Scientology: Fair Game?
Scientology’s founder,
L. Ron Hubbard, once defined the religion as being in service of ‘a civilisation without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights’.
Almost 60 years since its foundation, though, Scientology has become a uniquely contentious phenomenon – with many questioning its status as a religion, cult or business, and with a reputation for fiercely defensive, litigious and coercive reactions to criticism. One of the first to feel the
Church’s wrath was
Paulette Cooper – whose
1971 book,
The Scandal of Scientology, saw her become the target of an elaborate plot which set out to destroy her credibility, frame her and land her with a 15 year prison sentence. Codenamed
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