Scientology Cult Tries to Step Up in Celebrity Enclave Malibu
The Cult of Scientology has moved to Malibu, hoping to catch some rich celebrity clients by Helen Parsons
(libertarian)
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Star studded Malibu, California is best known for its celebrities: Pamela Anderson, Bruce Willis, Charlie Sheen, Barbra Streisand, Courtney Cox and David Arquette are just some of the luminaries who call this beachside community home. Recently a pack of local surfers chased paparazzi away from a surfing Matthew McConaughey, while last year drunken Mel Gibson paid a notorious visit to the Malibu jail.
Along with rich and famous residents, Malibu is infamous for fires, floods and mudslidesand a special form of celebrity disaster management: drug and alcohol rehabs. With over a dozen facilities including the pioneer of seaside detoxes, Promises whose former clients allegedly include Charlie Sheen, Lindsey Lohan, and briefly Britney Spears Malibu has become synonymous with the luxurious way to kick one's bad habits.
Malibu also has reputation for healthy living, with organically-inclined, equally wealthy Topanga Canyon just around the bend, a local farmers' market and plenty of natural food and vitamin stores, plus day spas and salons catering to the health and beauty conscious.
So naturally the celebrity-hunting cult of Scientology has moved into this neighborhood, offering a "purification" program at a nail-salon-turned-Scientology-service-station on Pacific Coast Highway.
The 30-day program, known within Scientology as the "Purification Rundown," involves increasingly higher doses of vitamins, followed by half hour jogs on a treadmill and lengthy sits in the on-site sauna. "We have had people actually have LSD trips during our purification program," exclaimed the enthusiastic saleswoman. "Drugs and toxins lodge deep in your tissues and L. Ron Hubbard discovered this is the only way to get them out."
Hubbard's program uses high doses of niacin, up to 5000 mg, which he wrote could remove including radiation exposure, sunburn, allergies, cancer, gastroenteritis, and anxiety. The dosages Hubbard described are within the range known to cause harmful side effects, such as liver damage and stomach ulcers, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. In addition to niacin, increasingly larger doses of vitamins A and D are given to clients who pay $3600 for the month long program.
L. Ron Hubbard, who was not a doctor or any other kind of medical professional, also wrote that gamma radiation could be removed by washing with water and that "There is no such thing as a fat cell," which might come as a surprise to many doctors, Pilates instructors and liposuction experts.
The Purification Rundown is also used as part of Scientology's Narconon program, which is in no way affiliated with the Twelve Step Program Narcotics Anonymous, aka NarcAnon. While Malibu rehabs like Passages may use offbeat methods like "equine therapy," Scientology-based Narconon pushes the Purification program, along with Scientology courses as an expensive way to get off drugsand into the self-described church.
"Scientology's Narconon is an unhealthy method for addressing underlying mental and physical issues that contribute to drug abuse. The saunas and niacin could prove harmful to someone with liver damage, and indoctrinating a recovering addict into a cult via the workbooks used during the detox period when they are particularly vulnerable is repulsive," says a sobriety coach for celebrities who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"We are concerned about having a Scientology group in our area," said a resident interviewed at a local supermarket. "About a month ago I found materials from Anonymous, the group that protests Scientology, in a local coffee place after reading theat Scientology was moving in here. Then I saw Anonymous actually protesting in front of their building and I was all right-on! We don't want Malibu to get like Hollywood with uniformed Scientology goons everywhere, trying to influence politicians and locals with awards and donations and their bogus front groups."
Chimed in another local, "Scientology is not just another faddish thing, it's actually danger to free speech and free thought. Scientologists try to portray themselves as do-gooders. But they are most definitely not."
With such awareness on the rise, it looks like the tide might be ebbing for Scientology in Malibu.
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The views expressed
in this article are those of Helen Parsons only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
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Unfortunately, Helen, your article is rather narrow. To describe it in any other terms would be a disservice to you. You describe Malibu fairly well, although if you've been there, you would see a colorful, bustling beach community. Especially in the summer, people play in the surf and on the beach and that energy is found acoss the street from the beach in ice cream parlors, etc.
When you become a celebrity and are wealthy, you are offered the most enormous temptations of drugs and sex and gambling. People will "drop you a key" (kilogram of drugs) merely for a promise to attend their party. This allows the party-giver to pass the word around that "So - and - so will be there".
So yeah, detox is a pretty big deal with celebrities. And, unfortunately, there is no quick and certain cure for drug or alcohol addiction. Elvis Presely (to name one) died of it, And yet we don't have any sure cure, any certain way, to help people who have succumbed to tempation.
 I say your article is narrow because it notes the failures, it notes the criticisms, it notes rumored down side without a single word about successful detox, or any example of any successful rehabilitation. And the down side is rumored, not documented. For example, you present no documentation that vitamin B3 (niacin), as administered by the program, is harmful.
It attacks an attempted solution to a widely known problem, but ignories all solutions while naming no successes. And isn't documented.
Any program which works with those that are emotionally vulnerable- especially one that receives limited government funding, should be held up to independant oversite. I hold that standard for ANY program.
It's hard to get information from Narconon itself, which claims differing rates without sources:
In 1981, Peter Gerdman, an independent researcher, examined the long-term effects of the Narconon program for 61 drug abusers who graduated from Narconon Huddinge, a facility outside Stockholm. He followed the graduates for four years after they completed the program.
Although 69 percent had been using drugs for 6 to 10 years prior to coming to the Narconon program, and nearly all were addicted to a multitude of different drugs, four years later 78.6 percent were drug free. ["Summary of Evaluations of the Narconon® Program over the Last 30 Years" - <[link edited for length]>]
In other words, 78.6% of the 61 drug abusers had become drug-free. Simple arithmetic shows that this cannot possibly be correct - 78.6% of 61 is 47.946 people - and a closer examination of the study reveals the true facts, which are very different to how Narconon presents them."
 Information obtained through the swedish version of the FOIA provides the following information:
61 individuals entered the programme, of whom
24 left during detoxification;
23 left during other stages;
14 completed the programme.
The overall completion rate was thus 23%.
77% of those who enrolled on the course quit before completing it.
50% of those who did complete it went back onto drugs afterwards (and another 14% somewhat mysteriously didn't know if they had or not).
54% of those interviewed afterwards who did not complete it went back onto drugs.
34% of enrollees said they had completed the programme and relapsed but claimed to be drug free at the moment.
6.6% of enrollees said they had stayed totally drug free for one year afterwards.
All information obtained from [link edited for length], which also has the results from the Russian, Oklahoman, Spanish and Paulo Alto studies on the effectiveness of Narconon.
Mark, I tried to follow your reasoning and your numbers. One of your statements is: in 1981, Peter Gerdman, an independent researcher, examined the long-term effects of the Narconon program for 61 drug abusers who graduated from Narconon Huddinge.
Just after that you say:Â 61individuals entered the programme.
Then you say:Â 14 completed the programme.
Your statements first say, 61 drug abusers graduated. Later you say 61 entered the programme and 14 completed the programme. I have to ask,do you mean to say that entering the program = graduating the program? Because your success rate number is based on your previous numbers, do you see? So your comment is difficult to follow.
Good question, frank. The number 61 is purely a coincidence. The information is referring to two different pieces of information.
For reasons entirely his own, the researcher in the first example chose to study 61 graduates of the program, and has no bearing on the information in the following calculation.
Posted By: Elizabeth Gardner
Date: 2008-10-12 14:55:42
I am not a scientologist. I am an attorney in South Florida with clients, friends and family who are/have been addicted to alcohol and/or drugs. When we sent our family member to Narconon in Oklahoma, we were not full of hope it would make any difference as the last 6 12-stepbased rehabs had failed to effect any change in our loved one's ability to get clean and sober. Most of the time when I refer clients to rehabs based solely on the 12 steps, they relapse. The reports from them are that the rehab didn't really help them and that sitting around talking about drugs and alcohol keeps them focused on that and the notion that they have an incurable disease depressed them and they felt hopeless to ever be able to be free from it.Â
Frankly, our family didn't care if the next rehab asked our loved one to believe pink elephants do exist as long as he was able to get over being an addict and alcoholic. Having a family member attend, I got a good review of what goes on and I have a copy of all the workbooks they used in their classes provided - there was no offensive or religious based information therein. You cannot buy a better rehab for an addict or alcoholic - no other rehab provides the same services for that price and for all the treatment that is provided. Scientology is not promoted at all. Instead, they avoid religious notions of any kind due to the multiple faiths of the clients, and they promote hope, self-esteem, education about drugs and other common sense things that addicts stopped paying attention to. They are the only program that I am aware of that promotes the addict to focus on today and to have some hope that they can control themselves and they can get over addiction.Â
Any chemical or agent that we are exposed to - whether drugs or something we breathed, will be filtered by our bodies and the trash of that process is stored in our fat cells. Your article is absolutely incorrect about the Narconon/LRon theory - he does mention fat cells. ( That is why when we hear that a dead body was found that toxicology testing showed the person had metabolites for drugs, ie, a drug user) . It makes logical sense that even when the using of drugs/alcohol is stopped that the residues or trash from before is remaining in the fat cells. I searched to find a sauna program in any other rehab, but no other rehab provides this type of therapy in America. Why not? Could it be insurance /liability fears? All of the alumni from this program whom I have spoken to are so grateful for it and all unequivocally state that the treatment really affected them and made a difference they never experienced elsewhere even though they are not accepting of scientology.Â
If other treatment providers were smarter, they would offer therapies that clients find useful. Why are people so closed minded just because of the scientology philosophy? There are multiple branches of this rehab in many different states, why not look to their communities to see if it was detrimental to their welbeing?
Posted By: Failure to Communicate
Date: 2009-02-02 16:38:36
Elizabeth Gardner, below find just one recent reason why people should be concerned about Narconon, Criminon and Second Chance, the fraudulent and dangerous Scientology front groups that pose as legitimate rehab programs:
 Second Chance Albuquerque, found to have violated the terms of their lease (and the program's own rules) by taking violent felons as clients, packs up and disappears overnight . . .along with the felons!
http://kob.com/article/stories/s761360.shtml
http://www.koat.com/news/18558035/detail.html
Â
Whoops, looks like they didn't bother to pay their outstanding back rent either. Thanks, Scientology! What a "force for good" you are in our society. Perhaps someday we can look forward to a world where all of the local 'orgs' pack up and abscond in the middle of the night too. Frankly, it would even be worth the unpaid back rent to be rid of this insidious profit-making scam.
Â
For more background - the folks in Albuquerque are no dummies and twigged to the scam pretty quickly - see this news transcript from the time of the opening of the program.
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