by Terry Melanson ©, Nov. 6th, 2007

Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious … It is dangerous because it is out to capture people, especially children and impressionable young people, and indoctrinate and brainwash them so that they become the unquestioning captives and tools of the cult … The auditing – the processing – begins at an early age. […] In “The Second Dynamic” 1982 edition under the heading “Children’s Confessional Ages 6 – 12” is a “processing check for use on children”. It is a very long and vigorous interrogation. […] I agree with Dr. Clark [an expert witness] that ‘Scientology training is training for slavery’. – Justice Latey, in a 1984 High Court decision

The other day while data mining the interweb, I came across an online PDF of Charlotte Iserbyt’s The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America . I’d forgotten how good that book is and got caught up reading it once again. As I reached the passage that highly recommends the book The Leipzig Connection , this time I decided to see whether it was available on Amazon.

It was; and the first review immediately caught my attention:

An Essential Guide to Understanding This Book, June 7, 2001 … This book, although rooted in fact, was part of a continuing attempt by the Church of Scientology to discredit professional psychology and psychiatry by any means possible. The book was published by the Delphian Foundation, a Scientology organization that runs a church school outside a small town in rural Oregon, and its sole purpose is to slander, by any means possible, modern psychology and anyone and everything associated with it. While there was indeed a Wilhelm Wundt who was influential in the growth of experimental psychology, and while this new technology was backed financially as part of the Rockefeller family’s attempt to clear its name through public philanthropy, what underlies the thesis of the book is the implicit theory of conspiracy that has played such a large role in the growth of Scientology and in the activities of the group as a whole. I would advise most strongly that the message of this book be taken with a grain of salt, as the book as written is not what it purports to be and its underlying purpose leads one on a different trajectory intellectually and factually than it might otherwise appear to do. Buyer beware – question everything in this book, particularly all supposed “facts” as presented . – By LRH “lance2289”

That’s quite the charge. It’s the first time I’d heard of the Scientology connection, but it turns out others have known about it for some time and it’s easy enough to corroborate. In short, the reviewer is absolutely correct.

As early as I can confirm, The Leipzig Connection was first published in 1978 by Delphian Press. Antony Sutton said it was first published in 1967:

The Leipzig Connection is the title of an excellent little booklet by Lance J. Klass and Paoli Lionni, published by The Delphian Press, Route 2, Box 195, Sheridan, Oregon 97378 ($4 00 postpaid), The book came out in 1967 and was the first to trace the Wundt link It has more detail on Wundt than this memorandum, but, of course, is not concerned with The Order [of the Skull and Bones]. America’s Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Skull & Bones (Trine Day: 2002), p. 81. – Antony C. Sutton,(Trine Day: 2002), p. 81.

Both Iserbyt and Sutton mentioned nothing about Delphian Press being a Scientology front, however – probably because they didn’t know. The first name assumed by the publishing house was Delphian Press; today The Leipzig Connection is published under Heron Books.

There’s some surprisingly well-sourced articles at Wikipedia concerning these fronts. Heron Books:

Heron Books is an assumed business name of Delphi Schools Inc., under which they publish many paperback books for teachers, students, and home schoolers, as well as single-subject dictionaries for all grade levels. It is a trademark owned by Northwest Research, Inc., which is another assumed business name of Delphi Schools Inc. Several of Heron Books published works for students are based on the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.

Delphi Schools:

Delphi Schools, Inc. operates private schools that utilize the study methods known as Study Tech that were developed by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The headquarters for Delphi Schools, Inc. are located at 20950 SW Rock Creek Road, Sheridan, Oregon 97378, which operates under the assumed business name of Heron Books. This is also the address where the founding school, The Delphian School, is located. It was incorporated in 1973 as the Delphi Foundation, and changed to the present name in 1987. Delphi Schools says that its schools teach using “The Delphi Program”, which “is a unique, integrated approach to learning.” The Study Technology is licensed through the Scientology related group Applied Scholastics. Several Delphi schools use the Heron Basics Program of Heron Books for instruction.

One can easily confirm these connections by going to the official site of Heron Books, as well as The Delphian School of Sheridan, Oregon and typing in a site-specific search through Google, specifically querying the keyword “Hubbard.” (“Scientology”, not surprisingly, is never mentioned outright – anywhere, at both these sites.)

A sampling from a Heron Books search:

… we highly recommend that students and parents understand and use the study skills covered in these books by L. Ron Hubbard: Learning How to Learn (ages 6-11), Study Skills for Life (ages 12-17) or The Basic Study Manual (ages 18 and up). The Heron Curriculum is effective and practical with all students Heron Books Curriculum FAQ

Derived from the works of L. Ron Hubbard, this picture book teaches a young student to help his fellow students master the material they study. Heron Books Item Listing

This is a very useful course based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard that enhances the study of history. The student learns the importance of ideas and individuals in advancing or hindering the advance of civilization, then does short history researches that illustrate these concepts. Heron Books Item Listing

A sampling from a search of The Delphian School site:

Delphi Schools, Inc. owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Hubbard, whose extensive writings on education have guided our work in education and provide fundamental guidelines and policy for the schools The Delphian School – Our Philosophy – About L. Ron Hubbard

Applied Scholastics is helping both children and adults learn how to learn, utilizing methods that have proven to be effective at all levels of educational development. These methods, known as Study Technology, were developed by author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard. A series of books published by Applied Scholastics International is designed to present Study Technology and other educational material developed by L. Ron Hubbard in a form that is readily usable by both educators and students of all ages. The Delphian School – Our Philosophy – Applied Scholastics® – Study Technology

A more indepth investigation into Scientology’s Heron Books, Applied Scholastics, etc., can be found here. In a section titled “Why Scientology wants its hands on your kid?,” there’s a revealing quote from a Scientology manual:

Why is education so important? The Jesuits (an order within the Roman Catholic Church well known for their activism) exported the policy of starting Church schools in areas where they wished to introduce their religion. The reasons are obvious. By educating a child into one’s own beliefs, one gradually takes over a whole new generation of a country and can thus influence, in the long term, the development and growth of that country. The Jesuits were very successful at this strategy. – Impact (an International Association of Scientologists’ publication), “In Search of Truth”, Issue 7, pg. 49, 1986

Well, it’s hardly surprising L. Ron Hubbard used as a guide the conspiratorial, pedagogical methods of the Jesuits – as had Adam Weishaupt and Cecil Rhodes before him. Even more curious, though – perhaps enough to give a stroke to those who propagate the Jesuits-rule-world meme – is the fact that the Delphian School at Sheridan, Oregon seems to have originally been a Jesuit school for novices. According to Father Cornelius Michael Buckley, S.J., there was a Jesuit named Joseph Piet who was a provincial for the Order on the Pacific coast of America. Under Piet’s direction, a “novitiate in Sheridan, Oregon, was established — it was subsequently closed and in 1974 sold to the Church of Scientology” (Cornelius Michael Buckley, When Jesuits Were Giants: Louis-Marie Ruellan, S.J. (1846-1885) and Contemporaries , Ignatius Press, 1999, p. 373).

I encourage the reader to investigate the foregoing Jesuit/Scientology connection in greater detail. There might just be more to this than meets the eye, especially after discovering Hubbard’s appreciation for the Order – in particular, perhaps Scientology’s Delphian Curriculum was cribbed directly from the machinations of Jesuit pedagogy. This article, however is meant as a data dump only; a preliminary investigation into some interesting recent discoveries.

To wrap it up then, The Leipzig Connection was/is indeed published by a Scientology organization. It is not clear whether the authors (Paolo Lionni and Lance J. Klass) were Scientologists or not. I think it’s more subtle than this. As far as I’ve been able to confirm through excerpts on the web, the book doesn’t endorse Hubbard nor Scientology, per se. What is obvious is the fact that the book documents the infiltration of Experimental Psychology and Behaviorism into the educational establishment. Since Scientology places so much importance on controlling people through education, combined with its avowed hatred of psychiatry, The Leipzig Connection seems like a perfect book to promote. The exact methods used by the Wundts, the Young Hegelians, the Deweys, the G. Stanley Halls, the Skinners, etc., need to be replaced – according to the technocratic madmen running the cult called Scientology – by the equally insidious techniques of L. Ron Hubbard. Of course they would want to expose the competition!

In connection with this, I feel a duty to inform the wary reader of the site sntp.net (in which large excerpts of the book in question can be read). With a title such as Say No To Psychiatry – The Danger and Harm of the Sham Pseudoscience Known As Psychiatry, in hindsight it seems obvious that it’s run by a Scientologist. In the past I’ve linked to some stories on the site; you’ll find there a good assortment of articles inveighing against the state of education, elite hegemony, the hegelian dialectic, and the dangers of humanism. But there’s another side …

The WHOIS record for sntp.net:

Registrant:

Zimmer

Eugene T. Zimmer

3959 Van Dyke Road, PMB #258

Lutz, FL 33558

US

+1.7278258677

37525@whois.gkg.net

Eugene T. Zimmer is otherwise known as Gene Zimmer, and the following can be found at the foot of every page on the site: “©Gene Zimmer 1999”. If you go to the following webpage, it is claimed that Gene Zimmer is a high-ranking Scientologist: an “Auditor” and a “Clear” who has either taken, or is the instructor of the OT (Operating Thetan) Doctorate Course; further, this page says he was a former Sea Org member, and links to a rather lengthy document he supposedly penned. Morever, again utilizing the in-site search feature reveals Mr. Zimmer’s allegiance: site:www.sntp.net scientology || hubbard. … Reader beware.