I just read an interesting post on the Leaving Scientology blog, at http://leavingscientology.wordpress.com/
More than $142,760,000 dollars has been raised for the Superpower building. One public recently learned that one reason the Church keeps crush reging for Superpower – even though an official Church spokesperson told the media recently it would cost no more than $90,000,000 grand total in costs to complete – is that Superpower donations have been siphoned off for projects other than Superpower. The Church spokesman
also said that $40,000,000 has been spent so far on the empty shell.
You ever wonder why the Church has let that $40,000,000 building shell languish for close to ten years? There are at least four reasons.
First, they don’t have a clue what Superpower is. See Joe Howard’s piece for details at http://www.scientology-cult.com/super-power.html
Second, it is one more excuse to crush reg huge sums of money that one of their Reges has already admitted is used for other purposes.
Third, there is no OT IX and X on the horizon. And DM needs some carrot to keep the OT VIII’s on the reservation. He falsely leads them on as if Superpower is some next step on the Bridge for them. Future posts will detail how OT IX and X are not even over the horizon.
Fourth, the elaborate groundbreaking and immediate heavy construction activity to build the shell was not done for purposes of getting Superpower delivered in the first place. I participated in the planning of that 1998 groundbreaking event with Tom Devocht, Mike Rinder and DM. The groundbreaking show – with bleachers brought in and packed with Scientologists, fireworks, and other bells and whistles- was put on within a couple short weeks after the Church was indicted for its involvement in the death of Lisa McPherson. It was ordered by DM at great expense for the sole purpose of diverting the public’s, the media’s and the Tampa Bay area population’s attention off of McPherson.
Once the last civil case connected with McPherson was settled in early 2004, the Church really put the brakes on the building, racking up nearly $250,000 in building department fines for not completing the building in a timely fashion.
But the reg machine never slowed down one iota. Already, it has created a $50,000,000 slush fund of DM funny money.