The Armstrong Op

Scientology's fair game on Gerry Armstrong

Scientology Unmasked

The Boston Herald: Merchants of Sensationalism (ca. late March, 1998)

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In March 1998, the Boston Herald published a series titled Scientology Unmasked: Inside Scientology.1

Scientology’s response included this 24-age  “Dead Agent” pack titled The Boston Herald: Merchants of Sensationalism.2 

That “DA pack,” which includes a letter  from  Scientology’s current “LRH biographer” Dan Sherman, was also published in Scientology’s Freedom. 3

Within the DA pack, Scientology attacked some of the Boston Herald’s alleged sources, including Gerry Armstrong. Alleged, because the Boston Herald did not contact Gerry for their series.

Notes

  1. Scientology Unmasked: Inside Scientology:  http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s04a01.html#unmasked. ↩︎
  2. Boston Herald: Merchants of Sensationalism in pdf format. ↩︎
  3. Freedom’s Merchant of Sensationalism here: http://web.archive.org/web/19990904015436/http://news.scientology.org/mag/boston/ ↩︎

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Church of Scientology probes Herald reporter : Investigation follows pattern of harassment (March 19, 1998)

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By Jim MacLaughlin and Andrew Gully
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/19/19981

The Church of Scientology, stung by a five-part series in the Boston Herald that raised questions about its practices, has hired a private investigator to delve into the Herald reporter’s private life.

The Rev. Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, confirmed that the church’s Los Angeles law firm hired the private investigative firm to look into the personal life of reporter Joseph Mallia, who wrote the series.

“This investigation will have to look at what’s riving this” coverage, said Jentzsch.

Herald Editor Andrew F. Costello Jr. said, “What’s driving this coverage is simply the public interest. Nothing more, nothing less.”

The investigator, Steve Long of Vision Investigative Services in Rohnert Park, Calif., contacted Mallia’s ex-wife in Berkeley, Calif., March 3.

Long told the woman he was looking for derogatory information, according to the former wife, whose name is being withheld for reasons of privacy.

“I’m looking for the ‘scorned wife’ story,” she said Long told her. She said she declined to provide information about her divorce, which took place more than 15 years ago.

The Church of Scientology is the only religious organization in the U.S. that uses private investigators to look into the private lives of reporters, several academic experts said.

“The question is not ‘Do they investigate,’ the question should be ‘Do they harass?’ ” said the Rev. Robert W. Thornburg, dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University and a recognized expert on destructive religious practices. “And Scientology is far and away the most notable in that.

“No one I know goes so far as to hire outsiders to harass or try to get intimidating data on critics,” said Thornburg. “Scientology is the only crowd that does that.”

The Rev. Richard L. Dowhower, a Lutheran minister and an adviser on cult activity at the University of Maryland, College Park, said, “I’ve been in the cult-watching business since the early ’70s and I don’t know of any other group, other than Scientology, that targets journalists.”

And Hal Reynolds, student affairs officer at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the campus Cult Education Center, also said Scientology investigates journalists.

“I’ve been collecting files on these groups for 10 years, and I have not heard of that for any other group,” Reynolds said.

The March 1-5 Herald series described how the Church of Scientology recruited an MIT student, persuaded him to drop out of school and sign a billion-year contract to serve the church, and asked him to spend student loan money on Scientology courses.

The series also described how two Scientology-linked groups, Narconon and the World Literacy Crusade, have used anti-drug and learn-to-read programs to gain access to public schools without disclosing their Scientology ties.

Earle Cooley, a Church of Scientology lawyer from Boston, recently publicly defended the church’s policy of investigating journalists.

“I don’t know where it says anywhere in the world that it’s inappropriate for the investigators to be investigated,” Cooley said during a WGBH-TV talk show two weeks ago.

In a written statement, Cooley said he played no part in hiring private investigators to look into Mallia’s personal life.

Here is how Scientology is reported to have dealt with other journalists:

  • Nov. 1997: In England, a Scientology detective obtained a BBC television producer’s private telephone records to conduct a noisy investigation” by spreading false criminal allegations about the producer, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.
  • 1990-1991, New York: Scientology used at least 10 lawyers and six private detectives to “threaten, harass and discredit” Time magazine writer Richard Behar, who wrote an article titled “Scientology: the Cult of Greed.”
  • 1988: A St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reporter who wrote articles about Scientology said his credit report was obtained without his consent, his wife got obscene phone calls, and a private investigator followed him.
  • 1983: Scientology defectors admit they stole documents from The Boston Globe’s law firm, Bingham Dana & Gould, in late 1974 to gain information about a planned Globe article on Scientology.

Notes

  1. Document source: https://web.archive.org/web/20021203192939/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sci31998.html ↩︎

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Church wields celebrity clout (March 5, 1998)

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By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication: 3/5/981

It is the year 3000 and the earth is enslaved by invading aliens, evil 9-foot-tall “Psychlos” with glowing amber eyes.

Now mankind’s only hope is the heroic Johnny Goodboy Tyler – in an MGM film to be produced by actor John Travolta, based on a Church of Scientology novel titled “Battlefield Earth.”

Thanks to Travolta’s Hollywood clout, audiences worldwide may soon see this film, and get a dose of the philosophy of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

“Mankind … is imprisoned not so much by aliens who dominate the planet, but by superstition, until the hero Johnny Goodboy Tyler…(becomes) the first to break free,” Hubbard wrote.

Critics say this film, along with other Scientology media efforts, is a veiled attempt to gain converts and influence.

With books, sophisticated TV and print advertising campaigns, a 30,000-page Internet site, and its celebrity members’ clout on TV sitcoms and major films, Scientology uses a range of modern media to gain influence, church critics say.

How much clout does the church have?

Apparently a great deal.

President Clinton may have sided with Scientology against the German government in hopes of having Travolta soften his portrayal of a Clinton lookalike during filming of the movie “Primary Colors,” a recent report in George magazine said.

Since the church was founded in 1954, Hubbard encouraged his followers to enlist celebrities.

The policy, observers say, has paid off.

Since Travolta became a Scientologist in 1975, he has been joined by other acting heavyweights, including Tom Cruise, Cruise’s wife Nicole Kidman, Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston, and TV sitcom stars Kirstie Alley (“Cheers” and “Veronica’s Closet”) and Jenna Elfman (“Dharma & Greg”). All are outspoken church members.

“It was everything I had been looking for, answers to questions I had been asking forever. They finally got answered for me,” Elfman said in an interview published in a January Sunday newspaper supplement that reached millions of readers.

And last week, Elfman, Preston and other Scientology celebrities were scheduled to appear in Boston and other cities to promote Hubbard’s book “The Fundamentals of Thought.”

Jazzman Chick Corea – a Chelsea native who reportedly hopes to open a nightclub in Massachusetts – leads the church’s publicity battle against the German government, which is investigating Scientology for alleged fraud and anti-democratic acts.

And locally, musician Isaac Hayes hosted a reception at Roxbury Community College in Boston three years ago that helped local Scientologists bring their World Literacy Crusade learn-to-read program into the Randolph Public Schools and various inner city Boston youth agencies.

Other Scientology celebrities include actresses Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart on “The Simpsons”), Juliette Lewis (“Natural Born Killers”), Anne Archer (“Fatal Attraction),” and Elvis Presley’s widow and daughter Priscilla and Lisa Marie.

The musician and congressman, Sonny Bono, who died in January, was a longtime Scientologist.

Others who took Scientology courses, or who were members – some briefly – according to published reports, include football legend John Brodie, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, author William Burroughs; singers Van Morrison, Al Jarreau and Leonard Cohen; actors Emilio Estevez, Rock Hudson, Demi Moore, Candice Bergen, Brad Pitt, Christopher Reeve, Jerry Seinfeld and Patrick Swayze; and O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark.

Also, the Observer newspaper of London recently linked actress Sharon Stone to Scientology.

Ex-Scientologists the church would like to forget include members of the suicidal Heaven’s Gate cult, who were church members in the 1970s; and mass killer Charles Manson, who took church classes during a prison term that ended in 1967, before he and his cult followers massacred Sharon Tate and others.

Meanwhile, the church is conducting an 18-month advertising and publicity blitz, with 38 different TV ads aired to reach 70 percent of North American households. This campaign is intended to counteract negative publicity from Germany and from the death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson, a Dallas native who died during a church retreat in Florida, according to an August report in the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

Scientology-linked groups including Narconon also advertise on local cable channels in the Boston area, said anti-cult activist Steve Hassan of Cambridge.

Critics say, however, that the church’s celebrities never have to face the hardships faced by ordinary Scientologists, who often can’t afford to pay the required tens of thousands of dollars for courses and instead must trade their full-time labor.

Notes

  1. Document source: https://web.archive.org/web/20021003035902/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sci35a98.html ↩︎

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Battle sites in the Web war (March 4, 1998)

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Internet sites for Scientology and its on-line opponents: To read about, or join the discussion on Scientology, use DejaNews or another Usenet search engine, and type: alt.religion.scientology1

For the Church of Scientology’s Web site, with a reported 30,000 pages – including 3-D tours of some church buildings – go to:  http://www.scientology.org/

For critics’ Web sites, go to these pages: http://www.xenu.net, http://www.entheta.net/ or http://www.scientology-kills.net/ [No longer online]

For anti-cult expert Steve Hassan’s home page, go to: http://www.shassan.com/ [Now: http://www.freedomofmind.com/]

For information on the controversy at Boston University over Earle C. Cooley, a top Scientology lawyer and BU’s trustee chairman, go to BU graduate student Ramon Kolb’s site at: http://eng.bu.edu/~ramonk/pers/scientology/bu/ [No longer online]

For information about Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s alleged support of apartheid, go to Chris Owen’s site: http://snafu.de/~tilman/index.html

For an affidavit filed by Boston lawyer Michael Flynn about alleged espionage and other illegal acts by the Boston Church of Scientology, go to: http://www.sky.net/~sloth/sci/flynn.cmplnt [No longer online]

Note: See these additional resources on Scientology.

Notes

  1. Document sources: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s04a09.html; https://web.archive.org/web/20030208074803/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sciweb.html ↩︎

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Sacred teachings not secret anymore (March 4, 1998)

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By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication: 3/4/981

Scientology teaches that humans first came to the earth from outer space 75 million years ago, sent into exile here by an evil warlord named Xenu, according to church documents.

The church also teaches its members to communicate with plants and zoo animals – and with inanimate objects such as ashtrays, former members say.

But these esoteric secrets have only recently been revealed publicly, because the Church of Scientology for decades used copyright lawsuits and other measures to keep them under wraps.

“When people hear the secret teachings of Scientology, they think, ‘How could anyone believe such nonsense?”‘ said cult expert Steve Hassan.

“The fact is that the vast number of Scientologists don’t know those teachings. Scientologists are told that they will become ill and die if they hear them before they’re ready,” Hassan said.

MIT student Carlos Covarrubias told the Herald that while he studied Scientology at its Beacon Street church, he was instructed to tell ashtrays to “Stand up,” and “Sit down” – ending each command with a polite “Thank you.”

The same ashtray techniques were documented by a BBC reporter’s hidden camera at a Church of Scientology chapter in Britain.

Covarrubias – who left the church and now considers it a cult – spent about $2,000 to reach a particular level of church teachings. But longterm members must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to entirely cross what Scientology calls the “Bridge to Total Freedom.”

More advanced students are taught to do the following:

“Find some plants, trees, etc., and communicate to them individually until you know they received your communication.”

“Go to a zoo or a place with many types of life and communicate with each of them until you know the communication is received and, if possible, returned.”

Once-hidden beliefs like these are being made public through the Internet, in books and articles about the church, and in courtroom documents.

Among the most attention-getting of the revelations is church founder L. Ron Hubbard’s description of “the Xenu incident.”

Human misery can be traced back 75 million years, when the evil Galactic Federation ruler, Xenu, transported billions of human souls to Teegeeack (now known as Earth), according to Hubbard, who started out as a science fiction writer.

Xenu then dropped the souls – called “Thetans” – in volcanoes on Hawaii and in the Mediterranean, and blew them up with hydrogen bombs, Hubbard said in his writings and lectures.

Xenu then implanted these disembodied souls with false hypnotic “implants” – images of “God, the devil, angels, space opera, theaters, helicopters, a constant spinning, a spinning dancer, trains and various scenes very like modern England,” Hubbard said in his characteristic freewheeling style.

These invisible souls still exist today, Scientology teaches: called “Body Thetans,” they cling to every human body, infecting people with their warped thoughts.

And only hundreds of hours of costly Scientology “auditing” – a process critics have likened to exorcism – can convince the harmful Body Thetan clusters to detach.

The auditor’s tool is an “E-Meter,” or Electrometer – a type of lie detector that sends a mild electric current through the body while a trainee holds a metallic cylinder in each hand. The E-Meter can detect Body Thetans and past emotional disturbances (known as “engrams”) whether they happened yesterday or in a past life millions of years ago, Scientologists believe.

For most Scientology recruits, however, the first step toward spiritual advancement is a course in “Study Technology” – a learn-to-read technique – or the “Purification Rundown” – a detoxification method using vitamins and saunas.

Although they deny any connection to the Church of Scientology, there are groups operating in Massachusetts that teach these two “religious” practices to the public: Narconon in Everett, the Delphi Academy in Milton, and the World Literacy Crusade with a post office box in Brighton.

After initiation, church members first strive to reach a spiritual stage called “Clear.” Then they try to reach a series of “Operating Thetan” levels – up to level VIII and beyond.

John Travolta, a longtime Scientologist, reportedly has reached at least level VII, and church celebrities Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Kirstie Alley, and Lisa Marie Presley have also reached high levels, according to critics and ex-members.

Advanced students of Scientology are also taught to heal people with the touch of a hand. Travolta told The Observer newspaper of London in January that his touch healed the rock musician, Sting.

“He was under the weather and he had a sore throat and flu symptoms. I did two or three different types of assists, and he felt better,” Travolta said.

Scientology officials object when critics highlight some of Hubbard’s more unusual teachings.

It’s like mocking the Christian view of Jesus’ virgin birth, or indicting Jews on the basis of a few obscure Old Testament passages, church President Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch said.

Instead, the Church of Scientology emphasizes the practical benefits of its “applied religious philosophy.”

Scientology programs make people smarter and more alive, Jentzsch said. Scientologists believe they have the only path to human salvation.

“With the dawn of a new year, it is vital that all Scientologists take an active role in the movement that is bringing salvation to Planet Earth. That means moving more and more people up the Bridge,” Commander Sherry Murphy of the Church of Scientology’s Fields Executive International division said in a Dec. 29, 1997, memo to all new Scientology recruits.

And to preserve that path forever, they have built nuclear-bomb-proof vaults in New Mexico and California to store Hubbard’s original manuscripts and tapes.

Critics and scholars point out, however, that many of L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas are not original. He took many ideas from Freud and Buddhism – Hubbard also taught that he was a reincarnation of Buddha – then renamed them, adding his own science fiction-inspired vision, scholars say.

Notes

  1. Document source: https://web.archive.org/web/20030212115325/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sci34a98.html ↩︎

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Church, enemies wage war on Internet battlefield (March 4, 1998)

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By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication: 3/4/981

His online name was Rogue Agent2 and his scathing attacks against the Church of Scientology ripped through the Internet. Shielded behind an anonymous account at Northeastern University, he continued to anger and embarrass the church with messages that millions could read online.

“There was no Christ!” Rogue Agent said in an Internet message, quoting Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. “Christianity succeeded in making people into victims. We can succeed by making victims into people,” Rogue Agent wrote in another message, again quoting Hubbard’s words.

Other Internet critics of Scientology had their homes in Virginia, Colorado and California searched and their computer disks seized by the church’s lawyers – including prominent Boston attorney Earle C. Cooley. The lawyers sought to stop what a judge ruled was copyright infringement.

“This is mortal combat between two alien cultures a flame war with real guns. A fight that has burst the banks of the Net and into the real world of police, lawyers, and armed search and seizure,” Wired magazine said in a 1995 article about the conflict between Scientology and its Internet critics. It “is the bitterest battle fought across the Internet to date,” Wired said.

In Boston, local Scientologists started investigating Rogue Agent, trying to learn his real name and silence him, the church’s critics said.

“He is really spooked about all the cult agents trying to find him,” said Jim Byrd, another local Internet critic.

“He is afraid for the safety of his family,” Byrd said. “Besides tons of lawyers, the cult hires lots of PIs and assorted goons.” Other U.S. critics have alleged Scientology hired private investigators to search their garbage, illicitly obtain their telephone records and credit reports, and engage in “noisy investigations” designed to smear them.

And overseas, Scientologists got search warrants in Finland and Holland to silence critics.

“Copyrights were getting ripped off right and left, and that’s all this really is,” said Church of Scientology International President Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch. “We’ve been elected the Texas Rangers of this new frontier,” Jentzsch said.

But Ron Newman of Somerville, one of the country’s best-known anti-Scientology Net critics, said the church’s main target is freedom of speech.

“I think it’s important to stand up against a private organization that tries to harass and sue people into submission,” Newman said.

Net notes

Here are descriptions of some of the documents – many of them posted on Web sites or the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology – that have gotten Scientology’s Internet critics in trouble with the church:

The cost of Scientology training. A December 1994 Internet document said it costs $376,000 to complete church training.

Hubbard’s motivation for creating Scientology. Many online documents contain statements from Hubbard’s friends, who remember him saying, “I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the money is.”

First-person stories by ex-Scientologists, who say they were manipulated, abused or held captive when they tried to leave the church.

Objective biographies of Hubbard. Online documents – including a document by his son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr. – say Hubbard experimented with black magic, drugs and sexual Satanic rituals in the 1940s in Southern California. Other Web sites have copies of school and Navy records detailing failures that contradict Hubbard’s glowing official biographies.

The Xenu incident. Scientology teaches all human misery can be traced to “Body Thetans” created 75 million years ago by the evil Galactic Federation ruler, Xenu. Only “auditing” – akin to exorcism – can rid the body of these disturbing, invisible creatures.

Harassment of journalists. Online stories describe how book authors, and reporters for the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine and other publications were investigated, threatened and framed for crimes to deter them from writing stories critical of Scientology.

Hubbard’s view of Christianity and Judaism. A critic’s Web site has a sound file – an actual recording of Hubbard’s voice – describing how evil extraterrestrials hypnotized humans into a belief in Jesus Christ.

Upper-level Scientology teachings that tell trainees to give and receive communication with plants and zoo animals.

The raids

Like most of the local critics, Ron Newman knew little about Scientology until he was angered by the punitive actions of Scientologists.

“A lot of people see it as Scientology’s Vietnam. It’s a morass,” said Sam Gorton, another local Internet critic of the church. “It’s ridiculously difficult to suppress information on the Net.”

Every time Scientology raids one critic, dozens of others post the same material online, Gorton said.

On Aug. 12, 1995, Earle Cooley accompanied federal marshals and Scientology employees into the home of Internet critic Arnaldo Lerma in Arlington, Va. They seized Lerma’s computer equipment, looking for copies of documents that Scientology wants kept secret.

But Cooley, a Boston lawyer who is chairman of the Boston University Board of Trustees, said Scientology only takes legal action as a last resort.

And its legal battle is bringing great benefit to society, by helping preserve the rights of authors and others whose work could be illicitly published online, he said.

Scientology eventually won court decisions preserving its right to prevent others from freely publishing church teachings on the Internet. “I think that the church litigation is on the cutting edge of a major issue confronting America,” Cooley said. While the Internet is a great innovation, he said, “like all wonderful things it has the potential for abuse.”

Rogue Agent

The Herald met with a group of local Internet critics – including Bob Minton, a retired banker from Boston who has donated $ 1.25 million to Scientology critics – at the Liberty Cafe, a cybercafe near MIT. The critics – who describe themselves as computer nerds – believe Scientology’s home searches and suppression of negative information are part of the church’s openly admitted plans to convert the entire planet.

The church’s harassment of Rogue Agent proves Scientology’s legal blitzes are not just meant to preserve its copyrights, said Dennis Erlich, a church defector who once oversaw high-level instruction at the church’s elite Flag Service Organization in Clearwater, Fla.

Rogue Agent was a threat because he was a tough Internet fighter, Erlich said.

“Scientology is basically a kind of mental ju jitsu, and Rogue just used that back on them,” Erlich said in a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles.

“He was a very effective critic,” the defector said. “I taught him. I worked with him until he got the mindset.”

The Boston Church of Scientology tracked Rogue Agent to Northeastern’s computer science department, and the church’s legal officer, Annette Ross, sent a Dec. 1, 1995, letter of complaint to the university.

“That was enough to force the university to cave in and say he can’t be anonymous,” Erlich said. Rogue Agent, fearing harassment if he revealed his name, lost his Northeastern account a week later.

“Others are getting involved and drawn in, I don’t want them hurt,” Rogue Agent said in a farewell Internet message to the newsgroup.

Cooley said Scientology investigated Rogue Agent because he was posting “hate messages” on the Internet. Cooley was not able to provide any examples of the hate messages.

“In his case, it’s a question of trying to find out why an important university in Boston has somebody who’s posting hate material,” Cooley said. “Is he authorized to be spreading hate on the Internet using the facilities of Northeastern University?”

Meanwhile the church unveiled a new30,000-screen World Wide Web site, aimed mainly at attracting new members and selling its costly programs. And Scientology recruiters troll the Internet’s newsgroups and chat rooms.

Cooley defended the efforts of church members who are glutting the critics’ newsgroup, with thousands of pro-Scientology documents.

“I don’t see anything wrong with that. I don’t consider that ‘spamming”‘ – sending huge amounts of unwanted e-mail – the lawyer said.

Erlich, the defector, said he believes revealing Scientology’s teachings on the Internet will tear apart the church’s reclusive leadership.

“There’s no secret about this stuff anymore. It’s out. It’s never going to go away. Which means the fraud they engage in can’t persist,” Erlich said.

“Who’s going to win? We already won,” he said. “We have let the genie out of the bottle.”

Notes

  1. Document source: https://web.archive.org/web/20030212113127/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sci3498.html ↩︎
  2. Also see: The Church of Scientology vs. “Rogue Agent” ↩︎

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Milton school shades ties to Scientology (March 2, 1998)

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 Milton school shades ties to Scientology

By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication: 3/2/981

A Church of Scientology school in Milton is enrolling large numbers of children from middle-class and professional black families in what critics say is part of the church’s nationwide plan to recruit minorities.

Officials at Delphi Academy do not tell parents that the school is part of the Church of Scientology, and that they are trying to recruit blacks for Scientology’s costly programs.

Yet they do admit that all staff members are Scientologists and they use Scientology materials.

A Herald review of the school has found that Delphi Academy:

Used precisely the same “Study Tech” as the Boston Church of Scientology on Beacon Street, where the methods are considered religious scriptures.

Sent up to 10 percent of each child’s tuition money to the Association for Better Living and Education, a Scientology organization in Los Angeles, according to its federal tax returns.

Got “referral” income of 10 percent to 15 percent of any Scientology course or book bought by a Delphi Academy parent, according to the school’s federal tax returns and ex-members of the church.

Has used an “E-Meter” – a device like a lie detector that measures emotional reactions – on Delphi children, according to a former student, Sabriya Dublin of Jamaica Plain. The E-Meter – the same device used by the church in counseling- sends a mild electric current through the child’s body, with fluctuations in a gauge showing emotional reactions, as a child answers questions while holding a shiny metal tube in each hand. A former Delphi student from Oregon, however, said the E-Meter was not used at his school.

Created a Delphi Parents Association so parents could pay for playground repairs and two new computers through fund-raising events – while Delphi made royalty payments to Scientology’s ABLE organization.

Promoted Scientology outside the school. Delphi’s headmistress, Ellen Garrison, helped establish a Scientology tutoring program for ninth-grade teachers at the Randolph Public Schools, said former Scientology church spokeswoman Kit Finn.

And a “Homework Club” sent older Delphi students to teach Scientology methods at the Tucker Elementary School, a Milton public school, a Delphi official said.

Attracted so many students in recent years that the school, in a converted gatehouse off a quiet stretch of Blue Hill Avenue, had to build two new classrooms. School spokeswoman Joanne List said most of the new students were black.

Critics of Scientology say the real motive of Delphi is to increase church membership, and make money by selling high-priced Scientology courses to parents, according to Priscilla Coates, an anti-cult activist in Los Angeles.

One parent, Harvard Dental School instructor Dr. E. Leo Whitworth, had just such an experience with Delphi Academy.

Whitworth said his son, L.V., was taught basic Church of Scientology methods like Study Technology during the four years he was enrolled at Delphi Academy.

The dentist said he did not learn that Delphi was linked to Scientology until after his son was enrolled, and then they recruited him for a variety of programs at the Church of Scientology on Beacon Street in Boston.

“I took two courses at the church,” Whitworth said. “It cost in the hundreds. They wanted me as a member. And they did try to get my wife. She started a course but she didn’t finish,” the dentist said.

During a vacation in California, Whitworth visited the offices of Sterling Management, a for-profit business linked to the Church of Scientology. There, Scientologists tried to sell him a dental office management program, Whitworth said.

“They were trying to get me to use their business techniques,” he said, but he didn’t like the program and it was too expensive. “It was too much like car salesman techniques. It cost a lot – around $ 10,000.”

Whitworth, who is also a Northeastern University trustee, said he knew of “several” non-Scientologist parents who enrolled their children in Delphi Academy and later became members of the church.

In retrospect, he said, Delphi Academy appears to be deceptive.

“I would rather they did say, up front, that they are part of Scientology. There are certain ways they could be more open,” he said. He also warned parents who enroll their children at Delphi to “be aware there are other aspects to it – the Scientology.”

Whitworth’s son, now 15, asked to be taken out of Delphi, the father said. “He didn’t want to stay there anymore. He was just uncomfortable.”

Several other black parents, however, said they were pleased with how well their children were learning at the school. And Delphi officials say students got high marks on the annual California Acheivement Tests.

New students to the $ 6,200-a-year school are recruited for Delphi and its summer camp by word of mouth, and through bulk mailings that do not mention Scientology. The school first opened in Belmont in 1980 under the name Apple School.

The 1,000-student network of Delphi academies in Oregon, Florida, California – and Milton – has recruited unsuspecting families for many years, Coates said.

But the interest in black citizens is new, because Scientology has few non-white members, she said. “They are looking for new niches for people and money,” Coates said.

A Herald reporter visited the 104-student Milton school twice, and found that the majority of its younger students are black. It enrolls children ages 3-13.

Parents who have enrolled their children at the school include professionals like Brockton obstetrician Dr. Dawna Jones and government workers like Barbara Hamilton, youth activities aide to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Dr. Jones did not return calls seeking comment, but Hamilton said her son is doing well at Delphi.

“I would say he’s just generally improved,” including better reading skills, Hamilton said.

Other black, non-Scientologist parents include a top manager at Lexington-based Stride Rite Corp., an investment analyst, a nurse, a Massachusetts state trooper, Boston police officers, computer executives at Digital Equipment Corp. and Lotus Development, and an MBTA welder, according to Delphi officials.

Several other black parents are medical doctors, one owns a Roxbury air-conditioning company, one is a Christian minister, while another is a Catholic religious education director, Delphi officials said.

“The Scientology thing, that was one thing I had to clear up. At first I didn’t know it was a religious school, and I wasn’t looking for a religious school,” said Lee Jensen, a Massachusetts Water Resources Authority official, who enrolled her daughter, Nicole, at Delphi. “I told them, ‘I need to know exactly what you’re teaching my child, because you have her for nine hours a day.’ “

Not every parent is middle-class, and Delphi gives no financial aid or scholarships, so some parents just scrape by, said List. “We have a lot of single mothers who eat peanut butter sandwiches, and don’t drive fancy cars,” she said.

The school does not require its students to convert to Scientology, said former student Sabriya Dublin, who said she attended the school for eight years.

The founder of the Delphi Academy schools, Alan Larson, said in an interview from Oregon that they succeed because they require every child to learn everything – without exception – before moving on to the next task.

And the Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, said Delphi students’ Scholastic Aptitude Tests are “400 points above the national average.”

But Dennis Erlich, a former Scientology trainer in California, said his two daughters had to spend two years in remedial math and English courses after he transferred them to public school from a Scientology-run school, where he said instruction was poor.

Another church defector, Robert Vaughn Young, said Scientology’s leaders do not care about traditional education. They only care about getting people to buy Scientology courses, he said.

Notes

  1. Document source: https://web.archive.org/web/20030212112310/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sci32a98.html ↩︎

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Church keys programs to recruit blacks (March 2, 1998)

by

Church keys programs to recruit blacks

By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication: 3/2/981

The Church of Scientology has targeted black families in Massachusetts with a learn-to-read program that critics say is just a rehash of old methods that leans heavily on the church’s religious teachings.

The learn-to-read program – the World Literacy Crusade – is part of a nationwide effort by the church to entice blacks into Scientology and then convince them to take other, expensive programs, according to critics and former members of the church.

A Herald review has found that Scientologists have:

  • Targeted a literacy campaign at inner-city Boston programs for minority children, including Red Sox slugger Mo Vaughn’s Youth Development Program, the Roxbury YMCA and the Roxbury Youth Works.
  • Attracted dozens of middle class and professional black families to Delphi Academy in Milton. This Scientology-run school uses E-Meters – devices akin to lie detectors – on children, according to a former Delphi student.
  • Taught Scientology methods to ninth-grade teachers at Randolph High School – which has many black students – after persuading headmaster James E. Watson that their techniques work.
  • Taught Scientology’s study techniques to Boston Public Schools students at Brighton High School through teacher Gerald Mazzarella, who is also a church member.
  • Created 26 World Literacy Crusade programs – in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Miami, Memphis, Tenn., and a host of other U.S. cities in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
  • Gained the endorsements of prominent local blacks such as Georgette Watson, co-founder of Drop-A-Dime and former anti-drug aide to Gov. William F. Weld.

The teachings

Scientologists say the literacy campaign is nonreligious, and therefore doesn’t violate laws separating church and state.

But critics say the church plays fast and loose with definitions, calling identical programs “religious” in one context and “secular” in another.

Church documents and books show that Scientology clearly identifies Study Technology as a religious practice. It is taught at the church’s local headquarters on Beacon Street in Boston in the $600 Student Hat program, as a first step into church membership.

This learn-to-read “technology” – or Study Tech as the church calls it – teaches children to distrust their own intelligence and rely passively on what the church teaches, said high-ranking church defector Robert Vaughn Young.

“Study Tech is an extremely dangerous technique,” Young said. “Critical thinking? There is no critical thinking. Criticism is the part that is not allowed,” said Young, who once directed Scientology’s worldwide public relations effort.

The Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, denied that black children or families are being recruited through the literacy program.

“We’ve found that African-American families are as interested as everyone else in what works . . .. They might not necessarily join the church but the quality of their lives has been improved by it,” he said.

Scientologists say the literacy techniques offer the only way to end gang violence, teen pregnancy and other inner-city problems. “I think parents are being driven to find answers. They want their kids to be educated, for heaven’s sake. God bless the World Literacy Crusade,” Jentzsch said.

He said Scientology’s study techniques are so effective they raised his own IQ by 34 points, and helped his children read far above their grade levels.

The Herald asked Harvard University literacy expert Victoria Purcell-Gates to assess the World Literacy Crusade’s learn-to-read book, the “Basic Study Manual,” written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. “This is all `old stuff,’ and has been taught in the schools for at least 30 years (probably more) now,” the Harvard professor wrote in an assessment for the Herald.

“Basically, there is nothing new in this text that is not known by reading/study specialists at a very basic level,” she added. “The only thing really `different’ is that Mr. Hubbard has renamed basic concepts to fit into his overall scheme of things.”

Steve Hassan of Cambridge, a cult deprogrammer, warned that the way Scientologists use the book, in one-on-one tutorials, is a first step toward hypnotic mind control. And the literacy materials are the same as church scriptures – except the schoolbooks leave out the word “Scientology,” Hassan said.

For example, the “Basic Study Manual” teaches children about the Scientology practice of “disconnecting” – used to separate new recruits from non-Scientologists, including parents. ” `Experts,’ `advisers,’ `friends,’ `families’ . . . indulge in all manner of interpretations and even outright lies to seem wise or expert,” the manual says.

The manual also promotes Scientology’s anti-psychology agenda, linking psychology to German fascism and saying psychotherapists reduce humans to the level of animals.

Scientology spokesman Bernard Percy, however, defended the World Literacy Crusade, saying it has no harmful agenda, and that its study principles can turn a child’s life around. For example, Percy said, the program requires children to look up in a dictionary each and every unfamiliar word – and that becomes a lifelong habit with tremendous benefits.

Scientologists also claim the literacy campaign is not controlled by the Church of Scientology – so they are not breaking the laws prohibiting religion in the schools.

But that is a false claim, because the campaign is funded and directed by the Church of Scientology, Hassan said.

The connections

Although local Scientologists deny that the World Literacy Crusade is directed by the Church of Scientology, anyone who uses L. Ron Hubbard’s name, or his trademarked Study Technology techniques, is strictly controlled by licensing contracts with Scientology groups in Los Angeles, in particular the Religious Technology Center, according to Young and church materials obtained by the Herald.

The World Literacy Crusade’s independence from Scientology is a “fiction,” Young said.

A World Literacy Crusade videotape, viewed by the Herald, clearly states that it has a licensing agreement with RTC – Scientology’s most powerful organization – allowing it to use L. Ron Hubbard’s name.

Also, Scientologists get a 10 percent to 35 percent commission on any church course bought by someone they recruit through the literacy programs, according to Church of Scientology documents dated last month.

Once Scientology attracts a new recruit, its staff applies skillful, high-pressure sales tactics, Hassan said. Members must pay more than $300,000 in “fixed donations” – or barter their full-time labor – to achieve complete salvation.

When the Mo Vaughn group or another agency buys Scientology’s literacy books – which cost about $35 each – most of the money goes to several Scientology organizations in Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, the church’s in-house publisher; Author Services Inc., Scientology’s literary agency; and RTC, which owns the rights to the trademarked name L. Ron Hubbard. Also, church members sometimes get government funding.

Scientologists got a federal grant for the literacy program in Memphis, former church spokeswoman Kit Finn said.

Federal money was also spent in Boston on Scientology materials, said Gerald Mazzarella, a Scientologist who teaches at Brighton High School. Mazzarella told the Herald he used part of a $5,000 federal grant to buy Scientology textbooks and checklists during the 1980s, which he then used at Brighton High.

Hub beginnings

Boston’s kickoff of Scientology’s literacy program was an April 22, 1995, reception at Roxbury Community College.

The guest of honor was Isaac Hayes, the first black musician ever to win an Academy Award.

The “Shaft” composer impressed a few prominent local blacks – including James E. Watson, the Randolph Junior/Senior High School headmaster. “It obviously helps kids improve their learning. It seemed to be a positive,” Watson said.

Watson toured Delphi Academy in Milton about three years ago, then asked the school’s headmistress, Ellen Garrison, to begin teaching Study Technology to his ninth-grade teachers at the Randolph school in December.

“It’s at its infancy stage, and what it would cost isn’t clear yet,” the headmaster said at the time. Watson, who has been praised for easing racial tensions in Randolph, recently said there is no longer any connection between the two schools.

The head of a youth program founded by one of Boston’s most-admired black athletes was also interested.

“I think they’re right on when they say illiteracy is a problem that leads to other problems,” said Roosevelt Smith, executive director of the Mo Vaughn Youth Development Program.

“We contracted with the World Literacy Crusade to bring seven kids up to speed,” Smith said. Five of the children, who were 13-16 years old, improved their reading ability using the “Basic Study Manual,” he said.

Most of the stuff is free. They only asked us to pay for books and materials,” Smith said.

Mo Vaughn himself knew about the Scientologists’ program, but “he hasn’t met with them directly,” Smith said.

But the Scientology religion “is not a part of what we’re doing,” Smith said. “I don’t think the kids even know what Scientology is.”

Roxbury Youth Works, however, allowed World Literacy Crusade workers to tutor teenagers there three years ago, but had second thoughts after learning more about the group’s links to Scientology, said Roxbury Youth Works administrator Dave Wideman.

“We as an organization were a little apprehensive. It seems like they were trying to recruit people,” Wideman said. “The target group was the particular population we serve, predominantly young black men and women.”

But if the Randolph High School literacy program succeeds, Scientologists hope to teach the same “tech” in Boston classrooms, said Finn, the Scientologist.

“That’s definitely the plan,” Finn said. “It’s like Mr. Watson. Somebody has to be bright enough to want it.”

Virtually every top Scientology official is white, according to ex-members and photographs of church leaders. But the new literacy campaign shows Scientology wants to attract blacks and Hispanics, said Priscilla Coates, formerly of the Cult Awareness Network in Los Angeles – an anti-cult group that was bankrupted by Scientology lawsuits and then taken over by the church.

Any non-Scientologist youth who is taught Study Technology is ripe for recruitment, Coates said. “The child has a possibility of becoming a Scientologist,” she said.

Elsewhere in the United States, the World Literacy Crusade has installed its programs at a New York City police athletic league, a Los Angeles probation department, and the Tampa (Fla.) Housing Authority. Other programs are in Washington, D.C., Denver, and throughout California.

In Memphis, Tenn., public officials were angered to learn that the World Literacy Crusade had run a pilot program – with federal grant money – for 75 students in a public school building, without getting a needed permit and without disclosing its ties to Scientology. The church was not allowed to use the school facilities again.

In the inner-city Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton, more than 700 black children, including gang members, participated in the World Literacy Crusade and the program saved their lives by giving them an alternative to street life, Jentzsch said.

“If you know what the statistics are in Compton, (it is) just miraculous,” Jentzsch said. “I’ve seen kids from the Crips and the Bloods sitting there working with other kids to get them educated.”

Study Tech

Larry Campbell brought his daughter to the Scientologists at the Roxbury YMCA because she was having reading problems in a public school outside Boston, which he would not name.

“I brought my daughter here because these guys help,” Campbell said. The father acknowledged that he also enrolled himself in the literacy program, to improve his reading skills.

“This is what the public schools should be doing,” the father said. “It should be attended to not next year but now.”

So for two hours on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and each Saturday morning, Campbell, a deacon at St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church in Roxbury, brought his elementary school aged daughter to a neon-lit YMCA room furnished with an old sofa, two foldout tables and a stack of plastic chairs.

There, she and other black children were coached in Scientology’s study methods by church members Simaen Skolfield and Cliff Dufresne.

During one session observed by a Herald reporter, neither tutor had a spontaneous conversation with a child, but read from a script.

Dufresne, who dropped out of Boston College Law School to work on the literacy program, helped Doug Walker, a pupil at the William Monroe Trotter Elementary School in Dorchester.

Doug Walker’s mother said the school wanted to solve her son’s problems by giving him medication such as Ritalin, Dufresne said. But, he added, the mother wanted to try drug-free Scientology lessons first.

Meanwhile Skolfield, a bearded British emigre, helped Tanzania Campbell – whose ambition is to be a schoolteacher in Atlantic City, N.J. – with a Study Technology lesson.

Campbell and others at the Roxbury YMCA literacy program were expected to pay nothing at first. “Not yet,” Dufresne said.

But Dufresne hopes his students will, in turn, teach their friends the Scientology techniques. “That’s the whole idea. They learn this and then they circle back and teach somebody else. Because there’s not enough of us,” he said.

Scientology literacy sessions are no longer allowed at the Roxbury YMCA, after officials there learned that the program is associated with the church.

But, an official at Dennison House in Dorchester said Dufresne met with house representatives last year and Dennison House invited World Literacy Crusade workers to come in as tutors. The tutoring has not yet started.

Notes

  1. Document source: https://web.archive.org/web/20030212112838/http://www.bostonherald.com/scientology/sci3298.html ↩︎