Relief has arrived in Haiti this week in the form of planes of Scientologists who will help Haitians heal spiritually and Evangelical Christians bringing solar-powered bibles.
Scientologists in yellow jackets fanned out over the island to introduce Haitians to their faith as “volunteer ministers” who claim that (with the power of touch) they can reconnect nervous systems.
It reportedly cost $400,000 to fly 80 ministers with 50 Haitian-American-doctors to the island. A minister named Sylvie from Paris explained, “when you get a sudden shock to a part of your body the energy gets stuck, so we re-establish communication within the body by touching people through their clothes, and asking people to feel the touch.” She claims that she was able to save a man’s leg from being amputated through such healing touching.
For the full story, click here.
For Haitians who have had sufficient touching, they can turn to one of the solar-powered bibles supplied by The Faith Comes By Hearing.
The organization insists that action was needed to provide “faith, hope and love through God’s word in audio”.
For the bible story, click here.
Pinandpuller first and then TomD.Arch beat me to the point. The
Scientologists always follow the money, since from Hubbard on it’s been a scam. As Tom said it’s all about PR.
Ah, Pinandpuller more or less beat me to it. Don’t worry too much about $ologists doing too much damage in Haiti. What they’re currently doing is all about generating PR for consumption in the rich world. Their business model doesn’t support a wide-spread or long-term sales force in a poor area.
More interestingly, this seems to point towards basically “anybody” being allowed into Haiti.
It doesn’t seem like Haiti is affluent enough to sustain Scientolgy.
rafflaw: I got surprised by your statement that they are religious extremist. I checked Wikipedia, and it seems that they are indeed considered a religion in the US law… Still, I wouldn’t give them that much credit.
One has to wonder what planes got turned down by the Haiti airport to make space for this one at these busy times.
Byron,
“small wedding tackle” I had to google this up to make sure that I understood the term. I was tooooo embarrassed to ask. I now know and it is what I thought. LOL.
So here you go….
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-tMDXSeyog&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
E-meters suck the life out of Haitians, they are down there for the express purpose of mining misery.
E-meters suck up your mojo, it’s a fact. That is why Scientologists all have small wedding tackle.
From the linked article about the VMs:
“[Elweels’] right leg was amputated below the knee and his left leg was severely bruised and swollen.
(…)
“One hour ago he had no sensation in his left leg, so I explained the method to him, I touched him and after a while he said ‘now I feel everything’,” said Sylvie.
“Otherwise they might have had to amputate his other leg. Now his sister knows the method and she can do it.”
As PalMD on ScienceBlogs points out, these touch assists are a good way to spread infection. And they will certainly not be a factor in whether the gentleman’s left leg can be saved. For anyone wondering “what’s the harm” in touch assists (or reiki or other woo), it is that it displaces proven medical techniques and is commonly performed by people who have no proper understanding of the germ theory of disease. It is quite significant that Scientology’s fraud conviction in France last year included practicing medicine without a licence.
Did these goons with their E-meters and Bibles consume bandwidth at the airport that could have been consumed by airplanes bringing in fresh water, canned spam, Marines, and antibiotics (and/or whatever my $10 text message paid for)?
Even as an ex-Scientologist, this whole thing seems very strange to me. Scientology auditing first needs to have “rudiments” in — Are they thirsty? Are they well rested? Well fed? Haven’t had drugs or alcohol in 24 hours? Per Scn theory, auditing will not properly occur without rudiments being in.
So it strikes me that in an crisis like Haiti, no standard auditing could occur anyway, even if one were inclined to believe it worked.
Obviously, therefore, it’s a meaningless PR stunt, though they are also apparently bringing food (rice and beans).
For an interesting take on the whole post-9/11 evolution of the Scn VM program, this post about “The Church of Disaster Capitalism is pretty interesting, though it’s worth noting that pretty much all the commenters are people who’ve left the CofS, many of whom still consider themselves some stripe of Scientologist.
Here is another look at the problem with the Scientology Volunteer Ministers trying to help, via Marina Hyde at the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2010/jan/22/john-travolta-scientologists-haiti
Oh, and this VM flight left without the 70 medical doctors they had arranged to transport. They did, however, take the doctors’ medical equipment.
http://www.ny1.com/8-queens-news-content/top_stories/112541/boarding-mixup-grounds-medical-mission-to-haiti
While I don’t believe in the touch healing, at least these folks are there and trying to assist in some compassionate way. I’ve read where they are additionally sending/delivering food, water and antibiotics.
Once when I was assisting a group of Baptist in a disaster relief situation (whom by the way have their own agenda too) we ran across a group of Scientologist. Many in our group made comments similar to the thoughts in posts above, but I pointed out to those gentleman as I have here. At least they are here and involved, plus they purchased/brought you your lunch and water. The gentlemen reluctantly nodded in agreement.
Stephen P and Elaine M.,
You both are correct. Our devout Christian leader couldn’t possibly acutally live the tenets of Christ.
Not many things are lower than the contemptible SScientologists. Haven’t the Haitians got enough trouble? Now they expect to burden them with their own personal ruin to keep them on the leash.
rafflaw, Pat is busy tending to his diamond mines.
empirecookie–
Vultures they are indeed! Preying on people who have been traumatized. Some people are shameless.
rafflaw–
Pat may not want to set foot in a country where the people made a pact “to” the devil.
Remember, empirecookie, they’re just salesmen trying to peddle their products. They gotta go where the leads are. It’s a defective product that doesn’t work and is being marketed using false claims, phoney testimonials and unrealistic expectations, but they’re neither the first, last nor only vacuum cleaner/used car salesmen running that game.
What do you expect from religious extremists? BTW, When is Pat Robertson going to show up in Haiti?
What vultures
I even heard that John Travolta and Tom Cruise flew in to help — without the use of technology!
Solar Powered Bibles? I would say WTF, but that might seems in bad taste.
Come on now they need good PR just like the Pope. And except for poor folks that can’t move, the extremely rich usually inhabit these islands. They are just doing the preliminary missionary work. The work of the chosen one.