I’VE heard L Ron Hubbard, inventor of the mind-destroying cult known as Scientology, called many things: charlatan, bully, crook, liar and chronic drug abuser, to name but a few.
But go to the website of the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights, and there you will find the cynical old fraud described as an “humanitarian and philosopher”.
Kelly Preston, wife of celebrity Scientologist John Travolta, pictured at an anti-psychiatry protest – one of many organised by the Church of Scientology
It beggars belief.
The CCHR says that it:
Documents, investigates and exposes psychiatry’s crimes against their patients. We fight for your right not to be accused of something and then brutally punished by psychiatrists. We champion human rights, freedom from false accusations and from brutality and punishment without offense.
What took me to the site was an email from a reader who was appalled to discover in a copy of the Liberal Democrats Spring Conference agenda and directory that the CCHR will have a presence at the conference in Birmingham later this month.
The Lib Dem brochure’s directory of exhibitors reveals that the CCHR will be on stand b9 – hilarious, given how far from benign Scientology really is.
The directory says that the CCHR is:
An international watchdog in the mental health field since it was co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry Dr Thomas Szasz to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.
The Thomas Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility insists that Thomas Szasz, who was named Humanist of the Year in 1973 by the American Humanist Association:
Is not now nor has he ever been a Scientologist or a member of the Church of Scientology. Dr Szasz co-founded CCHR in the same spirit as he had co-founded – with sociologist Erving Goffman and law professor George Alexander – The American Association for the Abolition for Involuntary Mental Hospitalization.
Scientologists have joined Szasz’s battle against institutional psychiatry. Dr Szasz welcomes the support of Jews, Christians, Muslims, and any other religious or atheist group committed to the struggle against the Therapeutic State. Sharing this battle does not mean that Dr Szasz supports the unrelated principles and causes of any religious or non-religious organization. This is explicit and implicit in Dr Szasz’s work. Everyone and anyone is welcome to join in the struggle for individual liberty and personal responsibility – especially as these values are threatened by psychiatric ideas and interventions.
The person who contacted me included a link which took me to a message on Infomate which reveals that:
CCHR is one of a family of ‘independent’ organisations that can be found hovering around the Scientology hub, which includes Applied Scholastics and the comically named Criminon and Narconon.
If the Applied Scholastics stand at Conservative conference a couple of years ago is anything to go by, literature from all these organisations will be included, as will plenty of copies of the L Ron Hubbard-penned The Way to Happiness.
Of course, most Lib Dem conference attendees will treat this stall in the way they treat most commercial exhibitors: with polite contempt. But I am profoundly uncomfortable about the way these organisations tend to present themselves as secular and independent when they are anything but. It is a trap for the unwary …
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
March 4th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS HARM CHILDREN!
So say the lunatics who fill their children’s heads with nonsense about Xenu and Body Thetans.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Thomas Szasz should be publicly denouncing CCHR and the Scientologists, shouting from the rooftops that he wants no association with them whatsoever. Scientologists are blind with conspiracy theory, in a way that is itself mentally unhealthy. Top brass have used violent rhetoric to describe the way they want to destroy psychiatrists; it’s not acceptable for a medical professional to tolerate that behavior.
Neda Stotland, director of the American Psychiatric Association, has been moved to describe CCHR as a hate group.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pu0iVjJGwE
Any group that calls psychiatry “An Industry of Death” should immediately be denounced for their dangerous views, not tolerantly accepted.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:10 am
Yes Ron may have been all the things they claim!
BUT he is still smarter and better and gooder(not a real word)
then the rich stupid politicians that allowed it to be named a religion in the 1st place!!!! Remember your cult is just a hobby until you get is approved as a religion.
I am willing to bet that the INNER circle of the Co$ is where the brothern are informed keep acting like you believe this BS and you will continue to get very rich off the dumb-ass morons collectively known as the ‘USA’. And I believe that for every religion.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:24 am
Speaking as one who takes meds (I live with bipolar affective disorder) these cunts have no idea what its like to be ill! Apart from being delusional, without my meds I would not be able to function. Cunts like these need a FUCKING good kicking imho.
March 5th, 2010 at 5:18 am
Sorry for swearing like a trooper but ive seen friends end up on section because xStIans told them that they didnt need to take their meds because ‘god would cure them’. Wankers the fucking lot o them.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:46 am
Scientology’s founder, L Ron Hubbard, had to take an anti-psychiatry stance because he had a number of mental illnesses himself. If he had submitted to a psychiatric examination any time after about 1947, he would have ended up institutionalized. He knew this, and he devoted the rest of his life to creating a mumbo-jumbo alternative to mental wellbeing, where he could rule his own little fantasy world.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I think Google U should be a mandatory class for all those involved in politics, govt, and the media. Five minutes extra care could have saved a lot of grief.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
I was in waterstones the other day and saw L ron hubbard books on sale in the sci fi section, one of them was battlefield earth which was turned into the peice of shit movie of the same name, the only reason it was made in the first place wwas because the CoS sent out it’s goon squad to harrass film execs into funding and making it.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
New design for CCHR anniversary event
http://www.facebook.com/photo......7826552328
The company is a Scientology related entity. (W.I.S.E.)
March 6th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
There has been a big push to promote Scientology front groups like CCHR. Another front, ‘Youth For Human Rights,’ makes false claims about its association with the UN and targets children and young adults.
Scientology’s attempt to position itself as a “champion of human rights” is a joke. The punch line will be three cases in California where Marc and Claire Headley, and Laura Decrescenzo are suing the cult for years of slave labor, human rights abuses, coerced abortions and deprivation and imprisonment.
Regardless of the front group, Scientology is still at the core.
March 7th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
I knew a poor woman with serious mental problems who would flush all her medication down the toilet on a regular basis just because some deluded evangelist told her that “the Lord” had cured her. Whilst not uncritical of psychiatric medicine, it was a sad sight to behold, Alec.
March 7th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Good job it’s the LibDem conference that these people are attending. No danger of anyone noticing them there!