Buy now!
There is no reason on earth to further increase the price of these already absurdly over-priced books and CD’s other than to try and increase immediate sales.
Miscavige has been promoting for years how all books are printed “in house” in “state of the art printing facilities” and the same with the CD’s. And they are all produced with Sea Org lower than third world wage workers. And yet what costs 20 cents to produce (a CD) is sold for $40. And the only real cost of the books is the paper (which they of course buy in bulk) and shipping (in containers) so a book that costs $4 to produce is sold for $40.
How can increasing the cost of these materials to the public be justified?
The answer is quite simple. This is a monopoly. And they are selling exclusively to their existing customers. There is no concern for new people and competing in the free market.
So, they charge whatever they want and manipulate prices any way they wish.
This is the reason there are laws preventing monopolies.
But in this case, there is a more fundamental law in play. Any organism that feeds off itself dies. That is what is happening with the church. There is a lot of blubber to be consumed, but it IS eating itself and will ultimately be a pile of bleached bones on the beach.
URGENT IMPORTANT DATA REGARDING GOLDEN AGE OF KNOWLEDGE MATERIALS PRICE CHANGES!
At the end of the year there will be new increased donation rates for the Basics, Congresses and ACC’s so now is the time to complete your Golden Age of Knowledge library!!!
For more information on this and the special gifts that you can receive for package completions over the Christmas period, call Darren the Bookstore Officer at Saint Hill on 0044 1343 324571 or 0044 7765207565.
Or ask for more information by reply.
Darren Hill – Bookstore Officer
UPDATE:
According to the “Sec Check” blog, the price increase in Latin America is going to be 20%, so I expect it will be the same elsewhere….
I could save a lot of money by not buying the books now, but if I wait, I could save even more money by not buying the books later.
I know! I won’t buy the books now or later and save over twice as much!
Try Ebay. there are thousands of them on there for $20
I think the price increase could make financial sense for the cult at this stage. One could theorize that a portion of Still Ins are not expected buy anything no matter what the price. They could be suspected UTRs and/or known to be on board but financially broke. On the other hand, a portion of still ins can be counted upon to buy no matter the price. Now, if the former group is smaller than the larger group, which seems likely, then it would make sense to raise the prices and get as much as possible out of the smaller group the cult is depending upon to buy.
DM: “The blind have been leading the blind. So since you’ve all agreed with me that you’re blind, I can continue this con ad infinitum and you’ll never know what hit you. God, are you people pathetic. I’m the only one with any smarts in this joint.”
DM “plays the whales” like a true master. The whales are easy to manipulate once they are OT and he puts them through TRs and Objectives again. They may have been smart enough to make their fortunes, but DM is smart enough to take away the best part of it from all of them. At each “event” he summons them to then I guess the whales contribute an extra five million dollars. Even a meagre 10% of that in commission makes it well worth his while.
Nearly everyone already in most likely has several sets of Basics already. They aren’t going to be buy more sets even if the price were to go down. Unless Miscavige comes up with the Golden Age of Tech 3 and change a few more punctutation marks and makes everyone buy everything all over again.
Turns out it wasn’t semicolons after all but some malfunction with Davey’s colon.
Mike hit the nail on the head that the church is a monopoly.
In fact, that is exactly what is stated over and over again by certain devout RCS parishioners I know. They complain about the church and then say, “well, they have a monopoly on the tech”. This is ironically what keeps them in the fold.
Someone who I hadn’t spoken to in years, called me out of the blue. He was more involved in the RCS than he had ever been previously. When I pointed out some crimes committed by the current organization, he told me, “Well, it’s the only church we have and we need to support it.”
Miscavige is simply an extremely (and I mean EXTREMELY) savvy businessman.
He knows:
Any significant number of new customers stopped coming into Scientology 30 years ago. So, he’s got a customer base which is slowly but surely declining and so profits need to be maximized now for maximum profits. Note that IAS Thanksgiving photo. Bridget is the absolute best dono reg I’ve ever seen, which is why she has been on post for 25 years (I was her first senior 41 years ago so I’ve known her a long time), but she, like me, is in her mid 60s as is most of the folks in that photo. Miscavige knows there is a shelf life to Bridget and his public that has to be milked continuously. There’s about 10 years left to ensure he gets every possible cent from this group.
Moreover, he knows that his current customer base is to be a greater or lesser degree functionally mentally ill. That is to say that almost all the people who stay in the CoS can no longer recognize similarities, differences and identities in many areas of life. They operate almost exlusively at lower tone levels AND on circuits. They are amazingly easy to manipulate and control by all sorts of methods and games (button pushing, passive agressive behavior, threats, PR, pictures, sales techniques, etc ) So he KNOWS they cannot make sane decisions regarding their finances. He understands that his customer base is quite INCAPABLE of thinking or acting clearly. And that is where his genius truly lies. Understanding this fact, he can take full advantage of it in scheme after scheme; the IAS racket, the GAT rackets, the book racket, the meter racket, the lecture racket, the Objectives racket, the “you never got study tech until this fifth version” racket, and so on. There is no limit what his nuts public will buy. He just has to be careful to space out his rackets and monitor the results carefully so that he knows EXACTLY how much to push for and how fast to push.
It is only because on lines Scientologists are in such terrible shape, mentally and spiritually (and sometimes physically) that they are incapable of resisting the financial controls that leave so many of them impoverished.
*another day, I am grateful that I have “not IAS money” and ‘not Scientology services money” to spend on traveling the world and enjoying life.
I totally agree with you Joe and that was very well put. I think the next scam DM is working on is for a saturated advertising campaign with the promise that at long last the Ideal Orgs will be filled. The whales will fall for this, ecpecially since they have sunk so much money down that hole and seen no good results up to date so they will feel that if they only gave a million dollars more it will get people flooding into the Orgs with a nationwide advertising campaign. And that will turn out to be not quite enough so another million will do it. And that won’t work to the desired degree so one last more million will do it. Then another last million. Then another last million. And THEN …DM will discover the Why and the Who for the Ideal Orgs not being packed to the rafters with happy students. Somebody … deliberately … squirreled GAT 2 right under their noses and a bunch of people who should have spotted it were out-ethics and so criminally did not do their jobs right to safeguard the Tech. So then this gets fixed with tremendous announcements at events and GAT 3 comes out with all-new books, tapes/cd’s, a super-dooper Quantum Ultra Squared e-meter for $10k and it starts all over again with the money flowing in. The OTs will be reluctant to do Objectives Processing yet again, but a few words in their ear about disconnecting with the rest of their family will persuade them of the benefits and they will pay for and do those processes and squeal with delight at the end of them (or what they guess is the E/P) and Sea Org members will be checking their faces to ensure a genuine happy look like the police do in North Korea, somebody will be looking over their shoulder when they write their Success Story, their speech at Graduation will be rehearsed and on the day they will squeal and squeal again in delight and enthuse about the wonderous changes in their life as a result, and profusely thank LRH and the RTC and COB for all they are doing to ensure the saving of the planet. This will inspire the other OTs with doubts and the whole process trundles along again.
A year after that there will be an IDEAL Ideal Org campaign and the donation status for that.
What there will NOT be are new paying members, except for a handful worldwide. Just whales and donors with a lot less money than they had before.
“another day, I am grateful that I have “not IAS money” and ‘not Scientology services money” to spend on traveling the world and enjoying life.”
I was just thinking about that recently. To a scientology reg, $5,000.00 is nothing. It’s peanuts. It doesn’t even get you the minimum status in the IAS. But I could take a nice vacation with $5,000.00. I could spend a week skiing in Colorado, or being a tourist in Manhattan, or, with a bit of careful planning, take a trip to London or Paris. I do those sorts of things with my money now, and I get far far more enjoyment out of it than sitting in a chair holding cans for a few hours or a stupid piece of paper from the fucking IAS.
But a reg would look at me like, “$5K? This is shit! Gimme some REAL money you DB!” Yeah, fuck them.
Re: Miscavige…
“…confessed that he knew that he was conning others.”
http://www.freedommag.org/sites/default/files/declaration06.pdf
What this sounds like to me is a ploy I observed for years: tell everyone to buy NOW because prices are going UP…”WHEN?” I would inquire, to which, invariably I would be told, “We don’t know”.
I recall the first time I fell for that and bought whatever it was right away and thought no more about it. Then, something else came down the pike with the same pitch – “buy now! Price going up!”, and I didn’t buy, but then we were given a cut off date, but I didn’t have the money and missed it. Yet, lo and behold, the date, to great fanfare, was extended!
So that’s when I saw thru this strategem, and from then on, when urged to buy now, now now to get the lower price, I would reply, “Sorry, I don’t have the money to buy this NOW, and I’ll take my chances that when I do have the money this target date you’re giving me will have been extended anyway, but if not, if I miss it, I’ll just buy it at the regular price when I have the money to do so”.
Yes, this was among the reasons why I am now a Contented CICS.
I’m CI to their CI.
I just searched Ebay for “Scientology books”..and got over 100 pages of hits. So the CoS is going to raise book prices, an outstanding move.
Anyone dialing that number 01343 324571 is likely to be speaking to some one in Elgin, Moray in North East Scotland, for which this is the dialing code. (Correct number begins 01342). I shouldn’t imagine however that whoever it is will be inundated with punters desperately asking to fork over for their 2nd 3rd or 4th copy of the basics…
The Silicon Valley Org had a similar typo in what is known in America as the area code in their stuff that Tony posted on his Sunday Funnies. In this case, the error was having the area code as 605, which might’ve rung someone up in North Dakota.
What boggles my mind is that if I wanted to,I could go to a number of places, get the materials(from free to like $25) and get auditing from an ind.(who in all likelyhood was better and higher ranked than anyone still In) and probably get the same gains from it and the whole thing would probably cost me 1,000 tops! Plus If any changes were made I could just white it out…..
I’ll get you five emeters, all basics and accs, green on white, red on white, r & ds, pdc, and a bunch of certs, awards, a BC cert, Clear Cert with number, all OT level certs, a tech dictionary, all original LRH small books (before the basics) and I’ll throw in a Book one signed by LRH and Diana and all my commendations and statuses if you make me a good offer!
Otherwise, I’m going to use them to heat my house!
Oh Geeezuz Cooper! That’s an amazing offer. I didn’t know you had done so much.
See update, it appears the price increase will be 20%
Mike, You hit the nail squarely again with this post. I’ve noticed this for years that scn owned businesses and scientologists generally are all working hard to consume each other! Church members are all KRing and trying to kill each other to get where they want to be. Rip offs galore. The Golden Age of Lying – which I realized years ago church members were learning from the CofS. I could hardly believe my own realization at the time I had it, that the place we went to get sanity was teaching Rip Off Tech. Insanity trickles down. It’s is supposed to be sanity at the top trickling down. (Rant over.)
Their Division 2’s according to LRH’s org boards is focused on “re-sign” i.e. signing up the regulars again and again and the Divisions 6’s that go for new people are nearly non-existent. It’s supposed to be both, not just “re-sign” feed on your own. But we gladly applaud the CoS for their huge greed on this point as that will close down the CoS entirely very quickly which is occurring. Failure to suck in newbies and sucking the oldies dry = total death. (I guess rant wasn’t over.)
It must suck to be Miscavige.
Re: Miscavige…
“…is arrogant, lacks any warmth, shows no interest in staff or his peers and is generally unkind.”
http://www.freedommag.org/sites/default/files/declaration06.pdf
I said it before and I’ll say it again. He’s got nice shoes!
There is nothing anybody can do to make Dianetics and Scientology appealing to the public. It is sixty years old and had its day. It might have been a refreshing change when it appeared, what with people fashionably wanting a “shrink” and not being able to afford one and with the US government thinking the Russians were running psi ops against them but that is all old hat now. That sort of thing has been debunked and is unfashionable and nobody will be interested in Dianetics and Scientology anymore. They can give it a new lick of paint as many times as they like but it will make no difference as to drawing in new paying members. As far as a religious movement, it isn’t going anywhere and can’t. It can maybe expand in some Asian countries, where nobody has heard of them, but it is finished in the Western civilized world. It cannot extend and get in new money-paying members so the only way for it to continue to finance itself is to cannibalize its existing members. And as these members leave or go inactive it must cannibalize harder the members who are left. Even the whales will be wondering what has become of their donations when these Ideal Orgs stay empty. They will know that without new members, the movement will die. At some point they will conclude that they are throwing good money after bad and they will stop making donations. And I don’t believe the “Church” has a lot of reserves to keep it going. I think that was spent a long time ago. The financial collapse of the “Church” might happen in 2015 and when it happens, it will be sudden.
RolandRB, Your’s was a much better rant than mine.
I chuckle to myself when I see others try to compare miscavige to what a sane person or corporate would, should or might do. There is absolutely no doubt he has “comm lines” and hears voices no-on else has or if they do have something similar his are far more important.
Didn’t Cap’n Bill have something similar going on? But Bill’s gaol was to keep the original game going as he saw it and tried to continue making auditors and processing etc.
The one obvious, solid and distinguishing feature miscavige has over all that came before him is that he doesn’t need you, me or anyone else, never has never will. LRH to him is just a marketing product/tool, he saw the power of it, picked his moment and took (stole) it.
Miscavige is a screaming success in his own mind but has nothing, no personal gaol that is an end play. He has no prodigy to leave his legacy to or anything like that. When he sits on top of the super power building all aglow with the finest scotch and surveys the scene below of Flag sprawling across Clearwater, just what do you really think is really running through his mind? He thrives on coming up with solutions, absurd to us but not to him because he simply cannot and will not trust anyone else, he can’t even if it was a logical solution.
The destroyed lives he creates stand as testament in his own mind as to why he believes he must be master to all he commands, no-on else can do what he does. King Dave has his realm albeit shrinking, he can see that but relies heavily like a gambler does that his next hand is a winner and while there’s still money in the pot he’s going for it. There’s no goal or product to attain other than playing the same game he’s committed to.
I think it’s good he raises the prices on what he sells and does other absurd things, he’ll disappear quicker that way. It would truly be a worry if he ever started doing the right thing. Would you trust him if he began to act sanely?
He has burnt all his bridges and has nowhere to hide now.
And it says something about the effectiveness and usefulness of Scientology in peoples’ lives that nobody can stop him.
Re: King Dave…
“… is a c*ck-sucking piece of sh*t.”
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-top-management-video-earlier-beginning
I want Little boots to go completely broke paying for lawyers to keep his ass out of jail. Then have to go to jail anyway. This is my Ideal scene for him. Its the best thing for him
really as his Auditing was going nowhere.
Good Old Boy,
I want David Miscavige to not go to jail. I want him to lose control of the gazillions of dollars he has stolen and then try to make a living in the real world. Say, by working at McDonalds?
He is a person with no life skills. Yelling and hitting people is not a life skill. Unlike other people he has abused, his ability to survive after he is “stripped of his power” would be less than nothing.
There’s comfortable merit to that Valerie. I would hate to have his neck problems looking over his shoulder all the time. He’d be hard pressed to earn more than $7 hr, I like your thinking.
Give him a toothbrush and show him a dumpster. Anything else is too steep a gradient for Dear Loser.
How do they know there will be new increased donation rates? Do they just feel that the parishioners are feeling more generous and that they are confident they will benefit from increased donations?
These are really not too far off from “we have a comm line and he is speaking to us through the air conditioning vents in COB’s bedroom.” …. cannot find his comm now ..
David Miscavige hasn’t the first clue of marketing. In order to bring new people in, has MUST reduce prices. At some point, this practice will increase flows into the orgs, and gross income will increase. Next, Davie must eliminate the outpoints of membership: eliminate the problem of declaring those who might not agree: let those who do not agree freely leave with no disconnection. Eliminate the SO and their militaristic actions that defeat his need for new membership. There are others.
Davie acts a a baker or cakemaker, when faced with declining profits, increases costs and places conditions on the consumption of his cakes.
Davie just doesn’t get it. Membership will increase with a kinder, gentler, less expensive, and less personally intrusive practice.
It is likely to late. Davie hasn’t a clue. Scientology cannot live on whales. Scientology might survive if he returns to the Mission formula – a fun place to be at low cost..
Che chocolate ration has been increased from 4.5 grams per day to 3.5 grams per day. George Orwell 1984
I think I’ll wait for the going out of business sale.
Is there actually someone out there who is still in the bubble and in good standing who doesn’t already own several sets of the entire Golden Age of Knowledge Library? How is that even possible?
Sheeple catechism: “With COB all things are possible.”
Lol wonder what trouble scientologists get in if they tell the church they bought them on eBay
Saw complete sets of all of these, unopened bulk boxes on craigslist for dirt cheap
I donated mine to the Independent Movement, even though I am not an Independent. At least that way somebody might get stable case gain from them, not to be hijacked by a suppressive Church.
I tossed mine in the fire. 🙂
I sold my books package off on the Bay – full set, wrapped in the original box, about $30 bucks. I was glad to get that much for them!
This price increase for shit you can get for literally a penny on the dollar is so stupid it defies comprehension.
While Miscavige deifies compilations.
I seem to recall LRH stating that a price increase was not a correct motivator for selling Scientology.
This makes sense because more valid reasons are for personal enhancement, saving some money is a weak purpose. My take is D.M.already has slaves, now make the slaves weaker with almost no purpose?,
I thought they turned that corner years ago. Next will be Ideal Blood Banks for IAS upgrades are
made in Plasma.
Contradictory – the prices will rise and, on the other hand, if you can’t afford it we finance you a loan.
Correct observation – this entity will end destroying itself and believe me, they don’t have much time left.
One word: Ebay
Good point – I might put mine on Ebay.
Makes me wax a little nostalgic for a moment … Back in the day Hersey’s had a big price change on their bars of chocolate. They were raising it from 15 cents to 25 cents – a whole quarter. That was a lot back then. When the “new” bar came out, it was almost half the size of the original. As I recall they had improved stamped on the label, but it was the same chocolate. We got half as much for twice as much. But at least it was edible.
What the RCS is doing nowadays is taking every good thing that’s left, that has some vestige of purpose and value to it and tainting it. Destroying it with a “new” look or “new” text. It’s just the underlying insidious intention to destroy in plain sight that is overpowering at times. The haughty arrogant laughter in the background, as orders are carried out to mock and eventually lay to rest (if he can manage it) whatever was good within SCN.
I get and understand the detractors. I know what it’s like to be betrayed. To be convinced to commit a life’s worth of work and effort and then feel the fool or at least foolish. But it would be more foolish to deny what good their was and not do something to preserve it.
DM is the rightful target. It’s his ass that should have the bulls-eye on it. it will be a glorious and sun-splashed morning, when I see him handcuffed and face-planting outside a courthouse.
That would be worth the increased price of a ticket.
Odd
Judge: Mr Miscavige, you are accused of massive fraud on a global scale. How do you plead?
DM: I don’t understand the question.
Judge: Mr. Miscavige, you are accused of massive fraud on a global scale. How do you plead?
DM: Of course I have! What the fuck is your point? I’m omnipotent!
DM: “Is there anyone left that I have not screwed that I should have? If so please step forward and get in line, I’ll be fucking with you as soon as I’m done with this judge.”
Right on MM,
That’s how he’s played his cards in the past…
Greta
Judge: Let me rephrase the question. Do you feel any remorse for taking money from your parishioners with no real exchange in value delivered?
DM: Define parishioner.
Judge: Sir, I am holding you in contempt of court. Bailiff, remand the defendant to the holding cell.
That would be a wonderful sight to behold.
Yes, Odd Thomas, It will be a glorious and sun-splashed morning, when I see him handcuffed and face-planting outside a courthouse. I second that motion.
Odd, good points.
We in Global Capitalism HQ would like to point out that, from an economist’s viewpoint, Scientology is more like a luxury goods manufacturer than a classic monopoly.
A monopoly has a lock on the market for an essential good, one that people can’t readily go elsewhere to obtain. A good example is the Standard Oil monopoly on the oil business in the US a century ago. Everyone needed the product and there were no competitors. The “switch out” cost was too high, in the case of Standard Oil, to redo your car to burn coal or wood instead of gasoline. When competitors tried to get into the market, Standard Oil lowered prices and crushed them, then raised prices to levels higher than they were before.
But Scientology is a little different. It’s more like the market for high-end luxury purses. Hermes makes the only $10,000+ authentic Birkin bag, but there are other expensive purses out there (just take a walk up Madison Avenue in NYC and you’ll see plenty of them). There are competitors on Canal Street that make knockoff Birkin bags for $100, but the people who buy those are people who wouldn’t be in the market for the original one. So they’re not really competitors. But there’s one very large competitor that all luxury goods makers have: “DO NOTHING.” In other words, once you buy your first Hermes Birkin bag, there’s nothing about that bag that makes you come back and buy another one, either from Hermes or from one of its competitors. The Birkin bag doesn’t have a lock on how well it holds your wallet, keys, lipstick, etc., so you don’t have to replace one with another.
How this matters to the future of Scientology: Luxury brands can implode when several things happen. First, prices can rise too far too fast so that people start to question the value of what they’re getting. If the price of a Birkin bag doubled every month, some number of people would continue to buy them but eventually even the richest buyers would question what they’re getting out of the brand. A monopoly can increase prices and demand won’t change. But Scientology keeps increasing prices and demand keeps shrinking as public defect.
Reputation can change among the buyers so that something that used to confer status is no longer seen as cool. If all your friends showed up carrying Prada bags and said “gee, those Birkin bags are just *so* 2007,” then that would be the last time you’d be seen in public with one. What used to be an asset suddenly became a liability. That’s exactly what’s happening with Scientology in the acting community, among many other places. Scientology is no longer seen as something that can help your career, but is something utterly toxic to it. Witness Tony Ortega’s blog post from yesterday about the flap from a Scientology book ad in the SAG/AFTRA magazine.
And even though there aren’t any real competitors to Scientology offering the exact same thing (independent Scientology exists in several forms but it doesn’t seem to be growing despite being a natural step for those leaving the RCS organization, and it doesn’t seem to be retaining recent converts all that well), Scientology is clearly losing market share to “do nothing.” More people who leave the corporate organization do not adopt independent Scientology, they reject all of it. A monopoly product, that people had to have, would have more people attempting to buy “product” from exact competitors, but they’re not. That suggests that people discover that they can do without the product, which means it was not truly a monopoly. Incidentally, another test for monopoly behavior: the cult never tried to lower prices to crush its “indie” competition, which it would have done if a) indies were viable competitors and b) the cult were selling a true monopoly product.
Thanks JPC. Always good to be schooled by the Global Capitalism HQ master. 🙂
Once again, John P., interesting read.
I do wonder if the Indie field would draw more new people once the toxic church and its bad PR stops influencing that draw BUT that’s a big “if” and a long wait for the Indie field.
I see wins on indie forums that are similarly vague as those in the church. I wonder if there is measurable or documentable, specific evidence that doing the bridge is worthwhile, beyond a sense of euphoria. Also, I would be curious how many people continued to do their bridge after studying thought reform pmethods and hypnosis. This information is probably not easy to find.
Very interesting analysis, John P. Thank you. I look at the market for Scientology a little differently. I think that there are competitors for Scientology, though it doesn’t (or barely) include Indie Scientology. The market is people inclined toward spiritual searching, and the competition is the ever-changing selection of faddish belief systems. For the subset of customers inclined to have a higher authority direct them in their day-to-day life choices in very specific ways, there are not many high-end providers, but certain local congregations associated with traditional religious movements provide that service.
X47 expansion ….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSP87H5yOWI&list=UUzEOPpNkFm77G-oWfYfxhrQ
Funny. They used to say how much prices would increase, like 47%.
Buy your indulgence today! Our Lord has decreed that prices to enter His heavenly mansion will go up after His birthday, so act quickly and save your family today!
I remember the price increases they did back in the late 70’s. It was the beginning of the seeds of doubt for me. The doubts started because the sanest group on the planet was just not making sense. Sure, you can believe all the cause-over-MEST stuff, but there are still certain laws of economics, and there’s an awful lot of agreement on them, and they are not changing. At least not as long as we’re working in the world of humans. It all culminated with 50% scholarships being given out, with the sliding scales on auditing. The law of supply and demand wins again.
It all reflects the chronic short-term thinking that is just never overcome by anyone in the CoS. Push for the money, do it now! before the price increase! For a group that is ostensibly so focused on clearing the planet, they just can’t think outside of a small group of people, all revolving around Thursday, 2 PM.
Soooo stupid! Put all the books online, along with all the courses that go with them. Make them free. Instead of putting staff to work telemarketing, put them to work answering questions from people online and helping them through the courses. People would have the “Tech” at their fingertips, and could listen to entire lectures on their commutes. This is what you would do if you thought this stuff was great and needed to be in the hands of everyone on earth, NOT double down on the oldest and least efficient way of disseminating information.
So true…it has always been and is now more than ever “all about the money”.
Free? That sir, is blasphemy! Now report to your local ideal morgue registrar for your voluntary punishment, and by punishment we mean make a “donation”, and by “donation” we mean just give us everything you have.
Could someone else outside the church do that?
“Any organism that feeds off itself dies.” Love the visual I got on that. A snake with the head of David Miscavige devouring itself from the tail upward. Eat away Dave; can’t wait ’til you get to your own head.
Isn’t giving yourself head out 2D?
Not if you can actually do it. Why, I remember…oh, never mind.
🙂 You are so bad. 🙂
Re: Isn’t giving yourself head out 2D?
“It is Sea Org policy.”
http://www.freedommag.org/sites/default/files/declaration06.pdf
That’s why so many of them have their heads up their asses.
Oh, right! As if you’re just now figuring that out, McCarran. I know you know that I’m bad. In fact, I’m bad to the bone. When I did stand-up, I always tried to push the envelope. I’m carrying on that great tradition here.
:). Well, bad or good, you make me laugh, OSD. That party you’re having will be a hoot.
I wish I could say that this from the RCo$ is unbelievable. The more they try to change the more they are the same (although with an ever shrinking pool of fools)
But, as all who have had contact with the religion of worshiping money realize, absolutely nothing is beyond them when it comes to fleecing the sheeple.
The RCo$ has zero interest in attracting new rubes, just bleeding dry those they have.
Anyone who has a litteracy level above a grapefruit and internet access now knows what they would be getting into thanks to the “bitter defrocked apostates on the fringe of the internet”
Keep up the great work Mike
Another part of the problem is that they’re trying to sell the same old stuff to people who already own it or who have decided, despite unrelenting pressure, that they don’t need it. This is just a hopeless proposition.
Scientology needs new stuff to sell and there is a way to get it. Ron was going to return after, what, 27 years or something? So that was a couple of years ago. Now all Dave Miscavige needs to do is to reveal to the world that while Ron has been delayed by his work on the other planet and can’t physically return just now, he has made contact and has been beaming down the results of his latest research. In fact Dave was such a genius that he anticipated this and created a special task force that has been operating out of a CST base in a top-secret location, maintaining this comm line with Source and verifying the data and preparing it for release on this planet. There are new books, there are audio files, and of course there are new OT levels. And of course, as these are the most exciting revelations in whole track history, they are not cheap and you need to prove yourself worthy to receive them and we all know how to do that.
Dave has done a masterful job keeping the lid on this until now, but as the most compassionate man on Earth he just can’t keep this to himself any longer. That would be selfish. The planet needs to hear Ron’s voice again in this hour of crisis. And we sure as hell need some new product to hard-sell here.
Not such a far fetched scenario.Perhaps some details are wrong, but the underlying thought process is spot on. And that sort of thinking generates many of the amazing things that have been witnessed in scientology. Just look how the sheeple have been convinced that “ideal orgs” are “Ron’s idea” and that “Ron wanted the books he wrote fixed so they were really what he wanted to say” and “To deliver Super Power the ‘way Ron intended’ we have built an empty white elephant.” “Channeling Ron” has been subtly done for a long time. It’s getting less subtle. The ever present old standby “Ron left exact instructions on what to do — ONLY to be implemented when a certain number of people reach the level of OT VIII — and thus….” still works well. “we are dedicated to making the tech pure and exactly how Ron wanted it” is another oldie but goodie.
These are really not too far off from “we have a comm line and he is speaking to us through the air conditioning vents in COB’s bedroom.”
Somewhat non sequitur, but reminds me of an interviewer asking Carl Reiner how he came up with idea of casting George Burns as God. To which Mr. Reiner replied, “You mean he’s not God?”
Ron told me to tell you (thru my heating vents) that your comment was Spot On.
I recently did have someone express to me that he/she sincerely believed that LRH was in comm with David Miscaviage and was very much aware of everything happening within the church currently.
I hope you didn’t really shatter their life and announce that Santa Claus is also just a marketing gimmick and isn’t real….
As usual, we can look to Hollywood for the perfect metaphor for this phenomenon. In the newest Superman reboot, our hero has present time conversations with his long dead daddy, Jor-el (Russel Crowe), via a computer simulation that somehow infers what Jor-el would have said in response to a wide range of situations. Ron’s “instructions” are like that computer simulation, and just as real.
Wait…what? Seriously, George Burns is NOT God? Well there go my stable datum for the rest of my life.
“LRH says you must buy them, or you will be declared. We don’t care if you have to steal in order to pay for them.”
Correction, Mike. LRH is speaking to COB through the copper grounding pipes he holds on to. I think he got a huge blast of energy which is what makes his hair so bouffant. After all he has to tease it and rat it up into a bouffant to give himself some height that the elevator shoes don’t completely do.
Wait a minute, what’s this about Santa?
“rat?” Did someone say “rat?”
Dave might call the biggest event ever in the Super Dome or someplace and force attendance; and bring a kid out on stage with slightly red hair (like Dave’s has been recently) and the kid introduced as LRH. Wow, I’m scaring myself. I’ll stop here.
The thought (that DM has told certain people, the true believers, ie the TCs, that he is in comm with LRH, or is somehow LRH, part deux) has crossed my mind before. It would explain the rabid devotion. But then I thought there would be nooooo way someone would be that gullible……..right?
Let’s see, LRH died in 1986, said he’d be back in 27 years, which puts him being born in 2013. I have a nephew, he just turned one last month and he is the cutest little ginger. I guess I should hide him until he’s old enough to claim his throne. Reminds me of a certain king in the Bible who had all the baby boys killed….
Maybe COB has been channelling LRH through those copper rods?
Santa isn’t real?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!??????
“Any organism that feeds off itself dies.”
It’s fun to think of Dave’s face when he reads that one. He just spit his Cheerios!
I believe the COB eats cornflakes.
I thought it was Trix. But then I realized that Trix are for kids. And…idiot cult leaders.
Fruit loops
Anything sugar coated.
Nope, he eats shit. Pure unadulterated Daveshit straight up with zero sugar coating. He is a real mans man!
I thought that was his picture on the Trix box! Wascally wabbit…
You guys are hilarious. Thats some funny shit for breakfast right there Davie ! lol
“Increased donation rates”
Further proof, if it were needed, that CoS is nothing but a business. And yet the IRS still do nothing about their nakedly mercantile shenanigans.
Jesus is just above the clear and below the OT, and isn’t Co$’s goal to get rid / clean the bad memories????
Does that mean that on clear and below clear can buy more crap on during Christmas ????
I know that I am just blabbering since I am super ticked off on this BS.
Darren, you had me at new increased donation rates.
Wonder Darren still there, poor soul… Hey Darren, you remember how I said I didn’t like the basics as a solution for my case and you managed to get a “Tech terminal” to make me buy them anyway, because it was “better and faster solution for your case than auditing”. And do you still say to those who say after buying the fucking basics it was not the solution and that reading, in foreign for them English, is too much that they should buy the congresses? You are harming people not helping them, Darren, stop it now.
Sometimes I wonder if all the remaining die hard kook aide drinkers have debilitating personality disorders.
+1. Nice post!
Outraged,
If they didn’t when they joined the cult they sure as hell do now!
Maurice, are you sure it was Rick that died? I know his mom died some years back. But Rick was young, probably now he would be around 55 to 60 which is still youngish. What did he die from? Did he have friends or family with him? I think after his mom died, he had no one. I’m sorry that SO members are so depleated physically and nutritionally in the SO, as well as being suppressed, that many have died at a young age. What a waste of many lives.
Cindy,
The news about Rick’s passing was posted on the ex-scn forum in 2011 – he had apparently been pretty ill. I had met him in 1976 when we were both doing services at AOLA and ran into him a few times at Flag in subsequent years.
That is good news – another flushing of members will be the result of that one.
Funny and ironically true Mike. “Alot of blubber to consume” and whale fishing with the Les Dane Sales Technique gimmicks pull in at least one big juicy whale a year for the parasitical Organization to feed off of.
Due to the “stat driven life” – I watched the Staff love bomb the hell out of Illegal PC’s – people actually taking “psych drugs” that did not qualify for services. They bilked millions out of them.
The rich “Illegal PC’s” are people this Organization will feed off of and then when the money is gone and the person is upset – they will start the whispering campaign typically the DSA calling them – “Psych cases” so no one listens to them if they figure out the scam.
I don’t think a “price increase” is going to help – no one was buying them at the current prices. There are no new Scientologist’s. This will only push more people to the brink. Thank you COB, Sir. VWD!
Yesiree Bob, get your hot buttered corn on the COB.
Yes, IM.
My mom is illegal PC and the cult got every penny from her for 40+ years. (WTF? Thank you Betty Filisky).
She is now elderly and living on SS income and the State of CA for assisted living. A very, very meager existence. My family stopped giving her money bcuz she donated almost all of it to DM’s lifestyle, the Cult of Scientology. My brother and I are her only family. We do what we can to help with basic needs and treat her with kindness in her old age. But if we give her $100 she will donate it all!
She is a trifecta. Elderly, mentally ill (diagnosed with schitzophrenia since I was 9 and believe me, it’s true, I lived with it), and immersed in a Cult since 1972 that she still believes is saving mankind and DM is a god.
I hope they keep raising the prices. A lot. A whole lot. Then the whales can wallow in their statuses and feel good about themselves while their precious Cult goes DOWN.
Retribution is coming Dave. Bank on it.
:(. When I read IdealMorgue’s post and his mention of the bilking if “Illegal PC’s” your mom was the first person I thought of and she’s not the only one I know of that fits this. 🙁
So sorry. How bloody awful. You mom has been abused by the cult her whole life and now, abandoned by the same place that stole her life, she is only able to survive because you know the truth about David Fuking Miscavige.
The “Illegal PC” scam is one of the most insidious, covert scams the Cult of Scientology pulls off since its inception….all done without most people noticing it. “No entheta, no case on post, take it up in auditing” keep others from know why Mary or John have not done any more auditing.
I did some interviews in my area of those that left – I swear that almost everyone is “illegal” – connected to Psychs, journalists, worked for Govt…Hubs has a lot of “illegal justifications” and the Cult will use it to get you off the Bridge – while they keep your money.
I hope this gets investigated and exposed fully.
So many people I have talked to after they left told me along their journey of the Bridge – how all of a sudden they were told they had to go to Flag or ASHO, AOLA to do a “special program” or a “Clear Certainty Rundown”.
They were given an estimate TIP on how much money they had to put on account. The money had to be on account before the arrival.
Now, they are away from home, no loved ones nearby, all alone and once they check in – they can’t check out w/o approval. So – they have to accept this program if they are to survive in Scientology.
Once they arrive – they are made to wait…and wait….and wait. (A Mind Control Technique).
The WAITING period is done to thoroughly enturbulate and confuse the person – then they may get into session just long enough to debit an intensive. Now that Org does not have to refund that intensive, Only if the person makes a stink will they have any chance of getting that money back – and by the time they get to an advanced org – the word “refund” has become an IMPLANT and a dirty word. Most Scientologist’s are brain washed into thinking they would NEVER ask for a REFUND. It is a high crime.
The control is so tight – and most are so confused by what happened – they are controlled into giving all of the money on account up…..and may even feel good about it. They learn to block the whole incident from their minds.
The auditor tells them they must see the MAA. More waiting….lots of waiting (figure ..figure.. figure …itsa….itsa…itsa does the PC)…then – they are told by the MAA – “You are illegal and can’t have auditing”.
The person is then led into a Vulture Registrar Room…shown videos of “doom and gloom” and then asked to “DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT”…(mind control method used – imost people after watching some bad news – want to do something about it).
They are asked to donate all the money they just put on account and at least they can HELP and most of them do it and don’t really know what even happened.
This is a scam that reaches EVERY single ORG and most members.
Check it out and expose this dirty little trick the Cult is using to amass billions of dollars.
Re Betty Fillisky, is her son Rick Fillisky? What is Rick doing nowadays? He was SO but routed out. Is he still drinking KA?
Rick Filisky passed away a few years ago.
We have known of many illegal pc from the 70s. Betty F. raised it to an art form. She also juggled the books and screwed sciobots out of much money. They will screw anyone any time they can. I wish they could be investigated as organized crime is. The heart break continues for so many.
Re: DM is a god.
“Mr. Miscavige has helped every single Scientologist achieve personal betterment with Scientology. He has brought the Church to a place in the world today, where anyone can stand up proud to be a Scientologist and part of this incredible growing movement.”
http://www.freedommag.org/sites/default/files/declaration06.pdf
http://www.lawrencewrightgoingclear.com/sites/default/files/App11-Jenny%20Linson.pdf
I am confused !??! If Christ was an implant why reinforce the birthday of an implant by using it as a reference !?!?!?
Hubbard is quoted as stating that Christianity evolved from the “R6 Implant”: “The man on the cross. There was no Christ! The Roman Catholic Church, through watching the dramatizations of people picked up some little fragments of R6.”
What do you say here .. do you believe really that man on earth is implanted .. put together the fractions of time and space .. the whole idea of implant is basically stupid ..
Touché! Like squeezing blood out of a turnip! Sacrificing pricing future for a short term rise in sales. What idiocracy! You can see the ship slowly sinking into the sea, sinking to its watery grave right along side L Ron Blubbard! Good riddance.
donation rates? should this not alert the IRS? come on, IRS, please do your job and tax scientology. now!
Donation rates indeed. As payment for course fees is still tax deductible, why call it a ‘donation’? Is it not tax deductible in the UK? If it isn’t, good on the Inland Revenue.
All ‘religions’ are monopolies, some just carry it out to an extreme. There is always a price increase in the works. What better way to up your year end stats then trying to cause a stampede of clams. Of course, the books and cds you buy now might be found to be ‘defective’, and you’ll have to buy a corrected set in the future.
That’s the fun thing about space ship based religions, the future is only the next price increase away.