Narconon exposed.
Peter Schilte
by Marc Allard
Le Soleil
(Quebec City) Since he's been out of Narconon, David Edgar Love hardly
gets any sleep. He has flashbacks about the traumatic experiences he
says he experienced in the Scientology detox centre in Trois-Rivières,
and sometimes he becomes so anxious that he loses his breath.
In November, a doctor at the Cité de la Santé hospital in Laval
diagnosed him with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Mr. Love now
consults a psychiatrist in a Montreal hospital who was recommended by
Mike Kropveld, the director of Info-Cult, and he tries not to appear
too drowsy at his new job.
Sitting in a small restaurant in a glum corner of Montreal's Lachine
district, where he found a small apartment, Mr. Love, 57, recounts his
experience with Narconon, where he was a client from December 2008 to
May 2009 and an employee until the end of October.
Revealed for the first time today in Le Soleil, his testimony about
the Quebec detoxification centre connected with the Church of
Scientology adds to a series of disclosures that have shaken this
religious organization in various places throughout the world in
recent months.
At his side, David Love has a briefcase full of documents to support a
complaint he filed with Quebec's Human Rights Commission and a
separate complaint filed with Quebec's Labour Standards Commission,
which are investigating his allegations.
During the 11 months he spent at Narconon, Mr. Love says he was the
victim of harassment, threats and many other violations of his rights.
He also says he did not receive a large portion of his salary.
In a letter dated December 21, 2009, the law firm representing
Narconon, Heenan Blaikie, offered David Love $2,550.29 on condition
that he not share his story with the media. Mr. Love declined the
offer.
"They will not silence me," he says. "I have rights and I intend to
have my rights respected."
By telephone, Le Soleil reached the director of Narconon Trois-
Rivières, Marc Bernard, who declined to give his version of the facts.
"I have nothing to say, I have no comment," he said. "No comment."
Omertà
A resident of British Columbia, David Love arrived at Narconon shortly
before Christmas in 2008. He was addicted to methadone and cocaine and
had decided to follow the rehab program at the detox centre in Trois-
Rivières, where he knew an employee.
During the first weeks of his treatment, Mr Love says he was surprised
by the omertà that reigned at Narconon about Scientology. He remembers
hearing an employee interrupt a discussion among a group of clients he
was in, by issuing an order: "You are not allowed to speak about
Scientology when you are at Narconon»
The employee later explained to him that Narconon wanted to avoid the
subject so as not to scare clients, their parents, or the "sponsors",
who pay more than $20,000 for the treatment, a majority of whose
clients are English speakers from the United states and English
Canada.
On its Quebec website, Narconon presents itself as a "non-profit
program of rehabilitation and detoxification" and boasts of having 50
centres in 21 countries. There is no mention anywhere that Narconon is
part of the Church of Scientology.
For Paul Schofield, who was a member of the Church of Scientology for
more than 20 years before becoming "case supervisor" at the Sydney and
Melbourne Narconon centres and then director of Narconon for all of
Australia, there is no doubt that Narconon is a satellite of the
Church of Scientology.
"Aside from the withdrawal phase, all the courses you take at Narconon
are almost identical to those you take at the Church," he says,
"Except that when you take them at the church, they only cost you
about a quarter or a third of the price."
While he was a client at Narconon, David Love says he was forced to
memorize passages from books by L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction
author who founded the Church of Scientology and wrote the 8 books on
which the Narconon program is based.
"Any book that might interfere with the mind-altering and brainwashing
process is prohibited and confiscated," says David Love.
In addition to reading books by Hubbard, David Love also had to
practice regularly the "training routines" prescribed by Scientology's
grand master.
He remembers one routine that consisted of sitting for long hours
while staring at another client without saying a word and without
moving. There was another similar routine in which he was told not to
react while his partner bombarded him with insults.
Extreme Purification
The 57-year-old man also remembers the training routine involving an
ashtray. "I had to yell at an ashtray, 'Stand up!' then 'Sit down!'
until it obeyed by itself," he said. "But since I was unable to find
the right tone, I had to lift the ashtray by myself over and over."
"After all these training routines," says Love, "I'm lucky not to be
insane."
To help addicts overcome their dependence, Narconon also requires that
they strictly follow an intense vitamin and sauna treatment which
Scientologists call the "Purification Rundown" and which is also
provided by the Church of Scientology of Quebec City at a cost of
$2,000.
For two weeks, David Love said he had to spend almost four hours a day
in a sauna and swallow large amounts of vitamins and minerals each
day. He recalls having had, among other things, to take a lot of
niacin, a vitamin (B3) used to reduce a person's cholesterol level.
In a July 17, 2004 interview with the Journal de Trois-Rivières posted
on the detoxification centre's website, the director of Narconon Trois-
Rivières, Marc Bernard, described the virtues of niacin for expelling
drugs from fat cells.
"The toxins remain trapped in fatty tissues for several years," Mr.
Bernard explained. "When they are released, this is what addicts call
flashbacks."
Asked about this practice, Dr. Lise Archibald, of the Ubald-Villeneuve
Rehabilitation Centre in Quebec City, told Le Soleil that she has
never read anything about the benefits of niacin for drug addicts.
A toxicology specialist at Quebec's National Institute of Public
Health (INSPQ), pharmacist Lyse Lefebvre, also has never heard of
niacin as an aid to combat drug addiction. However, she warns that
consuming too much vitamin B3 may cause digestive problems, aggravate
asthma, lead to a certain form of arthritis attack, and cause redness
and itching.
Health Canada recommends a maximum of 500 mg of niacin per day.
Clients of Narconon and Scientologists who follow the "Purification
Rundown" ingest up to 5,000 mg per day," says David Love.
"The vitamin and sauna treatment was far from pleasant for the clients
of Narconon," recalls Mr. Love. "It was horrible. People were sick.
They vomited and had diarrhea."
Like a military base
During his rehabilitation, Mr. Love wanted to leave the Trois-Rivières
detox centre to return to his family in British Columbia. But he says
that Narconon refused to give him his wallet and his identity papers,
even though he requested them more than once.
Except in special cases, Quebec law prohibits forcing drug addicts to
continue treatment, which is to be followed on a voluntary basis.
Mr. Love recalls that, instead of giving him his papers, he was sent
to the "ethics officer", who argued that he should stay longer.
"Many students want to leave and try," he says. "Some even manage to
leave and set out on foot along along the road, but the ethics officer
is called and a car is sent to recover them and bring them back to the
Narconon buildings."
David Love said he never witnessed a client being forced to get into a
car. Instead, he points out, Narconon calls a student's parents or
sponsor and convinces them not to pay the bus or air fare for the
student.
Every day, adds Mr. Love, Narconon's staff closely monitors the
comings and goings of their customers. "It's like a military base," he
says. "There is security, they have radios. They check on you every 20
minutes to know where you are."
Clients turned into employees
Mr. Love is not the only client to have worked at Narconon. About 40%
of clients subsequently become employees, according to a statement
made in May 2002 by Devinder Luthra, then president of Narconon
Canada, at a session of the Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of
Drugs in the House of Commons.
While he was an employee, David Love was responsible for contacting
former clients of Narconon to compile statistics on the success or
failure of the program. He says he received emails from many "exes"
who had relapsed and still need help. What he was hearing did not
appear to match the 70% success rate which Narconon boasts about on
its website.
Mr. Love says he tried repeatedly to warn his superiors at Narconon
Trois-Rivières, but they refused to change their practices.
It was at this point that David Love says he realized Narconon was a
"hoax" at the service of the Church of Scientology. "Once I understood
and believed it was true," he wrote on a message board operated by
Anonymous, an anti-Scientology movement that originated on the
Internet, "My eyes were opened to the reality of the lies that I had
swallowed."
From the day he resigned, November 3, Mr. Love says he received
threats from Sue Chubbs, Narconon's director of production.
With documents to prove it, David Love shows that, among other things,
she posted on his FaceBook page the words "Enemy" and "Fair Game".
This means, in Scientology jargon, he "may be deprived of property or
injured by any means and by any Scientologist."
Peter
"Arthritis vanishes, myopia gets better, heart illness decreases,
asthma disappears, stomachs function properly and the whole catalogue
of illnesses goes away and stays away."
- L. Ron Hubbard, DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH, 1987
Ed., p. 72
Roadrunner
One will always have complainers, and we will always have people even
making up stories. Fact remains that during the last 27 years I have
seen many benefits from those persons that have followed the program.
But it is no panacea as it requires willingness and endurance of the
participants.
RR
Peter Schilte
> Well, continuing to smear and spread propaganda, are ya?
It is a personal experience, shared with all who is interested.
>
> One will always have complainers, and we will always have people even
> making up stories.
Yes, I know. One is posting with the nick "Roadrunner" on ARS.
> Fact remains that during the last 27 years I have
> seen many benefits from those persons that have followed the program.
I have seen ONE. And I have seen others where it failed, even to the
degree of ending up in hospital, pissing blood.
> But it is no panacea as it requires willingness and endurance of the
> participants.
>
It is JUST one of many other rehabilitation facilities. Same failures,
same successes. The important difference is: In all the other
facilities there is no scientology or Hubbard Tech involved. No
unsupported claims about the effect of sauna's and huge doses of
vitamins. No Training Routines. Nobody is more or less kept prisoner.
Peter
"Remember one thing, we are not running a business, we are
running a government.
We are in direct control of people's lives.
But for the first time we are not making victims of them,
we are making them more able.
So bring order into these
people's lives."
- HCO Secretary WW2
© 1975 L. Ron Hubbard Library
http://www.scamofscientology.nl
> ...
>
> meer lezen »
Roadrunner
> On 22 mrt, 11:14, Roadrunner <roadrunner.eni...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, continuing to smear and spread propaganda, are ya?
>
> It is a personal experience, shared with all who is interested.
It is not YOUR experience! You have NONE in these matters... you just
pass on the complainers, blindly... robot...
RR
> ...
>
> läs mer »
Peter Schilte
> On 22 mar, 14:50, Peter Schilte <peterschi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 22 mrt, 11:14, Roadrunner <roadrunner.eni...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Well, continuing to smear and spread propaganda, are ya?
>
> > It is a personal experience, shared with all who is interested.
>
> It is not YOUR experience! You have NONE in these matters... you just
> pass on the complainers, blindly... robot...
>
It doesn't matter whose experience it is. You would attack it anyway.
Peter
http://www.scamofscientology.nl
> ...
>
> meer lezen »
Roadrunner
> On 22 mrt, 15:53, Roadrunner <roadrunner.eni...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 22 mar, 14:50, Peter Schilte <peterschi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On 22 mrt, 11:14, Roadrunner <roadrunner.eni...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Well, continuing to smear and spread propaganda, are ya?
>
> > > It is a personal experience, shared with all who is interested.
>
> > It is not YOUR experience! You have NONE in these matters... you just
> > pass on the complainers, blindly... robot...
>
> It doesn't matter whose experience it is. You would attack it anyway.
You have nothing to support that offensive claim. Fact remains that
you MADE A CHOICE... which is to pass on rumours and stories of
complainers AS A ROBOT... .-)
RR
> ...
>
> läs mer »
Peter Schilte
> On 22 mar, 17:01, Peter Schilte <peterschi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 22 mrt, 15:53, Roadrunner <roadrunner.eni...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On 22 mar, 14:50, Peter Schilte <peterschi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > On 22 mrt, 11:14, Roadrunner <roadrunner.eni...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > Well, continuing to smear and spread propaganda, are ya?
>
> > > > It is a personal experience, shared with all who is interested.
>
> > > It is not YOUR experience! You have NONE in these matters... you just
> > > pass on the complainers, blindly... robot...
>
> > It doesn't matter whose experience it is. You would attack it anyway.
>
> You have nothing to support that offensive claim.
Nothing? Well, not exactly. When I posted a personal experience, you
attacked it. When I post someone else's story, you attack it. And
above all, you attacked me.
> Fact remains that
> you MADE A CHOICE... which is to pass on rumours and stories of
> complainers AS A ROBOT... .-)
Nope. YOU classify everything a rumor.
You are not interested in the truth. You are ONLY interested in, I'd
better rephrase that: You are not interested in the truth, you are
just obsessed with "research and evaluation". Hoping all the
devastating reports about your precious cult will stop you keep on
demanding "research and evaluation", even when there is nothing to
research. All of your remarks are aimed at a single goal: to discredit
everybody who dares to criticize Hubbard, his Tech and his cult and to
distract from all criticism.
Guess what? You fail.
Peter
http://www.scamofscientology.nl
> ...
>
> meer lezen »
Mike Thomas
Hash: SHA1
Roadrunner wrote:
> Well, continuing to smear and spread propaganda, are ya?
>
> One will always have complainers, and we will always have people even
> making up stories. Fact remains that during the last 27 years I have
> seen many benefits from those persons that have followed the program.
> But it is no panacea as it requires willingness and endurance of the
> participants.
I suppose you recorded these results for future evaluation? I also guess
you did a double blind test with a sample group larger than 150?
Just one question, If a kid came up to you in the street and said
"Please help me, my parents neglect and abuse me" would you turn around
and say:
a) Theres always someone who complains about their parents.
b) LIAR!
c) You're just disgruntled.
d) You're trying to get back at your parents.
e) Show me your evaluation, you're just spreading rumors.
f) That's not something they do.
Now apply this logic to people claiming Scientology is neglectful and
abusive, my guess is that you would resort to one of the above answers.
You operate on the assumption that Scientology is never wrong, anyone
who criticizes it is guilty of lying until proven innocent (which is not
possible, because Scientology is never wrong).
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