7 Russian Cult Members Emerge From Cave

Mike Eckel
Associated Press
March 29, 2008

MOSCOW (AP) — Seven women who had holed up in a cave for months with other members of a Russian cult awaiting the end of the world emerged Friday night and were being treated by emergency workers, regional officials said.

More than two dozen others remained behind but were expected to come out as early as Saturday, the governor's office said.

About 35 members of the Christian cult entered the cave near the village of Nikolskoye, 400 miles southeast of Moscow, in early November to await the end of the world, which they expected in May. They threatened to detonate gas canisters if police tried to remove them by force.

The vice governor of the Penza region, Oleg Melnichenko, said in televised comments that the seven women came out voluntarily, carrying satchels with their belongings. He said the cult leader, the self-declared prophet Pyotr Kuznetsov, was brought from a local psychiatric hospital to help persuade the women to leave.

He said the women walked on their own nearly a mile to a prayer house, where emergency workers were talking with them, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

"There is no reason to urgently hospitalize any of them," Melnichenko was quoted as saying.

Another official in the governor's office, who gave only his first name, Alexander, said the other cult members still in the cave were expected to give up their vigil, perhaps by Saturday. He said four children, reportedly under age 2, were among those in the cave.

Melnichenko said officials feared that melting snow could eventually lead to the collapse of the cave, but there was no immediate threat to those who remained behind.

Officials had repeatedly enlisted the help of priests from the Orthodox Church in an effort to persuade the group to leave, communicating mainly through a small chimney pipe that poked up through the snowy hillside.

Earlier this week, Melnichenko told reporters that some of the cult members had indicated they might leave the cave on Orthodox Easter, which is April 27.

Kuznetsov has been charged with setting up a religious organization associated with violence. Earlier this week, officials said they had seized literature that included what appeared to be extremist rhetoric. He has been confined to a psychiatric hospital since November.

An engineer from a devout family, Kuznetsov, who goes by the title of Father Pyotr, declared himself a prophet several years ago. He left his family and established the True Russian Orthodox Church and recruited followers in Russia and Belarus.

He reportedly told followers that, in the afterlife, they would judge whether others deserved heaven or hell.

Followers were not allowed to watch television, listen to the radio or handle money, Russian media reported.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h39lhS81k9sVfh1H3xyHTvAOHX4gD8VMN2JG0

Author delves into life in Bountiful

Victoria News
March 26, 2008


Exploring polygamy - Author delves into life in Bountiful 
Religious extremism seems worlds away from Victoria.

However, the southern part of our province is a hotbed of religious extremists. A tiny communal town with less than 1,000 people, Bountiful, B.C., is one of North America’s well-known settlements for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who openly practice polygamy — the practice of taking multiple wives.

The tiny community recently gained national attention when Utah’s Warren Jeffs, the former leader of Mormon fundamentalistpolygynist sect who had close ties to the town, was arrested and convicted of being an accomplice to rape after he arranged an extralegal marriage between an adult follower and underage girl.

Winston Blackmore, the leader of Bountiful, B.C., once a follower of Jeffs and close confident, has since denounced the former leader as a “false prophet.” Blackmore currently has around 22 wives (at last count) and has allegedly fathered more than 100 children and allegedly impregnated 15 year olds.

Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham has been covering Mormonism and polygamy in both Utah and Bountiful for close to five years. She recently released The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in a Polygamous Mormon Sect, an in-depth account of Blackmore’s operation and some who have fled faith.

She started writing about Bountiful in 2004 while delving into the issue of human trafficking and met Blackmore in person some two years later.

“He’s quite charming and quite funny,” said Bramham, who will speak in Victoria April 5. “And like some religious or political leaders, from the moment he meets you he’s looking for your weaknesses and looking at ways that he can expose them and exploit them.”

In 2004 Bramham was invited by the wives of Bountiful to come and explore the community. But when she arrived, Bramham found the wives mysteriously were unwilling to speak to her.

South of Cranbrook and Creston right beside the Washington State border, Bountiful is a picturesque town. Bramham made several trips there while penning her book and found the men very secretive.

“All the time while I was talking to the women they were always getting phone calls and I presume it was from Winston. Calling them, telling them what to say, the women really become the public face in a way because the men are so scared of being arrested. And these women, they’re so well-trained to tell you that they’re happy in this sort of sweet way.”

A columnist for the Sun since 2000, Bramham also interviewed the ‘lost boys’, young men who had either been kicked out, or left the sect. Uneducated, untrained and unfamiliar with the outside world, many of the boys fall into deep drug and alcohol addictions.

“The ones who were kicked out really are in no position to be dependable on their own and that’s what they’re faced with.”

Within The Secret Lives of Saints is commentary on why the provincial and federal government seem inept at prosecuting men such as Blackmore.

“I don’t believe they should be allowed to continue, it’s antithetical to Canadian society. People should be able to practice religion as they choose, but it should not be able to go above and beyond the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Bramham will read on Saturday, April 5 at 7 p.m. at Bolen Books, 111-1644 Hillside Ave. For information call 595-4232.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/lifestyles/17009481.html 

A buzz of boycott on Mount Olympus

Wesley Pruden
Washington Times

March 25, 2008

Something's cooking on Mount Olympus, and it doesn't smell like Szechuan Chicken with Chef's Famous Garlic Sauce. Zeus and the gang are frowning on Beijing.

The latest Chinese rape of Tibet is putting second thoughts into the heads of people you might not expect to entertain tough thoughts. "There will be a boycott of some sort," says Edward McMillan-Scott, vice president of the European Parliament. "What kind of boycott, is the question right now. At a minimum, I think the European Union should require that no elected official from the 27-member [European] states attend the opening ceremony. But that is a minimum."

The Chinese tasted a bit of what's coming when two men breached the line of a thousand cops yesterday to unfurl a boycott-the-Olympics flag at the lighting of the Olympic torch at Ancient Olympia. The flag portrays the interlocking Olympics rings as handcuffs, like those stockpiled to greet impolite visitors at the Beijing games. A Tibetan couple were arrested on a road outside the ancient Olympian stadium when they fell to the pavement to obstruct a Chinese runner. Two more Tibetans were arrested when they unfurled a Tibetan flag from a balcony; an Indian tourist was detained on suspicion of "planning a pro-Tibetan incident."

Another boycott, like that of the Moscow Olympics in 1980, at first seems unlikely. "No, absolutely not," a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee told ABC News yesterday. "No consideration is being given to a boycott. There is no discussion. We would never entertain it. It's not on the table." But with a denial like that, you never know.

The Chinese, who have learned they can behave with raucous contempt for the concerns of the rest of the world, obviously think they will pay no penalty for killing a hundred Tibetans (and probably many more) for celebrating their national day. The drumbeat of slander and libel of the Dalai Lama continues. When a hundred students at the Central University of Beijing held a candlelight vigil for the slain Tibetans, more than a dozen were led away in handcuffs to "assist the authorities in their investigation." One European professor who was a witness told correspondents: "It was just a group of Tibetans praying, but it was organized, so the Chinese freaked out."

Organized prayer always freaks out Chinese officials. It's the organization, since it can't be the prayer. When I once asked a Chinese ambassador at lunch why his government was so terrified of the Falun Gong, several of whom were at that moment chanting and waving banners outside his embassy on Connecticut Avenue, he replied with unconvincing incredulity: "Do you know that Falun Gong deny the deity of Jesus Christ?" When I asked whether his remarkable question reflected a change in his government's resolute atheism, he appeared flustered, and changed the subject.

Tibet is a special case for Beijing; the Dalai Lama is particularly reviled for standing up to brutal authority. Alice Thomson writes in the London Daily Telegraph of visiting the Dalai Lama in his exile at a hill station in India. An old woman arrived at the gate to ask for a blessing from the man the Tibetans call the Lord of Compassion. She told how she was arrested for carrying a picture of the Dalai Lama in the folds of her skirt. She was dragged through the streets by her hair and thrown into an open-air prison when she refused to spit on the photograph. She was raped repeatedly and suspended upside down by the Chinese soldiers, and forced to sleep on the bodies of dead inmates. When she was finally released she was told that her husband had been forced to marry a Chinese woman, and she would never see her children again.

If the fun and games must go on, the assembled heads of state ought at least raise a glass of their plum wine in salute to the strength, the courage and the bravery of the Tibetans. They deserve the gold.

Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Times.

http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080325/NATION01/147642776

Aum's bankruptcy proceedings to end 13 years on

Jun Hongo
Japan Times, 
March 20, 2008

The bankruptcy proceedings for Aum Shinrikyo will conclude on March 26 even though the doomsday cult will pay only 40 percent of the ¥3.8 billion owed to victims of the crimes it committed more than a decade ago.

Lawyer Saburo Abe, who was appointed by the court to manage Aum's assets in 1996, told reporters Wednesday at the Tokyo District Court that the bankruptcy process has reached its limit because of the size of Aum's huge debts.

According to Abe, the cult still owes roughly ¥5.1 billion.

Disbursements will end once the final round of payment is distributed to about 1,200 victims starting in June, bringing the total amount to ¥1.5 billion.

"We've done everything we can. We must ask for assistance from the government from this point on," Abe said.

The announcement came a day before the 13th anniversary of the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995. The gassing left 12 people dead and some 5,500 wounded.

The conclusion of the bankruptcy proceedings, however, could trigger a new phase of litigation in the form of compensation claims against the cult, or against the government in lieu of the cult.

At the 16th and final meeting of the victims' and cult's representatives on March 26, Judge Kenji Nishi of the Tokyo District Court will issue instructions on the conditions for closing the bankruptcy proceedings, including details on how Aum's claimable assets will be managed in the future.

Abe and the victims have urged the government to establish a special law that would provide financial support to Aum's victims.

Shizue Takahashi, who lost her husband in the subway attack, criticized the government for not providing aid to the victims and their families over the past 13 years.

"Although the state has the obligation to ensure the safety of its people, the government has not provided any help to us," Takahashi, the representative of Aum's victims, said at a news conference with Abe.

Kazuo Asakawa, whose sister, Sachiko, was found in cardiopulmonary arrest at Nakano-Sakaue Station on the Marunouchi Line and is now paralyzed, also complained about the lack of government support.

"While (the Aum members) are being provided care (via the judicial process), my sister and other victims are being abandoned. It is not rational," Asakawa said.

The Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition has set up project teams to explore ways of aiding the victims, examining different compensation amounts and the criteria to be met.

In February, the Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition force, submitted a bill to the Diet that would oblige the state to pay redress on behalf of Aum.

"The lobbying process is just beginning, and we must keep moving forward," Takahashi told reporters.

In addition to the Tokyo subway attack, several Aum members were convicted for killing seven people in a sarin gassing in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1994, as well as the murder of lawyer Yokohama Tsutsumi Sakamoto and his family in 1989.

Several cultists, including founder Shoko Asahara, have been sentenced to death.

Following the arrest of Asahara and other key members, Aum was declared bankrupt in 1996.

Abe was then named the trustee and appointed to collect the cult's assets to provide redress to its victims.

Aum renamed itself Aleph in 2000.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080320a6.html 

Obituary: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, guru and tycoon, died on February 5th, aged 91 (probably)

The Economist
February 14, 2008

VISITORS entering the World Bank in Washington one sweaty day in 1987 might have been surprised to come upon a team of smiling young men, legs neatly folded into the lotus position, hopping like frogs. In fact, most visitors were probably not surprised at all. Like many happenings connected with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, this display of “yogic flying” had been well advertised. The only surprise was that the bank, usually cast as a bastion of hard-headed rationality, should provide such a ready audience for an event whose aim was not physical fitness but world peace.

Thirty years earlier the maharishi, who had studied maths and physics at Allahabad University, had calculated that one person practising the transcendental meditation he promoted could induce virtuous behaviour among 99 non-meditators. He had already, in 1944, helped to get 2,000 Vedic pandits, learned followers of one of the four holy books of the Hindus, to chant mantras in an effort to bring the second world war to an end. He had again assembled meditators in 1963 to solve the Cuban missile crisis. But his ambitions were bigger—world peace, no less—and by the 1980s he had come to realise that to bring harmony to a world of 5 billion people, he would need 50m meditators.

Undaunted, he did the arithmetic again, this time factoring in meditation of deep purity and concentration (including yogic flying), and happily found he needed a number no greater than the square root of 1%—a mere 7,000 or so. Accordingly, 7,000 flyers were assembled during the Taste of Utopia conference in Fairfield, Iowa, in 1984. Annoyingly, though, the “wide range of positive effects worldwide” ended with the conference. Something similar happened after 7,000 students gathered for yogic flying and Vedic chanting near Delhi in 1988. The Berlin Wall came down all right and the cold war ended, but the money needed to keep the group airborne ran out and, dammit, “new tensions” started to arise in the world.

If only the maharishi had had the necessary funds. Actually, he had. He may not have known how to make peace, but he certainly knew how to make money. After years studying under a Hindu divine in the late 1950s, he had pronounced himself a maharishi (great seer) and set up the Spiritual Regeneration Movement. This took transcendental meditation, which he had trademarked, to the world, with Hollywood one of the first stops. Disciples paid $2,500 for a five-day course, learning how to reach a “deeper level” of consciousness by inwardly repeating a mantra twice a day for 20 minutes.

Real fame came when the Beatles beat a path to his door, seeking enlightenment and spirituality through good vibrations. George Harrison had already fallen under the spell of the sitar and the maharishi's message appealed to John Lennon's angry pacifism. Before long the Fab Four were ensconced in the maharishi's ashram in the foothills of the Himalayas. Their stay was only a modified success, though, with Lennon and Ringo Starr complaining about the food, and all of them, perhaps, beginning to resent their host's transcendental interest in using them for publicity, if not an outright percentage of their earnings.

No matter. Plenty of others were ready to step forward for a dose of spiritual bliss, and not all were celebrities. In America meditation was judged to be just the tonic for a variety of people ranging from underperforming executives to recidivist prisoners. An army general even joined the board of Maharishi International University, set up in Fairfield in 1974. All in all, some 5m people are said to have been taught the maharishi's techniques since 1955.

His other ventures blossomed, too. A property empire was valued at over $3 billion ten years ago. A television station offered meditation courses to subscribers in 144 countries. Companies sold unguents, books, videos and Ayurvedic treatment. His political movement, the Natural Law Party, which in the 1990s pursued the goal of world government by fighting elections in America, Britain and several other countries, was less successful, and eventually folded. This, however, did not stop the maharishi then launching the raam, a global currency intended to foster development.

Imagine (all the things he didn't do)

Crank? Crackpot? Charlatan? Maybe all three. Yet the maharishi was generally benign. He did not use his money for sinister ends. He neither drank, nor smoked, nor took drugs. Indeed, he is credited with weaning the Beatles off dope (for a while). He did not accumulate scores of Rolls-Royces, like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; his biggest self-indulgence was a helicopter. Nor was he ever accused of molesting choirboys; his greatest sexual impropriety, it was said, was to make a pass at Mia Farrow. He giggled a lot, and plainly had no lack of self-esteem. But his egotism did not mean he was always wringing his hands at pop concerts or blethering at Davos; after the 1960s he seldom appeared in public.

Moreover, his message was entirely laudable. He did not promote a cult or even a mainstream religion preaching original sin, purgatory and the likelihood of eternal damnation. He just wanted to end poverty, teach people how to achieve personal fulfilment and help them to discover “Heaven on Earth in this generation”. And yogic flying, of course.

This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition

http://www.economist.com/node/10683705

Maharishi inspired Beatles but died leaving GBP2 billion and rape rumours

Thursday February 7, 2008  Transcendental Meditation

He was the Sixth Beatle, a spiritual force with the potential to create world peace and end famine.

Or he was an avaicious old man with a penchant for young girls who ruined the greatest pop group in history…

It rather depends on your point of view, but one thing is certain about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who died this week aged somewhere between 91 and 97 – he was one of the richest religious leaders in history.

The ‘giggling guru’ – so called because of his high-pitched laugh – lived in an opulent 200-room mansion, with helicopters and dozens of cars at his disposal, and was worth an estimated £2billion.

He was the head of a movement with five million followers worldwide, all seeking a higher consciousness through transcendental meditation.

But while the Maharishi promised world peace, and cynics laughed at his wacky teachings and yogic flying, sinister stories of sex, debauchery, and even murder cast dark shadows over his life.

All but one of the Beatles cut their ties with their apparently celibate guru after it emerged he’d made a pass at Mia Farrow. The Maharishi’s people, on the other hand, insist they simply fell out when he discovered the band were using LSD.

Later another British disciple, Linda Pearce claimed the Maharishi had seduced her when he was in his 60s.

“He was a brilliant manipulator,” said Mrs Pearce. “I just couldn’t see that he was a dirty old man. We made love regularly. At one stage I even thought I was pregnant by him. And I don’t think I was the only girl. There was a lot of talk that he’d tried to rape Mia Farrow.”

And there was worse scandal to come. In 1987, when the Maharishi was living in a highsecurity complex on the outskirts of Delhi, India, the Telegraph newspaper of Calcutta alleged five boys had died after being used as guinea pigs in the ashram’s “medical institute” searching for cures for cancer, heart ailments and Aids. Nothing was ever proved.

At the same time the fabulously wealthy guru’s employees went on strike to increase their ?10-a-month wages. The Maharishi simply moved into a five-star hotel in New Delhi until it was over.

Mahesh Prasad Varma (or Mahesh Srivastava, depending on your source) was born in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, sometime between 1911 and 1918.

The son of a government tax inspector, he initially studied physics but then trained with a Vedic spiritual mentor, undertaking two years of silence in the Himalayas where he developed his ideas on transcendental meditation.

The movement the Maharishi leaves behind, after his death at his luxurious retreat in Vlodrop in the Netherlands, has been called the world’s richest cult. Yet when he began his first world tour as a spiritual leader in Burma in 1958, the Maharishi was praised for his austerity.

One commentator wrote: “He asks for nothing. His worldly possessions can be carried in one hand.”

Meeting the Beatles a decade later changed all that. The band had been encouraged to attend a lecture by George Harrison’s wife Patti, and were impressed enough by what they heard to accompany him to a weekend retreat in to North Wales.

Along with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, they took the train to Bangor – where the Maharishi assumed the mob of screaming fans were there for him.

Only a day into the retreat the news broke that the Beatles influential manager Brian Epstein had died from a suspected drugs overdose.

Rather than let them grieve for their friend and first mentor, the Maharishi told them their tears would cause “vibrations” which could trap Epstein’s spiriton this spiritual plane rather than let it travel to the next. And he instructed them to be joyful and laugh.

Months later all four Beatles, their partners and 60s stars Donovan, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence headed off for a three-month retreat to the Maharishi’s centre on the banks of the Ganges.

Transcendental Meditation

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“Transcendental Meditation was ruled a religion by the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, Docket No. 76-341 (H.C.M.) Civil Action, in the case of Alan B. Malnak. et al., Plaintiffs, v. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, et al., Defendants, in a summary judgment issued October 19, 1977, followed by an order and judgment, filed December 12, 1977.”

– Is TM a religion?

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Funded by a tithe of one week’s wages from each of its students, the bank balance of the ashram received a massive boost from the world’s biggest pop stars.

They expected to find spiritual enlightenment, but what they actually found was what Ringo called “a bit like Butlins.” He and his then wife Maureen left after a fortnight, desperate for “egg and chips.” Paul McCartney and his girlfriend Jane Asher quit too.

Then came the stories of the Maharishi’s attempt to have sex with Mia Farrow. John Lennon said later: “There was a hullabaloo about him trying to rape Mia and a few other women. The whole gang charged down to his hut and I said: ‘We’re leaving!’ He asked why and I said: ‘If you’re so cosmic, you’ll know why.’ The Maharishi gave me a look that said: ‘I’ll kill you, you bastard!'”

But none of this dented the Maharishi’s growing global popularity. Travelling the world in a pink aeroplane, his fame and his movement grew and he featured on the front cover of Time magazine in 1975. His transcendental meditation technique involved silently repeating a Sanskrit mantra for 20 minutes twice a day. And since scientific studies have now concluded it has some real health benefits, it is never short of new adherents

And at £1,300 per person for a standard introduction course, it’s easy to see where the Maharishi’s cash came from. But there were times when the guru’s ego got the better of him… He once told an audience in New York that if just one per cent of the world’s population adopted his teaching it would “neutralise the power of war for thousands of years”.

Consequently, he claimed credit for peacein the Lebanon and Mozambique, and forreducing crime in Washington and Merseyside.

And after the terrorist outrages of September 11, 2001 the Maharishi claimed ifany government gave him a billion dollars hecould end terrorism and create peace.

His claims were ridiculed – as were his 40,000 yogic fliers who, as the Natural Law Party, promised that levitating while in the Lotus position would bring peace and enlightenment. In the end it brought just 0.4 per cent of thevotes in the election.

Last month the guru, who lately communicated through a videolink, announced his retirement. His spokesman Bob Roth says: “He’d done what he set out to do.”

Apart from world peace.

https://www.religionnewsblog.com/20558/maharishi-mahesh-yogi-3

A School Case To Watch

New York Sun

February 8, 2008

Editorial

Oh, ye of little faith — and here we are speaking of those who doubt that some day a solution will be found to the problem of school choice — we say behold what is happening among the judges who ride the 9th circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. There, our Josh Gerstein reports from the Coast, three judges are hearing a case that could force the Internal Revenue Service to explain why it has secretly allowed members of the Church of Scientology to take a tax deduction for religious education.

The case was brought by a Jewish couple, Michael and Marla Sklar, who had taken deductions for part of the costs of the tuition for the education of their children for afterschool classes in Judaism. They are seeking to view an agreement the Internal Revenue Service reached with the Church of Scientology in 1993 as part of a settlement in a long-running dispute. The church, Mr. Gerstein reports, paid $12.5 million, while the IRS, as Mr. Gerstein characterizes it in his story on page one, "agreed to drop arguments that Scientology was not a bona fide religion." And the IRS agreed to allow Scientologists to deduct at least 80% of fees paid for "religious training and services."

A memo memorializing the agreement, which was secret, was later published by the Wall Street Journal, igniting a tumult. The Sklars, Mr. Gerstein reports, took similar deductions for religious education on their returns for the early 1990s, without challenge by the IRS, until 1994, when the IRS began rejecting their deductions. One of the questions being battled over in federal court now is whether the IRS has to disclose its secret agreement with the Scientologists and whether it sets a precedent in respect of others who wish to deduct tuition and other payments for religious education.

It's always dangerous for a newspaper to predict the outcome of a court case, but at one point, Mr. Gerstein reports, Judge KimWardlaw put it this way: "The view of the IRS is it can unconstitutionally violate the Constitution by establishing religion, by treating one religion more favorably than other religions in terms of what is allowed as deductions, and there can never be any judicial review of that?" A hapless lawyer for the IRS tried to argue that's not what she was saying. Snapped two judges from the bench: "That's the bottom line." Added Judge Wardlaw: "This does intrude into the Establishment Clause."

At one point, the IRS lawyer actually warned the court that the tax collector would have difficulty resolving tax disputes if the IRS were forced to disclose its secret agreement with the Scientologists. "Every person who can find out about it from any other religious group is going to come in and want the same thing and that would really tie the IRS's hands," she said. She went on to argue that the idea that the IRS can't settle and keep the settlement confidential could lead to members of racial minorities trying to claim that taxpayers of other races got better deals. This prompted the lawyer for the Sklars to ask: "If the IRS were saying white people were entitled to a certain deduction and black people were not, why would it be such a parade of horrors for the courts to come in and say the government may not act that way?"

* * *
Our own view on school vouchers and the like is that the right place to work out a solution is in the legislatures. But one of the things the courts are made for is abuses of the state power, and it certainly is starting to look like there has been an enormous one if the Internal Revenue Service is denying Jews, or Christians, or any other religion, the right to make deductions for religious education it is permitting to another group on the grounds that it is a religion. So there is at least the possibility here that the riders of the 9th United States Circuit could simply order the IRS to grant the Sklars — and others similarly situationed — deductions for certain costs of religious education similar to what the government is secretly allowing the Scientologists. Or in other words, one could make a giant leap forward in parental choice in the education of children, all in one judicial fell swoop.

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A religion for the 21st century: Scientology

Ruth Marvin Webster, Staff Writer
North County Times (CA)
February 8, 2008

What We Believe: The Church of Scientology

Questions of faith and religion aren't usual topics of Hollywood buzz. Drug use, infidelity, weight and cosmetic surgical procedures are.

But any tidbit about the Church of Scientology or its high-profile celebrity believers seem to be the exception, attracting attention at every turn.

First there was the controversy in Germany, which in December declared Scientology unconstitutional and banned it. Then there was the release of Andrew Morton's unauthorized biography of actor Tom Cruise, which coincided with the broadcast of a nine-minute video of Cruise extolling the virtues of the faith, viewed by millions of people around the world before it was pulled from YouTube.

But more than material for late-night talk hosts, the Church of Scientology is the belief system of more than 3.5 million Americans, including more than 18,000 people in the San Diego area, according to Dave Meyer, president of the Church of Scientology of San Diego.

Scientology has been called by some the only major new religion to emerge in the 20th century with no heritage from any mainstream Judeo-Christian faiths. Nor is it connected with the churches of Christian Science or Religious Science. Others, however, say Scientology is not a religion because of its methods, including the practice of charging for some of its services.

'We so respect him'

Scientology grew out of a best-selling book called "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health," published in 1950. The book includes a concept of God expressed as the urge toward existence as infinity or the supreme being.

The author of "Dianetics" was L. Ron Hubbard, a filmmaker, aviator, adventurer, photographer, philosopher and expert mariner. The founder of the Church of Scientology, he is considered a genius by his followers.

Among those followers are Kathy and Ed Marsh of Escondido. The library in their guesthouse is home to thousands of first edition and signed volumes, many written by Hubbard. The room also contains pieces of Hubbard memorabilia that Ed Marsh, a Scientologist since 1969, has collected over the years, such as a package of Hubbard's favorite Kool cigarettes and his early aviator helmet.

But Scientology is not about worshipping Hubbard, said Meyer, who has been the president of the Church of Scientology of San Diego for the last two years.

"We so respect him (Hubbard) for his deeds and accomplishments ... and for his caring factor," said Meyer.

A new religion

Born in Tilden, Neb., in March 1911, Hubbard was a prolific author of fiction and science fiction, including his best-known science-fiction novel, "Battlefield Earth." Guinness World Records lists him as the world's most published and most translated author, with 1,084 fiction and nonfiction works translated into 71 languages. Hubbard died on Jan. 24, 1986, at age 74.

But "Dianetics" remains his most enduring work. On The New York Times best-seller list for 26 consecutive weeks the year it was published, followers contend that this book, with Hubbard's other writings and recordings on Scientology, collectively constitutes their scripture.

"Hubbard took a scientific approach as to 'what is man,'" said Marsh. "He untangled the web of knowledge and came down with the things that work and the technology for doing that."

Reading and studying the book, followers believe, is the first step in resolving the problems of the human mind, which include unwanted sensations and emotions, irrational impulses, and psychosomatic (mind-caused) ills.

'A state of Clear' 

At the core of such problems of human existence is what Hubbard calls the reactive mind, defined as that portion of the mind that works on a totally stimulus-response basis. Stored there are so-called engrams ---- mental records of times of physical pain and unconsciousness. These engrams are "the source of all human failings."

Using his techniques, Hubbard writes, a "state of Clear" and spiritual peace can be accomplished, and the whole of the reactive mind is erased.

"The cases are legion, documented and startling: a homicidal maniac returned to normality in a matter of a few dozen hours; an arthritically paralyzed welder returned to full mobility in roughly the same; a legally blind professor whose vision was restored in under a week; and an hysterically crippled housewife returned to perfect health in a single three-hour session," write the "Friends of Ron" in the book "L. Ron Hubbard, a Profile" (1995, published by the Church of Scientology).

Marsh said he was a troubled 17-year-old when he stumbled into the Scientology office on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. "It said they had a free personality test, and the test that I took later confirmed what I already knew, that I was a mess. It was crushing."

Marsh said he took that personality test in San Diego after being hospitalized with hepatitis. "I was in convalescence. A friend came in with two 'Dianetics' books and a bottle of cheap Cold Duck."

Marsh said Hubbard's message spoke to him. "There's no belief involved," he said. "He says to look and evaluate for yourself to become more of you. Don't just believe because I said it."

Meyer, the San Diego Scientology Church president, explained: "He (Hubbard) doesn't give answers. He says to look, understand and decide what that means for you."

Meyer added that Scientology is a religion, not a method of self-help, because it focuses on the spirit, not just the body.

Auditing and e-meters

Auditing is the term given to the spiritual counseling that is the central practice of Scientology.

A trained auditor uses a set of questions to help a person examine otherwise unknown and unwanted sources of difficulties. "The procedure is predicated on the fact that if the true source of what troubles us is fully viewed and understood, then the trouble would no longer be," explain Scientology materials.

Part of the auditing process involves the electro-psychometer, or e-meter, which is said to help the auditor and the subject locate areas of spiritual distress existing below the person's current awareness. The subject holds a metal cylinder in each hand, which are hooked up to the electronic components of the meter as the auditor reads the dial. The meter is said to send a small electrical current (approximately .5 volts) through the body, about the same as the average battery-powered wristwatch.

Marsh has collected dozens of vintage e-meters that are displayed in his Escondido study. He and Meyer are both trainer auditors. That is, they are trained in certain techniques and governed by an Auditor's Code that demand they show kindness, affinity and patience while confronting areas of upset or difficulty in the subject.

Each follower's goal of spiritual advancement is delineated by the Scientology Bridge, which charts the levels and certificates showing auditing classes from zero to 12 as well as training steps. The "Clear" stage is the goal and end result of Dianetics, which requires hours of auditing to attain.

Taking the training, as outlined in Scientology materials, is the way to learn the spiritual technology of Scientology. Study programs range from introductory to advanced, and programs exist at Scientology centers throughout the world as well as books, materials and video presentations.

According to Scientology materials, it is through this study that followers can learn to hone their ability to control each of what are called the eight dynamics, eight distinct divisions of every individual's drive for survival.

'New answers needed'

"Scientology has never been more relevant than today," said David Miscavige, an important leader in the church, in an introductory address given at a celebrity event in Los Angeles a few years ago that was videotaped for the public.

"Man lives in a world increasingly interested in science, and yet even with all that science, there is an abyss, a chasm of humanity ... the answer cannot be found in chemicals or science ... we think new answers are needed. People need real solutions to real problems, and Scientology offers that help ... and inherent in that is that each of us takes responsibility for themselves and the world."

Scientologists estimated that there are 3,000 Scientology churches, missions, related organizations and group ministries in more than 133 countries.

According to the Religion Newswriters Association, a nonprofit trade association founded in 1949 to advance the professional standards of religion reporting, Scientology has been investigated in the past by certain governmental agencies around the world, in part because of its practice of charging fees to members in order for them to receive auditing. Costs for auditing vary, and according to the Scientology materials, for those who cannot afford a donation, every church has a center where they can receive auditing from ministers in training.

Meyer said Scientologists have made a positive impact on the local community with numerous social programs, including helping at an evacuation center at MiraCosta College for victims of last year's wildfires.

Among the organization's community projects are programs such as Criminon, run in more than 300 prisons and penal institutions in 39 states, and Narconon, a drug rehabilitation program in 70 nations and which is said by Scientologists to have "successfully freed more than 100,000 individuals from drug dependence."

"There are a plethora of ways to contribute," Meyer said. "We encourage people to read and watch the materials, see if it makes sense to them and participate. The truth is usually very simple."

Commonly asked questions about the basics of Scientology

Thetan: According to Scientologists, man consists of three parts: thetan, mind and body. The thetan is the spiritual being or soul. One of the basic tenets of Scientology is that man is an immortal spiritual being whose experience extends beyond a single lifetime and whose capabilities are unlimited.

Auditing: Term given to the spiritual counseling delivered by an auditor who is trained in the techniques of Dianetics and Scientology. No use of hypnosis or drugs is said to be used. During the auditing session, the auditor asks questions that are meant to help the individual examine his own existence and
find a higher level of spiritual awareness and well-being.

Engram: The stored mental images of the Reactive Mind, or that part of a person's mind that works completely on a stimulus-response basis.

State of Clear: The goal and end result of Dianetics is the state of Clear when the reactive mind is wiped clean.

Operating Thetan or OT: The spiritual state of being above Clear. An OT is able to control matter, energy, space and time rather than being controlled by such things. This state is said to be attained in a series of steps and classes.

E-meter or electropsychometer: Used in the auditing process, the e-meter is called a religious artifact. It is said to measure and change the mental state of the individual being audited. Movement of the needle on the dial is said to indicate an area of upset or trauma and help the individual uncover truth.

Source: Reference Guide to the Scientology Religion: Answer to Questions Most Commonly Asked by Media. Pamphlet is presented by the Church of Scientology International (2000).

Contact staff writer Ruth Marvin Webster at (760) 740-3527 or rwebster@nctimes.com.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/02/09/faith/17_36_322_7_08.txt

Maharishi inspired Beatles but died leaving £2b and rape rumours

NICK WEBSTER
Mirror
February 7, 2008

He was the Sixth Beatle, a spiritual force with the potential to create world peace and end famine.

Or he was an avaricious old man with a penchant for young girls who ruined the greatest pop group in history...

It rather depends on your point of view, but one thing is certain about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who died this week aged somewhere between 91 and 97 - he was one of the richest religious leaders in history.

The 'giggling guru' - so called because of his high-pitched laugh - lived in an opulent 200-room mansion, with helicopters and dozens of cars at his disposal, and was worth an estimated £2billion.

He was the head of a movement with five million followers worldwide, all seeking a higher consciousness through transcendental meditation.

But while the Maharishi promised world peace, and cynics laughed at his wacky teachings and yogic flying, sinister stories of sex, debauchery, and even murder cast dark shadows over his life.

All but one of the Beatles cut their ties with their apparently celibate guru after it emerged he'd made a pass at Mia Farrow. The Maharishi's people, on the other hand, insist they simply fell out when he discovered the band were using LSD.

Later another British disciple, Linda Pearce claimed the Maharishi had seduced her when he was in his 60s.

"He was a brilliant manipulator," said Mrs Pearce. "I just couldn't see that he was a dirty old man. We made love regularly. At one stage I even thought I was pregnant by him. And I don't think I was the only girl. There was a lot of talk that he'd tried to rape Mia Farrow."

And there was worse scandal to come. In 1987, when the Maharishi was living in a high security complex on the outskirts of Delhi, India, the Telegraph newspaper of Calcutta alleged five boys had died after being used as guinea pigs in the ashram's "medical institute" searching for cures for cancer, heart ailments and Aids. Nothing was ever proved.

At the same time the fabulously wealthy guru's employees went on strike to increase their £10-a-month wages. The Maharishi simply moved into a five-star hotel in New Delhi until it was over.

Mahesh Prasad Varma (or Mahesh Srivastava, depending on your source) was born in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, sometime between 1911 and 1918.

The son of a government tax inspector, he initially studied physics but then trained with a Vedic spiritual mentor, undertaking two years of silence in the Himalayas where he developed his ideas on transcendental meditation.

The movement the Maharishi leaves behind, after his death at his luxurious retreat in Vlodrop in the Netherlands, has been called the world's richest cult. Yet when he began his first world tour as a spiritual leader in Burma in 1958, the Maharishi was praised for his austerity.

One commentator wrote: "He asks for nothing. His worldly possessions can be carried in one hand."

Meeting the Beatles a decade later changed all that. The band had been encouraged to attend a lecture by George Harrison's wife Patti, and were impressed enough by what they heard to accompany him to a weekend retreat in to North Wales.

Along with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, they took the train to Bangor - where the Maharishi assumed the mob of screaming fans were there for him.

Only a day into the retreat the news broke that the Beatles influential manager Brian Epstein had died from a suspected drugs overdose.

Rather than let them grieve for their friend and first mentor, the Maharishi told them their tears would cause "vibrations" which could trap Epstein's spiriton this spiritual plane rather than let it travel to the next. And he instructed them to be joyful and laugh.

Months later all four Beatles, their partners and 60s stars Donovan, Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence headed off for a three-month retreat to the Maharishi's centre on the banks of the Ganges.

Funded by a tithe of one week's wages from each of its students, the bank balance of the ashram received a massive boost from the world's biggest pop stars.

They expected to find spiritual enlightenment, but what they actually found was what Ringo called "a bit like Butlins." He and his then wife Maureen left after a fortnight, desperate for "egg and chips." Paul McCartney and his girlfriend Jane Asher quit too.

Then came the stories of the Maharishi's attempt to have sex with Mia Farrow. John Lennon said later: "There was a hullabaloo about him trying to rape Mia and a few other women. The whole gang charged down to his hut and I said: 'We're leaving!' He asked why and I said: 'If you're so cosmic, you'll know why.' The Maharishi gave me a look that said: 'I'll kill you, you bastard!'"

But none of this dented the Maharishi's growing global popularity. Travelling the world in a pink aeroplane, his fame and his movement grew and he featured on the front cover of Time magazine in 1975. His transcendental meditation technique involved silently repeating a Sanskrit mantra for 20 minutes twice a day. And since scientific studies have now concluded it has some real health benefits, it is never short of new adherents

And at £1,300 per person for a standard introduction course, it's easy to see where the Maharishi's cash came from. But there were times when the guru's ego got the better of him... He once told an audience in New York that if just one per cent of the world's population adopted his teaching it would "neutralise the power of war for thousands of years".

Consequently, he claimed credit for peace in the Lebanon and Mozambique, and forreducing crime in Washington and Merseyside.

And after the terrorist outrages of September 11, 2001 the Maharishi claimed ifany government gave him a billion dollars he could end terrorism and create peace.

His claims were ridiculed - as were his 40,000yogic fliers who, as the Natural Law Party, promised that levitating while in the Lotusposition would bring peace and enlightenment.In the end it brought just 0.4 per cent of the votes in the election.

Last month the guru, who lately communicated through a videolink, announced his retirement. His spokesman Bob Roth says:"He'd done what he set out to do."

Apart from world peace.


https://www.google.com/amp/www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/maharishi-inspired-beatles-but-died-leaving-292433.amp?client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us

Attack on Dera cavalcade, chief Ram Rahim unhurt

Times of India
February 2, 2008

KARNAL (HARYANA): The cavalcade of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh on Saturday came under attack when a tyrestuffed with explosives was hurled triggering a blast that injured 11 persons, two of them seriously.

The sect chief, who has been provided the Z-plus category security, however, was unharmed as he was travelling in a vehicle at a distance from the one that went up in flames.
Unidentified persons from a truck parked on a highway on which the Dera chief's cavalcade was passing, threw a tyre at one of the cars which burst into flames, Additional Director General of Police V B Singh said in Chandigarh quoting the injured.

The incident occurred near Nilokheri in Karnal district when the sect head was returning to the Dera headquarters in Sirsa after appearing in a court.

Singh said that the Haryana Police rounded up two persons, including the driver of the truck.

The ADGP said forensic experts from Haryana reached the attack site and collected evidence.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Attack_on_Dera_cavalcade_chief_Ram_Rahim_unhurt/articleshow/2751240.cms 

Author goes inside Scientology

Bill Brownstein
Montreal Gazette
January 24, 2008

The telephone hasn't stopped ringing in days. "This is just crazy," says Ian Halperin. "They're all calling now."

Crazy is good when you are promoting a book. Even better when the callers are CBS, CNN and NBC. No surprise, though.

The callers are all in search of insights from Halperin on his incendiary Hollywood Undercover (Random House), for which the Montreal author/filmmaker posed as a gay actor to infiltrate the Church of Scientology, long rumoured to promise a "cure" for homosexuality. The book was just released on Tuesday.

With the recent release of Andrew Morton's unauthorized bio of Tom Cruise and his involvement with the church, Scientology is now on the front burner. Halperin reveals some info on Cruise's place in the church hierarchy but goes where even Morton would not dare to go.

No one will accuse Halperin, 43, of shying away from the high and mighty. His exposé on the fashion biz, Bad and Beautiful, ruffled feathers but also made it on the New York Times bestseller list five years back. He directed the doc The Cobain Case, and co-wrote (with fellow Montrealer Max Wallace) Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, the bestselling follow-up to their book Who Killed Kurt Cobain?

It is Halperin's contention that Cobain couldn't have possibly killed himself - hence the titles of the books.

Halperin has made a career of locking horns with the well-lawyered, who can and do bite back. "That's okay, because I can be nasty and bite back myself," he cracks. "I knew Hollywood Undercover would be controversial, but the truth will prevail."

Halperin is in the fortunate position of being able to back up allegations with video he shot at the Hollywood church. "I videoed everything I did. That's why this is the first Youtube-compatible book on the market," he insists, pointing out that while readers peruse the book they can also find notations taking them to the actual footage on Youtube.

Halperin also asserts he is the first ever to shoot inside the church. "They let me in because I told them I had a rich family member who was going to invest between $10 and $100 million in Scientology if he was convinced the church was viable."

He told church officials that he was a member of the Israeli royal family. Had they checked, they would have learned there is no Israeli royal family.

"But I got what I was after. I am the first to have evidence on video that the church admits to curing people of homosexuality," saysHalperin, who is in the midst of completing a documentary on the same subject, set for release this year. "Many stars associated with the church are scared to defect, because they are afraid of being outed."

Halperin claims John Travolta underwent the "auditing" process, a sort of personal counselling which can cost as much as $500,000. Like several others, Halperin, too, states the church sets up arranged marriages in an effort to cure gay members. "Two days after a male porn star had received $100,000 from the National Enquirer for an account of his supposed two-year affair with Travolta, he announced his engagement to Kelly Preston," Halperin alleges.

But Halperin concludes that the church has been less preoccupied with "sexual reparation" than with hard, cold cash. He interviews former Scientologist Michael Pattinson, who says he spent $500,000 over 18 years in search of a cure for his homosexuality. "Pattinson accuses the church of being fraudulent and has sued them," says Halperin.

"I pretty much found that everything about the church is about making as much money as possible, which doesn't really make them much different from most other religions. I have to be honest and admit I also met some nice people in the church. It's just that I have a huge problem with their discriminatory attitude toward gays."

Halperin also takes issue with Morton's claim that Tom Cruise is second in command at the church. "I discovered he's really the No. 1 man on the pole," says Halperin. "No matter what anyone says, he runs the place."

Halperin came from humble beginnings. A trained jazz saxophonist, he began as a busker outside some of this city's finest métrostations. (Nor has he forgotten those who wrote, favourably or otherwise, about his beginnings, by acknowledging them, this scribe included, in Hollywood Undercover. )

Among his books is also the wholly unauthorized Céline Dion: Behind the Fairytale.

He was the writer and composer of 27 Heaven, a satirical rock musical that played off-Broadway before heading on a cross-country tour of the U.S. last year. The play centres on a conversation in heaven between Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and the most recent arrival of the bunch, Kurt Cobain - all of who passed away at 27 and hence this title.

Halperin now plans to concentrate on investigative projects in print and film. "I'm already doing undercover work on another project," says Halperin, who splits his time between Montreal, New York and L.A. "I'd love to say more about it, but I would blow my cover, which could lead to disastrous consequences."

Not that he hasn't been down that road before.

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/columnists/story.html?id=5b63ad95-6e86-4211-9b5a-3b94570a1b6e 

3 years after Butler man vanishes, hope, mystery remain

Abbott Koloff 

Daily Record (NJ)

January 14, 2008

Family seeks answers

Timothy Carney left his Butler apartment early in the morning, the way he always did, but failed to attend a church prayer meeting that was part of his usual routine. He called work and said he'd be a little late because of the rain.

His car was found days later, abandoned at a Newark construction site on Route 21.

More than three years later, his parents say they still believe he's alive and are trying to rekindle interest in the case.

They used to argue with their son about his membership in the Pequannock-based Gospel Outreach Church, saying he had been donating a large chunk of his salary to the church and sometimes was so broke that he borrowed money from co-workers for lunch and even to pay tolls on the way home. They said he wanted to leave the church and may have disappeared to accomplish that goal.

But those who know him also say he was close to his parents, and his failure to call them deepens the mystery. Carney's parents say they can't be sure whether their son disappeared on his own, as they said police told them was the most likely scenario, or whether he was the victim of a random crime.

"We thought he would be back after a week," said Phyllis Carney of Edison, Timothy's mother.

Officials with the Kristen Foundation, a nonprofit group from North Carolina that specializes in helping to find missing adults, heard about the case last year. The foundation paid $500 to put up a billboard visible from the northbound lanes on Route 23 in the Butler area.

The sign, which includes a picture of Carney, went up last month and will remain until the end of January. The Carneys said they hope someone will see the billboard and recognize him.

"I want to know, is he well? Does he have amnesia? Is he in the state?" Phyllis Carney said.

Law enforcement officials have labeled Carney a missing person and say the case remains open. The 25-year-old left his apartment on Sept. 28, 2004, and was last seen by his roommate at 5 a.m., according to a police report. He failed to show up at a 7 a.m. prayer meeting, according to the report, and the last time anyone heard from him was 8:20 a.m., when he called work, a state unemployment office in Elizabeth.

Days later, $1,000 was withdrawn from his bank account.

Phyllis Carney said she recognized her son in a bank video surveillance tape of the withdrawal even though his face was obscured and he was wearing a baseball cap -- and he was never known to wear baseball caps. She said $100 was left in the bank account.

"I still get bank statements in the mail every month," she said.

Timothy Carney spent more than four years before his disappearance as a member of the Gospel Outreach Church, which met at various locations.

Some of the church's practices had been compared to a cult in a lawsuit filed in Passaic County three years ago by a former member. The suit claimed church members were pressured to give large donations -- as much as 25 percent of their salaries -- that members were berated, and that some gave up careers and worked for companies connected to the church, according to a published report at the time.

Gospel Outreach officials filed a federal lawsuit in 2005 -- since dismissed -- against some of their detractors claiming, among other things, that the church had been harmed by those who wrongly compared it to a cult. They also said in the suit that they had been unfairly implicated in Carney's disappearance. Church officials did not respond to messages last week.

Ronald Rhodes, 40, a plaintiff in the lawsuit against Gospel Outreach, said he can't talk about the church because of an out-of-court settlement. He did talk about his friend, Carney, last week, describing him as a likeable, quiet young man who loved to read and who was especially fond of Tolkien. An English major at Montclair State University, Carney used to write short stories, according to his parents.

Carney talked about leaving the church more than a year before he disappeared, Rhodes said, but was dissuaded. Rhodes said Carney always talked about his family, his parents and two sisters, even though visits home weren't encouraged.

"He would sneak home to see his parents," said Rhodes, who lives in Pompton Lakes. "That was a no-no."

Rhodes added that he would have expected Carney to call his family at some point, had he simply gone away on his own.

"He loved his family," Rhodes said.

Carney also was fond of his church and its pastor, James Lethbridge, his parents said last week. Carney lived for a time in a house rented for the men of the church while women lived in separate quarters. He later moved into an apartment with another church member. And his girlfriend was a church member, his parents and others who knew him said, although they broke up at some point, possibly because Carney had college loans.

"The group doesn't believe in having debt," said Beth Davies, who used to run a cult support group at a Passaic County church and is friendly with several former Gospel Outreach members.

Davies said Carney was considered a "weaker brother" at the church because he was quiet and reserved. The church had about 35 members at the time, she said. It's unclear how many still belong, or where it meets, although the church does have a voice mail message at a local phone number.

No one responded to messages left by the Daily Record at that number last week. Lethbridge, the pastor, did not return messages left on his home phone.

Gospel Outreach filed a federal lawsuit in 2005 against various people, including Rhodes and Davies, who allegedly disparaged it. Church officials said in court papers that Butler police were given information by church critics and had questioned members about the pastor's finances as part of their investigation into Carney's disappearance. They claimed that police harassed one member and eventually offered an apology.

Butler Police referred all questions last week to officials in the Morris County Prosecutor's Office, who said they didn't have enough details about the investigation conducted more than three years ago to comment.

Church officials also claimed in the lawsuit that defendants knew the whereabouts of Timothy Carney, and had conspired to keep it a secret. Church officials said they believed Carney had been sent to a cult deprogramming center in Ohio called Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center.

"It was absurd," Davies said of the claim, adding that she had referred some people to Wellspring, which offers a two-week program

The suit was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Harold Ackerman, who said the charges didn't belong in a federal court. The judge also said in his written decision that the church seemed to be using the lawsuit to gain publicity and to "intimidate and harass defendants" because of the lawsuit filed against it by Rhodes.

Abbott Koloff can be reached at (973) 428-6636 or akoloff@gannett.com.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080114/COLUMNISTS03/801140330/1102/NEWS01 

Author of Tom Cruise biography dispels rumours about Scientology actor

Lee-Anne Goodman
Canadian Press
January 14, 2008 

TORONTO - Andrew Morton is on the line from his Manhattan hotel suite munching on a sandwich, and if he's wounded about the negative reviews his controversial Tom Cruise biography is getting, there's no sign of it.

The book, the advance reviews suggest, unearths nothing new, terribly interesting or particularly salacious about the erratic movie star and devoted Scientologist who's been under Morton's magnifying glass for the past two years.

Morton, famous for his 1992 biography "Diana: Her True Story," about the late Princess of Wales, shrugs off the criticism on Monday by saying it's all tediously familiar.

"It follows the same trajectory as the Diana book - there was this hysteria beforehand, and reviewers wanted to react to the hysteria by saying: 'Well, it's not worthy of all this hysteria,"' says the 54-year-old Morton, who's in New York to promote the book.

"But after a while people calm down and look at it more objectively."

Even if "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography," arriving in bookstores on Tuesday, doesn't reveal any seedy secrets about Cruise, Morton says, it's still worthwhile.

"It's an important book because it deals with somebody who's an influential character on the world stage who creates debate about whatever he does. He's surrounded by myth and legend, and he often creates the myth and legend himself."

Cutting right to the chase, the British author has some startling answers for the celebrity junkies among us who have believed there was some truth to the many Cruise rumours circulating over the past 10 years.

Is Cruise secretly gay?

"Quite the opposite; he's actually a real ladies' man. He's always had women around," Morton says.

Did Nicole Kidman sign a 10-year contract to participate in a sham marriage? No, Morton insists - they were in love for many years, but Kidman's increasing chilliness towards her husband and Scientology eventually put the boots to their union.

"He was very much in love with her and pursued her, pursued her, pursued her, but she was always elusive. She wanted the caviar and all the trimmings, and then when the toys were taken out of the pram, she was the one who's sitting there crying her eyes out and talking about giving up her Hollywood career and thinking about becoming a nun."

Is Katie Holmes a Scientology prisoner, someone who willingly agreed to a loveless marriage and an immersion in Scientology in exchange for a life of fame and fortune?

No again, says Morton, although he adds Cruise was certainly on the hunt for a replacement bride in the aftermath of his divorce from Kidman.

Holmes fit the bill after Penelope Cruz and Sofia Vergera failed to work out due to their aversion to Scientology.

"I don't want to push it too strongly because I am kind of the Diana biographer," Morton says of the whirlwind romance between Cruise and Holmes.

"But there is a dimension to their story that reminded me very much of Charles and Diana - the older man, the younger girl who, as a schoolgirl, always dreamed of marrying Prince Charming and then meets Prince Charming, duly falls in love, and then doesn't just have to digest Tom Cruise, but has to digest the family and the wider family of Scientology."
And there's yet another falsehood Morton wishes to dispel, one the Scientologists have leapt upon with particular ferocity in an attempt to discount the book in the weeks leading up to its release: little Suri Cruise is not the result of Holmes being impregnated by the frozen sperm of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

All his biography says, in fact, is that some of the nuttier Scientologists in the fold hoped Suri might represent the second coming of Hubbard.
"It's been useful for his side to use that to attack me, but it's false.

I don't say it and I don't say a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that they're not twisted and distorted to discredit me," says Morton, who ran up against endless Scientology roadblocks as he researched the book.

Publishers have faced such pressure from the Church of Scientology in Britain, New Zealand and Australia - countries with tougher libel laws than the U.S. and Canada - that the book will not be sold there.

Scientologists play serious hardball when it comes to guarding their secrets and protecting their image, Morton says, and the most surprising thing he learned about Cruise while writing the book was just how deeply enmeshed the actor is in what many consider a religious cult. Morton says Cruise is now the No. 2 Scientologist in the world.
"I just thought the Scientology was just like an add-on to his life and he just paid lip service to it," Morton says.

"What I didn't realize was how absolutely to the bone this is in him, and in a way it helps to explain why he's so suspicious of the outside world. Scientology is controlling, it's dominating, it's their way or the highway. They believe that only they have the answers to all the problems in the world, and in a way it kind of meshes quite nicely with his own fairly authoritarian character. It's a good fit."

Cruise is, in fact, a control freak who likes to manage every aspect of not only his personal and professional lives, but also of the lives of his wives - current and former - and children, Morton says.

"Scientology is quite technical, and it seems sort of pseudo-scientific at first and the early courses are quite accessible. It teaches you that you can actually leave your past behind and reinvent yourself, you can remake the script if you like, you can take control of your life - and Tom Cruise is very much about control."

He's also a world-renowned celebrity whose power and influence say something profound about the puzzling role of celebrities in the world we live in, Morton adds.

"The longer I got into it, the more I realized this guy really represents the spirit of the age, an age where celebrities have global reach and influence. He can go and meet presidents and prime ministers because of who he is, not because of what he knows.

"This book is a necessary corrective to a man who's lived his life by assertion as opposed to argument. He's never been tested. With this biography, I am testing what he has to say against what he does."

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/entertainment/080114/e011458A.html 

A pinch of politics in parties' programs

Susan Walker, Dance Writer

Toronto Star

January 11, 2008

For those with an awareness of the Chinese government hostility to the Falun Gong movement, the Chinese New Year Spectacular is not just a pretty pageant.

Coming to the Sony Centre next Friday for five performances over the weekend, the music and dance show is billed by the presenter as a showcase of "the true traditional Chinese culture devoid of any elements of the (culture of) Chinese communism."

The show contains references to Dafa, a concept associated with the meditative practices of Falun Gong adherents. One scene reportedly depicts the oppression of Falun Gong members in China by prison guards wielding clubs and wearing uniforms emblazoned with hammers and sickles.

Joe Wang, president of New Tang Dynasty Television Canada, presenter of the show in Toronto, says the production "depicts the values of traditional Chinese society (with) stories from history and from today's China. In today's China, the Falun Gong issue is very significant." But, says marketing co-ordinator Carolyn Jin, "the show has nothing to do with teaching Falun Gong."

The Chinese government regards the Falun Gong movement as a cult. But before it was condemned in China, says Wang, Falun Gong spiritual exercises were "practised by one-tenth of the population.... Many people one way or the other are connected to the persecution."

The New Year Spectacular has been in Toronto four times before, but in the smaller Toronto Centre for the Arts in North York. This year's event engages more than 50 performers – including a live orchestra in some venues (not Toronto) – from the New York-based Divine Performing Arts company, most of them born and trained outside mainland China.

But the Spectacular will not be the only Chinese New Year game in town. On Feb. 5, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts in North York's Mel Lastman Square, 85 artists from China will be involved in a one-time performance of Dream of Red Chamber, a dance production based on a famous novel regarded as a work of classical Chinese literature.

The show, performed two days before the start of the Chinese New Year proper on Feb. 7, is touted as the product of historical research into Chinese philosophy, culture and social customs. Dream of Red Chamber is coming to Canada with the full support of the Chinese government.

In the Spectacular, much of the production is dedicated to depicting Chinese legends, through dance, music, singing and martial arts. Dancing and dramatic scenes are played out against a sophisticated, video-enhanced backdrop, says Wang.

The celebration of "human dignity and time-honoured traditions" is what makes the show so popular, says Ying Chen, a production manager speaking on the phone from Boston. That's one of more than 50 cities on this year's tour for Spectacular, which has been growing in size and popularity ever since it began in 2004. The Toronto Star is one of the sponsors of this year's Toronto production.

The marketing of the New Year production takes a grassroots approach. Volunteers recruited by New Tang from Toronto's Chinese community have been pamphleting people attending big stage shows in Toronto since early November. The presenters have also promoted the show with a video excerpt screening in shopping malls, downtown business buildings and the St. Lawrence Market.

New Tang Dynasty Television is an independent Chinese-language network based in New York, and its president, Zhong Lee, has denied any links to Falun Gong. But some of the network's reporters, he told the Boston Globe, "like millions of Chinese, practise Falun Gong's meditation and exercises."

So, too, do a number of performers in the Spectacular, according to Ying Chen. But "it's not something we necessarily keep track of or discuss too much."

New Tang representatives charge that the Chinese government, through its consulates in various cities, has put pressure on local officials to dissociate themselves from the New Year show by withholding notices of welcome or recognition. A letter from the consulate in Los Angeles, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, was sent to the Orange County Board of Supervisors. The letter maintained that behind the Spectacular was intent to "defame China's image in the international community and undermine the development of U.S.-China relations."

No such efforts have been reported in Toronto.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/292993 

911 calls show terror of church shooting

Erin Emery 

Denver Post

January 5, 2008

COLORADO SPRINGS — Police on Friday released tapes of 911 calls made after Matthew Murray opened fire at New Life Church.

Dispatchers received 28 calls from terrified victims, including a call from Laurie Works, 16, whose two sisters Stephanie, 18, and Rachel Works were shot to death Dec. 9.

The eight-minute call from Laurie Works began with her telling a 911 dispatcher:: "There's someone shooting at us. I have three sisters, two of them have been shot."

Laurie Works later relayed that her father, David Works, had been shot in the stomach. The dispatcher, who remained steady and calm, advised Laurie to apply direct pressure to her sisters' wounds.

At one point, Laurie Works told the dispatcher she could not tell whether her twin sister, Rachel, was breathing because there was so much blood coming from her nose and throat.

About 12 hours before he arrived at New Life Church, Murray shot and killed two people, Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24, at a Youth With A Mission facility in Arvada. At New Life Church, he shot himself in the head with a 9 mm pistol after an undercover church security officer, Jeanne Assam, 42, shot him three times.

In all, Colorado Springs police released six hours of recordings, including radio traffic made between police officers as they searched the vast building for the suspect and rescued victims who were hiding in the building. Initially, police believed a second gunmen may have been in the building.

Some of the 911 callers whispered as they spoke to dispatchers, afraid they would be shot if discovered.

The calls came from people who were holed up in classrooms where religious education is taught to children and from under the stage in the sanctuary of the church. One caller reported a gunman on the roof; another reported that the shooter was dressed as a police officer, in an all-black police uniform.

Colorado law required the release of the tapes at the conclusion of the investigation, but Colorado Springs Police Lt. Skip Arms said a team of investigators who spent numerous hours with witnesses, victims and family members of victims "have expressed a serious concern about re-traumatizing those already impacted by this incident.

"The Colorado Springs Police Department is asking the media to use discretion in weighing the newsworthiness of these tapes with the sensitivity to the community and the families."


Erin Emery: 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com


http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_7884058 

48 Legionaries of Christ Ordained

12 New Priests From U.S. 

Zenit
December 23, 2007

ROME, DEC. 23, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Forty-eight religious from the Legion of Christ were ordained to the priesthood Saturday in Rome.

Archbishop Luigi de Magistris, retired pro-major penitentiary, celebrated Saturday's ordination Mass in the Basilica of St. Mary Major.

In addition to 12 new priests from the United States, the Legion of Christ's first priests from Singapore and El Salvador were also ordained. The group also included 19 from Mexico, eight from Spain, four from Brazil, and one each from Chile, France and Germany.

A delegation came from Ivory Coast, the first African country where the Regnum Christi Movement is present. Regnum Christi is the lay apostolic movement associated with the Legionaries of Christ.

Deacon Rafael Lara, father of one of the new priests, Father Paul Lara, read the Gospel. Six months ago in the United States, father and son were ordained to the diaconate together -- the father as a permanent deacon.

In his homily, Archbishop de Magistris, 81, spoke from his long experience as a priest: "Always be ministers of the truth; to be a priest of Christ is to be a priest of the Church, with the Church, and for the Church. As ministers of forgiveness, never say ‘no' to someone who asks you for the sacrament of confession. Celebrate the Eucharist as if it were the first and the last time of your life."

He cited a text from a letter of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Father Marcial Maciel: "Unite yourself to Mary and your priesthood will never be without fruit."

http://www.zenit.org/article-21373?l=english

Author speaks about her 'Shattered Dreams' as a polygamist's wife

Brooke Adams
Salt Lake Tribune
December 11, 2007

When Irene Spencer became a plural wife she married for God, not love.

Born into a family that had embraced polygamy for four generations, Spencer believed plural marriage was necessary for her to get to heaven.
In 1953, at age 16, she became the second wife of her brother-in-law, Verlan LeBaron. For Spencer, the years that followed were a constant search for validation.

She suffered a nervous breakdown, contemplated suicide and planned to leave her 28-year marriage when fate intervened: LeBaron was killed in a car accident.

Spencer, 70, chronicles her experience as a plural wife in "Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife" (Center Street, $24.99). She will speak about her life in polygamy tonight at Salt Lake City's Main Library.

Through marriage, Spencer joined a family that would launch an infamous sect, the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times. Based in Mexico, it is most notable for the murderous rampage set off by LeBaron's brother Ervil in the 1970s.

But Spencer said her husband, who led the sect from 1972 until his death in 1981, was a kind man who adored his 58 children.
She does not fault him for her dissatisfaction with the polygamous life, a perspective that sets her apart from other ex-plural wives who've authored books about their experiences.

"Verlan was a very good man," she said. "The publishers wanted to make him out a dog, but he was one of the kindest, nicest, understanding [men]. He was a victim in the same way I was a victim."

The polygamous lifestyle itself was the problem, incapable of delivering the promised fulfillment, she maintains.
Plural memoirs.
Books by ex-plural wives practically make up their own genre. The form began with Ann Eliza Young's "Wife No. 19: The Story of a life in Bondage," an expose of her short, unhappy marriage to LDS Prophet Brigham Young.

It entered the modern era with publication in 1975 of "Polygamist's Wife" by Melissa Merrill, the pseudonym of a woman whose marriage collapsed after her husband took three other wives.
More recent additions include "The Sixth of Seventh Wives" by Mary Mackert and "Escape" by Carolyn Jessop, both former members of the sect now led by Warren S. Jeffs. Mackert is featured in the documentary, "Damned to Heaven."

The interest in such stories appears strong; both Spencer's and Jessop's book appeared briefly on The New York Times' bestsellers list.
Just one book has offered a positive take on polygamy among fundamentalist Mormons, "Voices in Harmony." The compilation of comments from 100 plural wives was put together by proponents Anne Wilde, Mary Batchelor and Marianne Watson.

Spencer and Jessop "both have fascinating stories. They are very sad stories," said Wilde, who has read both books. "They have their experience, they have a right to write about it and my heart goes out to them."

But the books may leave readers with the impression that all fundamentalist Mormon women are suppressed emotionally and spiritually, Wilde said. "That is not the case across the board," she said.

One family's history.

Spencer is the second of LeBaron's former wives to pen a memoir. Susan Ray Schmidt, wife No. 6, published "His Favorite Wife: Trapped in Polygamy" in 2006. LeBaron also wrote briefly about his family in "The LeBaron Story," published the year he died.

Read together, the books offer a unique look at different perspectives of a single polygamous marriage.

Spencer's book is the best, and a better read than most in the genre, which have common themes of jealousy, emotional neglect and women overwhelmed by too many children.

Spencer spent her married years in Mexico, giving birth to 13 children while trying to make the best of a life of abject poverty.
The addition of each new wife brought heartbreak and exacerbated Spencer's emotional, and sexual, frustration.

"I used to tell him not to get more than seven wives because I wanted to see him at least once a week," she said.

"Living 'the law' was like torture to me," Spencer writes. "It went beyond self-sacrifice to the point of totally rejecting self."

Spencer was shocked and threatened when LeBaron took Schmidt, who was 15 at the time, as a wife.

But she participated in the ceremony anyway. By then, LeBaron was the sect's president and Spencer felt compelled to keep up a happy facade.

"It was our survival." LeBaron eventually had 10 wives; Spencer participated in four of those ceremonies, placing each new wife's hand in that of their husband.

"I did it without flinching or crying because everybody was watching you," she said. "You just smother everything you feel.
"Every woman who says they love it - I used to parrot the same things and say it was wonderful, grand, because it was expected of us and it was our survival," Spencer said. "If you didn't believe it and gave it up, you were damned."

So she suffered along, her unmet emotional, physical and psychological needs deepening. Spencer said LeBaron confided he felt overwhelmed, too, but felt "he had to do it for God."

After LeBaron's death, Spencer became a born-again Christian; she married Hector Spencer 19 years ago, finally finding the love and devotion she craved.

Lingering guilt about her years as a plural wife is due to this: Three of her children are in polygamous marriages. "I look forward to the day when they will all be out it," she said.

Spencer wrote a draft of the book 20 years ago, intending it to be an historical account for posterity. When a church group gave it a thumbs up, Spencer and a daughter began searching for a publisher.
She received 25 rejections before her manuscript was accepted by an agent who sold it to Center Street, which focuses on books that provide "wholesome entertainment, helpful encouragement and traditional values."
That, Spencer hopes, is exactly what people find in her memoir.

"I want people to know how [you] can be brainwashed and made to follow someone else's script," she said. "I feel like you can walk away from any situation you were in and become better or bitter. I have learned a lot of valuable lessons."

Brooke Adams can be reached at 801-257-8724 or brooke@sltrib.com

http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_7693341

Church of the First Born of the Fullness of Times (Ervil LeBaron)