South Africa MEDIA: Mail & Guardian (June 8, 2007, p.8): "Ndebele flirts with Scientology" & "A money-making scheme or path to enlightenment?"
R. Hill
=====
Ndebele flirts with Scientology
The Church of Scientology is running courses for learners on behalf of
the KZN premier’s office
Niren Tolsi
About 120 hand-picked learners in KwaZulu-Natal have participated in a
pilot human rights workshop run by an organisation with direct links to
the controversial Church of Scientology — with the backing of the
provincial government.
A proposal to have the programme rolled out to the rest of
KwaZuluNatal’s children is awaiting approval from the provincial
legislature and the office of Premier Sbu Ndebele.
Last week pupils ranging in age from 12 to 17, including members of the
province’s junior parliament, boy scouts and former street children,
took part in a three-day youth leadership programme in Durban hosted by
Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) and the children’s desk of
the human rights directorate attached to Ndebele’s office.
Ryan Hogarth, president of the Church of Scientology in South Africa,
said his church had adopted the YHRI because of its shared values and aims.
Allan Wohrnitz, the youth leadership programme’s coordinator, is also
the Church of Scientology’s course supervisor in South Africa. Wohrnitz
denied that the workshops were based on Scientology: “The workshops are
completely non-religious with an emphasis on morality, a code of conduct
and human rights, and how to make human rights a reality,” he said.
“I designed the programme, and I have knowledge in drug rehabilitation,
nutrition, morals and human rights. I said ‘I’m going to put it all
together and handle the province.’”
Nomusa Kunene, deputy manager of the children’s desk, said this was the
third annual summit focusing on children’s issues the desk had hosted.
The YMCA had facilitated the previous summits: “We chose YHRI because of
this year’s theme: morals and values. They had the content that we
wanted,” said Kunene. “This isn’t a religious programme, but a
government-run programme ... the content was discussed by the premier’s
office and [the YHRI] crafted it to our specific needs: the regeneration
of morals and values among the youth.”
Kunene added that the premier’s office dictated the terms of the
programme after collating information from organisations including the
Boy Scouts, the Representative Council of Learners, traditional groups
such as Izintombi Izinsizwe and life coach providers Kohin on how they
dealt with human rights. “This was put into one document and conveyed to
the YHRI,” she said.
Yet traces of Scientology and its founder, pulp sci-fi writer L Ron
Hubbard, permeate the course.
Included in worksheets and reading material handed out to children is a
Drug-Free Marshals pamphlet which asks kids to “take the pledge” to
become marshals. The Drug Free Marshals programme is an outreach
campaign started by the Church of Scientology in 1993.
According to Hogarth, 30 000 South African learners have signed up as
Drug Free Marshals. Also included in the pack is Hubbard’s guidebook and
Scientology’s literary mainstay, The Way to Happiness, which the church
uses in its criminal rehabilitation programme, Criminon.
Children interviewed by the Mail & Guardian were also au fait with
Scientology terminology. Samukelisiwe Ndlovu, premier of KwaZulu-Natal’s
junior parliament and a Grade 12 learner at Pinetown Girls High, said
she learnt about “tone scales” during the morals and values component of
the training programme. “People at the top of the of the tone scale are
alive, can give back to society and do things. People in the middle can
do a few things, while people at the bottom are completely dead. They
look with a dead face during debates — they don’t want to be active in
society,” said Ndlovu.
A “tone scale”, according to the www.scientology.org glossary, “shows
the emotional tones of a person. These, ranged from highest to lowest,
are, in part, serenity, enthusiasm (as we proceed downward),
conservatism, boredom, antagonism, anger, covert hostility, fear, grief,
apathy.”
Nomfundo Mkhize, a 16-year-old learner, said the workshops had taught
him to “surround myself with peers who all have the same passion to
learn and help the community.
“The religious emphasis was on how we should respect other cultures and
religions.”
Kunene was unperturbed by the Scientological references. “Maybe
[Wohrnitz] added this, but it won’t be important. He won’t be there when
we are cascading the programme; the children will drive it.”
Kunene said if the programme was approved, “we would like to hold two or
three more summits of this nature so that children go back to their
schools and communities and cascade the message of moral regeneration
and values”.
“We’re thinking in terms of the 4,4-million children in the province —
and by children we mean everybody from birth to 18.”
Wohrnitz, who says he is a “businessman with a social responsibility”
who facilitated the workshop free of charge, said the pilot programme
was initiated after “I met Dr Nonhlanlha Mkhize [general manager of the
human rights directorate in Ndebele’s office] and put it to her. She
said ‘We will bring the people to you.’”
He expected feedback on the pilot by the end of the month from the
provincial government, before teaming up for the rollout.
Provincial government spokesperson Mandla Msomi said a budget for the
rollout had not yet been finalised because the initiative would involve
the coordination of several government departments and private sector
sponsors.
Attempts to contact Mkhize were unsuccessful.
=====
A MONEY-MAKING SCHEME OR PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT?
Guardian
Scientology’s many critics dismiss it as a wacky cult based on a jumble
of science fiction, pop psychology and eastern mysticism, which preys on
dysfunctional people. Newspapers, including The
in the United Kingdom, report that Scientologists base their theories on
an alleged event 75-million years ago when the Galactic Federation
ruler, Xenu, dropped thousands of human souls into the volcanoes on
Hawaii. These disembodied souls exist today and produce warped thoughts
among humans, called “engrams”.
There are also accusations that it is an elaborate moneymaking
enterprise. Counselling is conducted by “auditors” from the church at a
typical fee of R240 an hour, according to the church’s local president,
Ryan Hogarth, who admitted that “detractors of Scientology love to jump
on the issue of money; it’s the easiest way to generate controversy”.
Hogarth said that alternatives were free counselling by a student, or
two Scientologists twinning up, training themselves and counselling each
other, which halved the cost.
In November 2005, the church awarded Tom Cruise the “Diamond Meritorious
Award” for donating £2-million to it. Last year, after the opening of a
£24-million centre in London, more than 2 000 diners gathered at the
church’s East Essex headquarters and paid between £500 and £1 500 for a
seat at a table, with the more expensive closer to Cruise. Medals and
awards were dished out
along with the tucker: a patron of honour medal came with a $10 000
price tag, while a $10-million donation earns a “Patron Laureate” medal.
The Church of Scientology was founded in the 1950s by Lafayette Ron
Hubbard, whose Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health is
considered seminal to its birth. Hubbard once said: “Writing for a penny
a word is
ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best
way would be to start his own religion.”
Scientology now claims to be the world’s fastest growing religion, with
about 10-million followers in 156 countries. The South African arm has
15 000 active members and “60 000 people of whom we have record that
have had services with the church that may or may not be practising
Scientologists”, Hogarth said.
According to scientology.org, human beings comprise a spirit, called
“the thetan”; the mind, used by the thetan “as a communication and
control system” with the environment; and the body. The most important
of these “is the thetan, which is the spirit, or you”. Scientology’s
auditors use a “pastoral counselling device” called an
electropsychometer, or e-meter, to “preclear locate areas of spiritual
distress or travail”. Sending about 1,5 volts through the subject’s
body, the e-meter registers the “charge”, or harmful energy, generated
by a negative memory or mental image.
Says the Practice of Scientology website: “Different needle movements
have exact meanings, and the skill of an auditor includes an
understanding of all meter reactions.
“The preclear discovers things about [the subject] and his life ...
These ... result in a higher degree of awareness and consequently a
greater ability to succeed.”
Scientology is recognised as an official religion in the United States,
but in France, where anti-cult legislation allows for the dissolution of
sects suspected guilty of offences, several cases against Scientologists
have been reported. In 1999, five practitioners were found guilty of
selling a bogus “purification” drug rehabilitation treatment consisting
of sauna sessions, jogging and vitamin pills for up to R30 000.
=====
--
"I started thinking, and I got carried away"
- Dan Garvin, former scientologist
"We simply do as [L. Ron Hubbard] says"
- Dennis Clarke, scientologist
realpch
<snip>
Ohhhhhhh! Oh yes, nobody in the world was able to gauge the emotional
status of others before L. Ron Hubbard came up with the totally
arbitrary Tone Scale.
It is so annoying to see well-meaning people endeavoring to recruit kids
into Scientology, especially when one realizes that those people have
NOT been fully apprised of the history of this organization. One wonders
how many of them have even made it through the OT levels, so they have a
real grasp of how the whole thing works. If they HAVE made it through
the OT levels, and haven't smelt a rat, then I question their judgement.
Peach
--
Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
Save some dough, save some grief:
http://www.xenu.net
http://www.scientology-lies.com
Hartley Patterson
> http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=310747
> Scientology now claims to be the world=3Fs fastest growing religion, with
> about 10-million followers in 156 countries. The South African arm has
> 15 000 active members and =3F60 000 people of whom we have record that
> have had services with the church that may or may not be practising
> Scientologists=3F, Hogarth said.
Oo. That's another country for our list, and the spokesperson is
conforming to the European practise of citing two figures. '60,000' is the
mailing list, '15,000' the people who can be regged. See sig, still
looking.
--
ARSCC Demographics Department
http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/stolgy_4.htm
Still looking for 9,900,000 Scientologists (TM)