Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado)   Saturday, September 9, 1995

SCIENTOLOGY'S SECRET BELIEFS NO LONGER SECRET, EXPERT SAYS
By Karen Abbott
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

        Secret Scientology beliefs already have been disclosed on 
computers around the world, an Internet expert testified Friday.
        Richard Cleek, who teaches a University of Wisconsin class called
"Surfing the Net" and follows information posted in cyberspace about the
Church of Scientology, said thousands of computer users already have
Internet access to church secrets.
        The church is trying to stop worldwide dissemination of the 
secret teachings it sells to members.  Such sales provide the bulk of the 
church's income.
        The church has sued former church members Larry Wollersheim and 
Robert Penny for allegedly distributing the church's private beliefs in 
violation of copyright and trade secret laws.  Last month, the church 
seized their computers and data.
        Friday's hearing before Senior U.S. District Judge John Kane Jr. 
was on the church's request for a court order stopping Wollersheim and 
Penny from distributing secret Scientolgoy materials while the lawsuit is 
pending.
        But Cleek, testifying on behalf of Wollersheim and Penny, said 
the Scientology material has already appeared on the Internet several 
times this year.
        Tom Kelley, attorney for Wollersheim and Penny, said the secret 
beliefs include the discovery by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard that 
humankind's spiritual troubles are the result of actions 75 million years 
ago by an intergalactic federation chief.
        Faced with overpopulation, Kelley said, the federation leader is 
said to have chained or bound some federation individuals to volcanoes on 
Earth, then bombed them with hydrogen bombs.
        The souls of those individuals, called Thetans, now inhabit the 
bodies of human beings, and the unconscious memories of the Thetans' 
traumatic experiences cause human psychological and some physical ills, 
Kelley said.  He said the Church of Scientology teaches that its role is 
to cure those ills in counseling sessions designed to relieve people of 
the traumatic memories.