This is one of the things scientology is absolutely insane about.
They convince themselves they are “clearing the planet,” “changing the civilization” and “salvaging earth” because they tell themselves it is so. Yet the truth is they have no measurable impact on anything except the lives of those they come in direct contact with.
This “briefing” will of course be a complete joke. Their special message about “International Dissemination” is not going to be anything remotely close to covering what the “correct estimation of effort” is because that would be so unreal and uncomfortable that people would walk out.
For shits and giggles, I ballparked what the correct estimation of effort would be.
Let’s set an unrealistic target of clearing the planet in 100 years. Why 100? No really good reason — scientology has been trying to Clear the planet for 72 years now. 75 years is about the life span of average humans these days. So, add on 25 more years. It makes the math easy. It’s arbitrary, but at least it is SOME number. Scientology NEVER puts any number on their “we are clearing the planet” bs.
Let us also assume the population of the planet remains at 8 billion for the next 100 years and also discount anyone dying or being born (so no loss of Clears because they die).
Simple math — 8 billion Clears in 100 years.
That’s 80 million Clears made a year.
Let’s say an org makes 10 Clears a week (most have not made 10 in a year, no org has EVER made 10 in a week for a year). So, each org makes 520 Clears a year. Let’s double that and say each org makes 1,000 Clears in a year just to keep the math simple.
This means, right now scientology needs 80,000 orgs producing 1,000 Clears per year.
They have had the same 150 or so orgs since the 1980’s. No expansion for planetary clearing, just more real estate and empty buildings. Still not a single org in India or China which is 1/3 of the world’s total population. Not a single org in a Muslim country, about 15% of the world’s population.
Do you think the “Office of Special Affairs” and “Class IX Technical Executive” are going to lay this out?
Nah, they won’t even mention the real correct estimation of effort.
But that’s par for the course in scientology. Just tell people what they WANT to hear… That then becomes “fact,” and they carry on, handing over money and their lives
Let’s double the number of orgs and say that each org will make 1,000 clears each year. It would take 266.67 years to clear the 80 million leaving 7,920,000,000 to go which, most likely, already went.
Mike, this was a nice numbers dive into the silliness of Scientology’s self-congratulatory delusions about their impact in the world. Interestingly, however, you don’t need to have a global population that’s growing for Scientology to look like they’ve fallen hopelessly behind in their attempts to “clear the planet.”
It turns out that the global population has probably peaked and is now starting to decline, something that will continue for the rest of our lives and likely beyond. This is mostly a function of urbanization; when people move to cities, they have far fewer kids, often below the level of replacement.
So that ought to be good news for Scientology, or so you would think. But the problem is that the membership of Scientology is aging out and declining even faster than the global population. So Scientology is shrinking faster than the world around it. No surprise to we observers, but once again, it sucks to be Miscavige. You can’t even outgrow a shrinking population.
Scientology has a huge problem with the word ‘magnitude’ – it doesn’t have a clue what it means.
Nice math Mike.
I wanted to come back to cover another aspect of this “estimation of effort”.
80,000 Orgs would not do them any good unless those orgs were staffed with enough people trained to the right level.
When I was on staff at a Class V org, we had two auditors. The goal was St. Hill size, which we were told would be twenty auditors.
That would require 1,600,000 auditors. Every one of those orgs would need one or two each case supervisors, examiners, folder pages, cramming officers, course supervisors, word-clearers, and more. And that’s all just the technical side. Hubbard laid out his organization policy as two admin to one tech.
At their most goofy of lies, Scn claimed a membership of 9 million. A realistic estimation of effort to have 80,000 orgs capable of producing Clears would require nearly 9 million staff members.
Re: For shits and giggles…
Thank you, Mike, for holding your version of the “Orders of Magnitude Special Event.” What a pleasure! I didn’t have to RSVP or sit through a 3-hour event (such as 2007’s “OT Summit”). I didn’t have to dodge Registrars on my way out or utter a single “Hip hip hooray” for Hubbard.
You’re very welcome Fred.
Oh Mike, there you go again. Trying to put an honest face on $cieno ‘expansion’.
Just walk down any street and ask 3 strangers what they know about $cientology. The only answers you’ll get involve Xenu, Tom Cruise and if you’re in California, some mention of Danny Masterson and Leah Remini.
With a public perception like that, only the nutjobs will join up.
And some volcano in a late night TV commercial 30 years ago.
If the state of Clear is so wonderful and all of us should be striving to attain, how come so many of them are in prison or soon will be ?
@Nan B,
I’m not Clear; my auditing stopped mid the lower Bridge, but here’s a possible answer: Once a Scientologist attains the state of Clear, per Hubbard, he or she is “at risk” and MUST move IMMEDIATELY onto the OT Levels. I believe there is a specific Hubbard reference for this. Anyway, Clears get pressured to move to the next level BIG TIME once they attain Clear, and this of course involves MONEY – BIG money – and, well, some of them resort to unethical means to obtain it. Also anyone whose next step is the OT Levels is ALSO pressured big time for OTHER donations, and not piddling sums. For some, I think the combination of cult pressure and their brainwashed fervor to support the cult makes them justify their financial irregularities resulting in their getting caught and going to prison! That’s just my theory.
After clear you were in the “non interference zone” which meant no further auditing, go directly to the OT levels. The “risk” as I recall was that if you loafed around too long after clear you might fall into addiction or perversion. I recall someone at ASHO showing me a bulletin to that effect after I attested in 1979 and I don’t think it’s a dub-in (imagination) but I’ve never found a reference for it so maybe it is or maybe it got cancelled for being too controversial or something. I don’t know.
A simple definition of clear might be no regrets about the past and the belief that nothing in the past can affect you negatively in the present. From a scientological point of view you need to agree or concede that you have a subconscious, unconscious or reactive mind which first needs to be erased to make that claim. The man on the street would simply say, “You can’t change the past so just live for today.”
The bottom line is ” obsession” ,the essence of any Cult.
This obsession is ideal for mental slavery which leds to bonded labor, wrongly assumes as devoted followers.
Betrayel , lie , deceit ,sex and money at the center of any Cult.
No one can dispute in categorising them as criminal organization.
One factor not being accounted for is how often Scientology resets the Bridge. How many past Clears are had their Clear status revoked for one reason or another, requiring them to obtain additional auditing at their own expense? (Not to mention the attrition rate, given how many once-declared Clears became declared SPs. Because SPs get “no case gain”, right?)
Separately, a graph we will never see Scn produce is the number of Clears declared annually from 1950 to 2022. Seventy years, and they can’t even claim 70,000 Clears.
If the state of Clear is so wonderful and we should all be striving to achieve it, how come so many of these individuals are in prison or on their way to be ?
If the church really wanted to clear the planet, they could do so easily: just announce all auditing will henceforth be free and anyone who wanted to be trained would be trained at no charge. They are sitting on a huge amount of cash and they already have the facilities (tax free) just waiting for public to rush in. They could keep operating for years, even paying their auditors the usual minimum wages if needed. Maybe this has been Miscavage’s plan all along and he is just waiting for a critical mass of cash to make the announcement? The church has been receiving donations to clear the planet for years now, it’s time to remove the blocks, reverse the flow, and start spending down their resources for the benefit of mankind.
Yeah – that’s gonna happen. NOT
These rapacious cultists are far too addicted to cash to consider such an audacious plan!
@Bill de Carle: I love your sentiment here. You offer rational points, if one is operating off a sincere desire and genuine urgency to “clear the planet” of thoughtless reactivity and all individual reactive minds.
It was telling to me, when the 2020 conditions of the COVID pandemic set in, what a giant missed opportunity to GET ALL ORG STAFF (who needed it) UP TO THE STATE OF CLEAR. I think of how many talented, highly trained, and highly classed auditors there are at Flag—Class VI’s, Class IX’s, Class XII’s. What it takes (years) to get there, and with all the orgs shut down for several months, those technical delivery teams, as I understood, were sitting there mostly idle.
With orgs, all their staff were still expected to stay connected to the org and “work” in some fashion. Several could have been sent, charged zero to arrive at an HGC, while operating as “contained” staff teams (within the guidelines of the pandemic conditions), and have all their lower Grade Chart auditing delivered.
Many of us have known org staff members who have served for decades, making pennies, and working 7 days a week at their org. The multi-month 2020 pandemic conditions represented an opportunity to take dedicated team members and give them a lot of auditing. This would additionally keep the “Well Done Auditing Hours” stats up at Flag and other advanced orgs.
To not have done that demonstrated the low priority “clearing the planet” is to this group. During 2020 lockdown mandates, org staff members could not “work” in the org with public, as public places were closed. What a pristine opportunity to give these deserving staff mega doses of enhancement. Applying that “planetary clearing lens,” certainly the greatest good. But…nope. Instead, from what I could see, orgs kept their attention on cooking up more ways to fundraise and make money. Plus, clean the building vigorously—management did have many org staff in the building daily doing that.
Nice to see a positive response, hope COB is reading this.
Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. You silly boy! 8 million? You’re forgetting that Scientology only helps the ‘able’. That does not include anyone who is physically/educationally/ mentally/ emotionally disabled, SPs (such as yourself and Leah), and (let’s be honest) any people of color or non-heterosexuals. So you can cut that 8 billion in half! Now it is possible! NOT! And it never was possible and/or necessary in the first place!
You weren’t in scn very long before you realized that clearing everyone on the planet was impossible because it took too long and cost too much but Clearing the Planet was a nice slogan. I think there was a “qualification” or something that said 10,000 Oh Tees could at least restore order and possibly salvage the planet which seemed more reasonable. . . . . . . . . . . . (joke)
Thanks for the math work Mike. Think it should be printed up and passed out broadly.
Re the promo; Interesting that a member of OSA will be speaking too.
The only time I’ve seen OSA staff at an event is a dozen or so standing around the perimeter visually scanning for attendees who aren’t cheering, clapping, standing, smiling, etc. This is so they can send them to interrogations for “bad indicators”. Is the OSA speaker gonna confess and apologize for all that?
There was an axiom or maxim or something saying, “The human mind is engaged in the estimation of effort.” That made some sense to me and still does. It’s not hard to see some people driving around a parking lot three or four times to find a spot which will save twenty or thirty steps to the entrance of a store.
I need to go mow the grass. Hmmm – That’s a lot of effort, maybe I’ll do it tomorrow. lol
Someone on a blog once mentioned, “Life is about moving things around.” That got me thinking and when I needed to do a simple yard chore I counted about fifteen things I needed to move around to get the job done and then put them all back so maybe they had a point. Maybe Elron missed that as one of his maxims.
Any time I do DIY round the house I find preparing to do the job, and cleaning up after the job easily take as long each as the job itself. But I doubt the Commode ever hung a picture, never mind a door.
Can I groan internationally?