Revealed: how Scientologists infiltrated Britain's schools (The Sunday Times - January 07, 2007)

Youth for Human Rights International DVD presented to Prime Minister Blair (nowpublic.com - September 16, 2006)

Scientology’s following of celebrity faithful (sundayherald.com, February 21, 2007)

Comments (sundayherald.com, February 21, 2007)

Revealed: how Scientologists infiltrated Britain's schools

Insight: Drugs charity is front for ‘dangerous’ organisation

The Sunday Times, January 07, 2007

[Texte intégral]

Devotees of the Church of Scientology have gained access to thousands of British children through a charity that visits schools to lecture on the dangers of drugs. A Sunday Times investigation has found that Marlborough College is one of more than 500 schools across Britain where the charity has taught.

Andreas Heldal-Lund, who has researched Scientology and runs Operation Clambake, a website critical of the organisation, said: “Most people might see them as a bit of a joke because of their beliefs and teachings. But they are in fact the most controversial and dangerous cult in the western world today, and pose a real threat to free speech.”

In Britain, Narconon has a number of Scientologists among its trustees and leading members. They include Michael “Woody” Woodmansey, a former drummer for David Bowie.

Two years ago a panel of drug-abuse experts, including four doctors, were asked to examine Narconon’s work in schools by the state of California’s department of education. One of the panel, Steve Heilig, a director at the San Francisco Medical Society, said last week: “When we reviewed Narconon we all felt it did not reflect scientific knowledge or good educational approaches to this issue. There were a lot of problems with the science of it — there were claims made in there that drugs remain in your body forever unless you use these very specific techniques such as niacin and saunas.

“That’s where you start to get the red flags raised about this link to Scientology because those are the theories that come out of some of the writings of L Ron Hubbard, who was a science fiction writer.”

The British government expressed concern about Narconon as long as eight years ago. A 1998 memo from the Home Office’s drug strategy unit warned that the charity had its “roots in the Church of Scientology and (is) not in the mainstream of drug rehabilitation”.

Tower Hamlets council in east London advises its schools against using Narconon. DrugScope, one of the UK’s main drug charities, said: “We feel that the quality of Narconon’s information is not objective and non-judgmental. It does not have any credibility.”

Stephen Shaw, the prisons ombudsman, advised that inmates in British jails should not receive drug education from Narconon because it is so “closely associated with the Church of Scientology”.

The Sunday Times disclosures raise serious questions about how Narconon appears to have slipped through school vetting procedures.

Parents of pupils at Marlborough said they had not been informed of the lectures. “I would have preferred to know there was a connection between the Scientologists and the teaching that was given to my son,” one mother said.

It appears that the schools themselves were in the dark. Alison Jerrard, head teacher at Ricards Lodge, said: “We did not have any reason at the time to think there was anything inappropriate, or anything misleading.” Of the schools contacted, Marlborough, Golden Hillock and AELS did not comment on Narconon’s activities.

Yesterday a spokesman for Narconon said he was satisfied with the validity of the science promoted by his organisation. He added that Narconon would have been happy to declare any links with Scientology if asked by schools.

Skirrow said : “Of course it has very strong links (with Scientology). That’s not at all hidden. But I think that some people have got confused that it is Scientology. And it’s not.”

A spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology said that Narconon is separate organisation which is open to people of all religions. She said: “Narconon has a documented 75%–80% success rate with graduates (recovering addicts), which is the highest in the field. That’s why we formed the Narconon Network and why scientologists and non-scientologists continue to sponsor the opening of new centres.”

Secrets of a church that believes a galactic warlord caused all our ills

Established in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1952 by L Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer, Scientology claims to be the world’s fastest growing religion. It opened its first church in Los Angeles in 1954 and now claims 120,000 members in the UK and more than 10m worldwide.

Members progress through a hierarchical structure and, at key levels, new “secrets” are divulged. They progress by paying for courses either in cash or by doing work that benefits the organisation.

The belief system has been described as a regressive utopia, in which man seeks to return to a once-perfect state through secret processes intended to put him in touch with his primordial spirit.

In 1995 a key secret concerning the way in which Scientologists believe the world was formed was leaked by a disillusioned “operating thetan”, one of the organisation’s most highly ranked members.

It asserts that 75m years ago an evil galactic warlord called Xenu rounded up 13.5 trillion beings from an overpopulated corner of the galaxy, flew them to Earth and dumped them in volcanoes and vaporised them with nuclear bombs.

This scattered their radioactive souls, or thetans, which were then trapped and implanted with a number of false ideas — including the concepts of God, Christ and organised religion.

These entities attached themselves to human beings and are at the root of our personal and global problems today.

Scientology has proved exceptionally robust and has grown steadily since its launch. In America it dominates entire towns and even in Britain some children have been brought up as Scientologists.

What worries critics most is the religion’s secrecy and intolerance of dissent. Members who are critical of the church are declared “apostates” and are excommunicated and often cut off from family and friends who must “disconnect” from them.

In the 1960s Hubbard issued a policy known as Fair Game, which said that all who opposed Scientology could be “tricked, sued or lied to and destroyed”.

On the inside

Eight weeks ago I was sent undercover to investigate the Scientologists at their new headquarters near St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London, writes a Sunday Times reporter.

My experience shook me. What I had expected to find was an eccentric but largely harmless organisation. What I discovered was a paranoid and dogmatic group which — through a mixture of pyramid selling techniques and subtle intimidation — preys on the vulnerable to expand and enrich itself.

After introducing myself to one of the organisation’s “body routers” or “greeters”,

I was taken inside, shown a series of videos depicting happy Scientologist families and then given a “personality test”. This marked the start of a common theme: a constant digging to establish and mark out my insecurities and character flaws.

I was told the test had revealed that I had problems with “concentration”, “depression” and “confidence”. But I was not to worry — with only a bit of work Scientology would sort me out.

Over the following weeks I progressed through various courses at a cost of about £200. At the same time they recruited me to become an “expeditor” — the first rung on the ladder to being given a full-time post with the organisation.

I was part of a team that would be paid according to how much money the organisation made each week — a figure partly dependent on how many people we recruited.

I witnessed a number of highly unorthodox tactics and practices:

• Encouraging members to identify “suppressive persons” in their lives — people who had a negative impact on them, including parents and other family members.

Perhaps the most troubling were the four e-meter tests that I had to undergo. Hooked up to the device, I was grilled on my background, my views on Scientology and my past employment. It felt as if I was being turned inside out so that they could assess the potential for me to become a compliant member.

In another episode I was told to try to concentrate on counting a series of numbers out loud while another student shouted questions at me about my sex life.

The idea was to get me to learn to ignore distractions while focusing all my energies on a single enterprise. It was at around that point that I decided I had had enough.

Youth for Human Rights International DVD presented to Prime Minister Blair

 

 

nowpublic.com, September 16, 2006 by Boston

[Texte intégral]

Human Rights Video Presented to Britain’s Tony Blair

While in church with his wife in Barbados, Haverhill. MA resident Guy Grant presented a state-of-the-art audio-visual presentation of our thirty basic human rights per the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights that was ratified in 1948.

The audio-visual works are from the Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) founded by educator Mary Shuttleworth. YHRI works with human rights advocates, legislators, teachers, police and humanitarians to encourage young people to learn and champion human rights.

“When I saw the videos, I felt compelled to do something positive to promote human rights and told me wife that I wanted to start a Youth for Human Rights program in Barbados where I reside half of the year,” said Grant. “Not in my wildest dreams did I expect to be able to personally present these inspiring video to Prime Minister Blair.”

According to Grant, Blair attended a Barbados Catholic Church on August 6th called St. Frances that Grant’s wife, Dr. Jamillah Grant, regularly attends. The priest announced that Mr. Blair was in attendance and that he would meet with attendees at the end of the service. Grant and Jamillah introduced themselves and told Blair and Blair’s wife about the Youth for Human Rights. The Prime Minister stated that he was familiar with the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights and asked if he brought any information, which Grant had not. Blair said he would attend the Church the following week and accept the video.

“Next week, Prime Minister Blair graciously accepted the videos and posed with me while holding them,” said Grant. “, L. Ron Hubbard, once stated that ‘Human rights must be made a fact, not an idealistic dream.’ I feel that meeting and presenting this information to a gracious world-leader like Tony Blair is a small step in that direction.”

 Scientology’s following of celebrity faithful

sundayherald.com, February 21, 2007

[Texte intégral]

SCIENTOLOGY HAS always been keen to recruit celebrities to its side.

L Ron Hubbard launched Project Celebrity in 1955 with that aim and the church stresses his - and its - commitment to artists. "A culture is only as great as its dreams and its dreams are dreamed by artists," Hubbard once wrote. Of course the publicity garnered by a celebrity endorsement doesn't do any harm either.

Tom Cruise and John Travolta are the most famous celebrities to have embraced Scientology. Cruise discovered the church when he was married to Scientologist Mimi Rogers between 1987 and 1990 and has become an outspoken champion of it. He has also adopted Scientology's anti-psychiatry stance.

Travolta, meanwhile, credits the church with "putting me in the big time". Quoted on the Scientology website, Travolta says: "I have a wonderful child and a great marriage because I apply L Ron Hubbard's technology to this area of my life. As a Scientologist, I have the technology to handle life's problems and I have used this to help others in life as well."

Other famous Scientologists include the singers Beck and Isaac Hayes, jazz musician Chick Corea, and the actors Kirstie Alley, Erika Christensen, Juliette Lewis, Priscilla Presley and Anne Archer. Beck and Christensen were both raised in Scientology families, with Christensen attending the Delphi Academy in Los Angeles, which uses the Applied Scholastics method of teaching. Beck's wife is also a second generation Scientologist.

To cater for its growing list of celebrity converts, the church has built so-called celebrity centres on two continents. These buildings are open to the public but intended mostly to service "politicians, leaders of industry, sports figures and anyone with the power and vision to create a better world", according to the Celebrity Centre International website.

The first celebrity centre was established in Los Angeles in 1969. Today it can be found at Franklin Avenue, Hollywood, a palatial building whose lobby looks more like a five star hotel than a house of religion.

There are now also celebrity centres in Las Vegas, Dallas, Portland, Nashville and New York. In Europe there are celebrity centres in Vienna, Dusseldorf, Paris, Florence and London. The Church of Scientology even has a magazine called Celebrity. Launched in 1972, it claimed a circulation of 97,000 by the late 1990s. It contains articles on celebrity Scientologists as well as what are known as completion lists, which show the courses that have been taken by the celebrity centre members.

Comments (extracts):

"Yes indeed! If you lack the ability to do trampoline jumps on Oprah's couch, or make a science fiction movie that will genuinely flop, or arrange a temporary marriage with Michael Jackson -- well, Scientology can definitely help you with that."

Posted by: anyone but jeber on :

"Scientology is definitely not compatible with Christianity" :

• http://www.bible.ca/scientology-christianity-compared.htm#incompatible

Saskia de Graver, Brussel

• http://tinyurl.com/35okos

Alan Havlick, USA:

"Hubbard , if his methods are proven ways to solve problems, why did tom cruise divorce his first wife (also a cult member) with 2 cult members practicing these methods(the cult will let you go broke on "marriage success" classes, why have all 3 of his marriages failed ???

One more question, if knowing about zenu (xenu) kills or makes you sick if your not prepared why didn't millions die when south park revealed it to millions ? Seems like this whole religion is based on the fact people hate to admit they have been fooled. You dont hear about zenu until you have payed so much,spent so much time,invested your inner soul ... admitting you have been a fool and walk out laughing is how I handled it but most do not ... would rather become scn slaves (when you cant pay they put you to work for them) than admit they, who thought they were a member of "the advanced enlightened ones" was actually just a sucker,taken in by a fast talking salesman".

"It's really kind of sad. The biggest accomplishment of Hubbard was to get people to buy into his science fiction and live their lives as if it weren't a product of a person who was both self-deluded and a liar. It's amazing work if you look at it from a psychological and business perspective, but he, his ideas, and his followers, in absolutely no way, deserve my respect. Of course, you don't have to show most people much evidence if any at all for them to buy into something with all their hearts. Part of the human condition is to believe in something outside ourselves, and it should be a crime to sell those beliefs." truth seeker, midwest

(...)

"Indeed, the cult scientology makes a lot of acting, so, it get a lot of actors. That's how it goes : most people entering into the cult buy some sort of communication/speaking/acting short course. Then they start brainwashing. Then they get more of this, and see more of these stars, sexy ones sometimes, affixed with their scientology smiles on the "church" walls, together with Hubbard, the guru (the one who got 4 years unsuspended in France for fraud and extortion, Paris 1978).

I said Fraud and extortion ? That's what scientology is all about.

Making believe (acting) to get your money. It acts as cynical as pretending it is a charitable thing, but just read what the Charity Commission UK decided about the cult: neither a charity, neither a religion."

  English texts - Index