Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education (FASE)

The Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education (FASE) is one of several front groups of the Church of Scientology.

FASE was established in 1981 with the explicit purpose to “research the efficacy of and promote the works of L. Ron Hubbard in the solving of social problems; and to scientifically research and provide public information and education concerning the efficacy of other programs”, according to incorporation papers filed with the Attorney General of California, in Sacramento. The papers were later amended to remove Hubbard’s name.

Many of FASE’s staff appear to be Scientologists; according to its video producer, Carl Smith, all of its senior employees are Scientologists; its founder and his wife, Steven R. Heard and Kathleen Heard, were both members of the Guardian’s Office, which effectively ran Narconon throughout the 1970s; its medical researcher, Dr. Megan G. Shields, is a Narconon employee and Scientologist who wrote the introduction to Hubbard’s book Clear Body Clear Mind and is one of the most active boosters of Hubbard’s detoxification methods.

In keeping with its original purpose, FASE promotes Hubbard’s detoxification regimen, sponsoring “International Conferences on Chemical Contamination and Human Detoxification” and claiming that Hubbard’s methods “have been established to be both safe and effective”.

It is not entirely clear how FASE manages to reconcile a mission statement of promoting Hubbard’s works with objective scientific assesments of said works.
– Source: Narconon’s Supporters: Scientific & Medical, Narconon Exposed

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More than 30 million American schoolchildren have watched PBS-TV math videos made by a Los Angeles-based foundation with intimate ties to the controversial Church of Scientology, the Herald has learned.

With lively camerawork and guest stars such as supermodel Cindy Crawford, comic Bill Cosby and athlete Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Peabody Award-winning videos have been paid for with at least $12 million in taxpayer funding since 1990, U.S. government documents show.

But the video company – known as FASE – has a hidden agenda promoting the “Purification Rundown,” the Church of Scientology’s $1,200 per-member detoxification ritual, said former top-ranked church member Robert Vaughn Young.

“FASE was originally created to put Scientology covertly into schools and government, to give the Purification Rundown an air of respectability,” said Young, of Seattle.

“Scientology created FASE so they could use it to get in the door,” the church defector said.

All the top executives at FASE are Scientologists and some are former members of the Church of Scientology’s notorious Guardian’s Office, some of whose leaders – including L. Ron Hubbard’s wife, Mary Sue – were imprisoned for spying on the U.S. government in the 1970s, Young said.

Founded in 1953, the Church of Scientology is criticized by anti-cult activists as a money-grabbing and fraudulent organization that uses deception to get new members for its high-priced programs.

FASE was created by the Church of Scientology in 1981, during the Cold War, to gather scientific proof that Hubbard’s controversial detox method could protect humans from radiation sickness in the event of a U.S.-U.S.S.R. nuclear war, Young said.

“Hubbard thought the end of the world was coming, through nuclear warfare. That really rattled some people,” Young recalled.

While the danger of U.S.-Soviet nuclear war subsided, the Purification Rundown is still widely practiced by Scientologists as a $1,200 preliminary religious ritual that all new members must buy – the first step on the Bridge to Total Freedom.

And the Rundown is sold only through the church – including its Boston branch at 448 Beacon St. – and two Scientology-connected organizations also headquartered in California: the non-profit Narconon and the for-profit detoxification clinic HealthMed.

The drug rehab regimen requires strenuous exercise, five hours of sweating in a sauna, megadoses of niacin, and ingesting a half-cup of vegetable oil – each day for two or three weeks.

Another ex-Scientologist, Dennis Erlich of Glendale, Calif., also said that FASE is intent on promoting the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

“They’re trying to pass themselves off as independent. But their real job is to spread Hubbard’s philosophy,” Erlich said.
– Source: Scientology Unmasked: Scientology group reaches kids through PBS videos, Boston Herald, March 5, 1998