The conflict that so obsessed Ms Eastgate and Dr Bailey was one paronial campaign in an international war that has raged for 40 years between Scientologists and some people they regard as their sworn ene- mies, psychiatrists.
Now the battlefield is Victoria, which CCHR claimed this month was the "deep-sleep capital of Australia".
As the Victorian health commission - winds up a long Inquiry into deep-sleep therapy use in this slate - largely at the instigation of CCHR -- internal Scientology documents raise questions about the motives behind the church's push for the probe.
A key Issue is the disturbing indication in the documents that apart from CCHR's altruistic interest In the Victorian inquiry, the Church of Scientology had a hidden agenda -- and what could be seen by some as a witch-hunt aimed at discrediting the doctors and organisations helpful in outlawing the church in Victoria more than 25 years ago.
Those documents target the late Melbourne psychiatrist and deep- sleep advocate Dr Alex Sinclair as a key person behind the suppression of Sclentology and a "big fish as regards enemy action against (the church)", and outline plans to have him made the subject of official investigations.
Scientology was, for a period, banned la Victoria after a Board of Inquiry Into Sclentology, conducted by The Victorian and New South Wales inquiries into deep-sleep therapy may never have occurred had it not been for the lobbying of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.
JACQUI MACDONALD and JO CHANDLER investigate the operations and motives of this group.
Kevin Anderson, QC, which found in 1985 that while some aspects of Scientology seemed so ludicrous that its practitioners could be dismissed as "harmless cranks", to do so would be a grave mistake.
Mr Anderson reported to Parliament that the church was evil, and a serious threat to the community.
Dr Sinclair participated in this Inquiry.
A former Scientologist active In the church at the time says that the church continued under the guise of the Church of New Faith, until amend- ments under federal legislation in 1973 recognised Sclentology as a reli- gious denomination. That status, which remains in place today, effec- tively neutered the bans of Victoria and other states.
Perhaps the most stunning aspect of the reports is that more than 20 years after the Anderson Inquiry, Melbourne Scientologlsts were -- at least In 1987 -- still trying to root out the Individ- uals behind the 1965 probe that so damaged the young church internationally.
The preoccupation of a church organisation with investigations, debriefing and sweeping information gathering-- particularly in regard to the medical world - may seem baffling without an understanding of the roots of Sclentology, and the fixation, of the church's founder, L. Ron Hubbard on espionage as a means of defending his empire against attack.
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Typed in by Lermanet.com Exposing the CON from an un-ocr'able copy of the Melbourne Age March 2005