[WikiEN-l] The Curious Incident of the Fans in the Night

[Gwern Branwen]

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

     "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."

It is entertaining to read the relevant talk page sections:

* https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Talk:Neil_Gaiman#Neil_Gaiman_is_not_a_Scientologist
* https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Talk:Neil_Gaiman/Archive1#Scientology
* https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Talk:Neil_Gaiman/Archive1#Possible_reference_found

-- 
gwern