http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/25/100125fa_fact_goodyear?curren… "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… * https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Talk:Neil_Gaiman/Archive1#Sc… * https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Talk:Neil_Gaiman/Archive1#Po… -- gwern