A library for the critical study of Scientology — what L. Ron Hubbard would not want you to read!

The Church of Scientology is a rich and vengeful religious cult, or as one critic puts it, "a cross between the Moonies and the Mafia." But it would be a mistake to dismiss its underlying technology as harmless or ineffective. Scientologists know a great deal about thought control, social control, rhetorical judo (defeat by misdirection, deft use of logical fallacies) and high pressure sales, though as victims of their own technology, they wouldn't characterize it that way.

Despite its extensive advertising campaign, including half-hour TV infomercials for Dianetics, the Church has been careful to maintain a veil of mystery about its teachings, in part by outlawing any meaningful discussion or analysis of them. (See the policy bulletin prohibiting verbal tech.) To learn the inner secrets of the cult requires years of strict obedience and large monetary donations.

In return, Scientology promises its adherents "total freedom". The Internet, through sites like this one, is going to make good on that promise. This web site is dedicated to exposing the various technical tricks behind Scientology, until all its secrets have been laid before the public at no charge.

Narconon lies about its ties to the Church of Scientology, while funneling money to the International Association of Scientologists and other Scientology groups, and receiving money from them as well. Within Scientology, Narconon is known as "the bridge to The Bridge": a recruiting tool to lure in new members.

The real danger of Study Tech is that it was designed for indoctrination, not education. While it may be good at producing obedient Scientologists, it is completely at odds with promoting the ability to think independently. It quite deliberately aims to reduce a student's ability to think critically. Students are taught to distrust their own intelligence and background knowledge, passively and uncritically accepting whatever they are being told. This can only deprive students of a skill vital in an age saturated with conflicting messages, where critical thinking is essential to making sense of the world. Study Tech's doctrinaire and authoritarian approach to teaching is hostile to, and deserves no place in, secular educational institutions.

On March 13, 2003, Jeremy Perkins, a 28 year old untreated schizophrenic, stabbed his mother Elli 77 times. She bled to death on her bedroom floor. Jeremy is currently being held at Rochester Psychiatric Center, having been found not responsible for Elli's murder by reason of mental disease or defect.

Perkins, his mother and father, his sister, and her husband are all members of the Church of Scientology, a group that believes modern psychiatric medicine derives from an ancient alien civilization's plot to drug and enslave humanity. Scientologists like Tom Cruise vehemently and publicly oppose the pharmacological treatment of mental illness. Unfortunately, Scientology's own brand of therapy, called "auditing", is worthless.

Rather than assure its members that it would never repeat the horrors of what happened to Lisa McPherson, what Scientology is saying in this release form is: "We were not wrong to hold Lisa against her will and deprive her of medical attention and leave her to die. We were never wrong. And to assure you that we weren't, we're going to do the same thing again...exactly the same way... possibly to YOU! Here: sign this. And please note that after signing this, you cannot hold us accountable or sue us if we do decide to do this to you."

In OT III the adherent learns that he has been the victim of a brainwashing scheme perpetrated by Xenu, the galactic ruler 75 million years ago, with the help of psychiatrists. He, as a thetan, is not the sole occupant of his body. Other thetans who are too weak or confused to control bodies of their own are attached to his body, and their reactive minds are in contact with his own, clouding his thoughts and contributing mental mass that registers on the E-meter.

Scientology hates the Internet because it's full of "copyright terrorists" — Helena Kobrin's ridiculous phrase.

Scientology hates the Internet because Wikipedia has developed into a giant glowing mass of entheta, with content that is highly ranked in search engines and mirrored at several other sites.

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Scientists assume reality has an independent existence. The term "science" refers to our UNDERSTANDING of reality, based on the best available evidence.  Our understanding changes as new evidence is developed.  But the rules of science are that one must look at the evidence with a skeptical eye, always considering alternative explanations, and one must seek independent, EXPERIMENTAL CONFIRMATION of all claims.  You can't just sit back and "figure things out in your head", or wait for "God's revealed wisdom" to pop into it.

I'm a Research Professor in the Computer Science Department and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University.

David S. Touretzky, prominent free speech activist and critic of Scientology, has given his opinions on the recent Internet backlash against the Church of Scientology in an interview with Wikinews reporter Nicholas Turnbull today. The recent conflict on the Internet between critics of Scientology and the Church has been spurred on in declarations by a nebulous Internet entity using the name Anonymous that the Church of Scientology "will be destroyed". Anonymous has directed recent protests at Scientology centres across the world, which have attracted significant numbers of individuals supporting the cause. In recent e-mail correspondence with Wikinews, a representative of the Church of Scientology declared that the Church considers the activities of Anonymous to be illegal, and that Anonymous "will be handled and stopped". [...]

[...] After I questioned RFW’s misrepresentation of the detoxification piece and Touretzky’s involvement on this newspaper’s blog, RFW flipped out, posting an item on its own website declaring that they’ve gotten under my skin and arguing that I must have some affinity for Touretzky since his agenda matches mine. “Methinks you doth protest too much DeSio,” wrote RFW. “Or do you find Touretzky’s racist comments so normal, and your defense of his bigoted statements so necessary to support your own deep hatred, that, as claimed, ‘it was not even worth bringing up?’” [...]

[...] Touretzky’s criticism of the Church of Scientology has placed him squarely on the Church’s enemies list. He maintains a website, Stop Narconon, that documents media mentions of the drug treatment program. Narconon is supported by numerous prominent Scientologists. Last week, John Travolta and his wife, fellow Scientologist and actress Kelly Preston, held a fundraiser for Narconon’s affiliate in Hawaii. Actress and Scientologist Kirstie Alley is a public spokesperson for the program, and Cruise has also stated his support in the past. [...]

Transcript of this interview.

Dave Touretzky, a research professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, and an online free speech advocate who has had several run-ins with the Church of Scientology for his website critiques at www.stopnarconon. org, recently elaborated on this for the Humanist:

Thanking L. Ron Hubbard by clapping is a ritual practiced in every Scientology church in the world. It’s called “flowing power to Source.” I have personally stood in a Church of Scientology building in Los Angeles [as a guest], faced a photo of L. Ron Hubbard on the wall, and clapped. [...]

[...] Recently, a San Francisco teacher complained to the district that Narconon was a Scientology front group. The teacher declined to be identified or quoted, citing Scientology's history of confronting critics. The teacher has teamed with David Touretzky, a computer science research professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and a free-speech advocate who runs an anti-Narconon Web site that includes some controversial material.

Together, they have pushed school officials to oust Narconon through a section on Touretzky's Web site called "Narconon/Scientology Infiltration of the San Francisco Unified School District." [...]

Imagine a church so dangerous, you must sign a release form before you can receive its "spiritual assistance." This assistance might involve holding you against your will for an indefinite period, isolating you from friends and family, and denying you access to appropriate medical care. You will of course be billed for this treatment - assuming you survive it. If not, the release form absolves your caretakers of all responsibility for your suffering and death. Welcome to the Church of Scientology. [...]

Dave Touretzky might seem like an unlikely champion of free expression.

The 41-year-old researcher at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science in Pittsburgh spends his evenings investigating how the brains of rats record and process location information.

"My primary research interest is understanding how space is represented in the rodent brain," says Touretzky, who regularly works until 2 a.m.

What that translates into is computer simulations, occasional surgery on hapless members of the species rattus norvegicus, and programming a squat metal robot to wander the fifth floor lobby of Wean Hall.

But Touretzky is also a fierce advocate of the First Amendment and the Internet, and has spent much of the last decade battling to protect the ability of students, programmers and critics to speak freely online. [...]

Nearly four weeks after Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in favor of the movie industry, ordering a hacker Web site not to post or link to DeCSS, copies of the DVD-decrytping code abound.

There are offshore DeCSS posters and anonymous types running DeCSS mirror sites with such catchy names as the do not sue me page. And even the castigated 2600 Hacker Quarterly has gotten around the no-linking decision by simply removing the HTML and carrying a text list of more than 200 URLs you can cut and paste into a browser to reach a site that does post DeCSS. The total delay bought with nine months of litigation: about two seconds. [...]

David S. Touretzky is a research professor in the Computer Science Department and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a BA in Computer Science at Rutgers University in 1978, and earned a Master's degree and a Ph.D. (1984) in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Touretzky has worked as an Internet activist in favor of freedom of speech, especially what he perceives as abuse of the legal system by government and private authorities. He is a notable critic of Scientology.