Church of Scientology
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Mayor Thomas M. Menino has endorsed a literacy project affiliated with the Church of Scientology, which critics say is a step towards offering cult-like teachings to school children.

When Menino posed for a photo at a December awards ceremony with the director of H.E.L.P. Boston - and gave a $1,000 city grant to the group - aides said they were aware that the group teaches a ''study technology'' developed by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the movement.

But Menino, through a press office spokesperson, said yesterday that he did not know of H.E.L.P. Boston's Scientology connection. In any event, city officials say the group's program is nonideological and nonreligious, and are standing behind the grant to be used for the city's school-aged youth, even as a Scientology-watch Web site is urging the public to ''complain about Boston's support of this cult scam.''
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Why is this Boston literacy program a scam? Because Applied Scholastics' literacy efforts are really just an attempt to win some legitimacy for Scientology's founder, deceased psychotic con man L. Ron Hubbard, and to slyly introduce children to Scientology's jargon and aberrant way of thinking.

''The literacy curriculum we funded doesn't use any religious ideology,'' said Juanita Wade, Menino's human services chief. ``The organization may have some connection to (Scientology), but our policy is that any program we fund must not promote any particular religious ideology.''

However, an academic researcher claims that ``study technology'' is a disguised effort to proselytize for the Church of Scientology.

''Scientology jargon and religious beliefs . . . are inseparable from Study Tech,'' writes David S. Touretzky of Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Science Department, in a paper entitled ''The Hidden Meaning of Hubbard's Study Tech.''

''These concepts are presented in a doctrinaire manner that is also characteristic of Scientology religious instruction. Study Tech actually helps lay the groundwork for introducing Scientology into the schools,'' Touretzky maintains.

The Church of Scientology is a rich and vengeful religious cult, or as one critic puts it, ''a cross between the Moonies and the Mafia.'' But it would be a mistake to dismiss its underlying technology as harmless or ineffective. Scientologists know a great deal about thought control, social control, rhetorical judo (defeat by misdirection, deft use of logical fallacies) and high pressure sales, though as victims of their own technology, they wouldn't characterize it that way.

Despite its extensive advertising campaign, including half-hour TV infomercials for Dianetics, the Church has been careful to maintain a veil of mystery about its teachings, in part by outlawing any meaningful discussion or analysis of them. (See the policy bulletin prohibiting verbal tech.) To learn the inner secrets of the cult requires years of strict obedience and large monetary donations.

In return, Scientology promises its adherents ''total freedom''. The Internet, through sites like this one, is going to make good on that promise. This web site is dedicated to exposing the various technical tricks behind Scientology, until all its secrets have been laid before the public at no charge.

I am currently receiving legal threats from Scientology lawyers over this site, and was even picketed at work once.

A top Menino administration official said yesterday that a literacy project with ties to the Church of Scientology will be closely monitored in its use of city funds to help school-age children read.

The group, H.E.L.P. Boston, received a $1,000 grant from the city's Safe Neighborhood Fund.
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