Spies and Scientologists: ASIO and a controversial minority religion in Cold War Australia, 1956-83

This article provides an overview to some of the material recorded in these files and how it relates to the wider histories of ASIO and Scientology. First it discusses the origins of ASIO. Second it discusses how ASIO and Scientology first came into contact during the late 1950s. Third it examines the interactions between ASIO and the Scientology defector Phillip Bennett Wearne and finally it looks at the interactions between ASIO and Scientology during the 1970s which precipitated Scientology's unsuccessful court case against ASIO between 1979 and 1982.