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Ludwig Alpers (Freewinds Port Captain) playing harmonica with Ras Abdular of the Wilton's Yard Association.
St Lucians beware! Scientology is coming!” That was the cry coming from a passerby near the Derek Walcott Square in the heart of Castries on Tuesday. It was the official launch of The Way To Happiness Program in St Lucia. Before the meat and potatoes of the program are delved into, organizers note that although the primary book is written by the founder of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard, the program is in no way linked to Scientology.
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science-fiction author L Ron Hubbard starting in 1952 as a successor to his earlier self help system, Dianetics. Hubbard characterized Scientology as a religion in 1953, he incorporated the Church of Scientology in Camden, New Jersey.
Scientology teaches that people are immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature. Its method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counseling known as auditing, which stemmed from Dianetics, in which practitioners aim to consciously re-experience painful or traumatic events in their past in order to free themselves of their limiting effects. A large number of organizations overseeing the application of Scientology have been established, the most notable of these being the Church of Scientology. Scientology sponsors a variety of social service programs. These include a set of moral guidelines expressed in a brochure called The Way to Happiness, the Narconon anti-drug program, the Criminon prison rehabilitation program, the Study Tech education methodology, a volunteer organization, and a business management method.
Paula James, coordinator of the National Youth Mentoring Program spoke to the STAR on Tuesday and told us she expects the controversy surrounding the book’s author, however, her main focus is on reaching out to St Lucians. She maintains this is not a religious based program. It’s common sense.
“We are continuing what we started last week on the Freewinds cruise ship, teaching the 21 precepts to happiness. These are simple precepts that all of us grew up with; be kind, don’t steal, don’t murder, brush your teeth, eat healthy, look after yourself and don’t treat others in any way you would not like them to treat you. Today we launched it and brought the general public so they can see and hear what is going on to try to get young persons and adults alike to receive that message without any barriers or any race, religion, colour. It’s just that something needs to be done. If we don’t do something at a youth mentoring level, we are doing nothing to try to help. This is especially geared to trying to help the crime situation facing the country. We are losing our young people every weekend.”
Singer Michele Hendricks entertains with some help from local students.
James has been working arduously to ensure that at least two lives are touched by the program and plans are already in the pipeline to extend the program. So far, James said she has the backing of RISE St Lucia, the Royal St Lucia Police Force, CAPS and the Boys Training Centre. “Apart from this launch, we need to sit down with the different religious denominations for us to talk, look at other ways how we can combine and how we can move forward, how we can work with our youths in St Lucia because I cannot do it alone. It has to be a nationwide thing and we all have to make an effort to change our lifestyle. If we don’t, we headed down the wrong road. We appear to be heading down the wrong road already. It will be a continuous program once we have everybody’s blessings and everybody is comfortable with what is happening.”
James has also received the support of the Wilton’s Yard Association and a member of the organization, Peter Reynolds, told the STAR how he was exposed to the program.
“I found out about the way to happiness through Ms Paula James and other individuals in the Ministry of Social Transformation, Youth and Sports. Last Tuesday, we attended an all day seminar aboard the ship and I was quite impressed with the entire program because it’s not based on any religion or any church per se and the principles that are found in the program are all principles that we know, they’re in every any scripture that we’ve read or come from good moral standards. We will be attending the seminar aboard the ship in the near future. Also, they’ve asked for a contingent of our young people, our kids, to come and take in a movie.”
Jazz superstar Michele Hendricks entertained the audience along with the Freewinds band. The crowd grooved to some of Hendricks hits but there was more emphasis on a Bob Marley based repertoire.
The songbird said, “The way to happiness campaign is being launched in St Lucia and it’s an effort to infuse the society with morals and ethics and ways to guide the youth to a better life. Anything that is along that line, I love to lend my efforts to. I have been working with Freewinds for almost seven years now so I’ve known about it for quite a while. It’s been done all over the world. It’s just that it’s been taking a while getting to the islands. People have certain feelings about a different group bringing information but it’s just a common sense way of life; a guide to living that we want to expose the youth to. Read the booklet or watch the DVD and you’ll see it’s about how to make yourself a better person and in turn you’ll make life better for the people around you.”
The 72-page booklet contains lessons aimed at becoming a wholesome individual. Guidelines such as don’t be promiscuous, set a good example, support a government designed and run for all people and be worthy of trust are all expounded on in addition to the rest of the twenty-one precepts. Interested persons are invited to attend the seminars and go to www.thewaytohappiness.org.
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I’m sure the individual local scientologists are motivated by good intentions.
However the true nature of the so-called church is to gather resources for the king-pins at the top of the organization. If they can’t get financial resources directly out of the people they are marketing to, they will try to convince them they need to join the organization and perhaps go work in a different country. A new life in the US would be very attractive until one considers the near slave wages and conditions they will work in. Check out ‘infinitecomplacency.blogspot’ for the story of Claire Headley and her lawsuit against the organization of scientology. She is one of the many many people whose lives have been seriously affected by abuse from the top.
Good luck to the good people of St. Lucia. Be very careful who you give your contact information to…scientology is VERY persistent, and won’t take no for an answer. They are very good at hiding who they are until people have been hooked into the scam. The Way to Happiness is but one method they use. Google is your friend.
While the Way to Happiness booklets may appear benign at first glance, this little banality is intended as a “first strike” to get Scientology viewed as a benevolent social betterment group by communities.
As one who has studied this cult and its front groups for over a decade, I would warn people to stay clear of anything to do with them. The Ten Commandments are superior, and TWTH’s advices, such as “Try not to hurt each other” falls far short of a code to live by.
barb, all religion is cult. Your invisible god is not better than theirs. Christianity kidnapped us form Africa, enslaved us, brained washes us, raped us f our real heritage and culture then granted us “independence” So Keep Studying.
While you are urging people to stay clear of anything to do with this booklet because you have studied cults, what is your alternative? We live in a democracy and our laws gives us the right to associate with any group we so desire.
It is obvious that our non-cult religious organisation have failed to influence our people against crime and maybe this so called cult saw the opportunity and took it…..
This is our country and we must take responsibility for it….
What Barb said…
If the organisation calling itself the church of scientology is setting up in your back yard watch out. Although the individuals are mostly well meaning the organisation is corrupt, corrupting and dangerous; it takes well meaning people and turns them in to recruitment (money making) machines for the organisation.
The money going to the organisation only benefits the leader, David Miscavige and those in his favour, mean while the organisation ruins lives and destroys families. It is very controversial in Europe and USA and generally considered a cult. The organisation is also the subject of a number of recent court cases and law suits.
Do not support this dangerous organisation! You can improve yourself better for much less money by reading self help books; nothing the organisation teaches is special, unique to the organisation or profound, it is all based on a mix of philosophies, self help guides and early Freudian therapy. The only thing the organisation does for you is charge you lots of money for their “teachings”.
I, like barb, who posted a comment, have researched the scientology organizations for years.
Crimanon, Narcanon, Study Tech (’Tech’ is scientology lingo for procedures created by Hubbard), these and many more are front groups for scientology.
They indeed are to promote scientology, funnel funds back to scientology, and are a method to infiltrate society as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The article represents the work of the public relations department of scientology. I urge your readers to explore and research these topics using the Google search. Find the Wikipedia page for the topic and see the truth.
The scientology wiki is helpful on these topics as well.
Thank you,
Mark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera_in_Scientology_doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_to_Happiness
I’ve read the way to happiness and think it provides quite a bit of valuable information for life. It’s much more extensive than the ten commandments. The commandments are essential and the way to happiness provides another tool to assist those to live a productive and valuable life.
If the message is positive, embrace it and learn from it.
Currently, our youth need all the positive messages they can get
I was on the square and I found the teachings easy to absorb because
they were delivered in a manner that the children could easily understand - not long speeches to send them to sleep. They can enhance what they are already learning from home, school and church.
In my opinion, the activity did’nt seem like indoctrination. Was there something I missed?
Hats off to Mrs James and her group for this initiative. We need more positivity going around.
As Barb noted above, this is intended to soften people up to accept Scientology. Do some research and Google to find out how horrible this organization actually is and what they are about, don’t just accept what they say.
There is so much good information out there from all around the world, including the NY Times and other media on this
A good place to start:
many abuses - http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/
good catalog of media on subject - http://www.xenutv.com/blog/
NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/us/07scientology.html
I love St Lucia and I don’t want to see people, especially children, hurt by this dangerous organization.
The Freewinds is destroying the environment of Bonaire . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh0yRvA_NHo&feature=player_embedded
Not to mention the health of the thousands of people that have sailed on her . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freewinds
Stay away from the cult.
Scientology is a dangerous thing. TWTH is totally connected to them. If it has L. Ron’s name on it, it is owned and controlled by the Scientology cult. This is a dangerous group. I suggest you read the excellent New York times and St. Petersburg times articles about the beatings, forced abortions and other terrible things that went on in there. I also note that L. Ron Hubbard broke every rule in that little book of his too. Again read the articles I mentioned. They go into some of the abuses of L. Ron Hubbard as well as the current leader David Miscavige.
Are the ten commandments the only source of wisdom and advice? Does being a “cult” mean that they have nothing sensible to offer? Why are we so closed-minded in this country?
Scientology does’nt have anything to offer, it’s only a money-making scam.
The only people who hjave anything good to say about Scientology are the
Scientologists who patrol the internet and say,”Gee, this does’nt look like
brainwashing” in the comments section.
I’ve not only done a lot of research on Scientology, but have known both Scientologists and Ex-Scientologists, and have observed things about them on my own. The members of Scientology are full of good intentions and really want to help people, but the organization is composed of policies on how to operate solely to make money into the organization. This includes front groups, hard-sell, and coming up with excuses on how to milk money out of the common Scientologist. They are not open about their beliefs and practices until you’ve paid a good sum of money in order to take courses and work your way up the pyramid. It’s a bait-and-switch sort of process.
It isn’t just so much that they’re a cult, but also that it was originally declared a religion by L. Ron Hubbard to avoid an investigation by the AMA against Hubbard’s false medical claims. This religious cloak was also later used as an excuse to commit crimes and eventually receive religious tax exemption. It’s really nothing more than a self-help program using a disproven “science” and tricking ordinarily intelligent people into paying their way to “salvation”. Not to mention that the IRS grant of tax exemption was an under-the-table agreement made after 26 years of vicious lawsuits against it, in which if they are granted exemption, they MUST keep a promise of refunding if their ex-members ask for one… a promise in which has not been kept.
Some independent Scientologists (those who left the organization but still believe in Scientology) would claim that just because it doesn’t match the traditional definition of a religion, doesn’t mean that it isn’t one. Well, if they match some kind of new definition of “religion”, would an alternative-psychological/medical, paid-for, course-taking organization fall under the umbrella of religion?
There’s a lot more to be learned that i simply cannot fit into this reply box, but actual documentation of all of this can be found on the internet,…
Hooray for the Star!
Anything that raises awareness of morals and does it with common sense should be applauded. I notice that the few naysayers seem to be operating from a small dark room of despondency. Maybe they should read and apply the Way to Happiness themselves, especially the part about “do not tell harmful lies.” If there is anything nefarious about promoting morals, I’m sure the bright people of St Lucia will spot it. Take what you can use to make a better life; anything else has little value.
In case there is any doubt, I am a Scientologist and I help people with this miraculous technology every day. A woman I met recently had a wild fear of going to the dentist, and in less than two hours we handled the problem so well she went and had a cavity filled the very next day. Another who was getting panic attacks was able to trace the source of her problem with my help and now knows more about herself than she could have found on her own. Since the list of concrete examples is practically endless, one can only conclude that those who “overlook” the fact that Scientology is an immensely practical, indispensable tool for survival are not on your side, but are pushing some other agenda.
The “concrete examples” talks about are the marketing “success stories” that Scientology uses to sell itself. Never mind that all they are is anectdotal evidence without any proof. But the Scientologist who patrol the Internet are trying to sell Scientology, even in the comments sections.