=== Waco / Branch Davidians
1. Branch Davidians seek sanction against government
2. Fine sought against government for slow turnover of Davidian documents
3. FBI photograph apparently undermines claims that government forces fired
on Branch Davidians
4. Lawyer: Re-creation of Davidian siege to be at Fort Hood

=== Karmapa Lama
5. China cautions India over apparent defection of religious leader
6. Karmapa Hasn't Requested Asylum
7. Followers seek asylum for Karmapa
8. China Boosting Religion Management
9. Monks arrested in raid on monastery
10. Beijing Discovers Another "Living Buddha"
11. Rise of Religious Fervor Spooks Beijing

=== Aum Shinrykio
12. Aum will leave when ready, Joyu says
13. Man drives car into Aum barricade

=== Falun Gong
14. Falun Gong detainees unrepentant

=== Scientology
15. Appeal against Scientology?
16. Supporting Infosekta
17. Scientology chia pet

=== Mormonism
18. Mormon Issue at the U. a Touchy One for Students, Faculty
19. Arizona 'Sleepwalker' sentenced to life in wife's murder

=== Islam
20. Islamic society stripped of charity status

=== Wicca / Neo-paganism
21. Wiccan Fights Suspension From School

=== Y2K Fallout / Doomsday Calendar
22. Life goes on for scholars of Armageddon
23. Christian Right Groups Protest FBI's Warning on Extremists

=== Other News
24. Cult member gets 101 years for trying to kill cop, robbery (The
Gatekeepers)
25. Chopra loses case alleging blackmail
26. 'Queen's' followers face new charges
27. Texas troopers suspended over KKK costumes
28. Prisoners, guards stir fears with Walls Unit ghost stories
29. International developers sacrifice 100 cattle to appease ancestral spirits
30. Bearded Canadian boxer seeks victory in court
31. Clergy rail at play about Jesus's girl
32. Declining churches 'at risk of bleeding to death'
33. BeyondBody.com Uses MP3 for Inducing Altered States

=== UFOs
34. UFO experts, media continue inquiries into sighting
35. U.F.O. Boom Doesn't Worry [Chinese] Officials

=== Noted
36. How Himmler fell under the spell of witches

=== Books
37. Theocracy in the Desert

=== Waco / Branch Davidians

1. Branch Davidians seek sanction against government
Dallas Morning News, Jan. 12, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/17127_waco12.html
Plaintiffs in the Branch Davidian lawsuit have asked a Waco federal judge to
sanction the government $50,000 for delaying the surrender of thousands of
pages of documents related to the 1993 siege.

In a motion filed Tuesday in Waco, lead attorney Michael Caddell said the
government has turned over fewer than 20 boxes of documents, or about 32,000
pages, most of which already are public record.

With a court-imposed deadline of Jan. 15, Caddell said he fears a "last
minute document dump," of hundreds of thousands of pages of materials, as
plaintiffs prepare for a May 15 trial.
(...)

U.S. District Judge Walter Smith previously has shown little patience with
government delays. In November, Smith threatened to hold Bradford in contempt
for delaying the surrender of evidence to his court.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


2. Fine sought against government for slow turnover of Davidian documents
Access Waco/Tribune-Herald, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.accesswaco.com/auto/feed/news/local/2000/01/11/947651592.15644.8313.0087.html
(...) Caddell also asked that any request by the United States for more time
to produce documents be denied.

It is the latest clash between the two sides over evidence in the case, set
for trial on May 15, which stems from the death of David Koresh and 75
followers at Mount Carmel in 1993.

"I don't know what they've been doing," Caddell said. "They've produced 20
boxes of documents. In the real world, that's basically one clerk sitting in
a room for a week. I don't know what it is in government world. I guess if
they've got $900 hammers, they may have paralegals who can only produce one
document a week."
(...)

Caddell accused the government of stockpiling documents in order to dump them
on the plaintiffs at the last possible moment, four months before trial.
(...)

Caddell asked for attorney fees in the amount of $50,000, which his motion
said will allow plaintiffs to hire additional personnel to sort through any
last-minute documents.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. FBI photograph apparently undermines claims that government forces fired
on Branch Davidians
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 12, 2000
http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocID/F305A32E37509AC9862568630039F010
A newly released FBI photograph appears to undercut claims that government
forces opened fire on Branch Davidians during the assault on the compound
outside Waco in 1993.

The photograph, which was obtained by the Post-Dispatch, is part of a batch
of photos the government recently turned over to Special Counsel John C.
Danforth and to U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith, who is presiding over a
wrongful-death suit filed by Branch Davidian survivors.
(...)

The FBI surveillance photo appears to have been snapped on April 19, 1993,
within seconds of the time when a flash appears on a separate infrared tape
at 11:24 a.m. The Branch Davidians and their experts claim that flashes on
the infrared film at that time are the muzzle blasts from the guns of
government agents. The surveillance photo shows no one in the vicinity of the
flash.
(...)

Mike Caddell, the lead lawyer for the Branch Davidians, said he had not seen
the photograph the Post-Dispatch had obtained for the comparison. He said a
fair comparison required seeing all the photographs, which he has requested
but not yet received. "Seeing one or two or 10 photographs doesn't tell you
a whole lot," Caddell said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. Lawyer: Re-creation of Davidian siege to be at Fort Hood
Access Waco/Tribune-Herald, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.accesswaco.com/auto/feed/news/local/2000/01/11/947651592.15644.2007.0086.html
The court-ordered re-creation of the events at Mount Carmel on April 19,
1993, to determine whether FBI agents shot at the Branch Davidians will
probably be in March at Fort Hood, the plaintiffs' lead attorney in the
wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government said Tuesday.
(...)

Fort Hood, the world's largest military base, is 50 miles southwest of Waco
near Killeen. "The terrain is similar to that at Mount Carmel," Caddell
said. "The ATF used Fort Hood to train for the initial raid. There's even a
building there that mimics some of the conditions at Mount Carmel. The
weather is similar. The soil conditions are similar. There would be no
security problems. And they fire off weapons all the time. You wouldn't have
to worry about getting special permits."
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Karmapa Lama

5. China cautions India over apparent defection of religious leader
CNN, Jan. 12, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/01/12/china.karmapa.01/
China has warned India to tread carefully in its dealings with the apparent
defection of the Karmapa Lama -- who some expect will receive asylum from New
Delhi.

"The Indian side has said in explicit terms that Tibet is an inalienable part
of China. It has also stated that the Dalai (Lama) clique cannot carry out
political activities in India," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu
Bangzao said. "We hope the Indian side can strictly honor its commitments on
the relevant question so that bilateral relations can improve and develop,"
he added.
(...)

Indian newspapers reported earlier in the week that the Dalai Lama requested
asylum for the Karmapa. Reports said the young lama was frustrated by
religious repression in China, and that he was upset he was not allowed to
meet with his teachers.
(...)

Freedom of religion is enshrined in the Chinese constitution, but religious
groups accuse Beijing of persecuting those who worship outside "official"
churches.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


6. Karmapa Hasn't Requested Asylum
AOL/AP, Jan. 10, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=n&cat=01&id=2000011001335333
A teen-age Buddhist leader who fled Chinese-ruled Tibet has not asked India
for asylum, a member of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile said Monday.
(...)

"We have not applied to the government of India,'' said K.A. Lontashiwangd,
religious affairs minister in the Dalai Lama's administration. "But if the
government decided to give asylum, that can be accepted.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


7. Followers seek asylum for Karmapa
Taipei Times, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/01/11/story/0000019112
Tibet's government-in-exile said yesterday it was hopeful India would respond
favorably if it sought asylum for the top lama who had fled Lhasa.

"India has this great tradition of being very generous to people seeking
shelter and as such we have been coming here for many decades. If there is a
strong request for asylum it should be a humanitarian consideration," Tashi
Wangdi, the Tibetan minister for religion and culture, said.

Wangdi said the Indian government had been informed immediately after the boy
lama arrived in the country. "India has given refuge to over 100,000
Tibetans and it should be considered in that context. He is not a political
figure and this is not a political issue," he said.

Late on Sunday, the exiled government blamed China for the flight of the
14-year-old Karmapa Lama, third highest-ranking in the Tibetan Buddhist
hierarchy.
(...)

Wangdi said the Karmapa Lama -- who arrived in Dharamsala on Jan. 5 after an
arduous 1,400km trek through the snowbound Himalayas -- had to be shifted to
a secret hideaway on Sunday because they feared for his safety.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== China

8. China Boosting Religion Management
Yahoo!/AP, Jan. 11, 2000
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000111/wl/china_religion_6.html
The Chinese government will strengthen its control over religious practices
to keep "hostile overseas forces'' from splitting the nation, according to
remarks published Tuesday, a week after a key Tibetan Buddhist leader fled to
India.

Speaking at the opening of a four-day conference on religion, State Councilor
Ismail Amat did not mention any specific religious organization, according to
state media reports.

But he stressed during Monday's address the need to strengthen management of
religious affairs and said China will firmly resist "hostile overseas forces
that use religion to infiltrate into China,'' according to reports by the
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


9. Monks arrested in raid on monastery
Sydney Morning Herald, Jan. 12, 2000
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0001/12/world/world12.html
China has begun taking reprisals against supporters of the 14-year-old
Tibetan spiritual leader who has fled across the Himalayas to India, which is
under mounting pressure to grant him political asylum.

Tibetan officials said Chinese security police had raided the 800-year-old
Tsurphu monastery, 50 kilometres from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, from where
the Karmapa fled last week, and arrested at least two monks.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


10. Beijing Discovers Another "Living Buddha"
Inside China Today/AFP, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=124469
China announced Tuesday the discovery of the reincarnation of a "Living
Buddha" who had played a role in the administration of Tibet in the 1930s as
well as the search for the present Dalai Lama.

A December 31 report in the Tibetan Daily, seen in Beijing Tuesday, said
religious authorities in Tibet had found the seventh reincarnation of the
Reting Rinpoche (reincarnated Lama) of northern Tibet's Reting monastery in
"accordance with divination and governmental instructions."
(...)

The Reting Rinpoche is one of several dozens of living Buddhas in Tibet, but
became noteworthy for his role during his fifth incarnation during the
aftermath of the death of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1933, Tibetan religious
experts in India told AFP.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


11. Rise of Religious Fervor Spooks Beijing
International Herald Tribune, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/TUE/FPAGE/beijing.2.html
A series of recent clashes between the Chinese government and a variety of
spiritual groups indicates that religion, more than traditional kinds of
political dissent, is now seen by the Communist Party as one of the most
serious threats to its monopoly on power.

Last week, an important Tibetan Buddhist lama whose loyalty China had tried
to cultivate surfaced in India, where he had fled into exile. Then, Beijing
roiled the Vatican by appointing five Roman Catholic bishops in defiance of
the Pope John Paul II.

And as the government crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation movement
continued, President Jiang Zemin made a striking announcement that the huge
campaign was one of the ''three major political struggles'' of 1999,
signaling the first time since the Communist revolution in 1949 that smashing
an apolitical, spiritual organization has been an official priority of the
party.

Western diplomats and human rights groups report that the crackdown is
spreading to the network of Catholic and Protestant ''house churches'' in
China, which serve an estimated 30 million to 40 million believers who
worship illegally in private homes.

Since December, Beijing has used a law outlawing Falun Gong to designate 10
Christian sects as illegal ''cults.'' More than 100 Christian leaders have
been arrested, said Frank Lu, head of the Hong Kong-based Information Center
for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Aum Shinrykio

12. Aum will leave when ready, Joyu says
Japan Times, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/news1-2000/news.html#story4
People living near a Yokohama condominium containing an Aum Shinrikyo office
demanded Tuesday that former cult spokesman Fumihiro Joyu and other followers
immediately leave the area.
(...)

Joyu met the residents and said he has no plans to permanently reside at the
condominium, adding that the cult will "clarify its position on Jan. 20" over
the heinous crimes for which its members have been accused, according to a
senior member of the residents' union.

Aum, however, turned down the residents' demand to leave. Later in the day,
in a written reply, the cult said that it would be difficult to immediately
leave the facility "because (moving to a new place) will only create the same
problem."
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


13. Man drives car into Aum barricade
Daily Yomiuri (Japan), Jan. 13, 2000
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/0113cr05.htm
A 44-year-old man drove into a barricade set up by police in front of the Aum
Supreme Truth cult's Yokohama branch late Tuesday, police said.

The driver of the car, Minoru Nakano, a member of a right-wing organization,
got out of the car after attempting to drive though the barricade and
demanded to meet with senior cult member Fumihiro Joyu, according to police.

Police said they arrested Nakano at the scene on suspicion of violating the
Road Traffic Law, as he had been driving under the influence of alcohol.

Joyu has been staying at the branch since his release from Hiroshima Prison
last month.
[...entire item...]


=== Falun Gong

14. Falun Gong detainees unrepentant
The Age (Australia), Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-bin/printversion.pl?story=20000111/A17495-2000Jan10
Australian followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement have been warned
against travelling to China after three Melbourne members were held for
questioning and escorted out of the country on Sunday.
(...)

Despite efforts by Australian embassy officials in Beijing on Sunday to find
out what happened to the three, Chinese authorities did not give any
information until yesterday.
(...)

The open letter the three Australians delivered to Xinhua was addressed to
President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongii and said Falun Dafa (the
teachings of Falun Gong) was a peaceful, righteous and orthodox practice. It
called for the ban to be lifted.

"We have nothing to do with politics," it said. "All we need is the space on
this Earth in which to practice the movements and meditate." They said the
name of Falun Dafa had been slandered and they could not sit idly at home
while this was happening.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Scientology

15. Appeal against Scientology?
Stuttgarter Zeitung (Germany), Jan. 8, 2000
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/000108b.htm
Now the Scientologists and the administrative presidium
["Regierungspreaesidium"] have it in writing: the administrative court has
declared invalid a state order against Dianetik, Inc., [which means that] the
Scientology organization retains its association status. The judgment was
made available yesterday.

The administrative presidium (RP) has been trying since 1993 to pull
association status and the privileges associated therewith from the
Scientologists and their various branches - which includes Dianetik, Inc.
However all attempts to date have been fruitless. People in the
administrative presidium are not now particularly happy about the judgment
which has just been handed down. "We will read the basis very scrupulously
and will very probably file an appeal afterwards," said RP spokesman Ralph
Koenig yesterday.
(...)

Apparently the sect had just barely passed muster on the path of
administrative law, administrative president Udo Andriof said at the time.
The Scientologists celebrated the retraction of the order as a "win for
religious freedom and the legal state."

From the view of state legal experts, Scientology is "only about making
money." It is said that all the spiritual, religious and worldview aspects
are only protective camouflage.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


16. Supporting Infosekta
Tages-Anzeiger (Switzerland), Jan. 8, 2000
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/000108a.htm
The city council has rejected the individual initiative from Scientologist
and middle school teacher Peter Thalmann. He had demanded that the city not
be allowed to financially support the sect counselling center because it was
violating freedom of religion by doing that. It is a matter of 20,000 Swiss
franks a year.

The city council wrote in its answer that Infosekta did not direct its
activity against religious denominations, but against unwanted outgrowths of
certain sects. "These often lead people who had fallen into the vacuum of
such groups to dependencies, psychic detriment, to loss of social and
emotional relational networks, to economic need and, in individual cases,
even to suicide," wrote the city council. Because such people will become a
public burden sooner or later, it was in the public interest to support
Infosekta. Besides that, the federal court had already clearly decided that
such subsidies did not violate the religious neutrality of the state,
explained the city council. Now the community council must make a decision on
the individual initiative.
[...entire item...]

* Info-Sekta is a secular cult information agency in Switzerland.
http://www.infosekta.ch/


17. Scientology chia pet
LA Weekly, Jan. 14, 2000
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/08/offbeat.shtml
Scientology’s relentless self-promotion is no secret to readers of OffBeat,
which last year reported on the church’s campaign to flood newspaper
quote-of-the-week sections with camera-ready if incomprehensible bons mots
from founder L. Ron Hubbard. Now, a new Scientology PR controversy has
erupted, this time concerning the church’s millennial celebration at the Los
Angeles Sports Arena. The Washington Post reported that Scientology took
several photos off its Web site after being accused of doctoring crowd-scene
photos to inflate the head count at the event. Ex-Scientologist Arnaldo
Lerma, who currently runs an audio-video and computer business in Arlington,
Virginia, said images of attendees were cloned and used to fill in empty
seats in panoramic photos of what the church claimed to be an SRO crowd of
14,000. The touchup work left one crowd member without a head, and caused a
bald man to miraculously grow hair, Lerma charged.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Mormonism

18. Mormon Issue at the U. a Touchy One for Students, Faculty
Salt Lake Tribune, Jan. 9, 2000
http://www.sltrib.com/01092000/utah/16487.htm
Bernie Machen bristles at the suggestion that anti-Mormon sentiment exists at
the University of Utah. There are no cases of discrimination, no substance
to such claims, he says hotly. The U. president says he has heard of nothing
more than spotty cases of insensitivity during his two-year tenure, and
wonders aloud whether the subject is "folklore."

Yet the perception that the U. fosters an anti-Mormon attitude in its
academic practices and in its faculty hiring has dogged the school for
decades and remains firmly fixed in the fabric of campus life in the new
century.

In interviews with more than 40 people, The Salt Lake Tribune found views
evenly divided on the issue, though everyone agreed it's the touchiest of
subjects. That is particularly true of faculty members who feel
disenfranchised because of their affiliation with The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints and students who feel pressured to suppress their
religious beliefs and backgrounds in the classroom. Mormon faculty talk of
being shunned at department gatherings, of being kept from influential hiring
committees, of seeing excuses dredged up to exclude Mormon scholars from
jobs.
(...)

Whether fact or urban folklore, as Machen would have it, the perception of
anti-Mormon bias may be one the university can never escape given its
position as the state's secular counterbalance to LDS Church-owned Brigham
Young University.

"The U. fills an essential role as a metaphorical anti-Christ. BYU can get
away with some of what it does because the U. exists," said Reba Keele, a U.
business professor.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


19. Arizona 'Sleepwalker' sentenced to life in wife's murder
CNN/AP, Jan. 10, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/01/10/sleepwalk.trial.ap/index.html
A man who claimed he was sleepwalking when he killed his wife by stabbing her
44 times and holding her head under water was sentenced Monday to life in
prison without a chance of parole.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* Oct. 25, 1999:

Prosecutor Martinez stressed that Falater left his wife to die in the pool
while he returned to the house, washed blood from his hands and stashed
bloody clothes into the trunk of his car. As he did during the trial,
Martinez suggested that the Falaters argued over religion and whether to
have more children. Yarmila, he said, resented the Mormon Church and
suggested she was considering a divorce at the time of her death.


=== Islam

20. Islamic society stripped of charity status
Electronic Telegraph (England), Jan. 9, 2000
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000647321007942
&rtmo=kLJC7qJp&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/1/9/nchar09.html
A British charity run by Islamic fundamentalists has become the first group
of its kind to be stripped of its special privileges including tax breaks.

The Charities Commission has removed the London-based Muslim Cultural Society
from its list of approved organisations after concern about the activities of
some of its leaders. It will no longer be able to call itself a charity and
any funds it raises will be taxed in the normal way. The action comes just
two months after The Sunday Telegraph disclosed how leading members of the
charity, including its chairman, Anjem Choudary, had been raising funds and
recruiting volunteers for "holy wars" abroad.
(...)

The organisation, the Muslim Cultural Society of Enfield and Haringey,
received an official warning from the commission in 1998 after it came out in
support of the Rushdie fatwa. But that did not prevent it from publicly
supporting a fatwa pronounced on McNally last year by Britain's own Shari'ah
court of Islamic law, which is headed by Sheikh Mohammed.

The society distributed copies of the fatwa to protesters angered by the
playwright's description of Christ as a homosexual King of the Queers.
(...)

Mr Choudary said: "I am very disappointed about the loss of charitable
status. A fatwa is not an instruction for an individual to carry out a crime.
Rather it is a sentence which should be passed by a court in an Islamic
state. There is no question of any individual carrying out the sentence
against Mr McNally. The work of the society will continue even though we have
lost our charity status."

Mr Choudary and Sheikh Mohammed have raised thousands of pounds and recruited
dozens of volunteers for Islamic groups involved in "freedom fights". They
insist that the groups they help do not target British citizens. However,
some are regarded as terrorist organisations by Western security sources.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Wicca / Neo-paganism

21. Wiccan Fights Suspension From School
Excite/Reuters, Jan. 12, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/r/000112/07/odd-pagan
A North Carolina high school teacher suspended after telling administrators
she practices a pagan religion associated with witchcraft said on Tuesday she
would fight to get her job back.
(...)

Eicher and her husband, Richard, are practicing Wiccans, a pagan religion
whose adherents worship nature and focus on positive energy. Although the
religion is associated with witchcraft, Wiccans say the connection is
misunderstood and the faith has nothing to do with devil worship.
(...)

Eicher said she did not discuss Wicca with students, and disclosed her
religious beliefs to administrators after a reporter asked her about an
Internet Web site maintained by her husband about a local Wicca group
(http://www.witchvox.com).
(...)

On his Web site, Richard Eicher said he also planned to file a lawsuit over
his dismissal from a local company because of his religious beliefs.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* Eicher's site is identified with the wrong URL. The site is:

http://WillowFyre.ontheInter.net

Witchvox.com is arguably the most popular "Craft" site on the net. It
includes daily updates of Wicca- and Neo-Paganism related news, including
coverage of the Eicher issue:

http://www.witchvox.com/xwrensnest.html


=== Y2K Fallout / Doomsday Calendar

22. Life goes on for scholars of Armageddon
San Jose Mercury News, Jan. 9, 2000
http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/043417.htm
Just because Armageddon didn't conveniently arrive with the turn of the year
doesn't mean academics who study all things millennial are packing up their
bags and looking for a new subject. Far from it.

"The year 2000 offers the millennial scholar what the Galapagos Islands
offered Darwin,'' says Boston University historian Richard Landes. "This
amazing array of 'fauna' and 'flora' gives us incredible insight into our
society.''
(...)

If there is a "mission control'' for millennial research, it's Boston
University's Center for Millennial Studies (www.mille.org), which Landes
founded and directs. Working with scholars around the world, the center
publishes an online Journal of Millennial Studies, holds academic conferences
and advises policy makers on related militia and terrorist activity. It has
also recruited hundreds of armchair archivists to send in material for a
fast-growing millennial archive affiliated with the Library of Congress.
(...)

Today, researchers are examining how millennial groups use the Internet to
communicate with each other and the world. They identify the "roosters,'' who
crow that the millennium is upon us, and more cautious "owls,'' who admonish
that the time has not yet come. They trace modern projects to hasten the
Messiah's arrival, such as a Christian effort to encourage Jews to build a
third temple in Jerusalem. They're studying the apocalyptic vision of the
Falun Gong, researching the role of women within Christian militia groups,
and tracking UFO cults like Heaven's Gate and a similar Brazilian group that
believes galactic angels will usher in a New Age.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


23. Christian Right Groups Protest FBI's Warning on Extremists
Washington Post, Jan. 6, 2000
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/06/156l-010600-idx.html
With no sign yet of domestic millennial terrorism, a coalition of
conservative Christian groups yesterday called for Congress to investigate
what it considers the FBI's overblown pre-New Year's warnings about the
threat of Christian extremists.

Echoing a complaint frequently made by Arab Americans, 32 religious right
groups claim an October report by the FBI's domestic terrorism unit paints
millennial Christians--which includes most evangelicals--as dangerous.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

=== Other News

24. Cult member gets 101 years for trying to kill cop, robbery
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 12, 2000
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/metro/20000112-0010_7m12applin.html
Shackled to the chair and wearing a bright-green jail jumpsuit indicating he
is a high-level escape risk, Blaine Applin, a member of a small religious
group in Pala, quietly read the Bible as he was sentenced to more than 101
years to life in prison yesterday.

After it was all but done -- having been sentenced for conspiracy to murder a
police officer and numerous other crimes -- Applin addressed Superior Court
Judge Frederic Link by reading from John 8:42-47.

"If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am
here," Applin read to Link. " . . . You belong to your father, the devil, and
you want to carry out your father's desire. . . . Can any of you prove me
guilty of sin? . . . The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to
God."
(...)
[Note: this is known as "torturing Scripture" - twisting the meaning by taking passages out of context]
Applin, 29, has testified that he was on a mission from God in 1998 when he
committed several robberies and fired a shot that barely missed San Diego
police Officer Leonard Lefler, who was chasing him and another man in a car
while on the Interstate 8-Interstate 5 connecting ramp.
(...)

Christopher Turgeon, 36, the self-proclaimed leader of The Gatekeepers, a
small religious group that moved to Pala from Washington state in 1997, is
believed by prosecutors to have been Applin's accomplice that night. He faces
trial on the same charges later this month.

Both men still also face a murder charge in Washington in the shooting death
of a former member of the religious group in March 1998 outside Seattle.
(...)

Turgeon has said he believes that in the latter part of 2000 a new world
government will come to power, followed by 31/2 years of hell until Jesus
Christ returns. He has said these are evil times and that the government is
the culprit.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25. Chopra loses case alleging blackmail
San Diego Union-Tribune, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/metro/20000111-0010_7m11chopra.html
A San Diego Superior Court jury unanimously tossed out claims yesterday by
mind-body healer Deepak Chopra that a former employee tried to blackmail him
for $50,000 in return for not exposing allegations that Chopra had sex with a
prostitute.

The jury by a 12-0 vote found that Joyce Weaver, who worked for an institute
associated with Chopra, did not engage in outrageous conduct and was not part
of a conspiracy to inflict emotional distress on Chopra.
(...)

Chopra told reporters after the verdict that jurors didn't get a full picture
of his case because of what he called biased rulings by Superior Court Judge
Thomas Murphy -- part of what he sees as a conspiracy against him by numerous
San Diego judges in lawsuits he has filed.

Chopra -- who said he already has spent more than $1 million in the lawsuits
-- vowed to continue his battle. "Maybe it is my karma to dismantle the
corruption in the San Diego judicial system," he said.

Immediately after returning their verdict in Chopra's case against Weaver,
jurors were supposed to begin hearing testimony in Weaver's sexual harassment
case against Chopra. But that hit a snag when Murphy removed himself from
presiding over the second lawsuit because of comments he made last week about
one of Chopra's attorneys.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


26. 'Queen's' followers face new charges
St. Petersburg Times, Jan. 12, 2000
http://www.sptimes.com/News/011200/State/_Queen_s__followers_f.shtml
Two followers of the woman who calls herself "Queen Shahmia" have been
charged in three Bradenton-area robberies, deputies said.
(...)

The two men remain suspects in a fourth Manatee robbery -- one at a Shoney's
in Ellenton on Dec. 31 -- and deputies also are investigating a third man who
was traveling with Queen Shahmia's religious group.
(...)

The three men say they are subservient to "Queen Shahmia," who says she's
God's daughter.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


27. Texas troopers suspended over KKK costumes
San Jose Mercury News, Jan. 12, 2000
http://www7.mercurycenter.com/premium/nation/docs/natdig12.htm
Four white state troopers who donned Ku Klux Klan-style hoods at a 1989
birthday party for a black officer have been suspended, officials in Houston
said Tuesday. Two other white employees also were suspended for making racist
comments more recently, said Col. Dudley Thomas, director of the Texas
Department of Public Safety. All six were suspended with pay pending the
outcome of investigations into the alleged acts. "There is no room in our
agency for this type of behavior and it will not be tolerated,'' Thomas said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. Prisoners, guards stir fears with Walls Unit ghost stories
Star-Telegram, Jan. 11, 2000
[URL removed because it currently refers to inappropriate content]/news/doc/1047/1:STATE22A/1:STATE22A0111100.html
(...) Houston, a 66-year-old lifer with a famous name and a string of auto
theft convictions, had no doubt he had seen a ghost.
(...)

Not everyone laughed. Similar sightings have been reported in the prison for
generations by inmates and guards alike. "There are some guards who won't
come back here," says prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald, standing in the
abandoned cell block, near the solitary confinement box where outlaw John
Wesley Hardin once spent a year.
(...)

The ghost stories have persisted for so long that it is difficult to dismiss
them as the delusional babbling of stir-crazy convicts. The guards tell
similar tales.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


29. International developers sacrifice 100 cattle to appease ancestral spirits
Africa News, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.africanews.org/south/swaziland/stories/20000111/20000111_feat1.html
International developers have bowed to Swazi tradition and are preparing to
sacrifice 100 cattle to ancestral spirits in an attempt to win support for
the R343,4-million Maguga Dam project on the kingdom's border with
Mpumalanga.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


30. Bearded Canadian boxer seeks victory in court
Yahoo!/Reuters, Jan. 11, 2000
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000111/92.html
A Sikh boxer, barred from competition in Canada because he refused to shave
his beard for religious reasons, hopes his first major victory of the year
will be on Wednesday -- in court.

Pardeep Singh Nagra, amateur light-flyweight champion of Ontario, will seek a
provincial court's approval on Wednesday on a "cooperative resolution'' with
the Canadian Amateur Boxing Association which has backed away from its
original objection to him being in the ring.
(...)

Nagra's lawyer has based the case on Canada's human rights legislation.
Nagra's religion prevents him from shaving.
(...)

The boxing association said it simply wanted to make sure it would not fall
out of favor with the International Amateur Boxing Association (IABA), which
outlaws boxers with facial hair in international competition. Nagra has made
the concession to wear a net over his beard during his fights.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


31. Clergy rail at play about Jesus's girl
Sunday Times (England), Jan. 9, 2000
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/01/09/stiscosco03001.html?999
A controversial new play by Scotland's most respected poet portrays Jesus
Christ as a wayward teen who fathers an illegitimate daughter. Edwin Morgan
is writing the play, AD, for Raindog, the Glasgow-based theatre company set
up by film star Robert Carlyle.

Church leaders are unimpressed, but Morgan, who is Glasgow's poet laureate,
claims he wants to portray the Son of God as a man. "I wanted to make him
credible to this generation," he added.
(...)

A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland said last night that Morgan's
play would cause great offence to Christians across the country. Monsignor
Tom Connelly said AD would be offensive to those who believed in the divine
nature of Christ. "I suspect the producers are attempting to make the play
more commercial. I do not think the Glasgow public will be fooled; they will
simply boycott the productions.
(...)

This is the second play in Scotland to anger churchmen recently. At last
year's Edinburgh Fringe, a play called Corpus Christi featured a gay Christ
seduced by Judas.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


32. Declining churches 'at risk of bleeding to death'
The Times (England) Jan. 12, 2000
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/01/12/timnwsnws01023.html?999
Churches in England will "bleed to death" within a generation if the current
rate of decline continues, according to figures published today.The rate of
decline is accelerating, especially among young people. More than a million
people have disappeared from congregations in the past decade, and churches
are losing 2,000 a week, the survey found.

By 2016, fewer than one in a hundred people will be attending church if
current trends continue. "Just one generation, and we would indeed have bled
to death," the report says. Of nearly 38,000 Anglican, Roman Catholic,
Methodist, Free and other churches in England, one third responded to a
two-page questionnaire from Christian Research, of Eltham, southeast London.
(...)

The decline is not universal. The Baptists are holding their own, and some
black-led congregations and evangelical churches are having a revival, most
markedly in Inner London, where more black people than white now go to
church.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


33. BeyondBody.com Uses MP3 for Inducing Altered States
Yahoo!/PR Newswire, Jan. 11, 2000 (Press Release)
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000111/ca_beyondb_1.html
(...) Deep inside each of us is a natural curiosity about the paranormal
phenomena of being able to actually float outside one's own body -- which is
independent of any one religious or philosophical belief. While out-of-body
experiences can happen spontaneously -- many experts in the field have shown
that a person can consciously find their way "out of their body'' with
knowledge and practice.
(...)

Dale has developed Beyond Body(TM) -- a spiritual and practical
Internet-based program to learn how to induce fully conscious out-of-body
experiences -- using MP3 audio files. MP3 is a standard file format that
allows you to download near-CD quality music and audio from the web. A person
can play each audio file through their computer or transfer the file to a
portable MP3 player. The website www.beyondbody.com offers a library of
downloadable files where subscribers can progress at their own pace for
$19.95 per month, and subscribers can stop the program at any time. According
to Dale, the multilevel program goes far beyond teaching people how to
achieve trance-like states. It may also be the ultimate stress reduction
program and ultimate process for self-realization.
(...)

According to Dale, the Beyond Body(TM) program provides the ultimate tool for
students of meditation and yoga. The science of breath is of the highest
importance to any student of yoga and the most useful. A student can use this
tool for achieving Samadhi, considered the highest state of yoga. The Beyond
Body(TM) program can be incorporated into any personal or spiritual practice.
The website offers detailed information including frequently asked questions.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== UFOs

34. UFO experts, media continue inquiries into sighting
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 12, 2000
http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocID/C66ED6DBA35D72408625686400083A9D
It appeared as a floating two-story house with a glowing red interior. A
week later, it has attracted national media and a team of investigators led
by a former FBI agent who wants to know if the object was an alien
spacecraft.

John Velier and his team from Las Vegas flew to St. Louis on Friday to learn
more about a UFO spotted a week ago first by a Highland miniature-golf course
owner and then by four police officers.
(...)

Police in Millstadt don't believe the sighting was a visitor from outer
space. But they won't make any assumptions about what it was either.
(...)

Velier's team came from the National Institute for Discovery Science, a Las
Vegas research insatiate, to collect evidence of the sighting. The
institute, founded in 1995, has about a dozen former law enforcement officers
and scientists investigating sightings professionally.
(...)

The institute sent a team to the Metro East because of the overwhelming
credibility of the witnesses - nearly all police officers, Kelleher said.
"Police officers are a higher quality observers than other witnesses, because
they have good memories," he said. "And from our initial calls, we know these
people are not delusional."
(...)

Velier won't make an assumption about what the officers saw yet because his
investigation is still in its initial stages. However, he will post a
preliminary report on the organization's web site at www.accessnv.com/nids in
a few weeks.

Two of the police officers who saw the object contacted the National UFO
Reporting Center in Seattle the morning they spotted it, said Peter B.
Davenport, the center's director. The center, founded in 1974, records,
corroborates and documents reports from individuals who have witnessed
unusual, possibly UFO-related events.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


35. U.F.O. Boom Doesn't Worry Officials
New York Times, Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/011100china-ufos.html
The last few months have been a boom time for U.F.O. enthusiasts in China.
Just before the start of the year 2000, there were dozens of sightings.
Strange shining objects were observed scooting through the sky by hundreds of
people, from former airport workers to college deans.
(...)

Buoyed in part by the sightings, the ranks of the research societies in major
Chinese cities devoted to unidentified flying objects have grown to more than
40,000 members. More important still, the normally conservative official
news media have been lavishing attention on U.F.O. news, with documentaries
on the main government television station, CCTV-1, and credulous newspaper
articles.
(...)

But so far, at least, the government has decided to tolerate the U.F.O. craze
even if it does not financially support it. Wildly popular and politically
unthreatening, U.F.O. research is the kind of unorthodox pursuit that is
allowed in China today. Anyway, government officials and citizens alike tend
to view U.F.O. research as science or at least possibly scientific.

And officials of U.F.O. societies are determined to keep it that way. "The
study of U.F.O.'s is fundamentally different from other things like Falun
Gong and qigong, which have come under criticism lately," said Jin Fan, an
engineer who heads the Dalian U.F.O. Research Society in northeast China.
"This is a purely scientific field, whereas Falun Gong deals with cults and
superstition."

Indeed, a large portion of China's U.F.O. enthusiasts are scientists and
engineers, not the sci-fi buffs or apocalyptic stargazers who are the
stereotype in the United States. Many of China's U.F.O. research societies
require a college degree and published research for membership. The Chinese
Air Force attends important U.F.O. meetings.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Noted

36. How Himmler fell under the spell of witches
The Times (England), Jan. 11, 2000
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/01/11/timfgneur02003.html?999
The SS leader Heinrich Himmler was so obsessed with witchcraft that he looted
140,000 books on the subject from libraries across Europe and set up a unit
to investigate and publicise the issue.

The scope of Himmler's strange fascination has been disclosed in a book by a
team of historical researchers in Germany. When a Poznan librarian stumbled
on the witchcraft library in a baroque palace in Lower Silesia, he noted that
several books had been marked on pages where tortures were described. He
assumed that the SS chief was studying torture techniques.

However, the authors, led by Sönke Lorenz, a Tübingen academic, argue that
Himmler was trying to prove that the persecution of witches in the 17th
century represented a kind of Holocaust of the German race carried out by the
Roman Catholic Church.
(...)

The SS compiled a card index of 33,846 cases of burnings in Germany and as
far afield as India and Mexico, in an attempt to prop up Himmler's thesis.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Books

37. Theocracy in the Desert
New York Times, Jan. 9, 2000
http://www10.nytimes.com/books/00/01/09/reviews/000109.09egant.html
Mormon America
The Power and the Promise.
By Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling.
Illustrated. 454 pp. San Francisco:
HarperSanFrancisco. $26.

What a difference a century has made to the image of Mormons, the
self-described ''peculiar people'' who are as much a part of the American
West as saguaro cactus or the Las Vegas Strip. The church that shocked polite
society by sanctioning marriages in which an older man could take a dozen
wives or more -- some of them half his age -- is now a public guardian of
strict family values no more experimental than Beaver Cleaver's. The founders
of perhaps the most successful attempt at American socialism have given way
to the competent capitalists who run an empire worth more than $25 billion.
And the descendants of political radicals who proudly defied the
constitutional separations of church and state with their theocracy in the
desert now hold up those once scorned democratic ideals as divinely inspired.

These contradictions and more provide the narrative tension for ''Mormon
America,'' a long overdue primer on one of the fastest-growing religions in
the world -- officially, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This home-grown faith, founded by an itinerant treasure digger from upstate
New York in 1830, has grown to a world membership of more than 10 million,
including five current United States senators. Richard N. Ostling, a religion
writer for The Associated Press, and his wife, Joan K. Ostling, a freelance
writer, note that if it continues to add followers at the present rate, the
Mormon Church could become the most important world religion to emerge since
the rise of Islam 14 centuries ago.
(...)

Of course, many religions have morphed their questionable pasts into iconic
nostalgia. The Church of England, after all, was founded by a serial killer,
King Henry VIII, who was unhappy over institutional moralizing about the way
he disposed of his wives. But the Mormons are burdened by being one of few
major religions subject to recent fact-checking. Many of the foundations of
the church -- among them, the beliefs that American Indians were Jews who
sailed across the Atlantic, and that the biblical Garden of Eden was really a
verdant patch of Missouri, in what is now a parking lot near Harry Truman's
home -- are embedded as divinely inspired, historical facts in the
golden-plated Book of Mormon brought forth by Smith.

Few non-Mormon scholars have ever considered these claims to be anything more
than archaeological fairy tales. DNA analysis, for example, has failed to
establish a viable connection between the Hebrews of old Israel and the
native peoples of the Americas. ''Book of Mormon apologists have a much
tougher job than apologists for the Bible,'' the Ostlings write. ''Not a
single person, place or event unique to Joseph Smith's 'gold Bible' has ever
been proven to exist.''

Still, for all the harsh lighting of historical fallacies, ''Mormon America''
should not be mistaken for a polemic. Most books on the Saints, as they call
themselves, tend to be anti-Mormon screeds or soft-focus proselytizing. This
book is eminently fair, well researched and exhaustive. There are no major
revelations that are likely to alter opinion one way or the other, but the
authors are diligent referees of fights past and present.
(...)

The weakness of ''Mormon America'' is that it does not go into much depth on
the temporal world created by the Saints. The physical and political realm,
the empire that sprouted from the original plan for a Zion in Utah and is
enlarged by the annual 10 percent tithings of all members in good standing,
is subject to mere listings of holdings and new buildings.

It is on the spiritual front that the book most comes to life. Quoting from
dozens of anguished Mormon scholars who have run up against the iron fist of
church authorities, the Ostlings make the case that the Saints should not be
afraid of their own past. People who buck the party line are spied on,
denounced and coldly excommunicated. ''No other sizable religion in America
monitors its own followers in this way,'' the Ostlings write. Other religions
also rein in their freethinking renegades, but the Mormon Church ''is unusual
in penalizing members for merely criticizing officialdom or for publishing
truthful -- if uncomfortable -- information,'' the authors say.

This raises the question of whether Joseph Smith himself, were he alive now,
would last long in the present church. Like many religious visionaries, he
was a heretic in his day.
[...more...]