=== Falun Gong
1. China says Taiwan leader colluding with falungong
2. Falun Gong members speak out

=== Falun Gong - China's Government-Controlled Media
3. Reports from China's government-controlled media

=== Scientology
4. Scientology guilty of libel and enjoined in Germany
5. Protecting sources
6. Razzies Scorch the ''Earth''

=== Unification Church
7. News And Notes

=== Raelians
8. House Sets the Stage for Debate on the Cloning of Humans

=== Buddhism
9. Sect 'planned mass suicide'
10. Sri Lanka to 'build' Bamiyan Buddhas

=== Catholicism
11. Faith or folly?
12. Former believer turns his efforts toward exposure
13. More Catholics turning to Mary
14. Pope Makes Appeal for Catholic Zeal

=== Mormonism
15. Mormons in charm offensive

=== Paganism / Witchcraft
16. Battle brewing over Nessie hunt
17. Wizard curse? I've had spell of good luck, says Whelan

=== Hate Groups
18. Man Gets Life for Calif. Hate Crime
19. Saudi Arabia bans Pokemon

=== Rebirthing
20. Video a key piece in abuse trial

=== Other News
21. Teen-age monk confesses to killing nun, police say
22. 'This is the place for a village,' decides a rich sect (Bruderhof)
23. Procter & Gamble Suit Over Satan Rumor Resurrected
24. Southern Baptists ending talks with Catholic Church

=== Science
25. Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator

=== Death Penalty & Other Human Rights Violations
26. Court will hear second mentally retarded case

=== Media
27. Why do we think Christ was white?
28. Purging Flame

=== The Investors Around The Corner
29. Four-year-old beats City expert


=== Mormonism

15. Mormons in charm offensive
The Scotsman (Scotland), Mar. 26, 2001
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Their way of life would seem to have little to attract your average Scot. Smoking is taboo, pre-marital sex is forbidden and even stimulants such as alcohol, tea and coffee are banned.

But now the Mormons, the idiosyncratic religious sect most closely linked with pop icons The Osmonds, is to launch a charm offensive across Scotland in a drive to increase numbers.

The church has appointed their first ever public relations officers, a husband and wife team from Mesa, Arizona, to increase their profile north of the Border.

In a move away from giving their religion the ''hard sell'', the Mormons are to forge links with local groups and councils, cleaning up playgrounds and painting community centres, to emphasise their importance as a community organisation.

They are also to fly in celebrity Mormons from the US. This summer, astronaut Don Lind, a veteran of the US space programme, will give a series of talks. Later, folk dancers from the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, will be performing in Edinburgh.

In August, two tall ships will dock in Greenock as part of the Sea Trek voyage to commemorate the journey of the Mormon saints from the British Isles to America 150 years ago.

At all of these events the Mormon presence will be deliberately low-key.

''Our intent is not to try to push the religion,'' said Duane LeSueur, 60, one of the public affairs missionaries. ''If we do good things and people see it, people will be interested.''
(...)

It is that type of commitment which is partly responsible for worldwide upsurge in interest in the Mormons, properly called the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints, which has made it the fastest growing religion in the world with more than ten million members. Over the last year 300,000 people joined the church, more than in any year in its 160-year history.

That rise has made the Mormon church incredibly wealthy with an estimated annual income approaching £6 billion as members are encouraged to donate 10 per cent of their annual earnings.

Despite its low profile in Scotland, the church has 23,000 members based around five diocese, called stakes, in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Paisley.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Paganism / Witchcraft

16. Battle brewing over Nessie hunt
BBC, Mar. 21, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A quest by a Swedish scientist to solve the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster is facing a challenge from an English witch.

Jan Sunberg, a member of the Global Underwater Search Team, is making final preparations for an expedition to trap the monster and take samples of DNA.

He is to go head to head with Kevin Carlyon, a high priest in the British Coven of White Witches, who is planning to cast a protective spell on the illusive creature.

Fans of the monster have welcomed the plans to protect Nessie using witchcraft, and warned that hunting the monster is now regulated by Scottish Natural Heritage.

The spell will not stop her popping her head up occasionally to wave to passing speed boats, but it will protect her

Both attempts are due to take place early next month, with Mr Sunberg saying he will continue regardless of Mr Carlyon's activities.
(...)

''Scottish Natural Heritage, a government-appointed body, has recently got involved to try and regulate Nessie hunting.
(...)

The SNH code of conduct requires that any Nessie hunter catching the monster must release her after taking DNA samples.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


17. Wizard curse? I've had spell of good luck, says Whelan
The Daily Telegraph (England), Mar. 26, 2001
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Foir a man who had been cursed by a witch doctor's spell, Charlie Whelan was in remarkably good spirits yesterday.

Charlie Whelan: 'I'm enjoying my life and everything is going well'
''I'm enjoying my life and everything is going very well, thank you very much.

Maybe he needs a new voodoo doctor,'' said the former Labour spin doctor of his arch rival, Peter Mandelson, after reports that a friend of the former Northern Ireland Secretary had apparently sought the assistance of a Brazilian wizard to cast a spell on him.
(...)

Mr Whelan said that he had been as surprised as ''most other people'' when he read in the Mail on Sunday about the correspondence between Mr Mandelson's close friend, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, and Jose Lima da Silva, 33, a witch doctor and priest in the Candomble cult, a mystical Brazilian sect that worships African gods. Mr da Silva wrote to his namesake enclosing a newspaper photograph of Mr Whelan, and asked the priest to stop him ''doing bad things to harm the political career of my friend Peter''.
(...)

The witch doctor, nicknamed ''Zezinho'', said that on October 3, 1999, Mr da Silva wrote to him enclosing Mr Whelan's photograph.

An attached letter said: ''Zezinho, I write to you to ask a favour, if you can make this person who is in the photo in the piece from the newspaper stop doing bad things to harm the political career of my friend Peter? The name of this bad person is Charlie Whelan, because he is always trying to harm Peter.''

He said that he did not want the priest to go overboard with any black arts, but added: ''I am not asking you to do anything bad with him but let him disappear from politics. Perhaps he could go to another country and not have contact with England ever again.'' The letter, which was in Portuguese, concluded with a greeting in English - apparently in Mr Mandelson's distinctive handwriting - which said: ''Very best wishes from your English friend, Peter.''

The priest said he lit candles and placed them with roses and white corn over the letter for three days as ''an offering to the gods to help Peter achieve his objective''. Soon afterwards, Mr Mandelson was restored to the Cabinet and Mr da Silva's mother later took a necklace and perfume to the witch doctor as an offering, saying they were gifts from the politician.

The cameo appearance of a Brazilian witch doctor is another unusual twist in Mr Mandelson's often flamboyant career.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


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