From the latest edition of The Millenium Project

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/

Scientologists on my doorstep. Again. (18/12/2004)

Another update I had to do to my company web site was to put up a notification of the possibility that the Church of Scientology might try to do some damage to the business, and what my clients should do if they were contacted or heard rumours. (I have had a similar warning about Mr William P O'Neill of the Canadian Cancer Research Group for some time.) I had taken this precaution even before the second unannounced, uninvited and unwelcome visit of Scientology officials to my home.

The reason that the Scientologists have been paying attention to me is that they are distressed by what I had to say when I gave the 2003 Anus Maximus Award to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. CCHR is a Scientology front organisation which opposes all forms of psychiatric treatment including, but not limited to, medication, counselling, surgery, shock treatment and confinement. Here is what the award citation said:

=====================

Part of the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is that psychiatry is bad. His original feelings on this might have been influenced by the fact that he was mad and he felt threatened by a medical speciality which existed to treat that madness. Put another way, he felt that if there were no psychiatry there would be no madness for it to treat and this would make him sane by definition. (This is not meant to make sense. Remember that Hubbard was insane.) The real reason that Scientology opposes psychiatry, however, is that Scientology's target market is people who are depressed, unhappy, susceptible to suggestion, and don't feel that they fit in to society. Anybody offering to treat these conditions with some behavioural therapy and a course of Prozac is an obvious threat to a cult which wants to brainwash people into paying several hundred thousand dollars to cross a mythical bridge to personal awareness.

CCHR would not be such a problem if the Scientology links were made obvious, because this might make other people think twice about dealing with them. Certainly, Scientology is mentioned in their literature (I have a book called "Documenting Psychiatry: Harming in the name of healthcare" which mentions that the cult paid for the printing of the book, as if that were the only involvement) but the true horror is well hidden. On the other hand, it might not worry people who deal with them. Anti-psychiatrist Thomas Szasz was instrumental in setting up CCHR, and when he was asked how he could justify an alliance with the criminal cult he actually used the expression "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Alternative medicine supporters gleefully accept the CCHR's attacks on drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac because this supports their ideology that there is no such thing as mental illness. In one bizarre confluence of insanity, The National Vaccine Information Center issued a newsletter promoting a CCHR seminar. I hadn't heard that the Scientologists were opposed to vaccination (although nothing would surprise me) so I can only assume that Barbara Loe Fisher at the NVIC thinks that because CCHR is opposed to "the drugging of children" they oppose other medication for children and therefore support her agenda, which is to have the practice of medicating children to prevent life-threatening diseases abolished.

I know people who have suffered from depression and other mental illnesses. There are some people I don't know any more because they committed suicide. That anyone would campaign against effective treatments for these illnesses is almost beyond belief. That an organisation would oppose these treatments for purely financial reasons just reinforces why it is so appropriate to use the word "criminal" in the descriptive expression "the criminal cult of Scientology".

=====================

I have now had Scientology officials visit me at my home twice in one week. On both occasions one of the visitors was Mr Nick Broadhurst, the President of the Church of Scientology for the region described as Australia, New Zealand and Oceania. The other visitor in each case came from CCHR, and on the second occasion it was the head of the regional organisation. Mr Broadhurst has emailed me with his concerns about what I said above, and has asked me to remove the material from this site.

I have reread the citation and I have come to the following decision. It stays. In fact, if the rules allowed a site, person or organisation to win the Anus Maximus Award more than once, CCHR would be at short odds to win again this year, although I might have to write a stronger, more critical citation. Mr Broadhurst asked before he emailed me that his message be kept private and I will do so. I will, however, publish my response as an open letter.

Email open letter:

I have carefully considered your request to remove the material at http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/cchr.htm from my web site. Unfortunately, I can see no way to have this happen. I realise that you, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights and the Church of Scientology may be upset and offended by what I had to say, but they are only words. On balance, I feel that many of the statements made by CCHR give greater offence to the very many people who suffer from psychiatric disorders and are therefore classed by CCHR as dupes of some vast conspiracy of psychiatrists. Going beyond just words, many of these people would become dangerous to themselves and others if they were to be denied the treatments which CCHR so vehemently opposes. Psychiatry and mental health treatment are both far from perfect but these imperfections will not be fixed by abandoning everything and returning to the time of the Bedlam hospital.

On another matter, I would appreciate it if in the future neither you nor any other official of the Church of Scientology or any of its related organisations come to either my home or my place of work without either an appointment or an invitation. Thank you.

-- Peter Bowditch The Millenium Project http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles Australian Council Against Health Fraud http://www.acahf.org.au To email me use my first name only at ratbags.com

Go Back