Scientologists Convicted of Fraud

(Paris, France) The Church of Scientology has been fined 600,000 euros ($900,000) by a Paris court for organized fraud. Four church leaders were given suspended prison sentences. Notably, the church avoided expulsion from the country.

The ruling of fraud hinged on Scientology’s use of its “E-meter” on people it was seeking to recruit into the church. The E-meter measures resistance to electrical current in the human body and is operated by a church official known as an auditor.

Scientologists say that this reading of electrical currents can provide a measure of “spiritual duress” and help people improve the quality of their life by coming to understand and ridding themselves of alien entities known as “body thetans” that have attached themselves to the subject.

This use of the device is scientifically and medically unproven, and the court found in the plaintiffs’ favor that the E-meter results were used to sell vitamins and other merchandise and services to the two plaintiffs.

Travelers entering France with attached body thetans are forewarned that treatment and removal will not be possible in the country.