by Mike Rinder
Having tortured myself Clockwork-Orange-style into watching a few hours of Shermanspeak® at the 2012 Maiden Voyage, I have a few observations.
Miscavige’s “Ideal Org strategy” is (no surprise) a complete bust.
He has banked everything on “Ideal Orgs” and the IAS. So, in the age tested manner of a really good ser fac, he will go on proving the “rightness” of this insane strategy until he is dead right.
Thus, his manic efforts to make it appear that “Ideal Orgs” are “straight up and vertical” by showing tortured, misleading “stats” (more on that later).
But, through the smoke and mirrors of bursting, thunderclap and trumpet blaring graphics, it is clear that Mr. MEST has dramatically lowered his standards: he is not only announcing “Grand (re)Openings” of EXISTING “Ideal Orgs” at events, he is personally attending those events to perform ceremonial ribbon cuttings. There he was at the new/old new “Ideal Orgs” in Buffalo, Stevens Creek and Los Gatos. Presented with enough hype and certainty, Miscavige is convinced the clubbed seals don’t notice (and he may be right).
Of course, he really has no choice. No matter how hokey it is, he MUST appear so video can be shot and shown at the next event to keep “proving” his corporate expansion.
So, there he was at Buffalo “cutting the ribbon” (along with Joburg, San Francisco and Tampa, he hyped this as the FIRST Ideal Org). But this time there was no Mayor of Buffalo or other elected representative reading speeches written for them by Aron Mason or Dan Sherman. Miscavige could only scrounge up “other EUS and Canadian Org EDs” to stand on stage with him.
And so it went – and this was presented as“proof” of the “massive international expansion” with the catchy sounding refrain: “New Idea Orgs are rising at a rate of more than one a month”….(including the three above as well as Madrid and Hamburg “re-openings”).
It’s not JUST the lie that there are “new orgs” (new buildings) being opened, he has compounded the lie that re-opened, re-renovated, Ideal “Org” buildings are “NEW orgs.” How Miscavige gets these things out of his mouth with a straight face may only be explained by Botox overdosing.
But there were more “incredible” (ie. unbelievable) “stats” he gushed forth.
“Since the floodgates opened with the Dianetics Route, new people onto service increased by 25 times” Of course, no figures are given. And with NO attention put on the “Dianetics Route” prior to POB inventing his new version, this could be a total of 25 people a week internationally equating to “25X” the one per week previously.
Same with “new people are stepping onto the Bridge at a rate 60 times anything before the new Introductory Routes” – again, no NUMBERS. Just incredible “60X” expansion that can only be a complete fabrication. BUT he does also assert STCC completions “are 4 times what they were before the new Scientology Routes” so apparently only 1 in 15 COMPLETES Miscavige’s magnificent new course… Or in other words “Number of people blowing off STCC since the release of the new Introductory Routes has increased 15X and is another HIGHEST EVER!!!!”
“LRH books and lectures in public hands since the dawn of GAK has surpassed 100 million” – this doublespeak actually means nothing of the sort. It is based on enforced sales from the Pubs Orgs to orgs and Missions, counting 300 for each set of ACCs, 150 for each set of basics lectures etc. But everyone knows that the vast majority of this figure are sitting either in basements of orgs, tossed on remainder tables at libraries, were returned to Pubs orgs with their covers torn off or are locked in storage containers of public who have bought 2,3,5 or more sets after middle of the night visits and phone calls from staff who are not allowed to sleep until they meet their arbitrary quotas. But he makes it sound like this is the number of books in the hands of the new public.
“Every other day, another New OT VIII joins the assemblage of OTs – Highest Ever in history.” Amazing, he gave an actual stat. But, if you analyze this stat, it is an enormous admission of failure. Let us assume this lie is true (it MAY have been true one week or perhaps two leading up to MV – just like “Ideal Orgs opening every month”). Taken at face value it means 183 OT VIIIs per year reaching the “EP” of the Bridge. This SHOULD also be the number of people who complete OT VII. But let’s be conservative and say only HALF of the completions on OT VII go on to OT VIII. That would be 365 OT VIIs in a year (of course, you know if THIS was true, it would be being shouted from the rooftops “One OT VII EVERY DAY!!!!!”). Let’s take it a step further. The FSO has been promoting “10,000 on OT VII will Clear the Planet” for more than a decade. And they haven’t achieved it still. So, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they have achieved 33% of that goal in 10 YEARS of “massive international expansion greater than any time in history and more than the 50 years prior combined”, there are 3,300 people “on OT VII”. And that means it is taking TEN YEARS to complete OT VII. And if they have achieved 66% of their target and have 6500 people on Solo NOTs it is taking 20 years to complete! If they have only achieved one sixth of their target in the face of this massive expansion and have 1700 on OT VII its still a 5 year average to complete (and that is 10 “6 month sec checks”). Not even in the ballpark of correct orders of magnitude.
Perhaps even more disturbing is the insanity of the Shermanspeak® ramblings. Delivered in monotonous sing-song, the Pope on a Box has become a parody of himself. His amazing efforts to make up for lack of substance with “clever” words sound more like demented meanderings of a drug addled fantasy fiction writer. Here are a few quotes directly from Chairman Mao that speak louder as to his nutball theetie-weetiness than any description could offer. And these ARE direct quotes, not altered in ANY way.
He got things off to a roaring start with this:
“Welcome to Home Universe and the greatest assembly of OT’s in history, or for that matter since before the beginning or even before the decision to begin.” Really???
“And as we voyage ever closer to a world of which earth can be proud, so appears eternity like a ring of pure and endless light” (with unicorns dancing on moonbeams….)
“We sailed a tide of history to the headwaters of infinity, until it finally came to be, that from the bottom of the Bridge to the very top, this is now our world.”
“And all of which makes this the greatest voyage in whole track history.”
“An OT voyage through a world of great wonder, where her wake ripples out to distant stars.”
Rest assured, if the CO FSSO had ever stood in front of an audience and delivered lines like this drivel, she would have been sent to the bilges as a “theetie-weetie bypassed case.” If a politician stood on stage and talked like this there would be calls for his mental health to be reviewed. If the Cardinal of Rome spouted this kind of absurdity people would be asking whether he had self-medicated.
But when his presentation got really entertaining was the “specifics” on the activities on the OT Ambassadors to “build their Ideal Orgs.” As usual, he seems to get a real kick out of the juvenile and sometimes degraded “Bowling for Bucks” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” nights, the “hot peppers” in Mexico, Malmo’s “Heavy Metal God of Mayhem, Hank from Hell” and the “now famed” “Sydney Rabbit.” It’s hard to tell if he seriously thinks this is good shit, or whether he is having a little insider joke at the expense of his OT Ambassadors.
But even more interesting is the absolute REFUSAL of Miscavige to mention the words “fundraising” or “money.” The grand architect of building fundraising is afraid to let the words money or fundraising pass his lips as he thinks it “demeans” him (while ordering everyone else in his kingdom that this is ALL they can talk about). It is really comical to see how many times he squirms around the subject while briefing about the OT Amabassadors activities when ALL they do is raise money for “Ideal Orgs” – so he talks about “storming the pledge board’, “exuberant energy drive”, “Ideal Org Energizer”, “energy drives”, “high-speed energy drivers”, “energetic drives” and the euphemistic “a million-plus cries of bravo” and “2.9 million steps closer to an Ideal Org”… It’s like a football coach refusing to use the word football and instead referring to the “pigskin” and “object we pass” or “our little friend.” Is this guy nuts or what?
Another classic of Shermanspeak ® is the use of “futurescape” as in “Toronto, a futurescape wherein existing premises will morph into an Ideal Org resplendent…” (funny , the continental org in Canada has had the same building since LRH directed its purchase in 1978 and it is STILL not “Ideal” and is still struggling – the absolute PROOF that a BUILDING DOES NOT MAKE AN ORG) – “futurescape” has now entered the Miscavige lexicon in an attempt to give substance to something that doesn’t exist.
The “stats” presented for each Cont are “Hours on OT projects” and “Square feet of Ideal Orgs on the runway”… And as he moved through the Conts, he repeatedly described orgs with “construction docs ready”. I think he really has a hard time thinking in terms of Valuable Final Products.
And he is not only presenting “re-openings” he is talking AGAIN about the same orgs that have NEVER opened: Harlem touted as futurescape, so too New Haven and Battle Creek and Kansas City and Kaohsuing and Bulawayo and Auckland and numerous others that have been used as props in so many earlier glitzfests to “prove” the massive international expansion with “fly throughs” of their “futurescapes.” How long can this con continue?
And finally, one very startling omission. With all this talk of one new Ideal Org each month (and there WERE 3 new buildings shown from this year – OC, Denver and Phoenix, all WUS where the Baybacks/Jensens/Duggans are) – how come, with 34 Ideal Orgs, THERE IS NO ST HILL SIZE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR ANY ORG AT THE EVENT? After all, this WAS an event about Scientology and org “expansion”? Why don’t all these Ideal Orgs now have Universe Corps moving their staff up to OT? No Universe Corps in Malmo? Dallas? Nashville? Quebec? Rome? Las Vegas? Brussels? Seattle? Etc etc etc He has had nearly 10 years of opening “Ideal Orgs” but in that time the number of St Hill size orgs has DECLINED!
That was MV Night One.
The only other “nights” were “ASI LRH Fiction Night” and “IAS Night”. Of course, Miscavige didn’t do the fiction night. That’s beneath him as he is a “religious leader.” So, the “week of events” that used to be 5 full nights of briefing plus a closing night has shrunk down to an Opening, IAS and a throw away “LRH fiction” night. But it makes sense as the ONLY concentration of the RCS is fundraising for Ideal Orgs and IAS. He also still does the “confidential briefing” to the OT Ambassadors that is not video’d and he talks off the cuff in incomplete, incoherent sentences dishing out a stream of hidden data and a bunch of verbal orders.
If I can stomach it, I will do a separate report on “IAS Night.”
But here is the bottom line: No matter how much visual trickery, how many adjectives or big words or how hypnotic the sing-song delivery – the Emperor has no clothes.
And if, instead of being dazzled by the sequined gown, the flashing lights and the fake applause, viewers were to actually look at the SUBSTANCE of what is being communicated, they would see this is to be what it is: a magician’s sideshow act, not “the greatest show on earth,” let alone representative of a movement bringing truth and sanity to the planet.
