We welcome back Julian Wain, who appeared with his wife Katherine in Episode 49. This time we talk about the Delphian schools — Julian both attended and taught there. These are indoctrination schools for scientology, and recruitment pools for the Sea Org, despite the claims they make publicly.
The scientology.org website:
This is the landing page of the website, listing Applied Scholastics.
Here is the Applied Scholastics page and the PR line they use.
This is from the FAQ page of the Delphian Academy website:
Julian’s Delphi Yearbook
The dedication page — of course, dedicated to L. Ron Hubbard:
Julian when he was a student:
The IRS regulation concerning religious purity:
Here is what scientology told the IRS about practicing other faiths — contained in an earlier blogpost Scientology, Christianity and the IRS:
Delphian logo, including as one of the four points, “Ethics”
The reference from Dianetics about a passionate kiss
Scientology lower conditions from the Introduction to Scientology Ethics Book — from Liability down to Confusion:
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
I went to Delphi the same time as Julian. I was shocked when I heard about the abuse he received at Delphi, but not surprised. My own abuse was different. I was a teenage boy with ADHD and my inability to pass a white-glove check resulted in hundreds of hours of punishments including manual labor, not being allowed to join my friends on school trips or on-campus activities, multiple “ethics hearings” (the delphi version of a comm ev), dozens of lower-condition assignments. I probably spent as much time in Ethics with Terri (may her soul rot in hell) as i did in the courseroom. That shit erodes your sense of self-worth.
There were many things i liked about the Delphi experience. For me as an ADHD sufferer, checksheet-style learning comes very naturally. I could focus hard on the subjects I liked and try to power through the more boring ones. But Delphi (much like Scientology) tries to fit everybody in the same round hole, and if you’re a square peg like me, they throw Scientology Ethics / Justice at you hard until you either break and conform or drop out. Guess which one I did? I finished Form 6 and got my GED.
My son Jake Leistra graduated from Delphi in 2008 when Julian was still on staff. In 2008 Jake came to the East Coast to spend the summer with me but left without notice after a couple of weeks. As a 17-year-old he disconnected from me and my entire family. Consequently, we have not spoken or so much as texted in the last 13+ years. Unbeknownst to me, he even lived in DC for a couple of years. Despite being no more than 45 minutes away from his father for 2 years, he couldn’t bring himself to make contact. The pain of rejection from one’s child is not something that eases with time.
I’m so sorry for this Greg. I hope when the church goes down the drain that he comes to his senses and comes back to you.
Hey Mike, my posts sometimes disappear, therefore you might accidentally receive the same question several times. Is there a chance that you would invite Steven Mango into your podcast?
Got to say, there is one unintended benefit of the crazy Hubbard “study technology”.
When you are in utter rebellion to the system you can easily spend all your study time reading anything you want. Just pretend to be looking for the definition of a word.
In Scientology they call this “being on a word chain” meaning you looked up “electronics”, found you didn’t understand “electron” then in the definition of “electron” you didn’t get “particle” and so on. Quarks, strangeness, charm, spin, this could go on for weeks.
The situation is not helped by the fact that Hubbard did not understand electronics at all and used the word for some kind of imaginary mystical magic that changed every time he used it.
In this kind of situation there is no need to explain what you are reading or why, just say you are on a word chain. You could lose yourself in the Encyclopedia Britannica, lots of good stuff there. At Gold we had a copy of the New York Institute of Photography correspondence course on Photography. Dozens of volumes, endlessly interesting.
When I was on my way out, stuck in LA for a time, they finally insisted that I do some course-work. The PTS-SP Course, a Hubbard tour-de-farce heavily reworked by Dave himself. He was very proud of it and insisted on lots of people doing it, often over and over. As if Dave actually knew anything about Suppressive Persons, AKA psychos. Look in the mirror Dave!
He should have just put an account of one of his average days in the course, filled with rage, violence, and arbitrary tantrums. At the end he should simply have said “Don’t do this!” That could have been of some benefit but would have required a degree of self-awareness far beyond the capability of Dave. Or Hubbard.
At any rate, forced to show up for study, I instead took to studying the Bible. On a pretend word chain. There is a Bible in every Scientology course room. They have to have it because maybe two verses in that book are in the Minister’s Course. It is usually a very ancient red-letter King James Version, falling apart but still readable.
Made no progress on the PTS-SP course, but was able to rack up “student points” in abundance by counting 10 points for every word “cleared”.
Justice, mercy, forgiveness, humility, sacrifice, love.
Sin, repentance, grace, redemption.
Those are all words, right? Not much use in Scientology but essential in real life.
Here it is on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Iy0oYzuOrU&t=1929s
Hi Mike! I’ve become addicted to listening to you and Leah. I’m not nor have I ever been a Scientologist. I have a question. I’m a 60 year old musician, and have worked with, and am friends with many of Chick Corel’s band members. It seems incredible to believe that Chick remained a devout Scientologist until his death. How important was he in the church?
He was sort of the token musician scientology celebrity. He brought in Stanley Clark. Musicians have been in short supply in the scientology celebrity ranks. Mark Isham is a scientologist but not well known outside the film scoring world. Isaac Hayes passed on. So. as a multi-Grammy winner and innovator who remained a devout scientologist, he was important. Also a REALLY nice guy.
Very nice guy. I worked with Flora Purim and Airto (2 of the original rtf members) for over 20 years , as well as Dave Weckl, and others. The only thing I heard was “if he asks you to go to lunch, say you’re not available:) I admire what you are doing!!
I’ve seen every aftermath episode more than once and listen to every podcast. Not sure why, but I love it!!
Thanks 😊
Thanks for your support
Great podcast about the Delphian. Thanks for bringing the light to their lies and the way they sneak scn into everything they do. I was on staff there in the early 80s. I was the only certified teacher there. This was when they started recruiting both Mexican and Asian students. I was tasked with writing the ESL curriculum that has now earned them megabucks. My family and I left Delphi and scn way before Julian got there. So sad to hear his story. Unfortunately not surprising.
I never cease to be amazed about the depths “good” people go to protect the church of scientology. Once again I was surprised to hear about the sexual abuse of a child that was “condoned” by handling it with scientology Ethics Technology. I shouldn’t have been stunned but I was. More than that I have been grief struck. God, the damage this “church” does to people… Hello?! IRS?! ARE YOU THERE!?!!!!!!!
Also, I would just like to say for the record that the study tech is also bad for adults. Yes, it’s even worse for children that start so young getting brainwashed into studying this way. But adult or child, it does damage. That “FEAR” of being spot checked etc. The suppression of a yawn, fidget, day dream…. The Church of FEAR. Every aspect of it.
The Scientology page on Applied Scholastics lies, and should probably be looked at by the FTC, when it says, “Applied Scholastics is a fully independent, nondenominational organization supported by the Church of Scientololgy and by Scientologists dedicated to raising education standards throughout the world.”
Extracted, and reformated for easier reading, from the once secret ‘1993 Closing Agreement’ between the IRS and $cientology:
“The social benefit and other public benefit entities discussed at pages 1-28 through 1-42 of the June submission along with all subsidiaries, subordinate chapters, subordinate organizations, or sublicensees thereof (e.g., organizations that are permitted to use particular names, copyrights, service marks, and/or technologies) are Scientology-related entities.
Thus, for example,
Citizens Commission on Human Rights,
National Commission on Law Enforcement and Social Justice,
Scientology Defense Fund Trust,
Association for the Better Living and Education,
==> Applied Scholastics Incorporated,<==
Narconon International,
The Way to Happiness Foundation,
and the Foundation for Religious Freedom are Scientology-related entities.
Pages 1-28 through 1-42 are attached as Exhibit VIII-2 to this Agreement."
It should be noted as part of the Closing Agreement between the IRS and Scientology 'Applied Scholastics' was assigned Group Exemption Number (GEN) 4171 for IRS reporting purposes. Which means all 'Applied Scholastics' organizations became tax exempt due to an agreement between the IRS and Scientology, not between the IRS and 'Applied Scholastics'.
Back 20 years ago when I lived in Boston I was looking for a private school for my oldest son age 8 then. Looked at the local RC schools plus a place called Delphi Academy at one end of Boston. Looked great on the outside. I am glad we had a computer at the time because I went to their web site and saw the curriculum was based on LRH technology! I was floor and wanted some way to put them out of business. I was lucky to have a father who loved Sci Fi but hated bad writers like LRH. He also taught me about the lie that was Scientology. Unfortunately the school is still going on in Boston! Hope this podcast will cast light on both sides of the country!
O/T. VIDEO: Scientology Freedom Medal Winner Nation of Islam Minister Abdul Malik Sayyid Muhammad (aka Tony Muhammad) Debunks The Falsehood of Christianity. Part 1.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=AW1Lh2d9X4Y
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I once defined online Scientology as: Objective verification of the theory usually attributed to L. Ron Hubbard, that a very effective means of obtaining wealth is to start your own religion.
https://www.urbin.net/LB/dd.html
Mike,
We here in the UK still see this notice on the link to your podcasts…
“The country you are located in is not supported.
Sorry for the inconvenience, but we do not allow access in your current location.”
It would be nice if you could also post a link the Youtube version because this is the only way we can get to listen to them.
Thanks, A.
They are not on YouTube other than if someone bootlegs them.
I suggest you use a VPN to access. Also check on iTunes or Spotify or elsewhere. I have not heard of this problem before.
I can confirm they are available on iTunes and Spotify in the UK. I think the issue is that iHeart Radio, which is the link you put up, is geoblocked in the UK.
Thanks for clarifying
There are others on Tony’s blog complaining about this.
If you want to achieve your aim of stopping Scientology’s malfeasance don’t you think these blogs should be disseminated as widely as possible without having to use a VPN.
Of course. Unfortunately I don’t control the media to do everything I want. I wish Aftermath was on Netflix internationally too. You’re preaching to the wrong choir…
You can watch Season3 of Aftermath on streaming service Hayu:
https://www.hayu.com/show/78017576399
(It’s £5/month but the first month is free)
you can also purchase season 1 and 2 in the uk on youtube for £8.99 per season. Well worth the money its a fantastic watch no wonder it won well at the emmys 🙂
Try either of these links:
https://open.spotify.com/show/4vKGBFQuKX5QZOzWZKrh3T
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/scientology-fair-game/id1523307706?i=1000538293241
Question for you Mike: I often hear, that Scientologists claim, that if something bad happens to someone it’s always because of something bad that the person did in their previous life. I always wondered what they would say if something bad happened to Tom Cruise or David Miscavige, would they also say that it’s because they did something bad in their previous lives?
Thanks for listing the conditions. One of the biggest mindf—ks Hubbard devised. Specifically the lower conditions.
Geoff I fully agree.
I have always thought that the lower conditions have no comparison with the physical sciences and the universe. Nor with the spirit.
It was yet another lie he had invented to control and introvert people into a sense of guilt.
LMR, you were so right. I was a believer till I almost died. Hubbards lower conditions. “The great control mechanisms in the sky”. He should have been shot for those alone.
LMR,
you were so right. I was a believer till I almost died. Hubbards lower conditions. “The great control mechanisms in the sky”. He should have been shot for those alone.
Geoff thank you. Yes shot.
I have often wondered if he was more borderline insane or a skilled unscrupulous charlatan or naturally evil. Then I concluded that he was all three.
Thank you Loosing my Religion,
So, he wrote all this after he gave up on the whole demon thing, with some guy Allister something. I suppose there wouldn’t have been a lot of money to gain from that.
Peggy, Aleister Crowley had a major influence on Hubbard’s “work.” Scientology could be seen as a “space opera” adaptation of Thelema, though there’s more complexity to it than that.
Instead of demons, for example, Scientology has “body thetans” supposedly infesting or possessing people. And indeed, there would not have been as much of a market for it if it were presented as “magick” without updated spin to appeal to mid-century audiences and baby boomer youth.
Thank you PeaceMaker. I never read any of LRH’s books although I was tempted after I saw an ad for Dianetics, the one with the volcano. Fortunately I didn’t have the money but it was tempting.
Anyway, it makes sense that he adapted his demon experience from the devil made me do it to the thetans are responsible.
I was watching something about the Loch Ness monster and one piece of it was that Aleister tries to summon 5 demons and only got, I think 3 so he took off – maybe he was scared? Not sure but at any rate the lust for power carries its own curse.
Mike, I know there is less than a million to one chance of this happening, but would you ever have Dave Miscavige on the podcast, if he somehow ever agreed to come on?
Sure, we would have any scientologist who agreed to come on. We tried to get anyone on any episode of the Aftermath and have made the same offer on the podcast.
Well.based on.his last interview on A&E channel, quater a century back. On Lisa MacPherson case , he was sitting there like nice kid and the female lawyer was giving all.the answers.
In your Podcast be nice to him otherwise same thing shall happen
Good people have rights too 😉
David Miscavige’s last interview was aired Feb. 14, 1992 on ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel.
That was:
* 935,884,800 seconds ago
* 259,968 hours ago
* 10,832 days ago
* 29 years, 7 months, 27 days ago
David Miscavige is as secretive and paranoid as was Hubbard in his later years. There is virtually no chance of the Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center ever granting another interview. It is reasonable to speculate that he is so resistent to any exposure outside of tightly controlled circumstances, and always entirely within the bubble of Scientology, that he likely has developed an intense psychological insecurity about any situation of high visibility exposure without total control.
It will be fascinating to see how the diminutive dictator maintains his Land of Oz from behind his curtain of secrecy. He is now 61. Will he last as long as Robert Mugabe did (in power to age 93, died at 95)? What will become of Scientology as Miscavige enters his 70s and 80s. How long will he last before starting significant physical and/or mental decline? What sort of succession would he ever be willing to contemplate and how much risk is there when laying such plans? The topic of Miscavige’s and Scientology’s future is rich territory for speculation.
Nightline 1992 interview in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exzmE3vW_Tw
Pedrito, It is true. Apart from the events stopped due to pandemics, but one would have expected a video or message in a period like this at least for those who are still in the bubble.
Instead nothing. Hidden in the darkness of his lair.
No referring to another interview on A& E with reference to Lisa McPherson , may be aired Dec 14.1998 ,where David Miscavige was there along Monique Yingling.
I have seen Yingling interviewed — also a very rare occurrence — and she was just as cringe as DM was with Koppel. But I have no recollection of a Miscavige & Yingling interview on a TV network in the late 90s. Do you have a link? Show title and air date?
I watched in 2015 ,when some one send me the link.
It was devastating, see the nice and down earth fellow got grilled on Lisa McPherson case and then Monique rescued him and became shield for him.
I am sure if Mike uses his connection at A&E ,it can put back on YouTube.
Sorry, A&E has nothing to do with YouTube…
Mike some one uploaded that in past , its no longer available.
Thought A&E might provide the same for uploading .
He might even bring you some muffins!
Listener question for Leah: Who was the guy who threw you off the boat and why were you punished that way? I mean people could have dealt with you by applying Scientology on you the way they claim. They have so much technology and many other less dangerous methods (for example the purification rundown) that they employ in order to fix people who are flawed which renders the entire punishment unnecessary.
“Honestly we are really not part of any religion, OK so we’re sponsored by $cientology but we really aren’t a religious school cross my heart on my grandmother’s grave and hope to die.”
O/T. The book “Neuromatic: Or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain” addresses Scientology, among other topics.
The book has at least three chapters on Scientology:
Engrams, Auditing and the Appeal of Scientology;
Past Lives and the Neuromatic Brain; and
Exteriorization, or the Ritual of Being Three Feet Back of Your Head.
————————————————————–
Amazon: Neuromatic: Or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain
https://www.amazon.com/Neuromatic-Particular-History-Religion-Studies/dp/022679962X/
* * * BEGIN DESCRIPTION * * *
Description
Product Description
John Modern offers a powerful and original critique of neurology’s pivotal role in religious history.
In Neuromatic, religious studies scholar John Lardas Modern offers a sprawling examination of the history of the cognitive revolution and current attempts to locate all that is human in the brain, including spirituality itself. Neuromatic is a wildly original take on the entangled histories of science and religion that lie behind our brain-laden present: from eighteenth-century revivals to the origins of neurology and mystic visions of mental piety in the nineteenth century; from cyberneticians, Scientologists, and parapsychologists in the twentieth century to contemporary claims to have discovered the neural correlates of religion.
What Modern reveals via this grand tour is that our ostensibly secular turn to the brain is bound up at every turn with the religion it discounts, ignores, or actively dismisses. In foregrounding the myths, ritual schemes, and cosmic concerns that have accompanied idealizations of neural networks and inquiries into their structure, Neuromatic takes the reader on a dazzling and disturbing ride through the history of our strange subservience to the brain.
* * * END DESCRIPTION * * *
Archived with two screenshots on ESMBR at:
https://exscn2.net/threads/the-book-neuromatic-or-a-particular-history-of-religion-and-the-brain-addresses-scientology-among-other-topics.4130/
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It would take a lot of study to see exactly what he’s getting at but just as a guess I think he’s making a comparison to the idea that all things “supernatural” are products of computations in the brain being investigated by science in the past and present as opposed to the supernatural existing as “itself”.
It seems he’s referencing the computer model of the brain/mind presented in DMSMH. Whether he references the “spiritual” aspects of scn later in the book can’t be determined from the intro but it might be discussed in the exteriorization section.
Somewhere in one of the references it notes that the Mark V E-meter is discussed, probably as one of the many “scientific instruments” designed to measure and analyze the brain. Ex Scientologists have already investigated and reached their own conclusions on what was true or false and on what they might remain agnostic. Not much or nothing new.
Looking forward to this podcast.
If sometime you have another Q&A podcast I have a question.
If it weren’t for LRH publishing Dianetics would the cult have grown the way it did? Were the earliest followers indoctrinated because they had read that book?
If this has already been asked and answers I apologize, I missed it. I blame the cat.
Peggy. If he hadn’t written that book we wouldn’t be here talking about it.
Scn was officially born in 1954 (but established at the end of 1953) and at that time the rights of the book were no longer in his hands.
So he continued with other “research” and new techniques by creating scn as a church also for the purpose of not paying taxes.
The indoctrination occurred constantly as he continued to make new “shocking discoveries” which he then resold but which then did not have a following and he had to pull more out of the hat to keep people there.
The bottom line is that it never produced any stable clears. In the end they were always a bit reactive or with problems. So he kept digging into the abyss of himself and periodically he would come out with a “Here! Now we have it!”, but it was never like that.
Later on he introduced the ethics to keep control.
He didn’t understand what it is Consciousness.
He was trying to clear the ego.
Thank you Loosing my Religion,
So, he wrote all this after he gave up on the whole demon thing, with some guy Aelister. I suppose there wouldn’t have been a lot of money to gain from that.
Peggy. Right. As a matter of fact he never understood true spirituality. He has spent his life chasing a fixed idea perhaps born precisely in the Aelisterian period. This is why I’ve said he was just handling his ego.
So nothing spiritual but rather (given the historical period) important connections with Nietzsche’s concept of the super human (idea well embraced by the Nazis, also a connection here).