FROM THE FILES OF THE FBI 220
[newspaper article, newspaper not indicated]
SEPTEMBER [?] 1968
SOCIALLY HARMFUL'
British Scientology Group Under Government Fire
By DAVID LANCASHIRE
EAST GRINSTEAD, England (AP) -- "They say we have orgies here," said the
young Englishman, pointing at the swimming pool. "We're too busy to have
orgies--we don't even have time to go swimming."
This was at the country mansion once owned by the Maharajah of Jaipur. It
is now headquarters of the Scientology movement, a semireligious
organization from the United States. This "largest mental health
organization in the world," as it calls itself, has become a storm center
in Britain.
VILLAGERS in East Grinstead, a centuries-old market center 30 miles from
London, seek a ban on the Scientologists, claiming they spread their
influence in the town.
London's press has campaigned against the movement.
Health Minister Kenneth Robinson last month denounced Scientology as
"socially harmful ... a potential menance," and moved to keep foreigners
from coming to Britain as students enrolled at the College of Scientology
here.
"We used to get about 100 letters a day, most of them abusive," said David
Gaiman, spokesman for the College of Scientology.
[a portion of the article appears to be missing]
1,000 a day and none of them are abusive--they ask for information.
The health minister has refused to disclose what he called government
evidence against Scientology. The Scientologists say no government
representative has ever come to East Grinstead to hold an investigation.
IN PARLIAMENT Robinson said Scientology "alienates members of families
from each other and attributes squalid and disgraceful motives to all who
oppose it. Its authoritarian principles and practices are a potential
menace to the personality and well-being of those so deluded as to become
it followers."
Scientology's founder, American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, 57,
is barred from returning to England. He moved his headquarters here 11
years ago but now reportedly lives aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean.
Scientology calls itself "a practical religious philosophy interested in
ability and increasing it...the most vital philosophic movement on the
planet...the freeing of the soul by wisdom." Its publications contend it
makes people "more aware, more alert, more successful." It has groups in
the United States and around the world and claims millions of members.
A Scientology minister, called an "auditor," gives confessionals. "The
confessional in Scientology is not solely the recounting of sins or wrongs
that the person has done," one of its publications says. "The purpose of
auditing is to make the person more spiritually able, more aware, more
free."
THE EAST Grinstead college has 200 to 300 students and a staff of about
150. Roughly half the students and staff come from outside Britain. The
government restrictions ruled foreign students or staff memberrs would no
longer be admitted to Britain or allowed to prolong their stay.
Gaiman said Scientology has more than 100,000 members in Britain. It also
has its own legal department of five lawyers, all Scientologists. They
are now busy with 64 libel suits--largely against British newspapers.
