Scientology 101: Front Groups, or The Lipstick On The Pig

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
— Charles Baudelaire 

The video above is a Public Service Announcement from “Youth For Human Rights International”. Youth For Human Rights certainly seems like a laudable initiative at first glance, doesn’t it? In an age where young people are more apathetic than ever, it’s encouraging to see them standing up for human rights. The PSA has a catchy beat and a positive message. Why then am I including this video as an example of the devil’s age-old trick?

Because this organisation is a front group for the Church of Scientology. Its founder, Mary Shuttleworth, is a Scientologist and the organization is mostly staffed by Scientologists.

Many young people unwittingly join YHRI, not realising it is a front group for Scientology. Their good intentions to make the world a better place are misused by people who intend to push L. Ron Hubbard’s “technology”. YHRI was been established with the sole purpose of drawing young people into Scientology.

Why the furore over Will Smith’s new private school?

Many people must be wondering about the controversy surrounding the New Village Academy, a school set up by actor Will Smith and his wife Jada. The New Village Academy intends to employ a lot of educational approaches in this new type of school. But one stands out the most: the employment of “Scientology Study Technology”. Since this revelation came out in the media, Jacqueline Olivier, the principal of New Village Academy, and Will Smith have both strongly insisted the new school is not a Scientology school. But why is Study Tech controversial?

Study tech is founded on 3 principles: Using visual images to teach concepts, breaking down complex concepts, and using the dictionaries to find the meanings for unfamiliar words. Seems reasonable enough, given that’s how children are taught in the first few grades of elementary school. But Study Tech is unavoidably tainted with Scientology related teachings. There have been numerous attempts to slip Study Tech into public schools as well, which is much worse than Will Smith’s private school employing Study Tech. Study Tech in itself is just a concept, not a front group. The relevant front group that pushes it in public schools is Applied Scholastics, which is a misnomer.

Drug pushers of another kind: Narconon

In an age of widespread drug use and abuse, there is a desperate need for rehabilitation clinics all over the world. The “Church” of Scientology has recognised this need, and sought to capitalise on it. The Church started Narconon in 1966 and it was run by the Guardian’s Office, the “Church” of Scientology’s intelligence and public relations wing, until 1980. To this day, Narconon denies its ties with the “Church” but this document shows that Narconon is indeed a front group of the “Church”. If you want more recent proof, here is an interview Tom Cruise gave to Der Spiegel in 2005:

Cruise: I’m a helper. For instance, I myself have helped hundreds of people get off drugs. In Scientology, we have the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. It’s called Narconon.

SPIEGEL: That’s not correct. Yours is never mentioned among the recognized detox programs. Independent experts warn against it because it is rooted in pseudo science.

Cruise: You don’t understand what I am saying. It’s a statistically proven fact that there is only one successful drug rehabilitation program in the world. Period.

SPIEGEL: With all due respect, we doubt that.

While developing his drug “therapy”, L. Ron Hubbard observed that giving a large dose of niacin to a person causes the skin to looked flushed: blood vessels dilate and release histamine, which is the same physiological reaction that occurs when someone suffers from a rash or an allergy. Flushing of the skin is also a sign of toxicity, and the levels of niacin that Narconon gives to clients is very high. The tolerable upper intake level for adults is 35 mg, but Narconon gives their clients up to 500 mg/day, increasing each dose by 3mg daily.

Hubbard theorized, wrongly, that drugs, including water-soluble ones, can be stored in fat cells, and that niacin works to release fat from adipose tissue into the bloodstream, thereby “flushing out” drug residue from the body. This idea has been conclusively discredited. Hubbard also theorized that large doses of niacin can flush out radiation. But niacin can do nothing to the free radicals in the body caused by radiation. There are many examples of L. Ron Hubbard’s poor grasp of nuclear physics, and science in general - they are too numerous to list here. Despite this, Narconon is being used to “bridge masses of people into Scientology”.

CCHR: An Industry of Fear and Paranoia

Another misnomer for a front group name is the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights. The CCHR was established in 1969 by the “Church” of Scientology and non-Scientologist psychiatry critic Thomas Szasz. Since then, it has been spreading lies and misinformation about psychiatry and psychology. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote of psychiatrists:

“Crimes of extortion, mayhem and murder are done daily by these men in the name of ‘practice’ and ‘treatment’. There is not one institutional psychiatrist alive who, by ordinary criminal law, could not be arraigned and convicted of extortion, mayhem and murder. Our files are full of evidence on them.” [SOURCE]

The CCHR formed a website called PsychCrime, which tracks down crimes committed by individual mental health professionals. Granted, crimes are committed by individual psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health professionals, but the CCHR takes individual crimes as evidence that the whole professions is “evil”. In 2005, the CCHR debuted its notorious “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” museum exhibit, which blames psychiatry for everything from Hitler and the Holocaust to Kurt Cobain’s suicide.

The CCHR is one of the worst Scientology front groups because it uses lies and half-truths to instill paranoia not only into Scientologists, but also into the general public. It is this paranoia that led to the death of Elli Perkins by her schizophrenic son Jeremy. It also eventually killed Lisa McPherson, who died in the care of Scientologists.

More focus needed

There are lots of other front groups not mentioned here, but a quick Google search will bring up complete listings of Scientology front groups. So far, the monthly Anonymous protests have dealt with the Church of Scientology’s tax-exempt status, the disconnection policy, the fair game policy, and the Church of Scientology’s elite Sea Organization. The upcoming protest on July 12th deals with the subversive activities of OSA. Scientology’s front groups deserve focus because they are the “secular” fronts of Scientology. Their ties with Scientology are not always obvious. More public scrutiny is needed.

[Author's note: a version of this article originally appeared on Glosslip in July 2008.]