Religion in the UK: special report Thursday March 23, 2000 August 12 1995 was a Saturday much like any other in the urban sprawl of Arlington, Virginia. Except that an alert went out over email and on Usenet groups to say that 10 people - including two federal marshals, two computer technicians, one a former FBI agent, and several attorneys - were raiding the home of former Scientologist Arnaldo Lerma.

Leading the raid was Helena Kobrin, a senior lawyer representing the Church of Scientology. She was well known on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology , due to her frequent postings which insisted on the deletion of files she claimed contained the Church's copyrighted materials. Another was Earle Cooney, a Church lawyer who chaired the board of Boston university.

Emails and postings flew back and forth, saying that the raiding party was seizing Lerma's computer, backups, disks, modem and scanner. A frequent Usenet poster and critic of his former brethren, Lerma was distraught. Many of his personal and business files were kept on his PC. Told that his hardware would be returned the following Monday, he was still waiting weeks later.

There had been other raids in the US and further afield, including on an anonymous remailer run by Johan Helsingius in Finland, as the Church pursued anyone it felt was posting "secret" materials.

Such confrontations are continuing - albeit in more subtle form - as pro- and anti-cultists struggle for control of the "truth" over the net.

Although a quick search on the web reveals dozens of sites discussing the term, "cult", few actually agree what a "cult" is. According to the Ontario-based group Religious Tolerance, there are at least eight different definitions, generally with negative connotations and often promoted by those in the anti-cult movement or the media.

There is evidence to suggest that cults or "new religious movements"

(NRMs), as they are sometimes called, are moving to the net. On his religious movements website, Jeffrey Hadden, sociology professor of the university of Virginia, says: "The internet does provide an opportunity to immerse oneself - however deeply one may choose - in the subcultural world of new religious movements."

At a time when research has shown that 70% to 75% of US citizens believe in extra-terrestrials and UFOs, numerous NRMs have grown up surrounding this area, perhaps the best known being the late L Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology. There are now even "anti-UFO" cults, according to Professor Irving Hexham of the university of Calgary, who runs an NRM discussion group and web site, "based on cosmic theories that threaten their version of Christianity."

Announcing one's "end times belief" on the web has become a standard practice, adds Brenda Brasher, of Mount Union College in the US. When members of the group Concerned Christians were arrested in Israel two years ago - suspected of plotting violent acts to "hasten" the coming of the Messiah - one Israeli millennial specialist was shocked that the group did not have a website. "How can any self-respecting millennialist group not be on the web?" he exclaimed.

The most shocking example of this type of web use was the mass suicide of the Heaven's Gate community (39 well-educated individuals) three years ago. They believed they were transporting themselves to a space craft tailing the Hale-Bopp comet. Dwelling communally in a small mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California, the group supported itself designing web sites. When Hale-Bopp appeared, the Heaven's Gate community took it as a sign that their class was ready to "graduate".

On their home page the words "Red Alert" flashed. The page said that Hale-Bopp was the marker for which they had been waiting. After their suicide on March 25 1997, visitors to the Heaven's Gate site found an epitaph written by one of the community, a poignant plea to the world to understand what they had done.

Many of the Christian evangelical/ charismatic movements use the web to attract newcomers. John Campbell, webmaster for the Manchester-based Jesus Army explains: "Our aim on the internet is to communicate the unchanging Christian message in a modern manner. I'm sure if Jesus was around today he'd use the internet!" The site runs a message board that Campbell says attracts a lot of good natured discussion, and a prayer request service.

On the Church of Scientology's slick official site you can take a personality test online (although you have to meet someone in person to receive the results) and visit links to more than 15,000 Scientologists. Said one British opponent of Scientology: "The battle between Scientology and its opponents has been absolutely transformed by the net."

At one point the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology was more popular than alt.supermodels, he jokes, and became the key battleground. As writer William Shaw, author of Spying In Guru Land, explains, the main reason that the Church of Scientology has a large internet presence is the high net profile of its opponents. "The CoS is very proficient at the internet now, but I believe that was only responding to very successful anti-Scientology sites on the web in the early 90s."

One of the Church's US lawyers tried to get news servers to drop the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup, which not only failed, but created an outcry online. The newsgroup was and is flooded with thousands of excerpts from a Scientology text. The Church also bought up the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) after it went bankrupt in 1996. "One of the doctrines of 'survival' of L Ron Hubbard [the Church's founder and a science fiction writer]," says Shaw, "was to attack anybody who attacked him. This was perfect for the medium. The internet is famous for its flame wars.

"It's easy to have contempt for opponents here. Any religion that thrives on being attacked - as Scientology does - will thrive on the net."

Much of the background to the war between Scientologists and their detractors can be seen at Operation Clambake set up by Andreas Heldal-Lund in Norway in 1996. Reading an article about Scientology, then seeing some of its posted teachings scared him, he says and led him to join a growing band of anti-Scientologists spread around the world.

His site includes many examples. One of the incidents he highlights was last year when Amazon.com dropped Jon Atack's book A Piece Of Blue Sky, which was critical of Scientology's teachings. There was a massive outcry from netizens and free speech advocates, and Amazon promptly reversed its decision. The site also outlines how, in 1998, Scientologists were issued with filtering software to prevent them visiting anti-Scientology sites.

Roger Gonnet, an anti-Scientology activist running a web site based in France, says: "My two sites were attacked three times each, the first with three attorneys in a row, attacking my ISP too... they even tried to attack under the guise of 'violation of trade secrets' which is a strong thing for a 'religion'."

"For many years, the Church of Scientology has taken action to protect its scriptures from abuse," says a spokesperson. "It is in pursuit of its First Amendment right of free religious exercise that the Church has brought legal action to enforce existing copyright and trade secrets laws on the internet."

Many of the most visible web presences surrounding cults and NRMs seem to host "anti" organisations. Sites such as the Cult Information Centre include definitions of a cult and descriptions of "mind control" techniques. The American Family Foundation is one of the main anti-cult groups in the US, and houses a huge site. Triumphing Over London Cults specifically targets the International Churches of Christ in great detail, and features testimonies of for mer members, audio recordings of leaders and links.

Another site, www.cyberpass.net/truth/essay, discusses the experience of "survivors" of Siddha Yoga, while at www.trancenet.org/moonism, Ingo Michehl talks of his experiences as a student member of the Moonies. Walkaway outlines how fundamentalist Christians can leave their groups, while www.ex-cult.org talks about life after being in a cult. You can even find exit counsellors and so-called cult "experts"

online (such as Rick Ross).

Shaw asks: "Are new religious movements using the internet to disseminate their message? I think they're remarkably quiet on the internet, as it goes. I don't think people who are seriously interested in winning souls are that into it."

He says the anti-cult groups need and utilise the net most effectively: "People in cults don't need 'virtual' communities.

They've got their own virtual communities in the cults they've joined.

But people who've left cults are often desperate to recreate the experience they've left... however hostile they are to the religion they were in. They joined cults because they wanted to save the world from evil. They join anti-cult groups to do the same thing. The web provides the perfect opportunity."

Web addresses Religious Tolerance www.religioustolerance.org Professor Jeffrey Hadden http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~jkh8x/soc257 Professor Irving Hexham www.ucalgary.ca/~nurelweb Heavens gate http://levelabovehuman.org Jesus Army www.jesus.org.uk Roger Gonnet http://home.worldnet.fr/gonnet/indexH.htm Operation Clambake www.xenu.net Cult Information Centre www.xenu.net/cic The American Family Foundation anti-cult group www.csj.org Triumphing Over London Cults www.ftech.net/~hamrag Walkaway www.ifas.org/wa Life after cults www.ex-cult.org Exit counsellor Rick Ross www.rickross.com

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