“Scientology is a religion that offers a precise path leading to a complete and certain understanding of one’s true spiritual nature and one’s relationship to self, family, groups, mankind, all life forms, the material universe, the spiritual universe, and the Supreme Being, according to Scientology.org.
The religion was founded in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard. Since its founding, Scientology has been involved in multiple controversies. The Oxford University Press said, “Scientology is arguably the most persistently controversial of all contemporary New Religious Movements. The Church of Scientology has been involved in battles over tax issues, a ten-year conflict with the Food and Drug Administration, extended turmoil with several European governments, and has even been subjected to FBI raids in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.” The religion has been targeted for many years due to its predatory practices. Oxford University Press also states, “Negative publicity, however, has not prevented the Church from experiencing remarkably steady growth. Official national census figures indicate that the number of Scientologists grew significantly in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia throughout the 1990s, and studies show that the Church gained 10,000 members in the United States during that decade.”
Furthermore, Scientology has multiple different buildings in major cities, celebrities, and schools endorsing the religion. There are multiple Scientology schools in the United States, many of them costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. If you drive roughly 60 miles from Ida. B Wells-Barnett High School(IBW), you will find the Delphian School located in Sheridan, Oregon.
It’s a K-12 boarding school that costs around $52,030 for upper school education, and it costs $73,630 for their boarding package. This school is mostly for the elite, as the average person would not be able to afford their steep tuition. For many years, the school’s website did not disclose its connection to religion, and many people only found this out from other websites. Recently, the school added a little emblem at the bottom of the website stating its connection to the church.
The school has roughly 204 kids, and the nearest town is five miles away, with a population of 6,300 people according to the Oregon Census. The school doesn’t have much information besides its website and YouTube channel. Moreover, the school’s YouTube channel shows videos of students from all over the world and its amazing facilities. According to Wikipedia, the school is part of OSAA and has won a couple of championships throughout the years. Which is quite surprising due to their small student body.
These Delphian schools are everywhere, according to Wikipedia, and there have been eight other locations around the US. Many of which are located in California, along with other schools located in Chicago, Boston, and Clearwater, Florida.
Back in 2024, there was a sexual assault incident that happened at the Delphian school in Los Angele,s where the athletic director “groomed and sexually molested a young boy.” Furthermore, the school administration allegedly knew the entire time about what was going on, but they did not take any action to get rid of this staff member. Instead, they waited for his contract to expire and recommended that he go to another Delphian school, where he also touched a minor inappropriately.
This school is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the overall issues Scientology has, Norm Stremming, the AP psychology and anthropology teacher at IBW said “They use some sort of pyramid scheme, it gets people in and then locked in, and then they have to spend more money to reach higher levels within the religious organization, and that’s where I think manipulation of views come into play.” It’s important to consider that the church is extremely secretive and has countless controversies and predatory practices at its schools. More importantly, one of their cult-like schools nearby shows how deep this religion really goes, which makes it challenging to really know how many programs and connections Scientology really has and how much longer they’re able to prey on innocent people.
Between the many lawsuits and exposes, the religion has been hounded hundreds of times for all its questionable and predatory practices. This leaves us with many questions, like: How many more Scientology schools are there? How embedded in our culture is Scientology. Which companies are connected to this peculiar and secretive religion, and to be honest, we will never really know all the connections, and that’s the issue. Scientology is an interesting and odd religion that no person knows everything about, and we might never know the true severity of their lies and the untold truth.
