The Mission of the Foothills, at the back of the building on Honolulu Ave facing the parking lot
The real state of scientology Missions.
This is a mission in the hotbed of scientology — Los Angeles. This is where scientology has traditionally been strongest and has done the most recruiting.
This Mission is surrounded by scientologists, outside of Clearwater, you will not find more scientologists living within a 20 mile radius of this mission.
Yet, they have an ex-SO member as their “OES” (in direct violation of Hubbard policy about the hiring of ex-SO) — and she is the Supervisor. Apparently there is nobody actually posted in the Tech Division who can even be a PART-TIME Supervisor — but great news, they have “another” supervisor one in training. Exclam. You can bet she is also the org C/S and probably the Qual Sec and Cramming Officer too.
Finally, this course schedule would cause Hubbard to roll in his grave (if he had one). Two nights a week for 2 hours and half of Saturday afternoon. And that is all.
Like I said, this is supposedly one of the “good” missions.
Imagine what the “mission” in the Philippines is like…
I heard there was a mission in Portland, so I paid them a visit. It was two young people whose Scientologist parents had bought them a house for a Mission. They were open three days a week, evenings only, and had only a few customers. They folded shortly after. Then I saw a new mission listed, so went to see them, but found only an empty building with no Scientology signage at all and no one inside. The only sign visible said it was a “Chess Club.” This is the state of the “Mission Network” that used to supply orgs with public. Totally dead.
This kind of news is good news to me. Just means ppl fare to willing to deal with being on staff and that no one is going in for services. That’s a win win if you ask me.
Foothills is the mission that was begging for money a while back, to update their gritty old commercial/industrial space filled with castoff old living room furniture. The franchisee must be a real Energizer bunny type, constantly trying to promote the mission.
I suspect that photo is deliberately cropped low to avoid showing the ugly ceiling with exposed beams and pipes, and gloomy 70s-style dark oak doors. And it is actually located on any alley, set so far back from the main street that where it is, it faces the rear parking lot of the building next door.
O/T but I can’t resist – HUGE kudos to everyone here who managed to wake up and get the Hell out – have a wonderful Labor Day weekend! (If you’re in the U.S. – if not, just have a wonderful weekend!) Enjoy your freedom, your family, your life free from the pressure of Scamology.
I am a Never In (but got sucked into The Forum, started by Werner Erhard on Scamology lines) back in the 80’s. I often see things I can relate to here, but thank GOODNESS it was easier to get out of The Forum without any fair gaming, etc. Just had to erase a lot of calls on my (back then) answering machine for a few months.
I am in Cincinnati where the WBEN fireworks will light up the night tonight!
Off to light the grill – 😁
The only thing missing from the prison recreation room…oops, I mean bright shiny course room…is the truncheon armed guards. Although I expect in this case it would be regges armed with alms trays.
I don’t even think that is truly a photo of their interior. I’ve been there and watched their website carefully. In the past they just posted stock photos of interiors because inside there it is pretty dumpy!
I beg to differ , I have been there many times and the staff always tried to make it as cozy and clean as possible . Maybe not everybody’s taste for sure but really decent.
I was there in Aug. 2019 and the place was a mess. Wires hanging out of light fixtures, all the LRH kiosks covered with plastic, they begged me for money to renovate.
Do you have any new videos coming up brother ? They are amusing but only amusing but I also think they are a good way of informing the world of the insane nature of Scientoliegy – the youtube views verifies this.
Delphi LA video coming this week!
That sounds right, thanks. I doubt they have any money for fixing the place up.
Am I seeing things that ain’t so? or does that picture show a wall that’s leaning dangerously?
https://twitter.com/Angry_Gay_Pope/status/1435301946357813250
Here is a tweet of the dumpy interior but you will see more of the mission in my secret photo than on their public website.
When I was ensnared in the cult back in the mid-70s, it was a mid-sized mission where I did my “services”. The building was a low rent place but neat and clean enough. Far from ‘ideal’. Back then the place was packed. There were probably 20-30 people doing the communications course at any given time. A good portion of those went on to do the hubbard qualified scientologist course. Every Friday evening there was a graduation ceremony. It was usually standing room only and was a very cheerful occasion with the staff whipping up the crowd and the obligatory standing ovations for the elusive ‘founder’ of the cult.
Even then, before the era of harsh ‘ethics’ that came into vogue after the mission holders massacre in ’82, there is no way that a student at any level could get away with a course schedule of only 3 days per week. This would have been deemed ‘out-KSW’ for having other fish to fry and not being on board with scientology being more important than bowling or some such similar activity.
It’s great to see that cult activity has fallen to such low levels. This is a win for everyone. The only thing better would be for cult activity to cease altogether. I am ever hopeful.
I have to wonder if the OSA net nannies, who monitor these blogs run by unemployed defrocked apostates on the far fringes of the internet, are going to step in with their PR area control and get this horridly unaccepable situation sorted out. Maybe they should bring in some RTC Finance Police goons to ‘put in ethics’ and get these missions winning again just like they did back in ’82.
A small correction here. In rereading my post I didn’t mean to imply that I did my first services at the Foothills Mission. My wording should have said something like, I took my first “services” at a mid-sized mission.
“Maybe they should bring in some RTC Finance Police goons to ‘put in ethics’ and get these missions winning again just like they did back in ’82.”
Hey, don’t give ’em any ideas! LOL
Bix, they apparently do sometimes send Sea Org “missions” to orgs. Continued beatings do not seem to improve morale, or result in raising “stats”, however — the Ventura mission was reportedly the target of such a visit, but still folded around the time the old Santa Barbara org was moved into an ‘ideal’ building in town.
Back in ’82 the missions had money, power, and large customer bases. As the market for scientology, cults and counter-counter culture shrank, they were adaptable enough to get the upper hand in a struggle for pieces of a shrinking pie; Hubbard didn’t like that, and was always looking for someone to scapegoat and blame as conspiring against him.
Nowadays the only fight seems to be when missionholders want out from under their obigations to keep susbsidizing that have turned into money-losing operations. While the missions have shrunk to insignificance, the orgs have contracted down to mission-size and smaller.
Miscavige gutted div 6. Hubbard set up cheap intro sessions to get people in to buy bigger and better things. Martin Samuel’s had one of the most successful missions in the US and Miscavige’s idea of Flag support was to empty out the mission bank accounts and run with the loot and destroy Samuel. Great business plan if you are a sociopath (SP). Davey has one thing in mind; strip as many assets from the church before destroying it through his own inept criminal behavior. New people in? They don’t make me any money!
Greg, I disagree with your view that Miscavige was responsible for gutting the finances of the mission network. At the time that happened, he hadn’t risen to power. That said, he probably fully supported the attack on the mission network by the Finance Police. I don’t know the particulars of who was behind this, but I suspect it was Hubbard hisself. Regardless, this was one of the great moments in the life of the cult. Untold numbers of culties had their eyes opened and made for the exits. Few returned. This is a big win for those fortunate enough to see that scientology was nothing more than a world class con. Thank you Dr. Hubbard!
That is not correct. Miscavige led the first foray into the Mission Network — the San Francisco Mission Holder Convention where he verbally declared a number of Mission Holders and the Int Finance Police made their first scores.
I guess you should check your time line. Hubbard was dead at the time and Miscaviage was consolidating his power. He came in with a SO mission and basically tore apart Samuelson’s mission, stole all the money, and left it ruins. His SO mission went into the Portland Org starting declaring SPs hilly mildly. Dave’s being the sociopath he is as Hubbard would call him, a “ merchant of chaos “
Greg, Hubtard died in 1986! Not prior to ’82. H
You just outlined the history of scientology’s most successful squirrel and Suppressive Person. He’s gone from strength to strength, demolishing the Franchises which were the primary entrances for new scientologists to start their indoctrination and the primary feeder line into the Class 4 orgs and up the Bridge to Flag, where most of the money was freed up from them. Then he changed everything which had been working, or seemed to work, so there’s nothing the clams can see to aspire toward. Finally, donations with no exchange, no delivery. No scientology.
Buh Bye. McSavage don’t care as long as he’s got a surplus of fine whiskey to sip out of the thimble his hands can handle.
Greg, Hubbard did similar things to missions and missionholders – look up what happened to Mimi Rogers’ father Phil Spickler, for instance. In every example that I’ve looked in to, and asked old timers who were there about, it turns out that Miscavige is just doubling down on things he learned from Hubbard.
The “good old days” was a myth. LRH, “Mankind’s best friend,” greedily stripped assets from missions, orgs, and the CofS itself, resulting in loss of tax exemption due to his personal inurement, a mess Miscavige was left to handle with the IRS. And missionholders were often socipaths and psychopaths themselves, who invented or perfected many of the abusive and exploitative tactics the orgs are now known for, like listening in on “confessional” auditing sessions for information regges could exploit to extract more money from customers; Samuels’ use of that tactic was revealed in the Tichbourne trial over his Portland mission:
“What the jurors were presented with in this case is obvious from their verdict. They saw a group characterized by:
Deceit so rampant that it permeates the organization;
Shocking and effective methods of controlling its members, especially full time staff members;
A much-used and almost limitless policy of attacking anyone who dares to criticize or attempts to expose aspects of the group (this policy is used not only against people who actually commit some action against Scientology, but also against many, both in and out of the group, who might do so);
A lust for money that has resulted in staggering volumes of income for the group;
An organizational structure designed to maximize the power and income of L. Ron Hubbard, while concealing both.”
> http://www.xenu-directory.net/critics/christofferson1.html
“Martin Samuels, the head of the Church of Scientology Mission of Davis [and others], later said that Scientology witnesses were coached to lie, admitted that he had committed perjury, and said that other Scientologists had given perjured testimony at the trial. The church lost the case and Titchbourne was awarded $2 million.
Despite claims that L. Ron Hubbard was no longer involved in Scientology’s management,”
> https://tonyortega.org/2018/01/24/the-battle-of-portland-how-scientology-turned-a-nightmare-court-verdict-into-a-major-victory/
Hey, I know how ruthless Samuels was. I was the ED of the Portland Org at the time. He always played the game of “ reach and withdrawal” with us. But if you are running an organization whose auxiliary function is to make money it shows how greedy that SP ( sociopath) was to kill his golden goose where a good proportion of his money came from. Miscarriage did the same thing with Brent Cordon (sp) ,emptied his bank accounts . If I remember correctly it was in the 100000 range. Miscarriage destroyed the mission system because like all criminals never recognize consequences.
Greg, none had anything to do with the decline. It was ONLY young, clueless Boomers who “grew” scamology. As they aged, scamology numbers went down. It dies with the Boomers. The “why” for the growth of the cult was young boomers. That cannot be recreated.
Great response, rather a simplistic answer to a complex problem though. People will always join groups that promise salvation
A true answer. Simple but true. The demographics shows the story. Boomers were suckers for what Hubbard was promoting. No group since then has taken the bait. FACT
I would not even exclude that this mission is worse than many other orgs, so called class 5, around the world.
Decades of ruthless 360-degree fundraising; countless, invasive and useless golden ages of nothing, could only contribute and lead to this scenario.
And when you pull a bit the string it always gives you the same guy.
As Dwarfenführer has reorganized things, “missions” are merely the smallest failing orgs, the primary difference being that “missions” no longer can deliver ANY services that the “Class V” orgs could, IF they were actually delivering service anymore. It used to be that Franchisees could deliver auditing up to the class of auditors they were.
No Jere, Missions could deliver only up to Grade IV and then NED. They could have a Class VII but couldn’t deliver Grade VII. Also could not deliver Academy levels.
That was the Old Grade v Power Process. I did that out the field, god what worthless rip off.
Yes, an utterly sad, despicable…and AVOIDABLE…waste of a life, especially of its twilight years…
El Con Blowhard’s dreck, delivered for 7 hours per week at this bastion of theta, will have “The Foothills” cleared…NEVER!
May she wake up sooner than later, and may that mission close sooner than later as well. Enough of this toxic cult already!
Never fear, Mark. Davey will get around to making them close along with every other vestige of scientology. He can’t leave his life’s work undone, can he? Not until he’s extracted every cent from the dwindling pool of suckers… err… whales
Jere,
You are right.
I hope, though, that COB’s(Chairman Obtuse Bastard) grift gets
interrupted sooner than later…
What are the electronic devices at the bottom right in the picture? Those are large boxes for housing a CD player. Miniature Borg regeneration units?
No Richard, those are audio playback units used to deliver the sacred recorded lectures of the ‘Founder’. Guaranteed to put one to sleep and induce ‘m/u’ phenomena so the course supervisor can have something to do. If you can’t make heads or tails of the drivel coming out of the headphones and ask the supervisor to explain, they will just parrot back “what do your materials state?” That is always so helpful.
I know the mission holder and I have been there many times. I’m not sure how they survive at all. I know local scientologists who don’t want to drive to hollywood do some of their courses there. As far as new people. Hard to imagine anyone new coming in. I remember when the place was staffed up and busy.
This shows the true state of the cherch. Crashing.
Thanks for the ‘now and then’ report, Geoff. I hear China dinner plates crashing on a cement floor.
Geoff, who is the mission holder of the Foothills Mission these days?
Geoff, I assume most missions are now subsidized by the missionholders as a sort of enforced donation towards the planetary mission of scientology. While old-timers have been allowed to close missions and retire, I’ve noticed that in other cases the missionholders have ended up getting declared, and I’m guessing that involved fights over keeping money-losing missions open.
That also fits with why those like the busybodies in Sunland-Tujunga, who inherited a collapsed mission that once had its own premises, don’t just open it back up; no one wants the hot potato of being stuck underwriting the losses. Also, celebrities like Elfman and Travolta have been allowed to pawn off boutique missions they opened on new franchisees, I’m pretty certain because the CofS doesn’t want coddled special members stuck with the mess of a money-losing mission – and being confronted with the reality of how badly scientology is actually doing.
I knew the entire Malm family. They all worked at one time or another at Westwood Mission in West LA. I liked them all. It’s no surprise to me the Laura is a dedicated lifer, having grown up in the bubble. Laura was reserved, and maybe a bit shy. But she was the mission’s Ethics Officer, and well respected. Her passion was opera, and you could always tell when she was in her office because you could hear her radio—always on the classical music station. We had a few conversations about opera and classical music. I can only shake my head in regret, knowing that she’s endured a life that has taken her nowhere.
Is Laura Malm the mother of Evan Malm? Lisa Mal is Evan’s wife, but what i the relationship of Laura Malm to them?
Pathetic. The honcho is no spring chicken – just like me, except I’m not the one wasting my precious remaining years in a destructive cult. The course room very much resembles an industrial lunch room, ashtrays and all, and no doubt spruced up for the photo shoot. Are the “golden” ashtrays for smokers, or are you supposed to slide them down the table with your OT powers? Both functions?
Somehow today’s post is making me more sad than angry: the wasted lives, the wasted efforts, and last but definitely least, the wasted money.
Let’s call this one “Waiting for Godot in the Foothills.”
I agree. Such a waste.
“…and last but definitely least, the wasted money.”
I couldn’t agree more. Once out of the cult, if you are even half assed industrious, any money lost to the cult will be quickly recouped and you will be able to move on with your life unencumbered by constant regging and fundraising. That’s just the beginning though. The very best thing is having your life back. You’ll never get the wasted time back, but lessons can be learned and there is always the future.
On second thought, “Waiting for Godot” is not a good comparison. That play is about the unavoidable human condition (from Beckett’s less than cheerful P.O.V. of course). Scientology on the other hand, is avoidable, which makes a life in it all the more tragic.