Narconon: Scientology is out looking for children

Tutoring to lure them in

Scientology ® is out looking for children in the
area with the Fuerth "Help" institute

Fuerth, Germany
August 6, 1999
Nuernberger Nachrichten

Sect Commissioner warns parents - businessman from
Kleeblattstadt plays important role

by Reinhard Schmolzi

Fuerth - Scientology is out looking for children in the area: to lure them in, tutoring courses are used which are being offered by the newly founded institution, "Help" (help with education and learning problems) in Fuerth. Concealed behind the institute is the "Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE ®)", the department, according to the Federal Assembly's Enquete Commissioner, which is responsible in the psycho-concern for education and training. "Help" is directed by Fuerth businessman Andreas Weigmann, who is listed in internal Scientology catalogs as a highly decorated member.

"Test troubles?," "Good grades without extra help! Learn how to learn" Along with that a telephone number, nothing more. With this and similar small advertisements "Help" is advertising its courses at school's close in the local newspapers. When the number is called, a woman's friendly, recorded voice states that simple solutions are available which make learning fun and easy. To receive informational material, the caller is to leave his address.

It is not until a second look at the small print in "Help's" letterhead paper that one discovers the true string-pullers hiding behind the offer. "ABLE" is quite high on the list of Scientology cover companies which bustle about in the areas of education and training. Along with them are "Applied Scholastics International (ASI)" through which English correspondence courses are offered, the "Parents' Association for the Advancement of the Application of Study Technology (FAST)," the "Center for Individual and Effective Learning (ZIEL)" "Narconon," ® which is involved with youth at risk with drugs, and the action committee, "Say No to Drugs - Say Yes to Life."

Sect experts state that the only goals of these organizations are to spread the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard among the people, to recruit new members and to make money. That is what the tutoring market segment is being used for. According to a study by the Institute of German Economy (IW), in Cologne parents pay 1.8 billion marks per year for additional instruction.

Emergency situations exploited

Making money, according to Ludwig Lanzhammer, sect commissioner of the Catholic city church in Nuernberg, is not the problem: "Anybody who drops their child off at 'Help' for tutoring has delivered him to the Scientologists." And that is said to be particularly dangerous because they are tuned in to detecting emergency situations and then shamelessly exploiting them. Childhood fantasies, stated the Enquete Commission report, is defined in Hubbard's book "Child Dianetics" as psychically ill. Former members report that children, once in the clutches of Scientology, have their ongoing relations to their parents encumbered if the parents have not already been gotten to. Children are taught that the work for the organization, which is striving for world domination, gets first priority.

Scientology apparently also has absolute priority with Andreas Weigmann, the Fuerth businessman. Documents available to our newspaper show that the jeweler has been taking expensive courses for years for the L. Ron Hubbard prescribed "Way to Happiness" in preparation for becoming an immortal superman, called a "Thetan." He is even listed as a "Patron Meritorious" on the Scientology honor roll. This title is granted to those who have donated at least $250,000.

Weigmann also apparently intends to spread the teachings of Scientology in his own business. Members of his staff, it can be concluded from a letter available to our newspaper, are advised to take Communications seminars (they amount to joining the Scientology course pyramid) at the Nuernberg MTS company, Management TOP System, which is managed by the chairman of the Scientology Bavaria association, Gerhard Boehm.

Weigmann wrote in a thank you letter to Boehm, "Several of them have also applied the teachings at home successfully on their spouses and and children. We are enjoying the advancement of training."

Weigmann himself does not at all dispute the the academic principle behind "Help" is based on the "technology" of L. Ron Hubbard. He himself had been educated by Applied Scholastics, he responded to our inquiry. Besides that, the offer from "help" is not directed just at children, but also to adults, he stated, and also that the "Scientology Church" was not participating in either the organization nor the instruction of "Help." Weigmann also disputed having talked employees of his business into attending training.

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