Here you all are. One article on Scientology's Federal Court loss, one book review, and a letter to the editor by then-DSA Cathia Riley (what happened to her, anyway?):

Some critics say that the church of Scientology, founded in 1954 and now counting several million adherents around the world - including 26,000 Canadians - is simply a cult that was created to make money for its leaders. An unflattering and unauthorized biography of Hubbard that supports those charges arrived in bookstores in Britain last October after church officials failed to prevent its publication. And in Toronto last week, publisher Key Porter Books Ltd. began printing Russell Miller's Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard, after a Federal Court of Canada judge dismissed a second motion to prevent publication.

Lawyers for Copenhagen-based New Era Publications International ApS, which claims to have the exclusive licence to publish Hubbard's biography, had argued that the 383-page book represents a violation of copyright. They noted that Miller had quoted extensively from Hubbard's unpublished diaries and letters - which church spokesmen say were stolen by disaffected former members. But Judge Bud Cullen accepted arguments by lawyers David Potts and Julian Porter of the Toronto firm Porter & Posluns that New Era had failed to produce enough evidence to support their application for an injunction. And he added that New Era should have made its arguments when the church tried to block the book's publication in Britain.

Key Porter officials say that Scientology supporters went to court simply to stifle criticism of Hubbard - a charge denied by church spokesman Cathia Riley. Declared Riley: "The book is an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of a best-selling author, L. Ron Hubbard." She added that New Era plans to appeal the ruling. Still, that legal step is unlikely to prevent publication of the controversial book: Key Porter plans to have a 5,000-edition first run ready for bookstores by mid-December. As a result, shoppers who are willing to pay $24.95 per copy will be able to study a less-than-flattering appraisal of Scientology and its enigmatic founder.

In 1982 alone, his earnings from Scientology amounted to about $200 million. Critics of the church, which Hubbard created in 1954 - and which now claims seven million members worldwide - have labelled the organization immoral and corrupt. Disaffected Scientologists have accused church officials of manipulation and intimidation. British journalist Russell Miller's book Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard has itself been the subject of attacks from the church.

In it, the author examines in detail the genesis of Scientology, arriving at a portrait of its founder that is by turns hilarious and deeply unsettling.

Born in Nebraska in 1911, the son of a career naval officer, Hubbard liked to portray himself as a true Renaissance man, an expert in fields ranging from horticulture to cinematography. In reality, his accomplishments were far less illustrious. Through Hubbard's unpublished letters and diaries, as well as interviews with many former church members, Miller reveals a charismatic figure with a gift for spinning tall tales about himself. Hubbard's fertile imagination helped him as a young man to become a regular contributor to pulp-fiction magazines - and it certainly contributed to his development of Scientology in the early 1950s. According to the religion, each person embodies immortal beings called thetans that are reincarnated millions of times, sometimes in worlds other than Earth.

Scientology purports to help its devotees realize their full potential through a form of therapy that, among other things, makes them aware of past lives.

As the religion's influence spread in his later years, Hubbard displayed an alarming inability to distinguish fact from fancy, imagining that the church was beset by enemies on all sides. Some of his projects bordered on slapstick comedy. In the late 1960s he launched a private navy, which he called the "Sea Org," and roamed the Mediterranean area in a vain search for treasure he believed he had buried in earlier incarnations.

Scientologists on both sides of the Atlantic have reacted angrily to Miller's unauthorized biography. In December a Danish publisher claiming exclusive licence to publish Hubbard's biography sought, unsuccessfully, to ban publication of Miller's book in Canada.

Scientologists lost a similar court case in England last fall. But while scathingly critical of Hubbard and his church, Bare-Faced Messiah is, in fact, scrupulously fair. Miller takes pains not to ridicule the sincerity of Hubbard's followers. Indeed, the author writes that the book is dedicated to those former Scientologists "who had the courage to face the truth and speak out." As Bare-Faced Messiah makes clear, the truth about L. Ron Hubbard is considerably stranger than fiction.

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