by Haydn James.
Many of us came into Scientology or joined staff or the Sea Org with the purpose of clearing the planet. Remember that game? It was a numbers game – make enough Scientologists, enough Clears and the majority of enturbulated humans that inhabit this spinning orb we call Earth would disenturbulate. We didn’t need to physically clear them all, perhaps just a small percentage, but with six billion inhabitants, 3% would mean clearing 180 million, a finite if daunting task. But we knew LRH had made a fantastic start back in 1950 when he kicked the whole thing off with the publication of Book One (Dianetics). It was a runaway success, which led to countless members, groups and the early Scientology Churches. So we knew that if we just put our shoulder to the wheel and others followed suit we would get there in the end.
SO HOW FAR HAVE WE REALLY COME IN THE 60 YEARS SINCE THE PUBLICATION OF DIANETICS?
Now, Miscavige and his spin doctors would have you believe “We are millions” that we are “bigger and greater than ever” and that we are “racing away to a cleared planet, straight up and vertical”. But rather than listen to rhetoric, spin and bald faced lies, to determine the progress we’ve actually made we have to look at the numbers, because real numbers, based on experience, factual “uncooked” figures, don’t lie.
So let’s look at how many Church of Scientology members exist now compared to times past because real expansion could only mean one thing: more members — more Scientologists moving up the Bridge.
My wife and I worked at all echelons of Scientology and the Sea Org for more than 60 years combined. Our years in the trenches, working hands on with Scientology public as well our years in management with access to Scientology international reports and statistics up to the year 2006, plus the very latest intelligence reports from orgs, makes us uniquely qualified to calculate and comment on the actual number of Scientology church members.
Let’s define a member of the Church of Scientology as a person who is actively taking service or who is likely to take service from a Church organization at ANY time in the future, a broad definition.
CLASS V ORGS: As try as they might Class V orgs only get about an 1/8th of their actual public taking service at any given time. We were one of the bigger orgs in the world (Birmingham) and we had only 50 Scientologists on lines at any one time and had around 400 in total. This rule of thumb (total public = 8 times the on-lines public) holds true for the other Class V Orgs.
There are 150 Class V orgs. As of 2006, the incredibly stellar Milano org apart, the top 15 orgs had 50 to 120 Scientologists taking service per week. Shockingly, most of the rest fell into the small and failing category with only 10 to 20 per week.
That means a minority of orgs had 400 to 800 members while most had between 80 and 160. So let’s be very generous and put the average total members per org at 200.
150 orgs multiplied by 200 = 30,000 total members in the Class V org sector – at the most.
ADVANCED ORGS have predominantly the same people listed under Class V orgs but you have a gravitational effect too where Scientologists go and live in the area around advanced orgs.
There are 7 advanced orgs (AOLA, ASHO Day & Foundation, AOSH UK, St. Hill Foundation, AOSH ANZO and AOSH Europe) with around 150 service attendees each, on average (AOLA had more but others had less). Sticking with the same Class V org formula, 150 x 8 = 1200 total parishioners each, on average. So that’s a maximum of 8400 additional advanced org parishioners and that is generous indeed considering a higher percentage attend services than in Class V orgs and at least some members have now been counted twice by being counted under both Class V org and Advanced org categories.
FSO has the same parishioners listed in both the Class V and Advanced org sections but also has some who consider themselves FSO-only public. At 500 of them taking service at any give time (discount the outer org trainees as they are counted in the Class V orgs and Advanced orgs) that’s 500 x 8 (extremely generous) = 4000 total additional parishioners and some of those have now been counted three times.
MISSIONS: There are hundreds of missions but they are far worse off than orgs. Many have just one or two part time staff and a handful of parishioners. I have attended events at missions in two different states of late and there were no more than 10 attendees in each. 300 missions with an average of 25 parishioners (very generous) = 7500 members.
As for field auditors, WISE etc. — all counted a number of times in various categories above so I am not going to repeat the error.
TOTAL: 30,000 plus 8400 plus 4000 plus 7500 = a very generous 49,900 members at the very most.
[Note: this is as of 2006. Things are much worse now with FSO turned into a crush regging machine, the houses of Scientologists for sale in the Clearwater area at an all time high (despite the depressed housing market), a truly crashed Class V org scene and countless other problems not to mention the independent movement in full flow!]
As a cross check, let’s figure it a different way and let’s go back a few years. As of the year 2000 Scientology as a whole got a total of 20,000 attendees worldwide for an “important” international all-Scientologists-must-attend event. That’s all attendees on the night plus all worldwide attendees for all the delayed events – total showings. Now, it’s no surprise but as hard as they try, A Class V org can only drag about a quarter of its public to any given event no matter how “important”. FSO and Advanced Orgs manage around 50 percent of their resident public. That puts the entire Scientology population in the year 2000 at sixty thousand if we are consistently generous and say that the total number of attendees for an important worldwide event represents only a third of all members.
In summary, that’s 60 thousand members in the year 2000, down to around 50,000 by 2006 and much less by 2010, which all jives with experience, stats, reports and more recent intelligence my wife and I have witnessed.
There is also an empirical observation that can be made that supports these figures. Have you noticed how the remaining staff and public seem to be made up of mostly older people on the one hand and fairly young people on the other? Even the young people are most often the sons and daughters of the older staff/Scientology public (and they are heavily recruited to staff because they are one of the few remaining recruit pools). I know I’m far from alone in making this observation — an age polarization has taken place in Scientology creating a wide gap. Now, that’s not so hard to spot but what about the omitted? What about the countless missing members from all the years in between? Where are they? As shocking as it may seem, it looks like we failed to make any meaningful number of Scientologists for the last twenty odd years (which is also the period of Miscavige’s utterly dominant reign by the way).
Now, another thing that shocks me about these numbers is that it seems very likely LRH had more members way back in 1953 than Scientology has now. Let me expand: In 1953, Birmingham in England had only a Dianetics group. But on page 339 of Tech Volume 1, LRH wrote that he travelled from London to Birmingham on 21st May 1953, to give a lecture to 100 attendees. He was very disappointed in the attendance but very happy with their obvious knowledge of Dianetics. But if you fast forward 50 years to 2003, Birmingham boasted one of the biggest Scientology orgs on the planet yet with all the modern forms of communication it struggled and I mean struggled to get 100 public attendees to ANY event, of ANY kind, at ANY time. What the …?
And how come after working for 14 hard years in Birmingham (before we returned to management in 2005) my wife and I managed to build the org up from nowhere to a level where it only just matched the size of London Foundation circa 1977 (nearly thirty years earlier) and it’s worse than that because in 2005 Birmingham was the only Class V Org in the UK of ANY real size.
And can anyone explain why my wife went to a tech briefing in Sacramento in 1977 at which there were more than a 1000 attendees (just a tech briefing) whereas you wouldn’t hear of a 1000 Scientologists gathering in the Sac area these days. I visited Sac Org in 2006 – it was dead.
And can anyone also explain how come I attended a Flag World Tour event in London in 1976 at which there were thousands present whereas I attended an important London event in 2003 for the benefit of both London Day and Foundation for which less than 90 showed up.
So in our zeal to correct obvious abuses lets not miss outpoints about the size of the Empire State Building — Scientology is puny and it is smaller now than at any time in its entire history, which is an outrage, but the facts and numbers don’t lie.
“But … but … what about the grand opening events for the big shiny new buildings where hundreds of people show up?” a few might ask. What? You mean like Dallas where my wife worked on the final stages of the building prep cycle for weeks and was at the opening event and reported that the number of Scientology members in Dallas was actually less than the average number I used in the above calculation and the big Dallas shiny new building was empty. And Madrid opening event where Miscavige forced Scientology church executives from all over Europe to attend to pad the numbers. I know because my wife and other execs from Birmingham were forced to fly there and consequently mingled with all the other attendees similarly press ganged.
These “grand openings” are staged to look great but after the event is over and rent-a-crowd departs all you are left with is an empty building, a handful of staff and less public than ever before.
And there is another colossal outpoint that goes hand in hand with all the above: an LRH rule and observation on book sales states that for every 25 books sold to the world at large a Scientologist is made. Through orgs and trade lines we have sold something like 50 million books out in the world over the years. That’s two million Scientologists. Where are they? And are they the missing members between the ages of twenty-something and fifty on up?
You could ask what the hell we have been doing for the last 60 years. But that would be an unfair question because it’s no secret that Scientology’s international stats crashed in the summer of 1990 and have not reverted twenty years on.
So the real questions are:
– What have we been doing for the last 20 plus years?
– Why are there fewer members now than at any time in our history?
– Where are the missing two million members?
– And above all, what factors underlie this terrible state of affairs?
Next, I’ll proffer some answers from my perspectivie.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Interesting article. I hate to admit that I’m one of the 50 plus on your lists. It would be interesting to find out how many ex or independent scientologists there in the field now.
I know in our area, many former staff and public still consider themselves to be scientologist, just not on lines.
Just the list of declares would be a good starting point for a count.
Didn’t leave my actual email address or name on logging into Marty’s blog. So remove this if you feel you have to – but Hayden, the idea that Birmingham was one of the “top Class V Orgs on the planet” is completely BS. I know prbly most of the people posting here do not share my viewpoint but, irregardless, it is not true.
So, knowing that this post may be shortly removed, as a life long Scientologist with a decade of staff experience let me ask this . . .
In the early to mid 90s how many people that you spoke to had ever even heard of the word ‘Scientology?”
How about now?
Go out and try it. Go to a public place and do a little survey – like a tone scale drill or something.
Do it honestly. Then come back and say that less people have heard of Scientology then 10 years ago.
Simple excercise. Name recognition.
And Hayden, your claims from your post do not add up, I’m sorry but it might be a goo justification for your current viewpoint but in my experience they are just not true
I’ve been waiting for this kind of info. It’s the kind of stuff that real declares and expulsions are made of. Your efforts closely follow those other courageous souls at friendsoflrh.org. Here we have crimes against LRH & Scientologists.
As for The Dwarf and his crew, we have, as well, crimes against humanity.
Thank you Haydn. Good stat analysis.
Haydn says ~~
<<>
This called to mind
The Library Regging Scam.
Things are never what they seem in Scientololoy
If the Church wanted LRH truly disseminated, they would donate the books themselves ~~ come on, Bridge Publications mass produces them.
The SCAM is to reg Parishoners to pay for “Library Donations”
“Give me your Visa/Master card and we will put the books into all Libraries.”
In Library after Library, it has been reported, where the Basics that have been donated ~~ The Chief Librarian throws these into a “Discontinued” Section.
These are stacks of books, the library considers of no use to the Library and if not dumped would be taking up shelf space. Unsolicited donations do not automatically make it to the library shelves but are selectively ditched as adjudicated.
When the scammed Scientologists purchase these at top dollar for the libraries, they are not told (Although the Church knows this well)
that numerous Libraries will immediately dump them on the ‘for sale’ racks. For Sale racks are practically books for recycling for pulp. This means recycling paper plants would pay you the equivalent in paper weight. You can pick up any Scientology Book from 10 cents to a dollar.
This is very easy to check~~ check library content on line, catalogues are available. You will find that, for an overwhelming majority of libraries, those donated books never made it to the Library shelves.
But Oh ! It sure makes the Book sales stats look good.
Haydn,
Great analysis. And yikes — it looks like this makes the C of M under DM the world’s fastest contracting religion, not the world’s fastest growing religion!
I saw the changes brought about at Birmingham org by Haydn and Lucy James and the high quality staff they acquired, hatted up and put on post. It was pretty awesome to see the differences they were able to make. As Haydn said in his declaration of November 24th, the org was really in a bad way when they first arrived to take it over. I admire them both greatly.
Well stated and truly disheartening. There will be much work to do once the Suppression is off the lines. I hope the SO can be recovered and brought back to LRH purpose. We will need experienced management with personal integrity.
I believe your observations are totally correct. Here are a few of my own, as a Flag staff member from 1985 to 2005:
In the late 80’s/early 90’s it was usual to see 50 to 75 public in the Fort Harrison pc waiting area. 15 year later you were more likely to see 3 to 5 public.
In 2001 I was the Treasury Sec FSO. I did a computer print out of all public (non staff) that did $1,000 or more of service at the FSO over a 3 year period. It was slightly over 5,000 names.
I worked on the creating of the first “Ideal Org” which was Tampa. It was created by Flag staff and public. The opening was on a Saturday morning when the Flag staff would normally have
time to do laundry and clean their berthing. Flag staff and public were bused to Tampa to film the
“grand opening” and then left. I continued to work at the Tampa org for a few months and the place was empty. There was an entire 2 story building dedicated for Div 6 services. 3 months after the opening it was EMPTY of staff and public and the only service it had delivered was free English classes for some of the spanish speaking, non Scientology neighbors. Note that the same little struggling org was now burdened
with the cost to air condition this additional empty building.
I was at St. Hill for a few days during 2004 and the place was a ghost town. I was shocked. Every day I saw the same lonely student sitting in the SHSBC. The Captain AOSHUK (John Danilovich) was personally over in Italy trying to get some arrivals.
In 1986 Flag Crew celebrated having reached 200 staff members. In 2005 it had less than 200 staff members.
As an executive of the FSO I too got to look at the
long term international and FSO statistics. Pretty much across the boards they were steeply declining since the late 80’s.
I believe your estimation of members is VERY generous and I wouldn’t be surprised if the current figure was well below 40,000.
I believe that while the membership has been steeply falling over the last 50 years, you would find the average income bracket of the remaining members was steeply increasing. The church is relying more and more on large donations from the few, many of whom are willing to trade large checks for ribbons, metals and status.
very interesting Haydn. I think you hit the nail on the head with numbers. When I joined staff in 1999 there was 10 actual staff members and it had been like that for years before. Someone told me that 20 was the maximum at any one time. In 2010 I think there is 1 or 2 proper schedule staff members.
As for Public most I knew are not there and there is a huge amount that have just walked away into the sunset not disconnecting but certainly not connected either. The majority of people that I saw at the last event I went to I did not even know. The majority are green, unaware people that actually aren’t even on any real courses.
And rumour has it that DM is coming out to open Melbourne’s “Idle Org” in August and apparently has ordered to get the Org manned up with over a hundred staff because he doesn’t want the problem that the other “Idle Orgs” have…..meaning “hundreds of PCs arrived at the new Org but there was not enough staff to cope with the influx of public…(so of course its the staffs fault, it has nothing to do with his brilliant straight up and vertical strategy)
Another way of arriving at the membership number is through census studies.
The American Religious Affiliation Study periodically interviews over 50.000 people. In 2001 13 of them reported to be Scientologists. In the repeat study in 2008, the number was down to six. You can´t really extrapolate with such low numbers, but it would come down to 25.000 members in the US in 2008.
It seems reasonable to assume 50% of all Scientologists are in the US, so again you arrive at a rough estimate of 50.000.
Another way to arrive at a similar number is to look at the number of new fancy e-meters that are stacked up in a warehouse in LA somewhere. Given that the cult will force all parishioners to purchase them once Davey gets around to releasing them, the number of e-meters will be the same order of magnitude as the number of Scientologists. There are 30.000 e-meters in stock, if my memory serves me correctly.
A PENNY DOUBLED PRINCIPLE
a total of $10,737,418.23 at the end of 30 days. $5,368,709.12 is only the amount you get on day 30.
If a person starts with a penny on the first day, and the penny is doubled every day, at the end of 30 days, the person will
have $10,737,418. and some change.
On that 30th day alone, he will receive $5,368,709. Plus 12 cents.
By analogy, if starting from some arbitrary Day One, just ONE person became a Scientologist in the FIRST YEAR, then that number doubled
every year, by each person bringing in just ONE NEW PERSON PER YEAR, after 30 years we would have had 10,737,418 Scientologists, many of whom would likely be Clear or approaching it.
At the end of 39 years, there would have been 5,497,558,016 Scientolgists – more than the population of the world in 1990.
Even if only 1/10 of these were active at any given time, we would still be 54,000,000 strong.
I leave it toyou, dear readers, to think about how this might have been accomplished.
Grassroots? Books in bookstores? Missions and Field Auditors left unmolested? Simple, thorough person to person contact, combined with reasonable prices that made courses and auditing affordable to most people?
All of that did exist, once.
Can those not be put in place again?
If we do, in 40 years, half the world or more, will be well on the way to being cleared.
But first we have to come up to Non-Existence.
No fun = no public.
I was shattered to read that Mike Rinder couldn’t visit his wife when their newborn couldn’t hang on to the body. And why? What cycle could possibly have been remotely important enough? Because there are ZERO cycles that are really important that come from INT. Execs run around like headless chickens but what’s the actual product?
As you write so well, Haydn, the look-don’t-listen Product of the Sea Organization under David Miscavige has been Lost Scientologists.
Or, put another way: More Money, More Buildings, Less Scientologists, Less Clearing.
People are lost because, even if they cognite, it’s at best 50-50 that they hang around once the crush-regging begins. High pressure sales techniques designed to Hoover up every penny simply pushes too many buttons and keys in too many cases. I remember seeing Blake in Glengarry Glenn Ross with his mantra of A-B-C, Always Be Closing, and thinking what a great IAS reg this guy would make.
Here’s a question that’s occurred to me: assuming Miscavige is sitting on one billion dollars, how much has it really cost to run Scientology?
The money grab’s kept people away and contributing to the biggest outness, which is that it’s not fun to hang around an Org.
A new brand of Scientology is being sold now. It is pure business and you can work out the admin scale of it backwards from the new VFPs. The old guard will go and the new are taking over who are oblivious to the real history, the real Tech and the real gains. Unfortunately this is the isness. The story from you guys who were on the inside rings true to me but I don’t think he is going to fall over as he is bringing to the world a new Scientology with a new history unless…
It is just disheartening; but fixing this mess starts by communicating about it. Thank you for your input!
Thanks for this description Haydn.
It´s important to carry on on this issues.
Expansion is not happening. Instead; contraction is the fact if we see the statistics in which the world population is growing versus the amount of auditors made WW.
If we calculate amount people per auditor in the planet we will see something is wrong as this ratio is increasing constantly.
Here is a link to updated world population:
http://www.breathingearth.net/
It´s a brutal difference.
We can do a lot about it. We can coordinate, colaborate and join to deliver true liberty.
After all; some of the most trained scientologist of the planet are independents or outside C of M.
Good points.
Just curious, could there be more than 50K Independents?
Thanks for your well written piece. Looking forward to your follow-up
C
Thanks, Haydn, that post is INVALUABLE!!!
Haydn,
Pretty much confirms what I’ve known for the last twenty years. There has only been contraction with no expansion.
Despite what PR Dave tells us.
The actual stats don’t lie.
Fewer auditors made, fewer releases, clears and OTs.
Those are the stats to watch not square footage of Idle Orgs!!!
Look don’t listen.
Now THAT is what I call hitting the nail on the head – or should I say hitting the nail in the coffin of DM’s PR spin.
Great Stat analysis!!!! Couldn’t be any clearer.
I am one of the missing members.
I have given up 1993 after doing all I could to handle the behind sit.
If I would see any chance to handle the situation I would maybe come back and try again.
You ask what is underlying?
By my opinion it is not DM alone.
The application of Occam’s Razor would have it that:
Dear James,
I made the same computations as you 10 years ago and had the exact same results as you do.
If we think a little bit more about it, one could speculate about how many people are worldwide here that like LRH tech and do know about it, but never would come into an Org. I have seen 100eds of people leaving the C.O.S (on all levels) and most said it’s not because of Lrh but because of the orgs. I’ve met people that read Dmsmh or other books that told LRH would be a genius, but they never would join this religion. I once tried to calculate those figures, but I gave up. It will propably be several millions of people and I think that if the orgs would deliver standard Tech it would spread around like a wildfire and if somebody would do just a little of professional Marketing the Orgs would be exploding.
My experience is that when I tell somebody what Scientology really is, he instantly wants service and to know more about it.
So, the demand for true Scientology is huge.
What are our problems ?
Do we want to continue to be in a games condition with D(evil)M(an) or do we roll our sleeves up and go to work and get the Tech to the World ?
IMHO
LO
Guten Tag,
In the last days several german speaking indepents were commenting. I do also speak German and french too. Pls. get in contact.
Have a good day.
ps. Marty knows the E-mail adress.
Thank you Haydn for this well thought out and crafted article.
I believe that while no expansion is happening and contraction is evident – there lies beneath this problem of dm and crush regging etc an underlying cause.
Most, if not the vast majority, of dedicated scientologists start to believe that they are better than other people. And it gets worse. Within the organization, staff members believe they are better than others depending on their personal org and position within it.
Public scientologists believe they are better than their fellow organization members due to their advancement up the bridge, or their donations and that status.
And so it goes. Creating a horrific divide and WALL between each other AND the world at large.
Simple ARC laws would point that a group so divided INTO itself will not flourish and eventually eat itself up.
I strongly believe that if LRHs incredible legacy and its technology is to survive this draconian era of dm, then it must rise as a group of people who have themselves become humbled through their own “dark night of the soul” – and recognized that their only TRUE purpose is once they have sorted themselves out, to serve others.
One cannot serve others while making less of them. One cannot serve others while thinking one is better than them.
LRH have volumes about this. But – perhaps we all needed to become somewhat arrogant and divided before we understood HOW to really read his words.
Its heartening to see that here and some other blogs, this new group of independents seems to be rising up. Perhaps we are indeed now a bigger group than what is currently “in”.
WH
This is completely true. My sister was the museum director in a town in Texas that also had the public library. I offered to send her some LRH books in the mid 80’s – she said not too. They didn’t have the space and most librarians do NOT take donated unsolicited books.
I BOUGHT a full LRH library in the mid 80’s (this library scam was extant then too) to donated in my father names to my childhood town library. I checked approximately 2 years later. NOT ONE of the books had made it to the shelves. Were they even sent? Doubtful.
But had they been, they would have been pitched.
To ADD insult to injury — this library scam was going great guns in the early 80s. My ex and I had money on account at St. Hill UK AND the FSO.
Thousands of dollars were debited WITHOUT our OK or knowledge for this library donation scam. When I discovered the theft — being “good” scientologists we didn’t go ballistic and demand the money back — afterall it was “spent” — just pitched a fit and cut our losses.
WH
Wos Josh. Interesting viewpoint on expansion. In the 1930’s most people outside of Germany hadnt heard of the national Socialist party. They are familiar with it now. Thats expansion.
Haydn, love you facial expression and makes me wonder what comes next out of your pen.
And very useful data to mold into questions for the disbelievers to wake up.
That post is your symphony with the kettledrum stroke (Surprise Symphony nr. 94 by Joseph Haydn – beautiful music by the way!))
I wonder how many members in good standing the Church of Scientology would have today if only once a day each organization had asked its members:
What is needed and wanted?
Been pondering (as I do house cleaning on this day off) this seeming divide that is created amongst scientologists with themselves and other out in the world.
AND REMEMBERED!!! There was an early early training film that LRH scripted and directed. Something about the British Aristocracy and French Aristocracy. A classic line I believe spoken by Bob Mithoff (Ray’s brother) — “bourgeois pigs”
Dont remember much else about the film but now 25 or so years later, what I do remember is how those great empires fell — French and English BECAUSE of the separation between the people AND the top.
AND … just a “funny” synchronistic aside: Prince William (Diana’s youngest son) spent a night with the homeless ON the streets and has now paired up with a former homeless man and photographer — HUBBARD – and their photo exhibit is going public. Hubbard is the FIRST public photographer to photograph a royal.
(kinda a cute message I thought) (I like to watch the phenomenal world and see just what message it might be sharing if I just open up to look)
WH
This is simply the most vital thread to appear on any Ind. site! So many relevant comments, such as what can we do to turn this catastrophy around, the old guard passing on along with the KRC of how it is supposed to be.
I have never felt so energized! Can you imagine all of us on this board manning up an Org. Dear God, what a scene. It all starts from mockups, huh?
Please, Marty – do all you can to further what has begun here on this thread. Let Amnesty International and The Hague finish off the dwarf.
Us ol’ farts gotta do something before we become just a memory.
I’d really like to know an estimate of how many Indies that may exist across the planet or just in the US.
Damn, I have to go to work now.
Very odd Josh, you refute my statements but don’t really say what your sources of information are, and your argument is non sequitur.
There are 150 orgs in the world, if you are such an expert why don’t you list all the orgs that aren’t small and failing?
I am very familiar with International stats — long term — and my wife ran all Advanced Orgs on the planet as her last position (2006). Your sources are …. ?
Don’t take my claims regarding Birmingham as any kind of boast, I think it incredibly sad that it was one of the better orgs.
I agree a great many people in the world have never heard of Scientology and that just backs up what I’m saying.
Haydn and Mat, thank you for these two reports.
Haydn’s report of trends re CoS active and affiliated public sizes and demographics and Mat’s observation that CoS’s active public are now much wealthier than in the past – when viewed together and purely in organizational / business terms – describe CoS as an organization that offers mostly “cash cow” products and ignores market forces.
A business person viewing this scene would likely interpret it as one guaranteed to be upended by “disruptive technology” – innovations that create a brand-new market that allows customers to solve a problem in a radically new way. Disruptive innovations are famously cheaper, appeal to new users, and destroy preceding industries. Think Model-Ts, VoIP, luggage with wheels, flash memory, Craigslist.
For more re this phenomenon, see http://www.claytonchristensen.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology.
I’ve not been online or had any communication with the CoS since the late 1980s. About a year and a half ago (20 years later), boxes – big heavy boxes – of books arrived via FedEx. I sent them back unopened. I assume one of the boxes contained an invoice for payment.
I know – some poor soul(s) likely had to get a stat up. But, jeez, how deluded were the viewpoints that produced that “service delivery” decision!
Less people had heard of Scn. HOWEVER, pre-internet the populace had heard of a lot less of everything. Maybe I can’t give you much of an accurate number though, because until recently Scientology wasn’t a subject I was inclined to bring up for many years. I got pretty tired of hearing people say, “Oh God, not that mess, tell me you’re not involved with that cult”? Or had it been a trusted friend who would have allowed me to dead agent the horror stories they had heard (which are mostly true!) then where ya gonna send them when they say they would like to find out more? It would be an overt for me to send an unwitting public into an org, knowing what I have learned firsthand from experience. Why would I do that?
Pre 1990, it’s true, a lot more people would have said; “No, I haven’t heard of that, what is it?” That actually made life a lot easier for a div Vl reg or an FSM. After all you want to tell them what it is and preferably not have to spend hours, days weeks handling their itsa and bpc on the subject. How many people have HEARD of Scientology, at this point is a stat that is working against us, not for us. Let’s hope that is tipping as the truth is revealed.
Scientology is a question that is now routinely answered based on the massive amounts of incredibly bad PR that has been pulled in on the subject. It’s a sorry state of affairs.
I think that old adage “there is no such thing as bad PR” works better in Hollywood and that’s not what SCN. was ever meant to be, despite current leaderships attitude of mest=success.
It stands to reason there could be more than 50,000 Independents Centursion if you count ARCxen Scientologists who’ve quietly, or even not so quietly, left.
I’m sure more people have heard of Scientology now than back in the day. But in my experience they’ve heard about Scientology in a negative light from TIME magazine, SOUTH PARK, Tom jumping on Oprah’s couch and other comm lines that result in the general public believing that Scientology is just a weird cult.
I was on staff for pretty much the duration of the 90’s. We struggled (and hear they still do). I’ve been to my local “Ideal Org” several times and it is EMPTY. It breaks my heart to see it and I derive absolutely no pleasure from it. There’s no “his plan is failing, ha, ha, ha” in my mind. It is an ongoing ARCX. But in order to handle this situation we need to communicate, like we do here, and confront the facts.
WH, I’d be fascinated to hear of your departure from Scientology after completing VIII.
There’s probably a moral to your story, too, no?
I’m not necessarily in full agreement with you on the status stuff but I will agree that in all my years the group viewpoint was that there was nothing more important than what we were doing.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we did much at a group level. I now look at this and see that we were being subverted.
I’ve studied the fall of civilizations and my conclusion is that as soon as it becomes untenable for the middle class, the game’s over. The average joe has to be able to invest himself in the society in some way. Average Joes aren’t revolutionaries but they soon become so when their survival is denied.
WH:
I totally agree, a “holier than thou” attitude has crept in more and more over the years to the point of being utterly intolerable. But I don’t recall that Puritanism (as I call it) being there in the 70s, it began in the 80s and has deepened since.
And yes, such an attitude will be the demise of organized Scientology as it has undermined many organizations and ventures in our past. Can’t help but think of India. Britain did fine there as long as the company leaders embraced the Indian dress, culture and made an effort to learn the local languages. The point at which that ceased (and such persons were ridiculed for having “gone native”) was the beginnig of the end.
Name recognition is one thing but is it positive or negative PR or association is the REAL answer. More people know it, but less people go into the orgs and do services.
You Josh are in-denial or a lack of confront as every one that reads this look at your local org and see if it has more people going “clear” as a Class V is intended to do. Mine hasn’t made clears for 20+ years and I am in an ideal org area. So there you go.
crashing upwards,
Wow!
You’re absolutely correct. Let’s go survey the public and find out who does not know what the word ‘NAZI’ means. What an amazing man Hitler must have been (surely no-one still believes in those nasty Holocaust stories? – Brrrr – entheta!).
Josh, thanks for helping us see that with DM, we are once again walking in the shadow of greatness.
P.S. isn’t going “clear” why anyone who read book one went into the orgs as their original purpose and intention anyway? That’s what got me interested, how about all of you guys?
But obviously that #1 Stat is completely ignored and Not-ised and we have just a smoke & mirrors shell con-game going on. How about you address that one Josh if you dare.
In the words of the great comedian Dave Chapelle: IN YOUR FACE!!!
Lies! All of this is FALSE!
Expansion is straight up and vertical!!! Just because we haven’t SEEN any stats at any event doesn’t mean that its not true! I went to the New York org right by times square and it is awesome! It must have just been dinnertime or something, or maybe everyone just went to a play next door, I mean its Broadway for christs sake! The pizza place net door WAS bustling though! See, and they had a lot off well done pizzas! Ok, they admit they really don’t get much business from the org, but that means NOTHING! And FSO, also awesome! They are building a huge building and construction IS happening again! So there! Expansion!!! There were plenty of people there! I’m sure when they took off their hardhats and toolbelts they went straight in session! Yeah!! See, Haydn might give you some stats, but we don’t use “stats” anymore to monitor expansion – its square feet of carpet!!!! And that number is quite literally through the roof!!! Granted there was nobody in the lobby of the FH or in the Sandcastle, but maybe they went to the beach! Come on Haydn!!! We all know that if you build big buildings real nice people show up!!! I may have just had bad timing the four times I went there (even Dunkin Donuts was empty)! But I think I’ve made my point, besides all the “training and experience” you have means nothing – you’ve been blind leading the blind all this time, right?
And what does this multitude of newly aware people think of Scientology, now that they have heard of it? It must not be too positive, as the orgs are generally empty- particularly as compared to when it was much less known.
I find it interesting that you attack the veracity of Hayden’s claims ( his numbers certainly exceed the Class 5 Orgs in LA) but don’t back it up with numbers of your own.
And crashingupwardsgreat illustration of “name recognition”.
Thanks Haydn
The evidence is clear – or as Hitler famously quoted:
“What luck for rulers that men do not think”.
Adolf Hitler
SO TRUE. Spirit of play my ass.
Josh,
If you need any real enlightenment, just ask those people on the street what they think of Scientology.
Otherwise, position yourself near a chair or other stable object, lean forward, grasp firmly and gently remove your head from your ass.
Then give it a shake and take another look.
And because these libraries “don’t have LRH books on the shelves,” public can be continually regged to put books on the shelves of the same library!
I bought a Volunteer Minister’s Handbook in the early 90s for one dollar at such a library sale. This has been going on for a while.
Huckleberry’s right.
“The beatings will continue until morale improves” hasn’t worked out too well.
At least not with this group.
Haydn — the holier than thou was of course MUCH less, but did exist to some degree even in the early 70’s in LA.
I was Sea Org at CCLA and we were better than those at the LA Org, and senior to Missions. And ASHO and AOLA staff thought CCLA staff were all theety-weety dilettantes.
When I was “promoted” (or ripped off ) and went to Flag as senior management, WOW was it REALLY apparent who the top dogs were, who the lower orgs were, who got special dining rooms, special uniforms the whole nine.
AND “The Friendliest Place on Earth” (FSOs motto) was a complete joke. People who knew each other for ages, never spoke to each other. The elevators in the Fort Harrison were silent, uncomfortable rides.
And the public were gossiped about, maligned and thought of as seriously out-ethics.
This predated dms rise. I left in 1980.
Perhaps outer orgs were less like this.
Flag was to me THE biggest disappointment I had in my SO career. The wonderful mecca was devoid of 1) LRH 2) friendliness 3) good food 4) more libs … a mess.
At one point I tried to launch a volunteer INTO the community campaign with Sea Org staff for 2 hours per week. To make us REAL to the Clearwater Public who were doing a Save Sparkling Clearwater Campaign against the SO. AND to help Sea Org members REMEMBER who we were trying to help.
It went NO WHERE — although Diana loved it – but it could never get implemented.
And to answer Huckleberry — I’m not sure if your comment about my departure and having a moral is a straight up question or asked with a twist. Ergo — no answer at this time.
WH
PS.
If I erred at all it was on the side being overly generous with the numbers. My personal opinion is that the scene is MUCH worse than I depict but I had to stick with the facts and figures known to me and my wife Lucy. This also helped in another way — naturally, I didn’t want to be the cause of a great number of friends losing their breakfast, lunch or dinner.
I’ve seen this survey before. The decline from 13 reporting as Scientologists down to 6 so reporting does not provide an adequate sample to reliably extend to a final estimate. It doesn’t take in other factors, such as the many Scientologists embarrassed to admit being one, even to a survey person!
Hi Josh. I hope you get to read this follow up message Josh. I think your an honest man and I give you credit for having more balls than most of the field out there for even reading whats written here.
But if you think about it, name recognition does not by itself mean anything positive. It can be a negative connotation with the recognition. And thats pretty much what the public has gotten of Scientology. Josh, you would be hard pressed to find men and woman who have spend more blood, sweat and tears on expanding Scientology than many of the posters here, inclusing the author of this essay, Mr James. There is nothing most of them would love more than Scientology having achieved PR area control as a positive beneficial movement, practice, path and philosophy. Unfortuatley it just hasnt happened. I hope you continue to look at the whole picture. As I said, your a smart guy, you’ll figure it out given enought information. Your not afraid to read both sides. Keep reading with an open mind and heart.
Hello JUST ME,
Having been the Dissem Sec and Treasury Sec for the FSO I have a theory regarding those books arriving at your door after 20 years.
First of all the books couldn’t be shipped without a “paid invoice” and a forged okay to debit in your name.
As far as where the money/credit came from I would suspect you either left money on account or someone found or “created” an unused intensive in your pc folder which they recredited back onto your account. Its a great way for someone to get a stat, make a book commission and bankrupt their organization.
As a note, when I was the Treasury Sec we had a
Class XII, L’s C/S go to the RPF for forging letters from dead parishioners stating it was okay to debit their account for books. He was making pretty good commissions for awhile….
I suggest you demand an account statement from the church that shipped you the books.
Hello Isene! I am Michel, your ex solonotsdofp. Do you remenber me? Ok, now i am out of hell. But 2 of my kids are still there. So i am making some noise to get them out. I am in comm. with the FLB Justice Chief and here is her answer to my request to talk to my kids as well as a complete refund of all the money i spent in the “Church”. Good luck my friend.
February 13, 2010
Dear Mr. Puzzolante:
I am responding to you because, as you know, the Justice Chief is your only terminal within the Church of Scientology. I represent that position for FSO.
First, you are mistaken in your assertion that anyone has “ordered” any member of your family to speak to you or not to do so. It is completely up to an individual to decide to whom that individual wishes to communicate. While you state that you are upset by something your son, Raphael, told you, the Church has issued him no such instruction.
Perhaps Raphael had a misunderstanding in talking with his mother, or maybe you just want to believe that the current state of your relations with your children is the result of something other than your own actions. Please recall that you were the one who walked out on your wife and two of your children with no notice or goodbye just before Christmas 2006 – they did not abandon you.
In relation to your two children, Alexis and Elenore, the Church is not going to get involved in requiring them to do anything, one way or the other, as that is not within our purview. However, I have informed Elenore and your ex-wife (in relation to Alexis as he is a minor) of your demands. Elenore is an adult and told me she has no desire to see you since you deserted her and the rest of the family, and she also told me she is happy with her life as it is and does not wish to move back to France.
In relation to Alexis, his mother informs me that you have no custody or visitation rights over him as you voluntarily abandoned those rights in your divorce. She further informs me that, although she has full custody and could make the decision on her own, she also consulted with Alexis, and he told her that he does not want to see you. From what she said, he apparently feels quite betrayed by your actions.
Regarding your request that all donations you made to Churches of Scientology be returned to you, that is not possible. As you know, the Church has very specific policies in relation to returning donations. Based on the information available to me, those policies do not apply to your situation with respect to Flag. If you believe you have claims for return of donations from other Churches based on the applicable policies, you will need to request those repayments from them, via IJC or the Continental Justice Chief for that area.
If there is something you would like to resolve, I am perfectly willing to address it with you so long as you are willing to have a civil discussion, devoid of threats, as communications such as your e-mail are counterproductive.
Sincerely,
Cara Golashesky
FLB Justice Chief
And here is my answer:
Great! So, I want to speak to Eleonore and Alexis so that I can tell them the truth about your “Church”. In order to do so I need an email address or a phone number where I can reach them. They are my children, not the “Church’s”. Do you understand that!?
Thanks GOD! I left a “Church” whose only purpose is to make people work 100 hours the week minimum for $50 the week with permanent insults and harassments! I called my ex-wife as soon as I was out and ask her to leave the “Church”. Her response was no, thanks to the Dir I&R who was already behind her waiting for her answer. In the business of FEAR you are the best you guys.
Who are you to talk for Eleonore and Alexis? Let me talk to them on a phone, personally, so that I can tell them what it’s really going on over there. As you know, they do not have access to the Internet, TV, media or even their father. They are literally manipulated by the “Church” rules. The rules outside your “Church” are quite different. At this point I do consider that the “Church” is retaining my children against their will.
First I want you to name the policies you are talking about.
I am asking for the complete refund of all the money I spent in Scientology ($500,000.00)for training and auditing.
Plus, I am going to charge the “Church” for the 31200 hours I spend as Interior Designer, from April 1999 to April 2005. I have been working days and nights on the New Flag Building for 6 years and it’s still not completed! The truth is that the funding was over in 2004! But DM ordered Laurie Webster and Chairmaine Rogers to keep asking the public for donations! And I was there, in the Landlord Office, when Laurie told us that the New Flag Building funding was completed.
The “Church” will receive my $2,152,800.00 bill very soon.
Last, and to complete my request, I am ready to send to +5000 Solo NOts Auditor worldwide what I know about the New Flag Building funding and the way they are racketed by the “Church”.
Michel Puzzolante
josh,
Reading your comment here a bit from the end of Data Series 5 came to mind. I won’t quote the whole PL here but, in reference to oupoints here’s what it says. It’s the last line of the issue.
“When you spot them for what they are then you can actually estimate things. And the pluspoints come into view.”
I think you are right. Scientology is certainly getting around as a word and lots of buzz about it. That ‘buzz’ may be good or bad. For me, it makes no difference. Underlying any public buzz or name recognition or some bias they may pick up as restim of what is the burden beings on this planet live under, I know I have the tech and tools to penetrate it all. Heck, a well done Dissem Drill and bang, put them in session and they’ll know soon enough about terra incognita, a half inch back of their foreheads.
I’m just reading now a PDC tape called About the Press Tone Level and good press or bad press, no difference.
My take on this is that the shot that was fired off way back in 1950, is racketing up the time track and it wasn’t a pea shooter fired off. What is apparent today, with the very valid omissions of production stats, and the equally valid fact of the Scn buzz, is that, like in the beginning, if the lines for delivery, either in the various orgs, missions and what not, and in the field, in your own living room, aren’t there and ready to deliver then, well, that’s what the heck we’re here for then in-it?
So, with the observation of the outpoints and as LRH says “It is odd but all the “facts” you protest in life and ridicule or growl about are all one or another of the outpoints.
“When you spot them for what they are then you can actually estimate things. And the
pluspoints come into view.” I think we’re covering the bases with Haydn’s facts and yours for the pluspoints.
Eventually, those empty orgs, if they are technically sound, will fill up. In the meantime, the most major departure from the Ideal Scene is at hand. Do you see that departure Josh?
Hi Haydn,
I am not sure a basic assumption you are using is correct, particularly considering today’s environment for Scientology. To wit:
This rule of thumb (total public = 8 times the on-lines public) holds true for the other Class V Orgs.
One-eighth can be stated at 12.5%. If this number were true for the “best of times” when the tech was in and the orgs were in a higher condition, then it would seem that in an out-tech environment, a smaller percentage of org public would actually be on lines. LRH does say an out-tech academy empties out pretty fast.
Thus, the total number of parishioners arrived at (49,900) seems too low, using the 12.5% assumption. What the percentage of on-lines vs. off-lines in an out tech org would be, I don’t know. Maybe 5%?
That said, I do not disagree that the public is shrinking. Mat Pesch’s very telling stat of only 5,000 people spending more than 1,0000.00 at the FSO speaks volumes.
Another factor in all this:sssuming if there were 5 million parishioners world-wide (church has claimed twice that in the past) the 5,000 figure Mat revealed means that the church has so set up the bridge, that less than one-tenth of one percent can actually get to the top!
Like the Jenny Craig Ads showing weight loss of their members, perhaps the church promo, when it shows people holding up their OT7 certs, should be required to state in fine print at the bottom, “results not typical”.
Revenimus
I know!
Like Duh!
Haven’t any of these people been to an implant station recently and seen the REAL stats on the projection screens?!
Thanks Hadyn,
well written piece and though I do not have the Class V level staff experience you have, logically speaking all your information makes sense.
I have to comment on “Josh’s” reply!! I think he is right in that more people have “heard of Scientology”. absolutely they have!
But let’s be honest it is for all of the wrong reasons. We can give a “little” credit to the information age which ushered in a little more notoriety for the church (which ironically will also be a major reason for the downfall of the existing regime).
Josh’s generic comment about more people hearing of it now then in the 1990s is ridiculous. Come on!! That isn’t even a measurable stat. That was a stat created by Dave to pad Tom’s IAS video.
I had an interesting conversation recently with someone that shows the contrast of someone hearing of Scientology in the 1990’s and today.
My friend had been in college in the 90’s and through word of mouth and advertising had heard of Dianetics. This was one of many options open to him as he was looking for some direction in his life. In the end this was not for him but he did read most of the book.
Fast forward 20 years! Has not heard much about Scientology in the past 2 decades. Doesn’t read the gossip magazines, etc. But he does watch the news. His most recent experience is a flood or articles on the existing “head” of the church beating and mistreating people!!
Before I forget, it was people like Jeff Hawkins and others in Marketing and Publications that worked to make Dianetics so popular at this time. Before that ankle bitter of a man (okay that is only time I use a sandbox insult – I use the word man very loosely) destroyed the whole campaign and removed everyone from post.
As a note I briefly met Haydn back in the day at the Ranch! You came across as very nice and definitely left an impression on me. Tried to convert me to Soccer or Football as you call it.
I asked several times about where you had gone and got no answer.
Glad to hear you are well!! Look forward to your second installment.
McGwire
Gosh, I’m sorry to “hog” this thread but Haydn and Mat have started me really “remembering.”
In the late 1970’s WISE was created. Originally intended to take the business type flaps and upsets OFF the lines and get them handled by a separate organization. Those were the early telexes and advices about WISE – as I recall.
It grew to include re-working the OEC volumes, taking OUT scientology words, making it a completely secular branch of the church.
(which always confused me — didn’t LRH warn against watering down the words? oh well)
But grow it did. AND then the public at Flag became (later, podiatrists) who had been introduced to scientology by expensive management training at Sterling Managment, later Hollander and others.
The public had changed from 1) hippies 2) college drop outs 3) artists (coming through CC) 4) average people wanting to improve their lives
TO
VERY money motivated chiropractors and dentists. Men/women who had spent $$ on their own educations and time who now wanted to CASH in on their hard work.
They created in the mid 80’s a WHOLE new public at the Flag Land Base.
Which grew and grew until the Time Magazine article of 1991 at which point chiropractors, dentists etc stopped going to Sterling and the other consultant groups in droves.
Randy Emory died (co-owner of Sterling and their top reg) died around 1993 and it was down hill for them from there.
Without the cash cows (dentists and chiropractors) the FSO never recovered.
And what really gets me is that those of us there in the early days on staff, while we each had our own personal reasons, truly wanted to help make our world a saner happier one. Not just a world filled with dentists and chiropractors who had BOOMING practices.
And what really gets me is that potentially millions of people have not been helped because the technology of helping others was perverted.
Don’t get me wrong — I love my current path – Buddhism but it’s not fast path and lacks appeal to most because of the religious aspect and the time factor. It’s not a western thing.
LRH without a doubt created a workable philosophy that appealed to the western mind.
Until it got taken over by the very capitalistic mind that seems to be destroying earth today.
WH
Josh,
Just as an aid to your observation, watch the recent press conference (last Friday). In particular, I want you to listen and observe Maureen Bolstad. I worked along side Mo back at Gold and to see her at that conference, and hear her story and witness the ‘product’ of Black/Reversed Scientology on a good being, it became excrutiatingly clear to me, the travesty that DM has wrought from the inception of the ‘new attitude’ for the Sea Org back in the early 80’s. It wasn’t and isn’t my attitude and it’s tragically unworkable. All I wanted to do was reach out and put my arm on her shoulder and apologize for the insanity she was subject to. If I had been there, I personally would have walked her out and not one single person would or could have stopped me. That one being, subject to that suppressive environment is more than enough fact for someone willing to look.
Her experience is repeated in the many substantive facts presented on the internet. Again, DO YOU SEE? If you don’t then you aren’t looking or have turned a blind eye. You will have to remedy that or truth will evade you. No truth, no OT.
Correction: paragraph 5 … and then the public at Flag became dentists and chiropractors (later podiatrists)
Millions !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Truly heartbreaking.
It’s the arrogant stonewalling that has always driven me into a frenzy and WHY I blew rather than “route out properly.” I knew I would never be able to not say — holding me against my will is AGAINST the law. (a sure way to end on the RPFs RPF).
In any case, if you really do have the mailing list or email addresses of 5,000 Solo Nots auditors and need some money to mail out an expose they to them — please let Marty know, and I’ll send you some money. Perhaps others would do the same.
Perhaps Jeffrey Hawkins and Steve Hall (and others) could create a very readable expose letter — short enough to grab their attention – long enough to have salient info and discrete enough in the mail to be opened.
Love,
WH
Well written WH, a perfect example of “Divide and conquer”. I saw all the auditor’s trained publics of a cl5 org being assigned a doubt condition because they didn’t audit for the org after a police raid, or one upstat public given a Court of Ethics and HCO sec checks because he didn’t earned enough money and his wife, staff in the org, wanted to moonlight. A lot of make wrong! Again, each time the reference “Superior Service Org Image” is out you get a mess. While, I think, not being Theetie-wheetie, sometimes I feel the only missing thing the old Beatles Motto: “All you need is love”.
Ciao Michel, I remember you, well done on getting out the trap. Don’t get soft on those motherfu..ers
John Doe,
I get your point and it wasn’t lost on me while I was writing. I thought long and hard about it before finishing the article .
But I will still go with my figures because, as you point out, while a more out-tech org will have a smaller percentage of their field on lines at any given time, they will also have a smaller field and greater membership loss because of that very out-tech.
Unfortunately for us all my figures are generous almost to a fault.
PLEASE CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THE IMPLANT CHAIR IN THE “SUPERPOWER” BUILDING???
I saw it in a Flag magazine a couple of years ago and I almost passed out from shock. I have not been able to fnd out any information on the thing though, other than I think I may have rounded up a story about how it was going to be like the wildest disneyland ride ever or something. Written by some celebrity.
Planet earth doesn’t look, on the outside, like it’s doing all that well, but is it re-implant time again already? And is THAT Davids real job?
When I saw that chair and asked myself those questions a couple of years ago I surely hoped it was ME that was losing my grip on reality, that would be a lot more comforting than being right about my suspicions.
Wow !
Something is cooking here, I like it.
Since being in Scientology I never had any problem to disseminate and I know lots of old div6er and Fsm’s that have the same experience and are laughing about the orgs when they hear their theories about Dissem drill, Fsming etc… Still today it IS NOT a problem !
If you have good service it takes about 2-3 weeks to fill up an Org with publics. I did it many times.
Sometimes, I went into an Org to help on GI. The only thing I did was to ask for a list of publics that the org feels they are Dbs, Pts, Psychotic, Crazy or idiots that they weren’t able to reg, knowing exactly that the people with those labels weren’t like this but strong beings that can say “no”. They were so easy to get onto service by first handling the arcX and then fully enlighten them. Each time I made one Highest ever after the other on GI. So easy.
Once I took other a div 6 that was in a very bad shape and totally key-in. They were working on a Pr campaign to handle all the entheta first so they can produce and really totally concentrated on the entheta. I cancelled the funny campaign, got them to clean the div 6 area first (was dirty), send them home to take a shower and put some nice clothes on. When we were ready to start, they still had dirty shoes on. So they had to clean that. Then I explained the Arc Triangle and did some drills on it. The first week we had 12 first start (very uptone people). Tech does really function. And I know that in fact it would be a piece of cake for some Pro’s to handle the bad Pr about Scientology. Look at the German. they handled it, they are now of the most powerful Country in the world. Look at Microsoft. All their ennemies are gone. If they can handle it we don’t have any problem with it. In Pr and Marketing you need to take what the people think of, i never was aloud to use following Button, as propably it would have been a blasphemy:
” Is Scientology really a cult ? Or can it really help ? ”
perhaps I’m wrong with the positioning, there are people here with more experience.
So what’s the problem. Let’s put the coal onto the purpose, did out all successful actions of the past and reinstate them.
i was told Diana invented the proverb:”If it is not fun, it’s not Scientology”.
This game would be really fun !
Let me say another thing. The COS justified in the last years the lack of expansion by telling people are more Low-tone today, too many drugs, too many psychcases etcc….This is not true. In my environment I can’t see that. It was the level of havingness and people they can handle. They weren’t able to reach the Uptones.
Also we live in quite a better world than 30 Years ago. No more the Iron Curtain, the communists are nearly gone. Less wars than 20 years ago (this is true, look at the stats). no atomic threat. The internet made a village out of the world. one can be in instant communication with the rest of the world. Look at the indians how uptone (also the chinese) they are becoming, also economy wise. Russia is nearly a free country, chinese on the way.So what do we say now ?
The world is going up while we are going down, or “lets move up a little higher”.
Do we have any problems ? The world is ours !
IMHO
Good day to all !
Haydn,
Great article, thanks ! I just want to share a thought regarding the cause of the decline here in Sweden, A HUGE part of the Swedish scientologists went into a SEVERE debt situation in the 80s, due to over regging. Many have not handled their debts to this day. Is there connection here? No new people coming in – the existing field bankrupt. For me, the eval and the math is a very simple one. Interesting question though: Who was behind? And why was the sit not confronted and handled?
News Flash
newest go button of IAS:
” the ideal Orgs are empty because of the suppression on 4th Dyn. The IAS needs more money to handle it, so the Ideal Orgs will be full of people.
So they admit that they are empty.
Got a report from bruxelles org, that they got not much to do, as having not much public.
Thank you Michael Brown,
Not that I wouldn’t trust Haydn in what he said but it’s good to have more and more viewpoints here to say what they observed, too, and not “viewpoints” to say what they think.
All I see is that 2 high caliber execs (Haydn and Lucy James) have been not just misutilized but tortured and black PRed and assigned wrong conditions (I have read their story) and still they did an awesome job.
This is what I now call ITs (Independent Thetans). I will be writing more about ITs, since as I cognited it’s the missing inbetween step from just a thetan to OT.
An IT, an Independent Thetan, one who can confront and Haydn and Lucy definitely did confront and did do good to Scientology overall.
Thanks for this input
Haydn, I have not commented yet as I was out of town as you may have heard, but I wanted to let you know that my own figures jibe very closely with yours. My estimates are based on my time in Marketing when I had access to long term international stats and address lists. The “trained and processed” address list, which supposedly contained the names of anyone who had ever done a Scientology course (including paid Div 6 services like Comm Course) or paid auditing was only 200,000 total. It was well known that there were a lot of unknown addresses, duplicate addresses and so on. It was also well known that the bulk of these people were “inactive,” and that was an ongoing flap. “Inactive” or “off lines” were nice ways of saying that they had left the Church and no longer had anything to do with it. The stat of “bodies in the shop,” which was supposed to measure how many people were in the org for any service that week, including Div 6, was in the 16,000 range on a good week, but had been steadily declining for years. As others have mentioned, the Int stats had been steeply declining since 1991. That also was very well known and a flap. Event attendance, as you have mentioned, was 20,000 to 25,000 internationally (including staff). All of these factors indicate to me that the actual number of active Scientologists in the Church is no more than 40,000 (a high estimate) and may be closer now to 20,000 with recent attrition. As a New York reporter once told me, “that’s not even a good Knicks game.”
As to “name recognition,” sure many people know the term Scientology, but they perceive it as overwhelmingly negative according to surveys. So called name recognition is not beneficial when it is negative, it is harmful. This idea that name recognition is good even when it is negative is a fallacy promulgated by the Church, a sort of nose-thumbing at the negative reports. But the fact is – and this is well known internally – negative public image does keep people away from the Orgs.
Very interesting, thanks Valcov
DofP,
Sorry, that name you’re using is just too long to type again right now. Michel, yes, there we go. OK the policy in question is 23 Oct 63 Refund Policy and the update to that with regard to repayments for unused donations for service whic is 9 Nov 74R, revised 2 Oct 80, Refunds and Repayments. I have copies of both issues and if you send me a mail I’ll see that you get them.
The ARIS researchers would be the first to tell you that the sample numbers are so small you shouldn’t read too much into the final extrapolated numbers. But generally I think it is safe to completely rule out growth over the 2001-2008 period, and very reasonable to conclude shrinkage during that same period. And clearly the correct order of magnitude for membership is in the 10’s of thousands, not the 100’s of thousands.
My other favorite data to look at are the sales figures for Dianetics. Using figures previously published by the COS, it is pretty easy to figure out that annual sales of Dianetics peaked in the late 80’s (supports Jeff Hawkins’ contention). You can find the data compiled somewhere on the web.
Like the number of Clears produced, and VWD Auditing hours, the COS no longer updates stats like these. DM’s claims of “expansion” are all about things that don’t matter. And yes awareness of Scientology is at an all-time high — but that awareness is what is ‘keeping people away in droves.’
The decline is so obvious that even folks like Josh Renner (above) will eventually get it: One has to work too hard to NOT get it.
WH, I fully agree. We can all pitch in and get some money.
The way I see it is that I am disgusted after this letter that I read to Michel Puzzolante by that InJustice Chief. They are cowards, keeping children from their parents. It’s atrocious the way she spoke.
So, the way I see the ITs Org Board is forming up.
I am in to pitch in and give some money on any direction towards that issue.
AND I can tell you, guys, when we get INTO ACTION a lot more ITs will COME OUT and GIVE.
Because this is really Scientology. OT is cause over matter, energy, space and time. The way to OT is not just BEING AUDITED.
The way to OT takes an inbetween step Called Independence of Oneself.
Let’s warm up the engines!!
Except that people using meters need to always have two….
Michel, glad you’re out, and hope you can get in touch with your kids soon.
Haydn,
Thank you for sharing your direct observation with us. I can say you have been very generous in your numbers.
Every one of us are observing huge decline in our local orgs/missions.
If what C of M is telling its public about the “expansion” is true, then why is DM sending MAA to each org to “clean up its field”? This proves that orgs are EMPTY and DM is so desperate to bring those “disaffected” public back to the orgs.
Org terminals are doing home visits and begging people to come back to their local org and get a free interview.
2 of our local org ex-staff who have not been on lines because of their free-loader debts, are sent to other orgs (ie:Las Vegas) to work as a full-time staff, although their free-loaders are not completely paid yet.
DM has successfully destroyed Scientology & LRH’s name internationally for the last 20 years. Now Independents are working hard to reverse that so the actual SP (dm) is known.
Thank you!
Around the time of Lisa McPherson death, I believe St Peterburg Times made a survey about Scientology. A lot people did not know it, and the vast majority who knew it stated it was a Cult.
There were events at Flag in which the staff members invited the public and told us to bring a friend to the event. I guess it was for pictures purposes to show more people than they actually have.
And what really started the slide as far as I’m concerned, was the creation and insertion of the IAS into the scene.
The IAS has been the 3rd party that destroyed any possibility of a good relationship between the orgs and the public.
Looking back on it, I was excited at first by the creation of the IAS and the idea of a strong united association, but the constant IAS regging was THE reason I essentially faded away and disconnected from the org in my area.
I’m sure this is true for many, many public.
Michael, I am appalled by the coldness, spiritless, thetanless answer of that pathetic creature, that InJustice Chief. One of the many InJustice Ones we have seen.
I am trying to go to the bottom of this post and write to Haydn and I can’t, I am bumping into all kinds of stuff inbetween.
What a pitiful and robotic answer! Is this A Woman? Is this a Mother? (obviously not the latter, but the former?)
Where is she on the Tone Scale? I bet you, very low. What a stern, rigid, solid citizen!! Nazi style!
She has no right to even write this to you.
I am very pissed and I want to do something.
ARE WE A TEAM HERE? CAN WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS?
Michael, you have a right to talk to your children and explain to them what you did, why you did it, admit some mistake of your’s or not, you know… talk to them.
It’s a different thing to be disconnected and a different thing to not talk to your father. You can talk and still be disconnected. There is a big MU on this. Disconnection is not NOT TALKING to someone especially when one has not talked to some relative for a long time. By talking to you they are not in association with you. It is your basic right to be able to talk to your children every now and then. It’s also logical and no one has a right to deny this to you unless your child says so but TO YOU straight, not via someone else. And still you have ALL RIGHTS to ask for them to put them on the phone.
Now if they don’t do it, we get a lawyer. Don’t we have a lawyer here? Can we find a lawyer? Can we all move on and start forming this Org Board.
I cannot just sit and write. I want to DO something and I am going to DO it.
Thank you.
I left the SO in 1998. I was in for in for a long, long time (between 20-30 years).
Of all the people I considered friends of mine that I associated with over that time, I can count on less than one hand that are still there today. Someone mentioned that they are now 20,000 ex-so members. That is hard to believe, but it may be true.
Minor children do not get the final say as to whether to communicate to a parent or not. While their wishes are respected to an extent, family court policy usually implements some programme to try to iron out the arcx. It’s usually assumed, (often quite correctly) that the custodial parent is the third party against the former spouse.
It is not legal for your ex wife to deny contact, MUCH LESS some “justice” terminal at the org.
Quoth the reptile;
“In relation to Alexis, his mother informs me that you have no custody or visitation rights over him as you voluntarily abandoned those rights in your divorce. She further informs me that, although she has full custody and could make the decision on her own, she also consulted with Alexis, and he told her that he does not want to see you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s also not in the reptiles best interest to withhold the mothers contact information from you. There is another little statute about parents having numbers for emergencies and etc.
Well, I am not an attorney but I have been dragged through my fair share of family court hell and the reptile has no understanding of family law. There are two kinds of custody, legal and physical. A parent can have one or the other or both. HOWEVER, no parent has the right to deny visitation and communication to the other parent. Even if the other parent would be guilty of heinous crimes, the court will then arrange supervised visitation.
If you are in Florida I am sure you could find a fathers rights group that could point you in some direction. Or in my case I fought the custody battle myself and won. It is not beyond any of us to represent ourselves in court.
The court will always rule for (what is legally considered to be) the best interest of the child.
As a good starting point I guess you could let the reptile and the mother know that it would be simpler for all involved to let you see and talk to your son, without having to drag the courts in. Believe me CPS gets VERY nosey and I am thinking the reptile wouldn’t want social workers snooping around their pile of rocks and leaves.
Click to access 905a.pdf
You can often find the forms you need online to get a proceeding rolling, and fortunately when you are dealing with sensible folks it often does not have to take up the judges time if everyone decides to play nice.
Personally, I dont feel it is necessary to throw any money at the situation, just old fashioned book sense and elbow grease works wonders. I would imagine a DofP has plenty of both.
Hayden James!!!!! Wow it’s been a long time my old friend since the days in East Grinstead in the late 70s/80/81 when I used to kick your butt at the card game “spoons”! (As least that is how I remember it when you and I were rolling over furniture and knocking eveything over while fighting for the last soon. And I’m sticking with the version of the story where I always beat you at getting the spoon-LOL).
I remember you as a very good guy, not at all abusive and a good friend. While you are a big supporter of LRH and “LRH tech” and I am not, we both seem to be in synch with regard seeing abuses end.
Organized scientology is being dismantled. You’ve put it well about the dwarf’s lies and the like. Reports from people outside many orgs show them to be dead or next to dead.
And what is ahead for DM and the organized scientiology he controls is far worse than what has been seen to date.
While I will continue to help expose and deal with the abuses and not with having any future scientology delivery, I do wish you well to the extent you and others can pull off doing any version of it that does not contain lies, abuses and/or things harmful to anyone concerned.
If you get a chance email me sometime! It would be fun to catch up:) email: larrybren12345ATaol.com (with the “AT” representing the “@” symbol).
WH, thank you, excellent side post. Yes, I agree with this “holier than thou” attitude.
When I arrived in LA and landed at ASHOD instead of going uplines for the Greek translations (thank God I didn’t go uplines, the way I see it now…), I was kinda treated as a “foreigner”. I mean there was some kind of such attitude. Not much. I got on with it, we had fun, I was enthusiastic, people liked me, but… still, there was some Homo Sap there, I could feel it.
So that was a bit Holier Than Thou attitude…
However, even more basic to this, I feel is one other thing and I am going to post a comment sometime or ask Marty to put it as a topic which I had written up for the other topic ON DM’S BEHAVIOUR by Mike.
Thinking about what you have written and since I have given the subject of what is going on with the staff some thought too, I realize it’s TONE LEVEL.
And the SOCIAL (Underlined) TONE LEVEL of the Church as an organization has become CONSERVATISM and maybe some of us know and some may not know that CONSERVATISM is a harmonic of lower TONE LEVELS and is the starting point of Death.
It’s actually in the PDCs somewhere. I am pretty sure it’s in the same lecture with Spirit of Play.
So, what do we have here.? Conservatism as the apparent tone level, and that’s where Death starts. I am pretty sure if I find that other lecture about the harmonics of the TONE LEVELS that CONSERVATISM would be a harmonic to SYMBOLS (=NEEDING BODIES on the KNOW TO MYSTERY SCALE).
(an awesome lecture by LRH where he describes the tone levels from the viewpoint of flows, ridges and dispersals. Maybe in the PDCs, I will look for it, or if anyone remembers it please let me know).
And on that I have something to say:
SYMBOLS.
It might not be very pallatable to some, or it might sound complicated for some but what the heck… wordclearing is a valid tech. And yes we are dealing with a very low tone here, but what do you know? We are auditing thetans here, we are trying to understand thetans, the staff and others, not just homo sapiens.
All those empires that you are talking about the British, the French, wog societies without any willingenss as whole societies to educate their people in their true nature are VERY conservative, indeed.
And they didn’t have the Tech to make ITs (Independent Thetans) and OTs. You see, I am interjecting constantly ITs as I believe this was the missing step. An Independent Spirit, who no matter if he goes to Hell, can think Independently. Not necessarily an OT yet, but a very Ethical Being. Made it somehow just pulling himself by his bootstraps.
So we have:
Holier Than Thou
or in other words Conservatism
or better Death
and a lot of Symbology
and there is Your DM
YES, HE IS RIGHT THERE, GUYS, ACTUALLY A BIT HIGHER than Symbols.
Look at the Know to Mystery Scale just above Approval from Bodies (=THINK), I WILL EXPLAIN IN MY ARTICLE.
SYMBOLS (ha, ha Ideal Orgs, Tom Cruise, Appearance, Holier Than You Attitude Big Time, I AM GOOD YOU ARE BAD, symbols, symbols, symbols)
Even his beatings are part of that SYMBLOLOGY. “This guy is an SP, I am getting him to come to his senses with a fast A -E steps process”. Symbology.
Not understood by many if not everybody, but nevertheless COB SYMBOLOGY. His beating conveys a message. Everything about him can be interpreted as symbology. He is a symbol after all in itself. He is COB.
All the above are part of the package.
Scientology is run on a very insidious, low toned level by DM and that tone level emanating from that guy has been effecting just “GREAT” SYMBOLS which cannot be Understood by the naked eye.
So here is how he CONTROLS (ok I said the word from the Know to Mystery Scale) and where he is.
Thank you
BA — regarding SO recovery — I think you’re looking at it. My opinion of course, but I see this whole effort having been started in ’83 by (former) SO members with mostly the best of intentions up to today where we we have more (former) SO members who have given this effort the essential foundation it was lacking — ethics presence, veracity and a catalyst.
The cream of the SO is already here and doing what they signed up for. Albeit under drastically different circumstances than any had ever predicted would be my guess.
My hat is definitely off to these guys and gals.
My opinion anyhow.
I belief DM has found another correction to make and will release it to his standard pomp and circumstance at the next event:
It is not “Spirit of Play.”
It should read “Spirit of Pay.”
Damn those transcriptionists.
Great blog topic Hadyn…can’t wait to hear some of the reasons why you mentioned at the end.
I can verify your info about Birmingham’s growth because I worked at SNC and we constantly watched you guys! You were often our competition in the birthday game.
I was on mission staff late 70’s – early 80’s and then org staff 2000 – 2006.
In the 70’s the prices were much lower and Scientology was more affordable but as the prices increased less could afford it.
Yes, the type of public did change and did become more affluent. WH mentions WISE but there was also a big change in the bay area demographics which also introduced more educated and financially successful people and that was the silicon valley industry boom.
Not only were the financials different but there was suddenly a huge cultural change as well. In some ways this boom camoflaged the exorbitant prices because everything got over inflated during that time. Many Asian, Indian and even Russians people moved into the area and we find Dianetics and Scientology becoming really multi-cultural. For so many people from other parts of the world, Scientology was NEW.
At the same time we have some phenomenal ad campaigns hitting the air and Dianetics was everywhere. Much later Scientology is introduced in a similar way but it was Dianetics and that big volcano on the cover that made the word popular.
In the 70’s people still equated Scientology as a cult. By the late 80’s into the early 90’s it no longer had that connection. It now was something that helped you to have a better life. By mid 2000’s it had regained the cult image again. Instead of talking about how it helped, you heard about Tom jumping on the couch and the whole Southpark incident. Scientology has gone from a position of respectability to one of a gossip rag type piece that you see on daytime TV.
The number of Scientologists that you calculate, Hadyn, seems fair. We worked really hard at SNC to expand Scientology. We did many things to keep promo up. We had kiosks at the busiest malls (full time). We did bulk OCAs and had a strong FSM program, etc. Our Div 6 delivery got into fine shape with the EDs program of delivering a 70’s style comm course. We had packed courserooms when that was in. Then we would have to make sure they went to the events (attendance quotas) and it was SO out R for them. We’d watch them closely, looking for BIs and make sure they got handled before they left the event. We’d save a few that way. IAS events were the worst with the straight up fundraising till the wee hours.
We had a GREAT team of supes who really wanted to help people become more able. Even with that we would get 35-40% blow rate over a 3 month period. If only we’d been allowed to keep our Div 6 public out of Div 4 events…
Maybe I am overly optimistic but I think that Scientology could still have a boom IF management got handled and LRH policies reimplemented. Current staff would have to get FDSed on all the off policy stuff but I think they’d really like being able to just do their jobs. There would probably be a lot more field groups but there would also be more Scientologists MOVING up the bridge.
Barney Rubble
What was the number when you were still there, in ’98?
Revenimus, just fun to read this!! LOL!
Matt ~~~
Good Post.
Another level stat is SO Members. Mark Headley stated in Friday Press Conference that there were 5000 world wide.
That was the amount in 1984
!!!!!
Saaaaaaaaaaaam, I am trying to go to the end of the thread here to write to Haydn and now it’s youuur comment:
“Haven’t any of these people been to an implant station recently and seen the REAL stats on the projection screens?!”
LOL
COMMENT OF THE DAY! Go Sam!
I hear so many people protesting LRH tech itself. It is sad. What a product DM’s church.
What a suppressive act toward the tech and LRH, confusing and altering his materials. Interpreting his advises to one situation to be applied to broad areas or people without distinction.
I had a cognition, I realized that the tech the true one as LRH intended it, is an amazing workable thing, but in the hand of anyone under 3.5 is a dangerous tool to enslave and alienate people…
a real weapon.
DM’s Church at this moment is not only enslaving people, he is trapping them slowly slowly… it has become a serious type of implant.
DM’s Churches are implanting people!!
MAA force people to disconnect from SP’s… from us. As they tell people there are no case gains if you connected to those…
The truth is the real SP is this current Church, in fact numerous parishioners are roller coastering, getting sick and dying.
They integrity is tampered with, this degrades people… OT? is is a false attestation by definition.
Haydn,
Ohoho, that Org Board is forming up!!
There is data collection and data evaluation. This is not an easy job with not all data in hand even.
Haydn, it’s great to have you around and provide us with such data even if it’s an estimation. You show your skills and expertise in that article which is quite a thing to write, it takes data and thinking and I am sure if we had the actual data it would be very close to what you are writing.
I am more than happy because I see the Independents covering a full range of a gamut of stuff, posts, expertises, skills, capabilities.
This is awesome. I am a Div6er and a Recruiter (from Latin re-crescere, to grow again) and that’s what we are doing: Recruiting, getting back the ones we have been so close together with.
Thanks a lot for this valuable article.
Fellow,
Yes, they have been evil haven’t they. Spirit of Pay, of course, the transcription’s error is the real ogre. Good one.
Larry,
We agree old friend, for Scientology to exist at all it must do so without abuses.
Not sure about the memories though, not sure I want to believe the man responsible for making me both a NY Yankee and Cowboy’s fan — took a lot of crap for both over the years.
I missed the letter from the injustice terminal. But it needs to go to the St Pete times. It is so transparent.I mean why does this android even have to take part in the conversation and why does it need to go between his children! Sick!
Hi Hayden,
Having been on all critical and
independant /FZ forums for a decade, or more,
your stats are in the ballpark, and as you say
somewhat optimistic.
Here a quote from 1998 from mark Plummer.
aka warrior on ARS. This was per other posts as I recall sent to the trained and processed list worldwide.
“Previous to holding the Computer I/C position, I held the post of
Financial Planning Chairman and Treasury Secretary for the same
Sea Org “advanced organization”. From that position, I was
responsible for ensuring funds were allocated for Scientology’s
weekly and monthly bulk mail promotional pieces. One of the cult’s
main promo pieces is The Auditor Magazine. It is supposed to be a
monthly publication, according to Hubbard’s policies in the OEC
Volume II (exact reference available from me upon demand). At
no time during my eight years in the “advanced organization” did
The Auditor Magazine get sent to more than 250,000 individuals.”
This list I presume dates from all since 1954.
Including those passed on.
Someone else, forgot who, but impressed me as authoritive was that the number of meters sold was a total of 50,000. In other words 25,000 auditors and, I guess, solo auditors.
The quantum 8s are sitting in a warehouse I
presume waiting for 7s to be sold off. Another
believable post I can’t place now.
Its fairly well known that the lists of clears
stopped at 50,000.
Scientology it seems has always been a minority path.
The height was the Missions. Your wife attended a great conference in Sacramento
way back. Then COSMOD, Church of scientology, Mission of Davis, run by I believe class VIII Martin Samuals had roughly 200 staff. And other missions! they did this without being able to deliver levels, and without having the various netwoks involved. SO could only go in to Missions if invited. Missions only had to send 10% uplines.
Staff then , and some are my friends, could actally get mortgages and buy property!
The missions were incredibly successful. Their
demise is the demise of the subject with regard to broad dissem.
With regard to current promotion of the subject I take note of Jim’s comments.
Their is an LRH comment or issue along the lines of ” Don’t disseminate, Penetrate.”
Or get them in session.
Did that, probably in the same 1976 event at
the Hilton London, Park Lane. My girlfriend at the time, since the world’s most successfull
author of a non fiction book, was followed by
an admirer. I explained basic dianetic dissem stuff and he then went straight into revivication of his previous death as a WW2 Pilot.
Lol! Wish they could all be so easy. Dunno if he took up the subject.
My first course was an FSM course. In approx 1965 at the old Fitzroy St. address in london.
Maybe now I’m slick and very competant on dissem. But not always. On a scale up to 10 I’m
a ten on persistence. I virtually daily promote the independant/FZ path in any forum I can find. Virtually all of this in hostile forums. The one COS forum I tried altered its joining requirements to keep me out.
I can tell you the public perception of our subject is dire. Recently started promoting on facebook forums. Quite neutral yes? What I get
is some private mails from really cute chicks
promoting their records/songs. One does get rewarded sometimes 🙂
But the posters, random, with only one,
possible exception attack what I say. And even they are only about once a week.
This tech is in danger of dying out best I see.
I’m doing my bit.
Ideas for dissem and re-creation are needed.
There is a positive area that many here may not like, The Rons Orgs.
They best I know they create more auditors than all the independants and the FZ and COS.
Friends with their C’Ss and leaders.
In around 2005 they certified 45 class Vs.
They have around 60 groups.
They have meetings of around 400 in Moscow. Have pictures if I can figure out how to post.
Dear Hayden
I love you article. Just great. I made similar calculations and can only support what you wrote.
If we want to have an expansion again we have to sell books to new people, not to sell them within Scientologists, that’s some kind of inbreeding. In our digital world today it also means that we have to have the books and materials available online so that we can disseminate it and freely apply the tech without being threatened by the church to violate the copyright law.
For many years we had big problems because of that and still have. Try to put LRH materials online and you will learn about it within a few weeks where a “Kobrinogram” (letter from the CoM lawyer Helena Kobrin) with the use of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, see Wikipedia) is sweeping you just away.
To our understanding the tech belongs to those who apply it.
You can download LRH books and Course packs here http://www.stss.nl
I ask everbody to support it.
Much love Max
I boasted recently how I’d managed to pick up Self-Analysis and another book for next to nothing from eBay. They were brand-new and still plastic wrapped. I suspect that this is where those volumes come from – libraries offloaded unwanted stock to dealers. It should even be easy to find out – got to eBay and ask the dealers themselves – they’ve got nothing to hide and I’m sure they’ll tell the truth. There’s just too many heavily discounted volumes for sale for there to be another explanation; and Bridge/New Era certainly isn’t giving these away as loss leaders, as these dealers are up against orgs and Scientologists who are also on eBay, selling the books at top price. (You don’t have to guess at who gets the most business. Then again, there doesn’t seem to a massive rush for Scientology books from anyone…)
This “I’m am better than anyone from a lower [org, position on the bridge, IAS status, etc.]” has been going on at least since the mid ’70s.
For the staff member, the sorry reality of being little more than an indentured servant was made a little more tolerable by the encouragement of status…those from a higher org or from the SO looked down on those lower on the chain of command, etc.
I’m sorry to say I participated in that game when I was in the S.O. too. EVERYBODY seemed to do it. The GO guys I ran into were particularly bad.
TRUTH,
True to your name you speak the absolute truth, as I mention above, I was intentionally generous with my figures and calculation, so as to to come up with a “cannot be more than” figure. A basis for discussion.
I think you are absolutely right Fishdaddy on the current membership numbers. And for the life of me I can’t get over the idea that LRH had more members back in the early 50s than Scientology has today.
God it’s just one unusual solution after another…
DM you have lost man give it up do a Hilter and make it fast. Your like an open wound that just won’t heal.
Since Scientology demographics is my specialist subject (see http://www.newsfrombree.co.uk/stolgy_4.htm), some comments:
Haydn’s estimate:
TOTAL: 30,000 plus 8400 plus 4000 plus 7500 = a very generous 49,900 members at the very most.
Mine is currently that there are no more than 100,000 scientologists worldwide and never have been. By that I mean people who think of themselves as being Scientologists.
The present number is I think the same as Haydn’s, 50,000, but I’d rather go for a maximum figure that is accurate statistically.
The ARIS surveys have a high error, over 100%, due to the very low number of scientologists found. But the upper value – less than 50,000 in the USA in 2008 – IS accurate.
As for trends, the data indicates to me that the Church was growing up until around Hubbard’s death, was in slow decline thereafter and is now crashing.
The big unknown number is the one readers of this blog would most like to know – if the Church was drastically reformed how many former members would rejoin. The only sensible answer has to be you won’t know till you try!
Victoria,
Great handle for Independents with children still in. I’m sure the church would rather negotiate with the public over the courts and it sure would be a lot more expediant for all.
LO
I want to thank you for what is without a doubt
the most uplifting comment of the day!
I understand your success in the fsm/pr fields. You must be a veritable Pied Piper!
lunamoth
But have you considered that by my making you a Yankee and Cowboys fan that I helped you become a real man of men!!?!!
I mean think how tough you had to get to take all the abuse from all those jealous non Yankee/Cowboy fans. You had to get tough to handle all that!
But, that’s ok, you don’t have to thank me:)
Name recognition is one thing, but having any knowledge of, or affinity for, are two entirely separate matters. I think Josh might be quite disappointed if he went out on to the street in England and asked whether the word Scientology was recognised. I suspect he’d be even more depressed if he asked for an explanation. And once he’d weeded out those who confused Scientology with Christian Science, he’d probably be suicidal if he asked the clincher question – is this something you might be interested in pursuing.
There is a vast hinterland of alternative mental and spiritual therapies out there, much of it recognisable by volumes on bookshelves and feature articles in magazines. Scientology rarely features. This is, I believe, massive unfortunate, and I write as a non-Scientologist who over the years has come to accept that Scientology has a great deal to offer the spiritual seeker. I stand appalled at how such a powerful technol0gy has been trashed by its own leadership. (I recently started reading Self-Analysis, and frankly it’s blowing me away. ) There is no reason why a person cannot hold these two ideas at once – that Scientology is highly effective, and that it is being wasted and unfairly traduced by its leadership.
At some stage the tipping point will occur, but not in the way the Joshs of this world think. Like the Christian Scientists found in the 1990s, at some point Scientology will finally over-reach itself. Too many ideal orgs with too few parishioners will undermin what seemed to be an impregnable financial base. It can happen to the most prosperous of groups. My fear is that a collapse of the Church will wipe out all the good work that Scientologists and Dianeticians have put in over the years. And I write as someone who if not a member of the church. When even outsiders feel this way, it is time for loyalists to question the direction in which they’re heading.
BTW, I can’t rate Self-Analysis highly enough. It is the work of a genius. I can’t think of any other book in its genre that actually effects change while you’re reading it, and I know the self-help corpus back to front. There is no road more travelled by me 😉 . And SA is mighty powerful.
WH,
beautiful ideas! And for the money on that issue, I would help!!
Thanks Hayden for the well written piece & fishdaddy for the info. Your numbers are well estimated and generous.
Was wondering though if the figures included the SO and staffs of CST, ASI, Gold base, HGB, etc.
According to Mr Believable (Tommy Davis) who had stated the number to be millions, now says there are 20, 000 staff. http://cbs2.com/video/?id=127433@kcbs.dayport.com
Just not certain how many SO are left these days.
WH
this is quite a recognition – this inner divide! I am stunned: you’re so RIGHT!
And Hubbard – the photograph? wow.
WOW Haydn! Great analysis! There’s the BEEF!
IMO, your analysis could have an even broader impact if there was someone in our midst or on your lines who could convert what you’ve delineated into an animated video to be circulated on the web. For example, here’s a short vid putting poverty statistics into perspective:
Re: clearing the planet
I recall an IAS briefing in Portland, Or back in the late 80’s given at CC PTL. A guy by the name of Ken Puric (msp) delivered it. Ken was a very intense individual. At a point in his breifing he opens his briefcase and pulls out a copy of LRH’s hand written notes and he reads them to the assembled group. Here’s what I recall that LRH had written (paraphrased of course): Clearing Earth would not be as difficult as many might think as the bulk of the people were actually minion in orgin, like grass or cattle. Ken continues to read, however, I’m still stuck on “minion in orgin, like grass or cattle.” But I did manage to tune back toward the end and heard the part in the notes where LRH envisions Earth as being the rehabilitation planet where others from around this sector of the universe would come to get rehabed.
Re: Back when things were jammin!
I started my Comm course in March 78′ at the Portland Mission. At that time there were over 70 staff members. Dept. 17 was packed! There were 10 supes on post in Div 6, including personal supes, a full time word clearer and 50+ students. And life changing Hard TR’s were the order of the day. Man, those were the days! But, unfortunately, by the end of 79′ those days were gone for good.
David,
Your external analysis is spot on!
Glad to hear of your successes with SA.
Successes like yours is exactly why the loyalists insist that the technology should be preserved. Those who partake its undoing need to be erradicated.
Haydn,
Re: stat analysis – well done! For the past 10 years I’ve been telling people Scientology probably has about 50k members and not the millions claimed. Sad to me that is the case…and unnecessary. Management has been so pitiful for the past three decades however its not really surprising.
Re: Josh and the “brand recognition” factor of Scientology. I go back to the days when we would have been absolutely ecstatic (not ex static) to have a major celeb declaring him/herself a Scientologist and get that brand recognition a Mr. Cruise could deliver. What a farce he’s turned out to be however. Complete phony, arrogant, disassociated…obviously untrained out-of-valence piss poor example of a Scientologist. And by way of documenting the complete PR failure of the management of the CoS, check out the Gallup Poll below. Apparently you can fly 747’s into office buildings and kill of thousands of people and still have better PR Area Control than the CoS.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/106516/Americans-NetPositive-View-US-Catholics.aspx
Mat,
Thanks for your reply and explanation. Sadly, that makes perfect sense. BTW, I think you and Amy rock. Very best to you both.
There was a quote from LRH: “Cash is trash as far as a thetan is concerned”. Probably Jim Logan knows where it’s from – I think it is actually a tape about regging.
People, Scientologists, “wogs”, ANYBODY deep down KNOWS what is happening. The DRIVE FOR CASH is driving the people away. LRH did not make things up because he was philosophical – he OBSERVED things, and then told about it.
Mr. Cash, Mr. Trash, Mr. DM Cash-Trash created his own new Be-Do-Have: Be like me, Do like me, Have like me as the most desirable state of affairs for anybody. Of course the stats are crashing – any old person can, deep down, recognize that the current COS epitomizes a big CASH MACHINE run by MR. CASH TRASH.
P. Henry, I did the comm course in the same place Sept 77. John Miranda was one hell of a sup! TRs the hard way too, people popping out of their heads all over the place.
The busiest I’ve seen the orgs in the WUS was in the mid to late 70’s. Coincidentally, that’s when Scn was the most fun (IMHO).
At SFO, there were routinely over 200 students on course every week. Internships were packed. You had to get to the course early if you wanted a space at the tables. Dianetics DRD’s and R3R were delivered by the ton. Any event would easily pull in over 1000 attendees without even trying. Day and Foundation staff totaled almost 300 people. There was even an event for raw public at the Cow Palace that went over the 4000 mark. Local missions were booming. The bridge was affordable. But then…
people drifted off after the monthly price increases started, then the Dianetic Clear issues brought almost all Dn auditing to a halt. The Bridge and OT levels changed completely. The FBI raids exposed the dark side of the GO – PR was destroyed. The orgs were forced by Int Landlord to buy a building in the nastiest part of town. Rumors of heavy ethics uplines started and then the fateful Mission Holders Conference in 82 with the Finance Police nuked the missions and started DM’s dark age. By the mid to late 80’s only the numb remained.
Michel,
The Church can’t do that! Florida law is very pro-family. Your ex-wife, no matter what her “custody” is CANNOT take away your right to communication and visitation to your child, even if your kid says he doesn’t want to communicate, Florida law is still on your side.
I recently went through the Florida family court system and came to an “amicable” agreement with my daughters father who lives in another State.
It was a very interesting experience and I learned a wealth of data from that situation.
WOW…that was a popping mission that new what SERVICE meant!
FWIW I’ve done a great deal of research on Library Scam and compiled the stats here for anyone interested:
I plan on updating that information later this year when my initial study is two years old.
While investigating this back in 2008, 5 different libraries gave me a complete set of basic books with profuse thanks for taking them off their giveaway table so that they could fill the space with items that might actually bring in $1 per book.
David from England,
What a wonderfully accurate post. Thank you.
josh wrote “In the early to mid 90s how many people that you spoke to had ever even heard of the word ‘Scientology?’ How about now? Go out and try it. Go to a public place and do a little survey – like a tone scale drill or something.”
Josh, this had occurred to me too when I was first looking over the whole scene. It is true that more people know that “Scientology” is there as a religion than ever before — thanks mostly to Tom Cruise, who made mention of it a number of times publically after 2004/2005.
So Scientology is coming out of Non-Existence. And guess what the steps are of coming out of Non-E — primarily finding out and giving what is needed and wanted. Yes, people want genuine Volunteers to help at disasters. So good on the Church for (sort of) delivering the VMs. But guess what? They DON’T want a religious leadership that abuses its staff and acts in a tyrannical fashion. They don’t want “forced disconnection”. They don’t want outrageously high prices and crush-reg’ing. They don’t worship of the stat at the expense of people’s happiness and livelihoods.
That puts the Church in “Danger”.
And guess what one does in “Danger”? One makes changes and gets his ethics in!
Clearly Miscavige is not capable of doing this on himself (as proven by down statistics for the last 20 years), and so we are forced to do this from the outside.
Recently in one of the larger parks in Portland a group of Indies gathered to reminisce about the good ole days when Scn was actually Scn and fun. It wasn’t long before they broke out in song. In case you want to join in with the chorus, here are the words:
Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la…
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days
As for the rest of the song (some of the words may be difficult to understand), it’s describing the day to day fun activities that were typical around the Mission and Org back in the 70’s.
Lunamoth,
As far as friends per se, I would say in 98 it was down to 20. Many were on the RPF then.
WH wrote ” — although Diana loved it – ”
Speaking of which, where is Diana?
Thanks Windhorse for the insight. I always love your posts. Thank you also for giving me a better appreciation and understanding of Buddhism.
You and I think alike in the area of “this is a great learning experience.” I would have succumbed to an SP before I ever recognized one despite my training. Reading about something and living something are two different things. Living it and learning about it, at the same time…well, KRC springs to mind.
Meh…I didn’t really complete my thought.
Living it and learning about it, at the same time, is another thing altogether. But I like the way you put it WH.
AnonLover ~~
This is an eye-opener.
Thank you for posting this.
I clicked on ” USA ” on your link and saw what the Libraries actually have within the USA.
WOW.
The incessant regging of Scientology public for the SCAMS of Books to libraries, the SCAM of Super Power Building, (funds not audited, unaccountable), the SCAM of the IAS ~~ billion dollar slush fund for monster DM~~the SCAM of repurchasing the books and tapes over and over again::::::::
These scams do one thing, they take away bridge money and take away revenues from the public to get auditing and get trained.
That is what makes Veterans shake their head in disbelief.
Very much straight up, WH. I’m just interested, no hidden agenda, though your tale of your time at Flag appears to tell some of that story.
Very valid point, Silvia. The Old Man knew his Tech could be used for enslavement, too, and set up safeguards. Unfortunately, in the 1.1 to 2.0 tone band, these have been compromised.
Yep. BYPASS the person normally in charge.
Michel,
Glad to see you here, I remember your jolly beingness in the Landlord office.
Typically cold and arrogant, OSA side checked if not entirely written, letter from the Justice Chief. Serves as a live example on why any compassionate person who trust themselves turn away from the current church.
Of course your children want to talk to you, touch and hear you. Continue to do what you know is right, may justice prevail.
Hi Max,
Welcome on the board here!! I am so happy to see you here!
Guys, let me introduce Max Hauri a veteran of Independents/Freezoners.
When we came to Greece in 2000 we contacted Max who came over and audited 5 people at very affordable prices. He put us on the Bridge and stayed in communication with us all along up to now.
Max and Erica Hauri have done great dissemination in Russia and other places.
One of the pioneers in the FZ.
And yes, we will support the site.
Thanks a lot guys for your support! I know… it’s a shame to see how a familly is treated by the “Church”. I decided to join the Seao Org with wife and kids…to help Ron save the planet. And i am sure that you all had the same purpose. And i was so excited by this purpose! It’s a dream that became the worse nightmare of my life. Now, i have a broken familly and broken life. But, my honor is more important than my current life! Thus, let’s make some noise guys! For real! My kids are french citizens and i am going to make a denouncement to the French Police. Over there the scene is extremely hot regarding the “Church” activities. And one more denouncement is going to make some real noise.
Michel Puzzolante
David,
This is a wonderfully articulate (and true) post.
By the way, I posted something in reply to another one of your comments about SA, but I suspect that you never saw it, as I posted it when the thread was quite old. What I had said in answer to that was: “It keeps getting better from there! If you could find an Independent to give you Life Repair, I’m sure you would have a great time. Life Repair is an amazing action, pure fun, and immensely validating to the individual.”
LO,
The ability you described here is quite amazing. Have you written up your hat? Imagine if you could get many other people able to do what you described here. To you it is apparently easy, but most people can’t do this. If you haven’t already written up your hat, please do! Your hat write up should be immensely valuable to this game in the future.
The question we really have to answer is this:
What all this be happening if LRH were still around?
The answer to that question directs you to the source of the problems the church is having in present time.
Dear Michel
We have been in contact three years ago but suddenly the e-mail address you have had stopped working. Please replay to me theta@ronsorg.ch.
Much love Max
David, this is what it’s about, no? Forget all this peripheral noise, the proof of the pudding’s in the eating. Feeling better than when you began is what Scientology is about.
Scientology resolves those traits and impulses within you which you don’t wan’t and struggle to control.
It’s beyond the pale to think perhaps 30,000 people on this entire planet are availing themselves of this! What an outpoint!
t41, I have always maintained that if every person who walked into an Org was given one intensive of Life Repair – or hell, just had their ruds flown – you’d have a Scientologist for life.
Thanks a lotVictoria for your support! I know… it’s a shame to see how a familly is treated by the “Church”. I decided to join the Seao Org with wife and kids…to help Ron save the planet. And i am sure that you had the same purpose. And i was so excited by this purpose! It’s a dream that became the worse nightmare of my life. Now, i have a broken familly and broken life. But, my honor is more important than my current life! My kids are french citizens and i am going to make a denouncement to the French Police. Over there the scene is extremely hot regarding the “Church” activities. And one more denouncement is going to make some real noise.
Michel Puzzolante
PLEASE CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THE IMPLANT CHAIR IN THE “SUPERPOWER” BUILDING???
Hello Victoria! Before being posted as Solo Nots DofP, i have been working for 6 years on the Superpower building. My profession is Interior Designer and i was in charge of designing the New Flag Building, while in the Landlord Office. The “Mecca od Scientology” has 7 floors and 2 of them where allocated to the SuperPower RDs. Put it this way…..We where designing a Luna Park or Disney Land…for Scientologists. The implant chair you saw was one of the main “attractions”. But nodoby would know what it was all about! We had only a few data to work with, like zero. And DM was announcing to the public that the Super power RDs were ready to be delivered…..business…more business…and less spiritual freedom.
Michel Puzzolante
Dear Haydn,
Thanks for your spot-on Eval!! Loved it. Have done the Data Series Evaluator’s Course.
Recently in a telephone conversation with CJC PAC, I told him that there were many people out there with heartbreaking stories on the Internet, and that Scientology needed to handle them, or it would be very bad for the Church, because of their influence. I couldn’t believe the number of stories there were. So I had spotted that part of your eval! But I had never spotted the Why for the new people blowing and I think you have hit the nail on the head. It was the incredible Comm Course and hard TR’s. In the 70’s, in Austin, the org had to rent a huge space as an “Annex”, and it was FULL! And the org, a smaller space than the Annex it had to rent, was full. For a while I was getting auditing in a very tiny bathroom that was a closet, with the auditor sitting on the toilet! But nobody cared because the tech was so in and there were wins all over the place. And the “Annex”, a huge room, the size of a dance hall, was full of public twinned up doing their Comm Course! People were laughing, and having blow out wins! We had a boom that has never been seen like that since. Now, there appear to be one or two public on Day and when I got my “burn notice” in 2001, there might be 10 on course on Foundation at night.
In 1971, a brand new Scientologist, I thought I was “hot _hit” because I had won the Field Rep of the Year” award, nationwide for my real estate company, beating out 200 people. I was very young, and because I was making so much money by “communicating”, I didn’t think the Comm Course could do anything for me. I found out that I could not sit in a chair for more than a few seconds without squirming, tapping my foot, busting up laughing, giggling, etc, etc. I couldn’t listen to people. I was making $36,000 a year (back then probably close to what $150,000 would be now) and I found out that I didn’t know the FIRST thing about communication. I was hooked from then on. In a couple of years I was on the original OT IV at AOLA. Many years later, while being a twin for somebody on a drill of the STCC, I remember thinking – “How bland this is. What would this person do if he had to do REAL TR’S? But until your post today, it never occurred to me that that was the WHY for the blowing of the public. So I want to thank you very much because I was very dedicated as an FSM and got many failed purposes over the years, and now I know why, that line of hard core basic courses went out!
Now, on another subject, I have had the disconnection problem, and how I found out about what was really going on in the Church, was by researching the subject of disconnection on the internet. My son was a minor child then, and now he is 19. He is currently disconnected from me and I am trying to find out the legal ramifications of damage done to a minor child due to enforced disconnection. I have contacted a family law attorney, but no data yet. It any of you have data on this, I would like to know. My son, about a year ago, said to me “Mom, you have no idea how hard life was for me because of your sit with the Church” . He also told me the first time he disconnected when he was 13 ( at Delphi, living with his father and stepmother, who were on staff there) that he was pressured into it. I am wondering if it would be possible to have a class action law suit by parents who are or have been disconnected from their children due to the policies of the Church. It is clearly illegal and against the law in many states, but I have only been able to find out about one lawsuit, in England, I believe, where the disconnection policy came into question. I want to end this illegal, cruel practice, and I will go the ends of the earth to get this handled. Monday, I talked to the St. Petersburg Times reporter, but disconnection as a subject is not at the top of their list right now. It is “old news” as far as I can tell. He was very nice, and asked me to stay in comm. But a class action lawsuit, Wow! that would be another story. I told my son in an e-mail on Valentine’s Day that I would not stop doing everything I could to tell our story about what the Church of Scientology has done to us, and that I would tell our story to the world! If Marty will let me, I will write it up and let all of you know what happened, along with photographs. So, for me, as a parent of a 19-year old son, who disconnects from me every time he gets around Cof S terminals, and reconnects in between, I want to put an end to this cruel, illegal practice and I will not stop until it is DONE. I know there are many others in this same frame of mind and we need to work together, and I am encouraged by the offer of support and money to Michel Puzzolante, (exsolonotsdofp) and I pledge my support as well. As an organized group with all the talents and extreme abilities of us here, with a co-ordinated push, it should be very easy to end this, because the Church already knows it is illegal and the public, (the United States of America and the rest of the world) considers it an abhorrent practice; otherwise why would Tommy Davis get on nationwide TV and say it isn’t enforced? They are running scared on this subject and one good lawsuit, or class action suit, well-funded, and with GOOD press coverage, (easy to obtain on such a hot issue), and my opinion is this disconnection thing would be history, vapors, archives. Especially when the world finds out about DM ordering Robert Vaughn Young to re-instate disconnection in LRH’s name without LRH’s knowledge! There are sworn affidavits about this on the Internet. Google “Robert Vaughn Young Scientology Disconnection Policy”. It is even in the new DM edited “Introduction to Scientology Ethics” under History: “Earlier, disconnection as a condition was cancelled.” I guess DM forgot to edit that one out! The HCO PL is 15 NOV 1968 CANCELLATION OF DISCONNECTION. This HCO PL has one sentence in it: “Since we can now handle all types of cases disconnection as a condition is cancelled.” What if that, along with Robert Vaughn Young’s Affidavit that DM made him illegally re-instate Disconnection, were mailed to those 5,000 hard core Scientologists. What would happen to the Scientology world then? I have a LOT more to say about all this, but I have almost written a chapter in a book here, and this is supposed to be a comment, but I could tell you two more stories about disconnection, one involving Cara Golachesky, CJC FLB, in which she had a 22 year old declared SO member come live with me, even though she had NON-SCIENTOLOGY family who loved her dearly and would gladly have put her up. Why? I asked this recently of Cara, after the fact. The answer was “Because the Scientology part of (the girl’s”) family talks to the non-Scientology part of the family”. Can you believe that? I had to pick her up at a bus depot at 4:00 A.M in the morning, and only hours before, right as she was escorted to the bus terminal and put on the bus to me, did she find out she was being declared and sent to me, a total stranger! She had been in the Sea Org since she was 12 years old, a Cadet. No experience in the real world, no high school diploma, except maybe a GED, and $500 bucks, out of which $250 was taken out for the bus fare, and she was sent to me, because I guess I was a “nice” in comm SP! And she was a fully trained Flag MAA, (not at the time of the declare), and she said her Comm Ev lasted 20 minutes. And, (it gets better) she was not given a copy of her declare! She was devastated!
O.K. I didn’t mean to tell that story, but I did anyway. There is another one, involving DM niece, DM’s twin sister’s daughter, newly married to a wonderful young man in the Sea Org, who is my son’s step-brother. The young couple were both on staff at FSO, and were going to the husband’s parents for Christmas, plane tickets in hand, replacements all in place, and at the last moment could not go home for a three day holiday to Delphi for Christmas, because my son was there, and as a minor child he was talking to me, (a declaree) and because he would also be talking to his step-mother (they were all in Oregon) who would then talk to her biological son during the Christmas visit and because of this; the young newly weds, at the last minute, literally, an hour or two before they were to get on the plane, were told by the Flag MAA that they could not go. I guess the Flag MAA handling this was worried she would get RPF’d if she let them go. My son and I got blamed by the family for ruining their Christmas. So the disconnection policy is not just one layer deep, it is considered a Suppressive Act to talk to someone who is connected to someone else who is connected to an SP. So the policy has arrived into the realm of the ridiculous and the absurd! An SP doesn’t have to be around at all for this policy to be enforced!
Sorry to take up so much space on this comment, but this is my hot topic! Thanks, Marty for the space and the forum! More later,
Lady Minn
Very interesting. It sounds complicated. How on earth are you going to be a part of your childrens lives?
I wonder what will happen? I had a friend in Sedona Arizona and she was very very rich. Her husabnd did not get much from her when they were divorced so he couldn’t afford to follow her to be around his daughter. So the Arizona judge forbade my girlfriend to leave the state of Arizona! I couldn’t believe it… all the money in the world and she could not leave the state, which she hated.
The courts will make it hell on the parents until they fix things so that the children can have a mother and a father.
Oh and the fact they are French Citizens, this could cause a huge PR flap. I can’t believe the reptile didn’t think about it.
I just hope the church doesn’t use some tactics on you by lying about you in court and the routine stuff they do to destroy people. But it does seem like their karma is really starting to bite them in the ass for that behaviour these past few years.
David,
like LRH probably would have put it:
Thank you for having all these wins!
Gorgious!
FT,
I second that full heartedly! Well put!
War and Peace,
Very good point. From the information I have, my estimation is there are now closer to 3,000
Sea Org members. In addition to all the valuable veterans that have been blown off, there are a couple hundred more stuck for years in places like “the Hole” or the RPF.
Lady Minn,
I hear you. You have posted the most interesting story. I think I may know you, thank you for this mesage.
Lady Minn,
I think I know who you are, too — I was on lines at the Austin Org in the early / mid 1970s, too. Your “young, high-achiever real estate” description certainly reminds me of someone specific. Best to you.
Dear Just Me and Barney Rubble, If you know me I would very much like to talk to you, and even if you don’t know me… My e-mail address is Ladyminn@hushmail.com. Please contact me and let’s find out if we know each other.
ARC. Lady Minn
I agree with the failing stats and empty orgs but the numbers don’t add up in terms of how much money has been donated to the IAS, Ideal Orgs, Super Power, Planetary Dissem, etc., etc., let alone services. Let’s put it back up to 60,000. Could 60,000 do all that? Really?
Do you think it’s possible we are getting “black ops” money from elsewhere? Sounds funny but could we really account for all the monies being donated?
Can you do an analysis of how much you think has been spent on all of these things (including the alleged extravagance of DM) and see how that equates with numbers of donors? I mean, there’s lots that has been paid for including underground vaults and titanium containers, etc., let alone all the lawsuits. Where’s the dough coming from?
Yep, I agree Elizabeth.
Everytime someone like Nancy Cartright gives a large donation it gets way more press than it could ever possibly deserve.
It’s a diversionary tactic. You aren’t meant to look at the specifics, and most people don’t.
Remember what Ron said about who owns and controls the media. And that seems to be where the majority go to find their truth.
Easy peasy.
Though I will admit after a flurry a couple of years ago, of coverage about outrageous donations to the church, from celebrities it has gone fairly quiet.
I wonder about those vaults… have they preserved the altered tech?
60,000 members x $20,000 each as an arbitrary amount = 1.2 billion dollars given just as an example.
Hadyn, thank you for the work you are doing here at Marty’s blog. Your work is impressive and your insights are important.
Problem is … the CoS must have had way more than $1.0 billion+ in costs over these last 20 years. It would be interesting to see the CoS’s financials which would account for the nearly $1.0 billion that DM is apparently controlling.
Then again, if you get 50 high rollers making *pure* donations of $10 million each over 20 years … you’ve got half a billion in “Sea Org Reserves”.
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Same thing sorta happened to me. Around 2004, I started slowly debiting materials off my SHSBC I’d paid for around 1991. I stopped for a while, leaving a few thousand untouched. Some months later I called to debit more materials to find I had about $80 left on my account. Huh?
Turns out the Book Store Officer had debited all these materials but never shipped anything (the person who sells the materials gets the book commissions – or in this case, the person who debits the materials). That S.O. member was no longer there and had apparently done this to quite a few people so the person now helping me got all my info and I got it credited back and then I wiped out my account for real.
Cara Golashesky- child of very wealthy OTs, one on OT7, one OT5 last I knew; living in Baton Rouge, La. She was recruited into the S.O. at about age 17, straight to Flag.
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