransk. The girl possesses "dual vision". She is capable of discerning a person's internal organs without using X-ray or ultrasound. Natasha has already disproved several medical diagnoses and has not made any mistakes. A series of medical experiments conducted in one of the clinics provide substantial and undeniable proofs of the girls' unique abilities. "Growing up, my daughter was just an ordinary child," states Natasha's mother Tatyana Vladimirovna. "Perhaps, she just a bit more mature than other kids her age. Natasha started to talk when she...

In the UK Sunday Times of May 16, 2004, appeared an article titled, "Top scientist gives backing to astrology," written by Jonathan Leake, who plays at being their Science Editor. "The planets may control your future after all," he wrote. This statement was inspired by a member of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr. Percy Seymour, author of a new book, "The Scientific Proof of Astrology" — are we surprised? — who says he believes that "human brain development may be affected by the Earth's magnetic field, especially during growth in the womb." In his book, Seymour suggests that the Earth's...

When Independence police officers arrived at an accident on U.S. 24 Saturday night, they had no idea it might cost them $500,000 to write down the offending driver’s name.But when they asked Daniel Smith, 45, the driver of the striking vehicle, for his driver’s license, he told them his name was copyrighted. Instead of handing them his license, he gave them a piece of paper he had generated on a computer saying that anyone who duplicated his name in any fashion would be subject to a lawsuit.According to police reports, he then told the officers that he would not turn...

<p>KING: Tonight: What really happened at Roswell, New Mexico, 56 years ago this week? Did the United States military cover up a UFO crash landing, complete with alien bodies? Do UFOs exist? Have they been here? Tonight we return to Roswell with those who were there. Walter Haut -- he was the information officer at Roswell Army Air Field. He wrote the now famous July 8, 1947, press release that said a flying disk had been recovered. Glenn Dennis -- he worked at a Roswell funeral home and says someone claiming to be the airfield's mortuary officer called to ask him about small caskets. Nancy Easley (ph) Johnston -- her father was in charge of security and clean-up at the Roswell site. Jesse Marcel, Jr. -- his father was a Roswell intelligence officer. He says he saw debris samples his father brought home from the crash site.</p>

Depending on the opinion polls, there's a core of Apollo moon flight disbelievers within the United States--perhaps 10 percent of the population, and up to twice as large in specific demographic groups. Overseas the results are similar, fanned by local attitudes toward the U.S. in general and technology in particular. Some religious fundamentalists--Hare Krishna cultists and some extreme Islamic mullahs, for example--declare the theological impossibility of human trips to other worlds in space. Resentment of American cultural and political dominance clearly fuels other "disbelievers," including those political groups who had been hoping for a different outcome to the Space Race--for...

An American friend of mine visiting from South America walked away from one of last month's parties around the L.A. Times Books Festival rather shaken and bewildered. "I felt like I was in a loony bin," he said as we emerged from a chic book-launch party in the Hollywood Hills. "If one more crazy person came up to me with some crackpot theory, I swear I would have thrown him off the balcony," he said. I know what he meant. With the 2004 presidential campaign now under way, it seems clear that as whacked out as George W. Bush may...

Oakland, Calif. - NBC’s Today Show, March 28th, Katie Couric interviewed grade school teacher, Elena Aguila(r?), who had taken 40 students to the streets carrying pictures putting faces on civilians and the children of Iraq. Aguila(r?)’s 7th and 8th class had been exchanging emails with children in Iraq. "Bush said no one supported Saddam,” said one student, “and the letters say they do”. I was really surprised.” “Schools are about to be empty. Our eyes never sleep. Why should war break our peace? It is not their oil,” she reads from an email from an Iraqi student. Another student said...

As a child, Peola Dews hid behind her family's couch, eavesdropping on the grown-ups.She listened as her grandmother's aunt recalled the horrors she witnessed on a Virginia plantation, where the male slaves were whipped and salt rubbed into their wounds."I remember thinking how cruel and mean that was," the Orlando psychologist said. "I was angry about that and about segregation -- about not being able to ride on a yellow school bus with the white kids."To Dews, 66, the effects of an institution that ended 139 years ago are still alive. Slavery fostered low self-esteem among blacks that has led...

THE WATCHDOG OF OCEAN PARKWAY Issue of 2002-03-25Posted 2002-03-18 It was question-and-answer time at the Barnes & Noble on Broadway at Eighty-second Street on a recent Friday night. Frank Bruni, a reporter for the Times, had just finished reading from "Ambling Into History," his account of George W. Bush's Presidential campaign and first year in the White House. A pale woman in the third row spoke up: "Many media outlets, including the Village Voice, Salon, and The New Republic, have accused you, for lack of a better word, of being a major suckup," she said, her voice reflecting a...