Anderson Report

Several official inquiries were made into Scientology in England, Australia, and elsewhere and a number of reports published by respective governments in the late sixties and early seventies.

The Victorian Legislative Council appointed a Board of Inquiry on 27 November 1963 in response to a Private Member's Bill proposed by John Galbally to prohibit Scientology in the State.

[2]: 5 Two former Scientologists, Phillip Wearne and Douglas Moon, appeared as the main witnesses for the Committee for Mental Health and National Security (an ad hoc unincorporated organisation opposed to Scientology).

[4] The method to be used 'was to infiltrate Government departments, political parties and other institutions, with scientologists getting jobs in these organisations', then 'after the move to "clear Australia" was completed, the aim was to take over the world'.

[4] Wearne said 'he was in a key position to carry out the scientology organisation's work as he had extensive connections in the Labour Party and Trade Union movements'.

[5] He also testified that the then 'world director' of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard 'showed paranoid delusions in his claim to have visited Venus and been in the Van Allen radiation belt around the earth'.

[7] The Anderson Report concluded that "Scientology is a delusional belief system, based on fiction and fallacies and propagated by falsehood and deception" and that it "is not, and does not claim to be, a religion".

[2]: 2, 160 He continues: Scientology is evil, its techniques evil, its practice a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially, and its adherents sadly deluded and often mentally ill."[2]: 1 [8]Anderson acknowledged the emotional tone of his report, justifying it as follows: If there should be detected in this Report a note of unrelieved denunciation of scientology, it is because the evidence has shown its theories to be fantastic and impossible, its principles perverted and ill-founded, and its techniques debased and harmful.

[...] While making an appeal to the public as a worthy system whereby ability, intelligence and personality may be improved, it employs techniques which further its real purpose of securing domination over and mental enslavement of its adherents.

[9] In New South Wales, the Minister for Health said that scientology 'had no proper background or scientific basis' and he would 'take such steps as are necessary to stop this organisation from taking root and gaining influence in the community'.

[9] In Western Australia, Dr. A. S. Ellis, Director of Mental Health Services, described scientology as 'a dangerous pseudo-science which catered for emotional cripples'.

He added that scientologists were 'credulous, insecure and neurotic people who were looking for a prop' and scientology gave this to them 'at a price' but raised 'false hopes' and delayed 'proper psychiatric treatment'.

[8]The 'Hubbard Communications Office' at Saint Hill Manor in England also issued a statement criticizing the inquiry process and threatening legal action.

[12] Jane Kember, a senior Scientologist who was later convicted on several criminal charges in relation to Scientology's 'Operation Snow White' tried to get the report removed from a library.