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The New Yorker story on Neil Gaiman mentions Scn

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Sue M.

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Jan 19, 2010, 7:56:26 PM1/19/10
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An excerpt from an article in the New Yorker, "Kid Goth: Neil Gaiman's
fantasies", at:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/25/100125fa_fact_goodyear?currentPage=1

==========

The pivotal fact of Gaiman's childhood is one that appears nowhere in his
fiction and is periodically removed from his Wikipedia page by the site's
editors. When he was five, his family moved to East Grinstead, the center of
English Scientology, where his parents began taking Dianetics classes. His
father, a real-estate developer, and his mother, a pharmacist, founded a
vitamin shop, G & G Foods, which is still operational. (According to its Web
site, it supplies the Human Detoxification Programme, a course of vitamins,
supplements, and other alleged purification techniques, which Scientology
offers at disaster sites like Chernobyl and Ground Zero.) In the seventies,
his father, who died last year, began working in Scientology's
public-relations wing and over time rose high in the organization. Gaiman
has two younger sisters, both still active in Scientology; one of them works
for the church in Los Angeles, and the other helps run the family
businesses.

At times, Scientology proved awkward for the Gaiman children. According to
Lizzy Calcioli, the sister who stayed in England, "Most of our social
activities were involved with Scientology or our Jewish family. It would get
very confusing when people would ask my religion as a kid. I'd say, 'I'm a
Jewish Scientologist.' " Gaiman says that he was blocked from entering a
boys' school because of his father's position and had to remain at the
school he'd been attending, the only boy left in a classroom full of girls.
These days, Gaiman tends to avoid questions about his faith, but says he is
not a Scientologist. Like Judaism, Scientology is the religion of his
family, and he feels some solidarity with them. "I will stand with groups
when I feel like they're being properly persecuted," he told me.

==========

The article also mentions that he met his ex-wife when she was studying
Scientology at East Grinstead and living in a home owned by his father.

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