From: stevem@primenet.com (Stephen Marinick) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Cult Reacts to Critical Article Date: 15 Aug 1995 05:05:12 GMT Message-ID: I'm gonna break my recent self-imposed lurk for a quick report on the cult's reaction to the June article I wrote for a local publication. According to the publisher, she received a phone call from the PR person at the local org about a week after the story ran. The cult representative wanted an article published which would effectively refute everything I had said. I'm sure she was thinking Hard Copy-style infommercial. She also asked for my address and phone number. The publisher told her, no, but she'd be happy to print a letter explaning $cientology's side of the whole affair. After a few more phone calls, in classic $cieno fashion, the PR rep showed up unannounced at the publisher's home. (I can only conjecture that these $cientologists have never had a stranger show up at their front door - why else would they think this is acceptable behavior?) The PR person was forced to make her pitch from the porch. She was carrying the usual assortment of propaganda, including _What is $cientology?_ and the _Freedom_ magazine with the article on the Net. She tried to sell the publisher the tired old story that Dennis is an evil criminal and "copyright terrorist", but nobody was buying. The diligent $cieno also pressed again for my address and phone number. The publisher again refused, and offered to publish a letter explaining the $cientology perspective, if one could be provided before the August 15th deadline. I guess we'll know by tomorrow whether the $cientos actually have something to say, or whether they're just harassing another critical publication. Another interesting angle to all this: About a week after the article came out, the publisher started receiving harassing phone calls from someone claiming to be an irrate distributor, and threatening to boycott the publisher. When the publisher tried to contact the person in question the name and phone number turned out to be bogus. Now who would do a thing like that? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen E. Marinick Design/Illustration http://www.primenet.com/~stevem/ Multimedia Programming Finger for PGP public key. ID = 35DEE06D Encrypted mail preferred