alt.religion.scientology
is the most active cyberstation. Church
critics and supporters post several hundred messages a day, and anonymous
critics such as the notorious
"Scamizdat"
upload copyrighted Scientology
documents they have obtained. Church critics charge that Scientologists have
illegally
forged "cancel" messages to erase these postings. Church lawyer
Earle Cooley denies the allegation, although he says it's possible that a few
Scientologists, acting on their own, are responsible. The downside: this
Usenet group is chaotic and almost impossible to follow for those not
intimately familiar with the issues and personalities involved.
The copyright battle, and the Church of Scientology's questionable
tactics in it, is the subject of Boston-area Internet activist Ron Newman's
comprehensive Web site. Although Newman believes the church should not be
entitled to the protection of copyright laws, he has scrupulously avoided
violating church copyrights himself. His guide, updated frequently, can be
found at
http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/scientology/home.html.
"The Real Steven Fishman Home Page," located on a hard drive
somewhere in the Netherlands, contains Fishman's
"declaration," which is, by
most accounts, an excellent summation of what's contained in the copyrighted
documents that the church is trying to protect. Fishman, an ex-member and
convicted felon, charges among other things that the church ordered him to
kill his psychiatrist and then to commit suicide before he finally left the
organization. The church denies those allegations. Check out
http://www.xs4all.nl/~fishman.
Cult expert Steven Hassan has a Web site devoted to fighting mind
control in all its permutations, including Scientology. Hassan has put
together a substantial number of
useful links:
http://www.virtumall.com/mindcontrol.
Scientology has a major Web presence of its own. Among other
things, it contains a
Q&A with the Reverend Heber Jentzsch,
president of the
Church of Scientology International, where you'll find the official church
response to issues such as mind control, the church's legal problems, and its
"fair game" policy:
http://www.scientology.org.
