Some thoughts on the latest “ideal org” to open in San Diego this weekend.
Shermanspeak
Ah, the magnificent prose: Follow the Pacific Coast Highway down Southern California’s meandering shoreline along a 70-mile stretch of sandy beaches basking in the most perfect weather—anywhere—and you’ll arrive to the city of San Diego. Such was the location for a sunbaked Saturday afternoon amid San Diego’s downtown skyline—a sublime setting to celebrate the city’s new Church of Scientology.
The insane claims: the ribbon yanking on this building is “hailed as a moment for the American Dream” — by exactly nobody.
Miscavige babble: “If ever was a day when ‘California Dreaming’ assumed a whole new meaning it is now with the inauguration of this Ideal Church of Scientology, and if ever was a place predestined for this moment, then it’s your San Diego. So as we dedicate this Ideal Org, we do so in the name of our Founder and in honor of this city where he once lived. And thus, we pledge our commitment to employ his technology for life—broadly, unsparingly and indiscriminately for this ‘Finest City in America!’”
Repeat the big lie: The San Diego grand opening punctuates an explosive era of expansion for the Church. “Punctuates” should probably be “punctures.” The only explosive expansion in scientology is column inches/minutes of negative media coverage. The only “expansion” (unexplosive) is value of real estate holdings.
And finally throw in some biographical bullshit about Hubbard — in this case he is now the first ever surfer at Encinitas! “This was also his first point of departure for Asia—boarding a naval transport with a well-worn suit, a thin topcoat and two pennies. While in the wake of Waikiki, he tells of importing a board from Honolulu, and so became the first to catch a wave at Encinitas.”
And the utterly incomprehensible gibberish: “So, yes, this is the crossroads of your history with LRH—and your future with his legacy.”
Milestone and Epic Crowd
This was the org that was considered to be part of “LA” and all LA scientologists were expected to attend.
They claim the turnout was 3500. Those figures are always inflated as this photo shows.
BUT – if you take that as true, it is the latest evidence yet that the scientology bubble continues to shrink at a rapid rate. There are, according to scientology, more than 3500 Sea Org members between Gold and PAC. There are 5 ideal orgs with hundreds of staff. There is CC Int and ASHO and AOLA. All these orgs supposedly have thousands of “parishioners.”
This is the most important program in scientology. It has to be. It is the ONLY thing Miscavige is willing to appear for. He hides from the public generally, the media specifically and legal cases maniacally. But a good ribbon yanking and he is there every time, even if it’s in Australia or Japan or other far-flung lands (unless it is somewhere like Moscow or Brussels where he doesn’t feel safe).
So, where are all the scientologists? In 1993 there were 10,000 people at the IAS Event in the LA Sports Arena. Nothing approaching that number has been seen anywhere since. Back then it was a flap if the top section of the Shrine Auditorium had empty seats. Today they cannot even fill all the seats in the BOTTOM half.
This is proof of the big lie. They renovate more buildings and there are less people in inverse ratio to the square footage of real estate holdings.
Dignitaries
Nobody of note is willing to show their faces at these sort of events any longer. Used to be Mayors, Senators, Sheriff’s etc could be tricked into appearing (remember the Mayor of Buffalo and Mayor of Sacramento for example?).
Look who was there for this: Mr. John Redman, Director of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program (HIDTA) – he is also the Executive Director of Californians for Drug Free Youth has press releases put out for him by MGE (Scientology management training company) and is featured in Freedom Mag fighting the good fight against legalizing marijuana and on scientology’s own website under “what we do” with an article about his good works in Baja.
Dr. Beatriz Villarreal, Education Advisor to the County of San Diego; she is really the leader of the Mano a Mano Foundation which helps youth through education. But that doesn’t sound very important so she is an “Education Adviser.” Don’t doubt she is a nice woman who does good work.
Col. Bart Billings Ret., National Guard Medical Directorate. Also not doubt a good man. But a Google search comes up with the scientology press release on the ribbon yanking as his claim to fame.
Ms. Estela De Los Rios, member of the National Steering Committee for Human Trafficking; when you Google Ms. De Los Rios you find she is the Executive Director of the Center for Social Advocacy in San Diego — which fights hate crimes, the civil rights violations experienced by newly arrived immigrants, human trafficking, youth alienation, and poverty. A very laudable activity and something very praiseworthy. Who knows what this “National Steering Committee” is…
But of all the speakers, she is the one that should be most disgusted. She was fed these lines to spout: “In this world, with all the news headlines and chaos, we need all the help we can get. And I thank you for keeping human rights in the minds and souls of the people. Because only if we love, embrace and be respectful of one another, to not just ourselves but all mankind, can we have human rights everywhere. For me, the real heroes are people like you here today—the Church of Scientology.”
How completely and utterly duped can one be? I can understand someone getting behind the other front groups — drug education or even WTH. But someone who is an advocate against human trafficking, youth alienation and poverty? She didn’t do much checking into the church of scientology’s history of human trafficking right there just 100 miles away in Hemet, nor its policies of disconnection or leading people into bankruptcy.
But even putting all that aside.
If scientology is so big and influential in S. California, and is so widely accepted and lauded as one sees repeated over and over at events and in IAS magazines, how come not a single member of the Mayor’s office or San Diego City council, or the Congressman for the district whether state or federal or the police chief or the head of the Red Cross or, or, or… showed up?
Believe me, in the inner halls of scientology this is becoming a flap. Miscavige is raising the roof that he is being forced to demean his great self by sharing the stage with nobodies…
It’s all open!
Look at the ground floor — you can see right in….
Wonder how long before those windows are covered up? The problem with being able to see IN is that everyone can see there is NOBODY THERE.
Hope someone from San Diego will swing by later this week and take some shots of the completely empty “ideal org” before they get the orders to cover up all the windows….
To sum up — this is all a dream. Scientology operates outside the harsh realities of the actual world, and is instead deluding itself, and only itself, that it is having any impact on anything anywhere.
If it were not for the ongoing abuses, it would not be worth 5 seconds of anyone’s time.
its seems that the Church is on EFFECT of its own creation or we may say , it urges for APPROVAL from masses for its existence. The shrinking world of Church of Scientology
Where are the photos of the staff who have worked their butts off (and donated their butts off) for over a decade to make this happen? Without the staff this is simply a building, and yet it is only the building that is being celebrated. Not even a speech from the ED? Are the people on the stage executives of the org or just major contributors? Only the out-of-towners seem to matter.
You know what, I totally agree with you. I’ve often thought that the hard work of staff should be recognized and commended. Especially publicly, and with some type of tangible rewards. It’s a small thing to do, commend the staff, but it would keep them content. D.M. appears to do just the opposite, he alienates good people. He already shot himself in the foot by isolating and degrading top level long-time dedicated staff, people who did, and would have continued to, work tirelessly and devotedly under the worst of conditions. That’s why we have books by Amy Scobee, Jefferson Hawkins, and Marc Headley, that’s why Chris Shelton makes videos, and Mike Rinder has this blog, and now, an A&E series with Leah Remini. Premiers tonight! 🙂
Is it my imagination or is the Dorkenfuhrers balding skull becoming more noticeable? The latest photo looks like a fluffy combed juvenile tribble sitting on top of his massively high forehead.
All he has left to spruik the “fastest shrinking…sorry, expanding…religion (that word attached to $camology makes me feel queasy) in the world is more real estate.
I hate to be a spoilsport but I don’t think that the photos are photo-shopped. If you look at the different images of the event on the Scientology site you’ll see different angles of the same crowd and can identify specific individuals throughout the crowd. BUT, there aren’t more than 850 people in the shot that shows the largest crowd. Now, this may sound like I didn’t really have a lot of things to do today, but yes, I counted them.
So, if 3500 people showed up, and Ash Street (which intersects with 4th Avenue where the event was held)is only a few feet behind the photographer, where are the other 2700 people?
Wait a minute. I think I know what’s really going on here.
The church got a city permit to close off a one block section of 4th Ave. for their event but the crowd spilled over to an additional two city blocks. The church decided not to publish their photographs of the entire crowd in order to avoid any fines for violating their permits.
Epic!
Wow! You have some patience!
I did a rough calculation by going to Google maps, looking at their photos and figuring that (generoulsly) there was about 10,000 sq ft for the spectators. Given some rule of thumb rules for crowd estimates (thank you Google), max attendance would have been approx. 1500.
Otherwise with that space and their lies (3500), you would have had an apocalyptic scene – Black Hole of Calcutta or sardines or a Mexico City bus during rush hour.
There are so many points from which to view this article that even just one of them can cause my sides to split from laughing. For example, the article might be better titled California Hallucinating with some of the recent laws that were just passed. But aside from the obvious, Ms. Estela De Los Rios is here to communicate her views on human trafficking and the look at what she winds up feeling like as if she hasn’t had a good bowel movement in a couple of weeks. 🙂
It’s shopped alright. The bunting over the windows casts a shadow indicating a certain time of afternoon. The tree casts no such shadow over the crowd as it should. 😉
I had a buddy of mine take a quick look who did recon photo analysis in the USAF.
Off topic: The last comment yesterday by Jim is an all tine great. Thank you Jim! So much I can say on this but I won’t bother you all. Just want to say “great comment Jim! Thank you!”
Wrong Target! I don’t know why y’all are being so hard on the midget. He’s already told us on numerous occasions he has nothing to do with the day to day goings on in $cientology. Don’t worry Dave I got your back.
Thanks Harv – the attacks on me on this blog are epic and unprecedented. – Dave
heehee… lol. :-p
Not only was LRH the first surfer, he led the first surf band, Ron Hubbard and the Hubtones. He was an awesome guitarist back in the day. “Earlier Incident” was a surf rock classic.
Oh, man! I remember that song! My old surf band use to play it in Encinitas…
” Rock Slam Jam ” was my favorite.
Of course, in order to do any of this, he invented the Hubtar. Sadly, psychs ripped of his design, renaming it to “guitar” in order to cover their shifty tracks. Being a great humanitarian and independently wealthy from 28 other professions he had mastered, Dr Hubbard chose not to press the issue and went on instead to single-handedly compose major Hollywood blockbusters such as Buckeroo Banzai, the Bill and Ted franchise, Forrest Gump and Zelig–all autobiographical, of course!
The number and quality of the useful idiots who shill for the clampire have become fewer and of lower quality. I bet the ‘honorarium’ paid to the shills has not kept up with inflation. Now, if they would only come up with a private jet and 100k they could get one of the Clintons or even a Trump. Meanwhile, they are stuck with unknowns and anyone who can come up with a fancy title. This is an adventure in not-so-safe pointing.
Just don’t ignore the real safe pointing being done behind the scenes. David Miscavage could find himself as undersecretary of immigration in the Trump machine. That is only an inauguration party contribution away.
$cientology really has become a real estate holding company. And not a very good holding company. All of the renovations and build outs make the mOrgs expensive to re-purpose. But that is ok with the dwarfenführer. Once the mOrgs are sold off, any money received is pure profit. The Grand Nagus would be proud.
Undersecretary for Immigration Fraud–Religious Division
“And thus, we pledge our commitment to employ his technology for life—broadly, unsparingly and indiscriminately for this ‘Finest City in America!’”
Go ahead and say it, Dan Sherman, you KNOW you want to! “Scientology is the Zika virus of religions!”
Excellent article. “Scientology operates outside the harsh realities of the world” sums up the cherch perfectly. In their ever contracting world it must be harder and harder to block out the clear reality that Scientology is a sham. Scientologists must stay in their own personal worlds and the bubble that is ever contracting. Very sad.
Does anyone know (or have any thoughts on) whether the speakers are paid? Or maybe donations made to their charities?
I can’t wait for the Chicago Ideal Org to open. Let’s see….LRH will be credited with either bringing Al Capone down or being the ‘real’ inventor of blues music
‘Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy would often ask LRH for advice on musical compositions and LRH gave them several of his own songs to record. LRH did not need his name mentioned on any credits for these blues classics and generously allowed for Muddy and Buddy to take the credit as LRH was anxious to help African-Americans whenever he could. When he was not creating music with local legends, he was working (undercover of course) for J Edgar Hoover. It was LRH who told Eliot Ness how to go about stopping Al Capone’
I think after the A&E series runs, it’s going to be even more difficult to find speakers with which anyone is even remotely familiar.
Scientology in a nutshell: Advertising total freedom while operating at hallucinatory cause.
I can assure you there aren’t that many Scientologist in the San Diego County area.
Under a thousand if that.
LA, Orange and SD Counties probably yes.
Scientology is not expanding in SD County.
There used to be three Missions and an Org. The missions are gone.
Goddamn it Lurker, quit giving us facts; we want spin!
My head is already spinning!
I feel the spin hearing that Ron was the first to surf Encinitas.
http://encinitassurflessons.com/surf-history/
Yea, but the New Ideal Org of San Diego will give birth to many baby missions and field groups.
Hundreds of them, in fact! I think there’s a mission at the end of the Ocean Beach Pier. They may not get a lot people, but, they have one hellava view!
San Diego field is…guessing here…..1/40th of it’s size compared to 1970’s. Maybe less. Probably less. And this monkey dresses up in a $10,000 suit and blows sunshine everyones ass in attendance. And they assemble after being driven down from LA in buses. It’s sad. Scientology is sad and Scientology in San Diego has been a ghosts whisper for 20 years. And 99% percent of all Scientologists who ever gave a damn or lifted a finger to help the people in that area are either declared, dead or disabled by means of cultural indoctrination. Its not even a shadow of it’s self. It is a chalk line drawn on the concrete of people long gone. And now that everyone is gone Gerri and Mitzi can go back to smoking cigarettes on the front step passing time.
“Farao, oh farao…let my people go!” That shit’s just sad! All those people forced to be there, clap enthusiastically af,look happy af..And I guess they got regged on the way home. So freaking sad! On a merrier note, today I found out that back in 2010 the fbi had an eye on cruises private plane, when the feds planed a raid at gold…in case the midget (forgive me, little people!) tries to run for it!
Forgive me……this is off-topic…..but….Mike…do you know who does all the cosmetic procedures for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Every new photo op…..skin is smoother, hair is fuller….looks great….(Barf).
Maybe someone in our local area….Lol. I know I could use some Botox.
???
I had a Botox bow tie once. People couldn’t get over how soft my bow tie was….
I had a beau but he was toxic so I was forced to disconnect.
Aside from the miracle of Photoshop filters, he has been known to be a volunteer subject at LA’s Mortician’s School where state of the art embalming techniques are used to preserve his decaying protoplasm.
The Golden Age of Formaldehyde.
Whoever it is, Davey should give Tom Cruise their number. As plastic-fantastic as Dave looks, his “work” still looks better than Cruise’s puffy face.
Nice work, Sherman. Let’s use references in an article about San Diego of a song by a group from San Francisco. Two cities that are only connected by the fact that they’re in the same state. Let’s say that Birmingham Idle Morgue in the UK opens up. Are you going to ignore the musical contributions of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and my beloved ELO in favor of a group from, say, Liverpool or London? Probably. There’s too much subtext if you use, respectively, Paranoid, You’ve Got Another Thing Coming, or Turn To Stone.
And it doesn’t take much effort to find something from San Diego. Iron Butterfly was from San Diego. If The Simpsons could turn Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida (by I. Ron Butterfly) into a religious experience, so could you, Danny.
Utter fail, and that’s not even bringing up the obvious Photoshop use, the waste of money, and, as others have said, the full-length glass windows providing a panoramic view of their lack of parishioners.
A friend of mine recently went to a stand up comedy show here in L.A. The comedian talked about how he was abused as a child, his parents divorced, he became an alcoholic, a drug addict. He found himself homeless and penniless. He woke up in his car one morning and all he had left was the gun he kept under his seat. At that moment of complete despair he looked up to the heavens and thought “Thank GOD I’m not a Scientologist!” at which point the audience laughed its ass off. At best the public see Scientology as a pathetic joke. Others see it as a social liability. The same goes for those who want to represent it, like Miscavige. Even the 2 or 3 celebs who used to represent it have done their best to distance themselves publicly in recent years.
The one celebrity who is still inextricably linked to Scientology is Tom Cruise. The very entertaining Daily Mail Online comment board is a perfect example. Whenever there is a story about Cruise, there are hundreds of scathing comments, all mocking his involvement with the cherch. Going Clear has had a huge effect on the public perception of Scientology.
This past week’s edition of Star magazine says that TICks planning on leaving Scientology so that he can see Suri more.
YEAH, RIGHT!
Tom (sadly) loves his BFF David Miscavige more than his own daughter.
Yes, sadly, ’tis true.
$cn really has become a comedic pinata that everyone’s welcome to take a whack out these days. Frankly, I love it. There’s just nothing that arrogant, self-important, thin-skinned authoritarian leaders hate more than to be held up to public ridicule and mercilessly lampooned…may the J&Ding continue on until the cult implodes and we can begin to re-home all these poor Sea Borg folks!
That’s a good one. Every time I use my credit card and the transaction is allowed I tell my self “thanks God I am not a Scientologist anymore”.
If you’re in scientology, you’re looking for that tipping point, that explosion of new public, where everyone can take their foot off the gas for a second. After being promised that explosion with every new program, building and release, it’s no wonder the opposite is happening. Tick tock.
Unfortunately, Mike, you’re right. Scio skates on the thin edge at times, but mostly slides by on the major issues. Something else will have to happen…something really big…before any governmental group is going to act.
Didn’t they just convert the garage under their old building to office space and now they call it a new church? I used to walk by the building every day and there were only a few cars in the garage. Now that the garage is gone there will be less people as they will have to pay for parking I assume.
Hickory, dickory Dave
With real estate in spades
His big event
Won’t make a dent
Hickory, dickory Dave
Hickory dickory Dave
You stand on a crate & wave
You’re an asshole from the start
Especially when you fart
So start drinking early today
Hickory, dickory Dave
You org is déclassé
You goofed the floof
The pope done pooped
Hickory, dickory Dave
Hickory dickory Dave
Your yanks are all the rage
But don’t get to cocky
With your hand in your pockie
It all comes out the same
Dave’s as corny as Kansas in August
High from the Scotch that he sips on the sly
If you’ll excuse the expression I use
He’s as clean as a pig in a sty
Clean as a pig in a sty
Looking up at a beautiful sky
He falls down drunk
Then climbs in his bunk
As another day slides on by
Loved that song by the Mamas & Papas, who doesn’t? But anything associated with the Cof$ quickly becomes soiled and shrouded in bs. It’s a good thing only the brain dead would actually listen to such drivel, let alone believe it. The Scientology Organisation is truly a travesty of everything a religion is supposed to be. It tells bigger and bigger lies for its existence and its only source of income is that it steals money from its own members. They do nothing in exchange except supply long term misery.
That fishbowl of an org with so many bottom floor windows will indeed be its own undoing. The whole world is looking in at your emptiness Davy. Some local curtain supplier is going to get real lucky, real soon. Want to bet it’s all covered up before the new year??
Perhaps even before this week ends. You KNOW the Puny Pontiff reads Mike’s blog avidly. 🙂
How do you know that?
He can’t help but not read it. He’s fascinated by this blog.
In Scioland parlance, his Puniness sure has some weird havingness. Kind of like a hangman using a piece of rope as a belt or Hitler keeping a Springfield catalog under his pillow.
One day Davy, that shadow will move the wrong way and that often felt cold tingle running down your spine will be justified.
Um…guys?
Maybe it’s just me, but looking at the pictures on this post, it seems to me that the windows are ALREADY covered up.
I swear! It really looks that way on the very day of the Event!
They do that before the event for the “unveil” when Dear Leader yanks the ribbon and finally the attendees are allowed to see inside.
I remember when we moved CF into our new building the day before the big ribbon yank. Public were allowed to carry the folders to the door where staff members, the only ones allowed inside, would then take them.
FYI, Those photographs are PITIFULLY photoshopped. Ive taken it, downloaded it and ripped it apart. Photo Professional here. They obviously don’t even care anymore how bad it looks. What a big, fat, Miscavige-Lie.
Gotta love the guy in the lower right corner with the elongated head. Maybe he’s one of Zenu’s spys?
Yep. Follow up and right. Everyone is stretched to fill in the frame as the crowd was too small.
“To sum up — this is all a dream. Scientology operates outside the harsh realities of the actual world, and is instead deluding itself, and only itself, that it is having any impact on anything anywhere.
“If it were not for the ongoing abuses, it would not be worth 5 seconds of anyone’s time.”
Well put. It is over but miscavige keeps beating away at it and like you said, ‘…If it were not for the ongoing abuses…” For this, I thank people like you, Tony, Leah, to keep shining the light of truth on what’s truly going on in this church.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It’s nice to have true friends and family out here in the real world.
Yes it is Mary. Happy Holidays to you from both of us! The weather is cool, the first frost has arrived, the firewood is in and we have reason to rejoice.
Awwwe Nice visual. My best to your significant other. 🙂
*Giggle…snort* on the First Encinitas Surfer…I’m sure there’s a plaque somewhere to commemorate that momentous occasion. I’m surprised Scientology hasn’t claimed Hubbard was the First Man On The Moon. Yeah, that’s the ticket. It was a secret program done as a test before the public astronauts went up. It was when he was an Eagle Scout.
Well, no need because he already has that beat with trips to Venus and the Van Allen belts long before anyone landed on the moon.
Mike that is really funny. He almost got hit by a train on Venus. And the van allen belt is quite warm. LOL.
Wait…..what???? He really didn’t get hit by a train on Venus &I the Van Allen belt is warm? I might as well give up on understanding life. When I bought my Van Allen belt, it was just room temperature.
I bought a Van Allen belt at Kohls the other day. It was out of this world…
We need to get OSD to fact check that! Well, maybe not! When did our favorite cult EVER state the complete truth?
Yo Dave,
You little hammered piece of surf shit, do you even know if El Con could really swim much less stand up on a board?
Newcomer I was thinking the same thing about OSD. Verifying that story.
Wait….WTF??? Fatso was the first to surf Encinitas??? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Now that’s some really funny shit!!! Imagine lard ass even trying to stand up on a surfboard!
Another little known fact is that LRH invented the wet suit and gave the data to Jack O’Neill as a goodwill gesture.
Oh,as a goodwill gesture. For a minute I thought you said that he gave it to Goodwill.
I can’t even imagine him on a bodyboard, much less a surfboard.
Maybe that’s why the term “whale” is used for wealthy, soon to be broke Scios.
??? Thank you, Cooper.
That “first Encinitas surfer” claim reminds me of the absurd feats attributed to Kim Jong Un (learning to drive at age 3 and winning a yacht race at age 9) and Kim Jong Il (eleven holes in one the very first time he played golf). Seems that Scientology and North Korea have a lot in common…cults of personality, with desperate followers trapped in a bubble.
Dave & Kim Jong Un are secret lovers…
Shhhhhhhhhhh! You weren’t supposed to reveal that!
ML
Dave.
REALLY bad photo shop. (1st pic) Crowd & org building were done as a separate layer to the background.
If we assume that the smal snapshot of the crowd is representative and the amount of young people under 30 is max 10% of the membership this would put the amount of staff at say70%.If my calculations are true this would mean something like 500 publicc attending which sounds about right,
Any other estimates?
Looking at the picture looks like between 1200-1400.Any other guesses?
What’s going to happen when there is a bankruptcy………sell everything, no hide and protect everything an DMX still keeps the money. What a con man, what a bunch of deluded souls.
Grab some hammers everyone, they are all brain dead anyway. When is the IRS going to wake up.?????????
peggy, which corp do you believe is even close to BK? The IRS really has no finger in this pie as they have no prosecutable items to go after.
And why would the IRS care anyway? Dave makes sure the sec check question on owing back taxes remains on the list. He is their best agent!
The Pope a few decades ago did the same by adding tax evasion to the list of Catholic Church recognized sins. But you are right that it does please the IRS that the DM helps in tax code enforcement.
IRS Kha Khan?
Unfortunately the IRS is not the world’s “ethic’s officer,” no more than lawyers are – they are exactly the opposite in many matters. To get them to court is no guarantee either as history shows us all too regularly. The waking up must come from within or maybe the media will stumble onto a formula that would please us apostates. Leah on the other hand – now there’s an unknown quantity for which Scientology must be trembling in their boots. Might be a HUGE WAKE UP call there, Leah is much loved, something Scientology isn’t!
But prosecuting Scientology… geezers… tough call as those that can, won’t. The money formula is not right yet.