By Mike Rinder
Having just seen the latest annual IAS circus featuring Chairman of the Board IAS (and nobody else, including L. Ron Hubbard), a few thoughts sprang to mind (apart from the fact that I felt I needed to take a shower after being slimed).
Firstly, for an association that promotes itself as “open to anyone” and with such pressure brought to bear to get people to attend the event, they are awfully shy about letting the world see all their “good works”. Earlier efforts to maintain the “security” of the DVD’s that go to the orgs are now completely over the top. Less precautions are taken with State Secrets in many countries. What is POB so worried about? That his hype will be exposed for what it is? Or even worse, his over-the-top claims about the astonishing inroads in Guatemala, Pakistan, Colombia, Congo, Papua New Guinea blah, blah, blah will be seen on the internet in those places and official responses will Dead Agent his bullshit.
Secondly, Shermanspeak ® has reached new lows. Right out of the starting gates POB bloviates thusly: “We meet again in the kingdom of the IAS. And should anyone wonder what foresight and fortune brought you to this place that was always waiting – this place we were destined to reunite since the first tick of time, well, allow me to reiterate just who we are: We have come to unite, advance, support and protect the Scientology religion so as to achieve the Aims of Scientology.” If you can make sense out of this, you have obviously been subjected to a reverse Scientology rundown available only in the RCS. It went downhill from there like a southbound train on a rocket ride to eternity. I was going to count the number of times POB began sentences with “Given” or “Notwithstanding” or used the phrase “says it all”, “which is to say”, “all of which” or “which in turn brings us to this,” but it was just too painful.
As a sidenote, the “Kingdom of the IAS” seems to have been a theme, but more appropriate would have been “Circus of the IAS” – as it featured (literally) fire-eaters, stilt walkers, galloping horses dressed in medieval costumes, a big tent and a barking ring-master in a tuxedo.
Thirdly, it was rather evident watching his “Grand Opening” that there isnt much to talk about. Believe it or not, he showed the opening of NN Arrowhead, Applied Scholastics, WTH Fdn etc AGAIN and the conjured “stats” that bust out the top of graphs have become ludicrous. How these people keep buying it is a wonder of the modern world. A snaking pipe bursts out the top of a graph described as “Number of Disaster Sites Responded to by VMs” — 164 SINCE the wake up call! Talk about Merchants of Chaos! The more disasters there are, the more POB can hype his cumulative false stats! Or this one, “2893 Governments On Board with Our Programs” since Wake Up Call. Another smashing “Affluence” of unverifiable horseshit. The Missions I will leave for another post as that was just comical.
His shermanspeak rendition of org “expansion” was presented as this: “10 fold expansion in sheer size and scope since Wake Up Call.” The “graphs” come on the screen and crash and bang and nobody has any idea what they are really showing — they just give a general impression there is massive expansion occuring of some type, somewhere.
But his Grand Finale took the cake: “If the Wake-up Call was ultimately about opening eyes to the necessities of Planetary Clearing , then what has since been accomplished says it all – Scientology sectors across the world now delivering help at a rate 70 times higher than in 2001.”
This is an all time whopper.
So, I thought comparing what the great man said in front of his loving audience to RCS PUBLISHED information would be interesting.
Of course “delivered help” would be reflected in org growth, so let’s begin there (I am sure if ever challenged to justify this statement he would say it is “all delivery” meaning counting every employee of any company that has had a WISE seminar as someone “helped”, but even given that sleaze, if it really increased 70 times in 10 years it would HAVE to show up in orgs).
As has become his predictably boring habit, POB made a big deal about Ideal Orgs – promoting Inglewood and the seemingly jinxed “Jaffa” (Tel Aviv) Ideal Orgs with lavish fly-throughs, announcing them “complete” even though Jaffa cannot open because they do not have permission to occupy the building.
It’s well known the RCS doesn’t make information about stats from the Ideal Orgs (or any others) available to anyone. Occasionally something leaks out, like stat graphs from a disgruntled San Francisco staff member (both an Ideal Org AND a SH Size Org) or eyewitness reports from visitors to the empty Ideal Orgs in London, New York, Madrid, Pasadena, Malmo and others. All one has to do to check up on POB’s bs is walk into any of these orgs. No matter how many times he repeats that they are “the embodiment of the Bridge itself” or “each one a monument to civilization” the fact remains they are more like empty MEST monuments to POB’s insanity. But of course every KoolAid guzzler falls for the old trick – if they see the org they are in empty and failing they just know all the others are booming and their org is “out of step” and out ethics to boot.
So, as Dan Sherman might put it, let’s take a “grander view from above the planet, straight up and vertical, three feet back of civilization.” And for this first look, let’s stick to the orgs. And let’s stick to the data the CHURCH makes available.
There is a great baseline provided by the church for comparing relative growth. The 1992 edition of What Is Scientology? — perhaps the last broadly available accurate and honest information about the church of Scientology. No doubt POB regrets it enormously, for it contains a list of all orgs and missions in the world, and the dates when orgs were first established. If you look at the Scientology.org site these days, it is deliberately designed so it is virtually impossible to make such a list, though I am sure if you spent enough time you could. But for the purposes of this review, there is really no need.
Let’s analyse the “70 times” expansion with a very simple criteria. How many orgs are there? As POB keeps repeating, it is orgs that are the “islands of sanity bringing LRH tech to their entire zones.” So, one would presume with 70x expansion there would be MORE orgs bringing LRH tech to their “entire zones.”
WIS lists the following:
NEW ORGS OPENED in the 1970’s: CCLA, Munich, Plymouth, Buffalo, Boston, Vienna, San Diego, Portland, St Louis, Amsterdam, Vancouver, Malmo, Manchester, Montreal, Ottawa, Sacramento, Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, Milano, Bern, IFA (Mexico City). 22 in all.
NEW ORGS OPENED in the 1980’s: Brescia, Cincinnati, ACD (Mexico City), Edmonton, Phoenix, Brussels, Novara, ITD (Mexico City), Birmingham, IFA (Mexico City), Sunderland, Albuquerque, Columbus, Bogota, Basel, Angers, Berlin, Canberra, Rome, Pasadena, Santa Barbara, Valley, Kitchener, Padova, Oslo, Polanco (Mexico City), Geneva, Pordenone, Madrid, St Etienne, Tel Aviv, Harare, Quebec, Joburg North, Caracas, CCLV, Winnipeg, Aarhuus, Barcelona, CC Paris, Torino, Verona, Clermont Ferrand, Tampa, Lyon, Orlando, Lisbon, Kansas City, New Haven, Brisbane, Brighton, Ann Arbor, Guadalajara, Hamburg, Zurich, Long Island, Orange County, CCNY, CC Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Steven’s Creek, CC Dusseldorf, Monza, CC Portland, Nuoro, CC Dallas, Lausanne, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hanover, Atlanta, Stuttgart. 72 in all.
NEW ORGS opened from 1990 to 1992: Catania, Salt Lake, Mountain View, Puerto Rico. 4 total.
From there, the information is based on my memory. I believe St Petersburg, Moscow, Athens and Budapest were opened in the late 1990’s, or at least prior to the “Wake Up Call.”
SINCE the “Wake Up Call” – Inglewood, last month.
So, in the 3 decades prior to POB’s kick off point for his 70X expansion, 100 NEW orgs opened. Since then ONE. Maybe he just got his numbers/words inverted and he meant to say 70X contraction? Or 1/70th as much expansion as in previous decades? Or something???
But, let’s slice this cake of a cleared civilization another way. Of the 10 largest metropolitan areas on the planet, only 3 have orgs – Tokyo, New York and Mexico City. The 7 others don’t even have a mission – Seoul, Mumbai, Jakarta, Sao Paolo, Delhi, Osaka and Shanghai. 70X expansion? Really?
Ah, but Dan and Dave could say that 70X expansion came about with the EXISTING orgs. But back to the trusty WIS? book. Prior to the Wake Up Call, the following orgs were declared St Hill Size: Orange County, Munich, Hamburg, Zurich, Milano, Stuttgart, Stevens Creek, LA Org, CC Paris and Budapest. Since then, POB has bestowed that status on Joburg Day, Tampa Day, SFO Day and Moscow. There are a whole slew of his “Ideal Orgs” that have not qualified for “SH Size status” including some of his most grandiose – London, Berlin, DC, Brussels. Surely, with 70X expansion generated by only the existing orgs, every single org would by now be SH size?
And finally, on the subject of orgs – what about some of the places POB has hyped over the last decade, showing grandiose “fly-throughs” depicting “completed” buildings that have never come to pass: Harlem is the crown jewel of his Ideal Orgs dunces cap, but its flanked by some other gems: Battle Creek ring a bell, New Haven? Sacramento? Kaoshuing? Copenhagen? CapeTown? Toronto? The list is almost endless. That is a demonstration of 70X expansion?
To borrow another favorite from the bard of bullshit – when you add it all up, you come to this:
Since 1990, under the direct personal orders of Mr. Scientology himself, the Chairman of the Board, Mr. David Miscavige: the international network of Scientology orgs has been steadily shrinking in terms of reach and help provided (theta), while steadily increasing in terms of buildings and the always supremely important “square footage” (MEST).
Or, to put it another way, David Miscavige has truly perfected the skill of turning theta into MEST
Moving On Up a Little Higher 