Joseph Mallia
Investigative journalist
The Boston Herald: Inside
the Church of Scientology
Inside the Church of
Scientology: Powerful Church Targets Fortunes, Souls of Recruits
«While high-profile celebrity members, including
John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, Chick Corea,
Lisa Marie Presley and others, earn goodwill for the
church, ex-members and critics say there is a dark
underside to Scientology. Some of that
underside was allegedly laid bare in the 1995 death in
Clearwater, Fla., of church member Lisa McPherson, 36,
according to Florida state police, who recommended in
December that Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie
McCabe bring criminal charges against the church. The
county medical examiner said she died of a blood clot
due to dehydration, after being denied water for at
least her last five to 10 days.
The church says McPherson died
accidentally of a pulmonary embolism and denies that its
members caused the death.» |
Inside the Church of
Scientology: Church Keys Programs to Recruit Blacks
«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.» |
Inside the Church of
Scientology: Milton School Shades Ties to Scientology
«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.» |
Inside the Church of
Scientology: Church, Enemies Wage War on Internet Battlefield;
Copyright Laws Used to Silence Online Foes
«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."» |
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