A Utah-based non-profit organization wants to use new technology to prove that pornography is addictive and hopes the public will help.

The Lighted Candle Society wants to use functional magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] to generate research to scientifically prove pornography is addictive. To raise money for the research the organization is hosting a fund-raiser Wednesday.

John Harmer, chairman of the Salt Lake City-based Lighted Candle Society, has been leading a battle against the pornography industry in the courts since 1964. The society is an organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of moral values.

Harmer plans to use the information gained from the MRI to prosecute producers of pornography in the same manner the tobacco industry was prosecuted.

"If we can use the MRI studies to prove that pornography is addictive, much in the same way that violence has been found to be addictive in previous research, then we can hold them [the pornography industry] financially liable for the harm they are doing, and virtually cripple the industry," Harmer said.

Cline said he thinks using the MRI is a successful way to further the studies dealing with pornography addictions.

"We need to know what happens to the brain, and what this addiction process does," Cline said. "When you are aroused, the CT [computerized tomography] scan lights up like a Christmas tree."

Research on how the brain reacts to addictions has been conducted for tobacco and other harmful drugs, but MRI research into pornography is relatively new.

Previous information on the addictive nature of pornography focused on actions caused by the compulsive habit, including sexual perversions, which can lead to sexual deviations, Victor Bailey Cline said.

Cline, who will speak at the fund-raiser, is a psychotherapist who focuses on marital and family counseling. Considered an expert in the field, Cline has met with thousands of people to discuss their problems with pornography addiction.

Cline said obscene images viewed during adolescence act as a gateway to many serious sexual addictions that can lead to criminal activity in some cases.

"It starts first in fantasy, and then always leads to some kind of reality," Cline said.

According to the Web site for The Lion and Lamb Project, an organization dedicated to stopping the marketing of violence to children, previous studies demonstrate how MRI research on children showed that they store memories of violent entertainment images forming "indelible memories" that are "quickly recalled and can be used as guides for future behavior."

Wilford M. Hess, professor of integrative biology at BYU, has also done research on the subject of pornography's addictiveness.

Hess said a good example of the harmful effects of pornography appeared in a documentary on convicted serial killer Ted Bundy just before his execution.

Paraphrasing the documentary, Hess said what stood out to him was when Bundy told reporters: "I started out in pornography and then I got harder and harder, and more and more graphic with it ... I just want the world to know that it was because of pornography that I became a serial killer. Before you execute me I want the world to know that."