FACTNet Newsletter
FACTNet, Inc.-Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network

Protecting freedom of mind by exposing cults and mind control...
because only you have the right to control your mind.
bullet http://www.factnet.org bullet manage@factnet.org bulletJANUARY,1998

Inside

This Month at FACTNet

Page 2

What is Mind Control?

Page 2

Cults' Impact on Families

Page 2

60 Minutes Expose
of Scientology
Page 3

News Briefs

Page 3

FACTNet director faces Scientology harassment

FACTNet director and retired investment banker, Robert S. Minton, was featured in a recent New York Times article by Douglas Frantz. Minton has become a target of Scientology's harassment since his support of Scientology critics became public.

Early in December, Minton's wife, Therese, found fliers with her husband's photograph on automobiles and in trees at their Boston neighborhood. The caption under the photograph began: "The face of religious bigotry. Your neighbor Bob Mintonis not all that he seems."

Later, on the night of a birthday party for one of the Mintons' daughters, three members of Scientology picketed the Minton family home handing out the same flier. That evening, Minton was in Clearwater, Florida with 40 other Scientology protestors commemorating the second anniversary of Lisa McPherson 's

death. McPherson died under mysterious circumstances while in Scientology's care.

"I realize that these are the tactics that this church uses to try to intimidate people it can't control," Minton said. "They do intimidate me. I'm not a total fool. But I'm not going to walk away either."

The church has also hired private investigators to look into Minton's past. And two men Minton saw following his school-age daughters twice in October may have been Scientology operatives, although there is no proof of this.

Church officials vehemently denied authorizing anyone to follow Minton's children, but they acknowledged picketing his house and using private investigators to dig into his background. They said both steps were legal and necessary.
(see FACTNET DIRECTOR HARASSED, p. 3)

Taiwanese cult awaits spaceship; members say they are not suicidal

Followers of God's Salvation Church from Taiwan are in Garland, Texas where they believe a spaceship is coming take them to a life after death.

According to an Associated Press story (12/24/97), members say that the only similarities between their group and the Heaven's Gate cult is the clothing they wear and the fact that they are expecting a spaceship.

Thirty-nine members of Heaven's Gate killed themselves at Rancho Santa Fe last March by taking a combination of drugs and alcohol.

The members of God's Salvation Church say they have no plans to kill themselves when God arrives in a spaceship on March 31. "We don't die," Pi Feng Chiang, mother of the family, said in halting English.

"We believe God. God like life," according to the Associated Press.

Cult leader Hon-Ming Chen, who led about 150 followers -- including more than 30 children -- from Taiwan to Texas, said God will be reincarnated into his body on March 31 at 10 a.m. local time at his modest house, according to an article by Reuters.
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