Scientology Scrutiny Was Uncritical and Unquestioning

To the editors:



The Fifteen Minutes’ scrutiny “Why Not Scientology” (Oct. 13), by Annie M. Lowrey, presented only one narrow side of a disturbing organization. Lowrey’s human-interest journalism approach, focusing on an individual’s experience with Scientology, ignores the darker sides of the organization: its pseudo-scientific approach to medicine that has led to inadequate health care for the children raised in some Scientologist families; the criminal charges brought against senior officers of the organization’s leadership, including the founder’s wife, for harassing Internal Revenue Service officers while trying to obtain status as a non-profit organization; the hierarchical structure that only allows members to learn greater “insight” into the religion’s true beliefs after they have spent significant sums of money on auditing and other Scientology services; the restrictions on free discussion of their beliefs among outsiders through the rabid enforcement of copyrights on their texts. The list goes on. We hope for more responsible reporting in the future.



MATTHEW R. GEORGE ’07

ALEXANDER N. HARRIS ’08

MATTHEW T. VALENTE ’08

October 12, 2005



The writers are president, vice-president, and minister of truth, respectively, of the Harvard Secular Society.