Cult Religions

The religious system that says humans are descended from aliens isn't easy to infiltrate and has tried to stonewall news organizations who dare to expose it...Sitting on a red velvet chair in the middle of a majestic, oak- panelled hall in a small English town, I have rarely felt more fearful for my sanity. On the wall in front of me, a creepy, larger-than-life-sized portrait of an old man seems to be staring straight at me. In frontof the portrait, Laura, a middle-aged woman wearing a high-necked blouse and ostentatious gold cross, stands behind a lectern reading aloud from a leather-bound tome.None of the worshippers take their eyes off Laura as they repeat her words back to her. Phrases such as: "All men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others" are made ridiculous by the followers repeating them in a monotonous drone. I am at Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, 50 kilometres south of London -- Britain's Church of Scientology headquarters.

In the few hours I spend at Saint Hill I realize this exercise is anything but innocuous, and might go some way to explaining why Katie Holmes, the one-time girl-next-door of American television, hasbeen enveloped into the cult championed by the father of her baby girl, Tom Cruise. After much talk of her staying silent during the birth, in accordance with Scientology's beliefs that babies born to the sounds of their mothers screaming are more likely to encounter emotional problems in later life, Cruise announced in an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that Holmes is no longer a Catholic. Asked whether their baby would be baptized a Catholic, he said: "You can be Catholic and a Scientologist. You can be Jewish and a Scientologist. But we're just Scientologists." Cruise and Holmes are not alone. Kelly Preston, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Isaac Hayes and Priscilla and Lisa-Marie Presley also are members of the sect, created in 1954 by the pulp science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It is his portrait tha......

Tom Cruise says Katie Holmes is now a fully-fledged follower of L Ron Hubbard. So what is it about the sci-fi writer's 'religion' that exerts such a hold? Sara Lawrence goes undercover to find outSitting on a red velvet chair in the middle of a majestic, oak-panelled hall in East Grinstead, I have rarely felt more fearful for my sanity. On the wall in front of me, a creepy, larger-than-life-sized portrait of an old man seems to be staring straight at me. In front of the portrait, Laura, a middle-aged woman wearing a high-necked blouse and ostentatious gold cross, stands behind a lectern reading aloud from a huge leather-bound tome.None of the worshippers take their eyes offLaura as they repeat her words back to her.

Phrases such as: "All men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others" are made ridiculous by the followers repeating them in a monotonous drone. I am at Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, West Sussex - the UK's Church of Scientology headquarters. In the few hours I spend at Saint Hill I realise this exercise is anything but innocuous, and might go some way to explaining why Katie Holmes, the one-time girl next door of American television, has been enveloped into the cult championed by the father of her unborn baby, Tom Cruise. After much talk of her staying silent during the birth, in accordance with Scientology's beliefs that babies born to the sounds of their mothers screamingare more likely to encounter emotional problems in later life, Cruise announced in an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that Holmes is no longer a Catholic. Asked whether their baby would be baptised a Catholic, he said: "You can be Catholic and a Scientologist. You can be Jewish and a Scientologist. But we're just Scientologists." Cruise and Homes are not alone. Kelly Preston, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Isaac Hayes, and Priscilla and Lisa-Marie Presley are also members of the sect, created in 1954 by the pulp science-fiction writer L Ron Hubbard. It is his portrait that hangs in Saint Hill. Intrigued by a cult that believes humans are the descendants of aliens, I have come to Saint Hill to find out what really goes on in the "church". Very few journalists have infiltrated this bizarre "religion", although it has attracted at least eightmilli......

Across Australia, people are looking to the skies for a saviour. Many people have seen objects in the sky that they could not identify, and many believe that we are not alone in the universe.But there are also people who have built spiritual belief systems around the idea that aliens once came to Earth, and will return one day to take them away to a better place. The Raelians, who had their "annual awakening seminar" earlier this month in Queensland, are a prominent group in Australia that believe aliens created them and will return. These are most commonly referred to as UFO cults, the most infamous of which is Heaven's Gate, whose 39 members committed suicide in 1997 in the hope that their souls would catch a rideto the Kingdom of Heaven on a passing spaceship.

But Monash University sociology professor Gary Bouma said religions based on UFOs are an "exceedingly tiny fraction" of religious groups. Professor Bouma, an expert on religion and society, said they were "one of the absolute fringes of spirituality". "It's simply a tiny little group pursuing an esoteric idea. Life has been full of them, they've come and gone," he said. "They never stand up against the mainstream, for a whole variety of reasons." But since space travel began in the 1950s, the idea of extraterrestrials has taken hold of people's imaginations. Films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and television series like The X-Files have made aliens and UFOs a part of popular culture. There is even a predominant image of an alien - asmall, grey creature with big, dark eyes. And with new technology such as the internet, small groups can have a large and enduring presence. The Raelians are one group that has used the internet to become a worldwide phenomenon. They have an international headquarters in Switzerland, and offices all over the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. They claim there are up to 70,000 Raelians worldwide, with about 500 in Australia. A registered non-profit organisation, their main aim is "to create peace on Earth".

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Scientology -- the term means "the study of truth," in the words of its founder and spiritual messiah, the late science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard -- calls itself "the world's fastest-growing religion."Born in 1954, the group now claims 10 million members in 159 countries and more than 6,000 Scientology churches, missions and outreach groups across the globe. Its holdings, which include real estate on several continents, are widely assumed to value in the billions of dollars.Its missionaries -- known as "volunteer ministers" -- take part in "cavalcades" throughout the developing world and have been found, en masse, at the site of disastersranging from 9/11 to the Asian tsunami to Hurricane Katrina.

Within the field of comparative religions, some academics see Scientology as one of the most significant new religious movements of the past century. Scientology is also America's most controversial religion: widely derided, but little understood. It is rooted in elements of Buddhism, Hinduism and a number of Western philosophies, including aspects of Christianity. The French sociologist Regis Dericquebourg, an expert in comparative religions, explains Scientology's belief system as one of "regressive utopia," in which man seeks to return to a once-perfect state through a variety of meticulous, and rigorous, processes intended to put him in touch with his primordial spirit.These processes are highly controlled, and, at the advanced levels, highly secretive. Critics of the church point outthat Scientology, unique among religions, withholds key aspects of its central theology from all but its most exalted followers. To those in the mainstream, this would be akin to the Catholic Church refusing to tell all but a select number of the faithful that Jesus Christ died for their sins. In June of last year, I set out to discover Scientology, an undertaking that would take nearly nine months. A closed faith that has often been hostile to journalistic inquiry, the church initially offered no help on this story; most of my research was done without its assistance and involved dozens of interviews with both current and former Scientologists, as well as academic researchers who have studied the group. Ultimately, however, the church decided to cooperate and gave me unprecedented access to its officials, social programs and key religious headquarters.What I found was a faiththat......