I never cease to be amazed by the media’s ability to twist facts, distort truth, and portray things which are actually pretty cool in an entirely terrible light, just to be able to make some noise and gain readership.
Trolling around on the news today, I saw an article on Tom Cruise sending his kids to a “Scientology camp” in Oregon. Of course, nobody offers specifics, just makes their crude jokes and generally continues to violate a most basic principle of the Way to Happiness which is to simply respect the religious beliefs of others.
I actually attended and graduated from this “mystery school” in Oregon, so I feel I’m quite qualified to talk about it. It’s actually a school, not a camp, and though it absolutely uses the study technology of L. Ron Hubbard as well as some other non-religious data about leadership, problem solving, planning and communication, it is not a Scientology school at all.
Secondly, there is not one thing that is “mystery”, secretive, secluded or anything else about the place. You can go up and take a tour, if you want. It’s called the Delphian School, and it is one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever seen. It sits in the Yamhill Valey in Sheridan, Oregon, perched up on a hill. It’s got a stunning view of the valley, actually, and has a gym, basketball courts, horseback riding, science labs, a great library, and some of the best mountain-biking trails around.
Most importantly, though, that school creates kids who are leaders. Kids who instead of being robots or druggies or criminals or whatever actually are able to take responsibility for their own lives and their own studies, and be valuable people in the world.
The curriculum of the school is built around the fact that a student needs to first know how to study, has to have some manner of purpose for his studies, and after which he can take responsibility for his own education instead of it having to be forced down his throat like most “modern” education.
Then, the student studies at his own pace — which is as fast or slow as he can do, and some students go rather fast, graduating high school at the age of 16 and 17.
Others, like me, took every available course in math and science, whilst at the same time putting in 3-4 hours/day on the basketball and soccer teams, and then spending all other ’spare time’ riding my mountain bike across all of creation. Yes, there are real-life sports teams at Delphi as well, and in particular sports (volleyball and soccer, when I was there) we were quite good and made it to the district and state championships routinely.
In my other spare time, I was building subwoofer systems and tinkering with chemical lasers, reading Shakespeare, and figuring out how to build my own speaker amplifier, while writing illustrated manuals on how to repair mountain bikes and doing an apprenticeship at a local bike shop.
Kids at Delphi stay real active, and they get COMPETENT.
My point to all this is that anyone who’s gone to or graduated from the Delphian School, and who’s had an education based on L. Ron Hubbard’s priciples, can speak volumes about how it changed their life. Personally, I went to Delphi because I couldn’t stand how little I was learning at my public school, and as such dragged my parents first to Boston and then all the way across the country to Oregon specifically so I could go to this school. This was at the age of 11. My parents ended up working there, they liked it so much.
So, that’s what this place is. It’s actually one of the coolest things any parent could do for a kid.
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Tags: tomcruise, scientology camp, delphian, oregon, religion, scientology
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