Scientology continues to run this stale campaign — the photo above was taken by one of our readers (Doug Sprinkle) 3 days ago.
This is the sign in front of “Big Blue” on Sunset Blvd.
Here’s what Doug said:
I’m in Los Angeles and I drove by big blue. I thought you might find the attached picture funny.
I rode around the building and the security guy on the bicycle seem to be looking at me suspiciously. I saw several people running around in a hurry but they all appeared to be staff. I saw one person going in the building that looked like she might have been public.
If the sign had said curious why so FEW people are scientologists I could have taken it seriously.
Exactly.
The only curiosity about scientology these days is how they manage to get anyone to “be a scientologist.” It is so much more difficult for them to pull off an effective bait and switch with the internet. You can find out what really goes on in scientology with a simple Google search. Back in the good old days, they could convince people they were a harmless bunch of do-gooders who only had their best interests in mind, and not have to reveal their true nature until they had their marks hooked. And even then, The truth was revealed only after a LOT of indoctrination. Today, it’s all there for the world to see. From the Xenu story, to their homophobia and from disconnection to Fair Game.
The number of “new” scientologists is minimal. Children raised in it. People who come from Third World nations with the promise of a job and housing in the US. Those who have no ready access to the internet. That’s about all.
The real question is: Curious why any people are scientologists?
Many years ago,my daughter’s therapist told her that the majority of most people’s brains are hardwired to believe in some sort of organized religion.They want to feel that they belong and are welcomed by like minded people.Most people do not like being alone.In my daughter’s case,she was not hardwired that way and I guess I was not either.She is an athieist now.I just do my own thing and do not like following rules or being told what to do and when to do it.And the thought of communal living is definitely not my thing.
“Curious as to why so many people are Scientologist?”
Let’s see now, a few reasons MIGHT be these TOP TEN:
1) FEAR: Knowing nothing Else but what’s been drilled into your head.
2) CONSEQUENCES: Break the Rules & you KNOW where you’ll end up
3) BROKE: No money to begin a life on the outside.
4) TRAINING: You have no job training other than Scientology’s BIG sell of books etc.
5) SQUIRREL BUSTING: Being hounded, harassed, picketed, followed, photographed
6) ELDERLY: Missing out on the new reincarnated promised Meat Body after death
7) MINDERS: Never a chance to blow, always watched/audited/ locked in can’t escape
8) EDUCATION: You have NO High School or College Diploma
9) THE HOLE: SEE #2
10)) DISCONNECTION: Forbidden for family to have ANY contact with me.
HHHmmmmm……sounds like there are enough reasons to stay in…….how sad is that.
Or maybe you’re curious why so many people have become former scientologists? There’s more of them than actual scientologists !
Either way, come on in and find out !!! And bring lots of money !!! Don’t worry if you don’t have any – we have connections at all banks and credit card companies ! We can have your credit limits raised to ungodly levels even if you have no job ! We also have connections at all cell phone companies – we’ll find your cell number and hound you for the next billion years or so.
They’ve been using this “curious?” for many years.
From a marketing point of view there are two things: either they have had such a success of responses that they don’t have to change it, or they have run out of ideas and keep this one.
Another possible hypothesis is that it is a DM’s own idea and therefore untouchable (this is highly possible. Usually you do surveys to find buttons. Curious isn’t an item will come up) .
However the point is that if someone is “curious” now he searches on the internet and finds everything. Including that there are absolutely NOT that many scientologists, so ads that includes lies equates to shooting oneself in the foot several times.
LmR, my guess is they’ve run out of ideas and are “doubling down” on Dwarfenführer’s last known “let’s try this!. For SOME reason, he thinks it’s the winning move: Mystery sandwich without giving anything away for “free”. The first use IIRC, didn’t even mention scn.
Yes! “…if someone is ‘curious’ now he searches on the internet and finds everything.”
No one has to “walk themselves into an org” to find out about Scientology anymore!
The coveted 18-35 demographic lives on their phones – my God, everything is searched – everything and every one, constantly, continuously – internet searches are their oxygen!
Reminds me of the teaser for Aftermath season
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCEfComrB8Y
Curious why so many people are scientologists?
Many. Heh.
“Many” is a typo. SHOULD be “Curious why ANY people are scientologists?” Go to DirecTV channel 230 and be bored into stupefaction.
Dear Mr Rinder.
Over the last few months we here in Australia have been able to see the documentary that yourself and Leah Remini did on Scientology.
A big thank you for doing this.
It really amazes and shocks me what you and the other former Scientology members have suffered.
One of the episodes you did mentioned how they “Suck” unsuspecting people into the organisation.
One of them was the “Personality Test” !! When I was 17 or 18 back in the 1980’s I almost got sucked in by one of these “Personality Tests.” After taking their so called “Test” they got me to watch some video… during the video, I had a voice in the back of my mind telling me to “GET OUT, Leave now!”. All I can put that down to was “Divine Intervention”.
After seeing your documentary all these years later.. I realise how lucky I was to not get sucked in, as at that time I was in a dark place, and would more than likely have succumbed to all their rubbish.
I am so glad you and Ms Remini managed to get out, and did that documentary, If it stops someone getting sucked in or helps those still inside the organisation to realise that they are being lied to, and having huge amounts of their money used for the benefit of a small number of people.. It will be worth it.
My prayers are with you all.
The most ethical group on the planet?
Kiss my ass!
Most of the upper management of this criminal cult believe this is true.
But that is only because they get to define the meaning of ethics. So, as I said above, …
Kiss my ass!
“Ethical” only in that they obey!, which is what scientology’s whole “justice” system boils down to.
One last comment about my trip to Los Angeles this weekend. I have heard so much about scientology international base I decided it would be a fascinating to see it in person, so I drove out there Friday morning. I have seen the pictures of the spikes on the fence and I was expecting to see that, however there were no spikes on the fence, at least the part of the fence I could see from the road anyway.
Is it possible they removed the spikes due to PR reasons?
It should say:
“Curious? Watch Leah Remini and Mike Rinder on A&E’s Award winning Docuseries:
Scientology; the Aftermath”
Get the truth for real lurkers – watch the show.
I find a parallel in the general
Culture with my own personal experience
In the mid ‘70s, when I got involved, I personally needed structure,
and to be involved in something much larger than myself.
In my thirty or so years of involvement, I spent about a quarter of that time working in the SO on projects directly with LRH and post-SO, I made it to almost the top of the bridge. I stopped when I realized there was no there there.
Similarly, the world, the culture has moved beyond the Cold War era, beyond the telex machine being the state-of-the-art communications technology, but the Church of Scientology has not.
Tragic, really.
And I accept the role scientology had in my life as a 20-something, and also acknowledge that I stayed in that group
way too long.
I mark this year as being ten years out of the church and I am calm, happy, and affluent beyond what I ever expected. And this is majorly attributable to distancing myself from that toxic group.
Great story. Thanks.
Even in the ’60s, Telex was passé, left in the dust of more sophisticated comms technology. In the ’70s, Computers came into the workplace and home. Hubbard would have none of that.
John – I “got into” scientology about the same time and spent six or seven years. I never considered that I was a member of a “church”, but I usually avoid calling scientology a cult in my comments since that would make me a cultist which I don’t consider I ever was.
Semantics – lol – I guess I was never “all in”
I looked at scn as something I was studying rather than joining or becoming a member. A few years ago I got into a debate with someone who insisted that Hubbard always referred to scn as a religion and I said he didn’t. The debate heated up and eventually I conceded that when I was “in” I thought that everyone should eventually become a scientologist so maybe it was my “faith” at the time and that was good enough to end the debate.
“Curious why any people are scientologists?”
There is nothing curious about scn as it never came forward with any real scientific demonstration.
Nobody worldwide is curious about it. It is enough to check on internet to satisfy any ‘curiosity’ in a few minutes. And decide to stay away.
The only thing one can be curious about is how come they are still around doing their business and being tax exception after all those evidences that show they aren’t what they PR around to be.
scientology just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, just like their favorite book of stories: “Alice in Wonderland”. It’s SO apt for the group trying to make itself out as a religion.
I am shocked that Direct TV would make a deal with Scn to let them have their own channel and play their propaganda all day. That must have cost them a lot of money.
That must have cost them a lot of money.
Which is why you should not be shocked. DirecTV is a profit-making company.
O’m SURE DirecTV charged HIM a premium over and above the actual costs to broadcast what NO ONE will watch, killing DirecTV’s stat of “# of viewers”, which determines how much they can charge for commercials, etc.. That big old goose egg channel has gotta hurt them in the pocket.
Cindy, DirecTV has been struggling, and probably made the CofS a good deal – it may cost less than you might think, but it’s still got to be an expensive waste. And Scientology could even lose the platform before long, depending what happens when AT&T finally unloads it:
AT&T loses another 600,000 TV customers as it seeks buyer for DirecTV
> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/att-loses-another-600000-tv-customers-as-it-seeks-buyer-for-directv/
Thanks for the info Peace Maker. I think Direct TV is on the way out as your link shows. Everyone is going to streaming nowadays. Then where will Davey go to advertise?
Cindy, I suppose another possibility is that they’re invested in having a TV ‘channel’ now and will have to pay to keep one going regardless if their deal goes away when DirecTV finally is sold or merges — but that will just speed up the drain of their resources. It’s the logical falacy and cognitive bias formally categorized as sunk costs, commonly known as throwing good money after bad, and it’s one of the human weaknesses Scientology exploits though also an organizational trap they fall into themselves.
I thought ScnTV wouldn’t last more than a year, and then they’d declare a ‘win’ and tell the members that it was ‘expanding’ into the brand-new (!) modern technology of streaming (Netflix launched online in 2007) from SuMP facilities. Hubbard was actually almost always behind the times, he just appeared cutting-edge to followers who were not well informed, and Scientology follows him.
Hey, Cindy: I was one of the DirecTV “early adopters; I still have one of their dishes mounted & pointed properly on the side of our top floor, and wires strung throughout the house; AND I’m an early UN-adopter: As soon as the fiber-optic cable was strung past our house, we signed up for FIOS. With scientology, INC now carried on DirecTV’s line-up, I’ve even MORE reason to not sign up for their service again. Any cloudy day, service was likely to pixel-out. Snowy days, there was often nothing. I’ve not tried Dish, yet, so can only conjecture that their service will suffer the same drop-outs. AND, when the Sun is in the same area of sky, don’t expect any shows. ‘course, that’s true for every satellite service (I used to be in that biz & even our 6-meter dishes had that trouble..)
Cindy, the punching Pontiff don’t care if no one watches. He can still CLAIM whatever he wants for the clapping clams’ and whales’ continued support. They CAN’T watch an expensive service like that after they’ve paid and paid for the un-needed SMP studios, which AFAICT, remains as idle as the ideal orgs.
Cindy, Money is money. That’s the only explanation necessary. We don’t know what, if any, threats Dwarfenführer® made to grease the slides of the deal. Meanwhile DirecTV/AT&T has a slight bit better cash flow.
Yes, you’re right. And so true that he doesn’t care if anyone watches it or not, cuz his whole purpose was to have something to say to the whales, of “and we have our own tv show on…” so that they keep donating. He’s cunning.
As an aside, years ago when I just got out of college, I worked at a radio station. The format was easy listening. Then the owners changed it all to religious all the time. We asked why the abrupt change? They said because the televangelists and ministers and religious people who were on the shows paid their radio bills like clockwork and it was all about the money. So I can see where Direct TV doesn’t care who has a show as long as they pay cold hard cash.
And Davey gets to show off to the whales in the process.
It should say, “Curious why anybody is a Scientologist?”
Curious why ANYONE becomes a scientologist these days. Back in the glory days, Hubbard’s dictates worked to a point, but there wasn’t nearly as much truth being broadcast about the enterprise, and Google wasn’t even a “thing” yet. People would have been horrified to be able to so easily get background checks on anyone or anything they encountered. These days, it’s odd NOT to check out any potential dates.
I know a couple people who became $cientologists in the past few years, one was probably enticed by business opportunities as a consultant to WISE members. Very smart, still amazed at this choice.
Walking, As I see it, Hubbard set his trap FOR the intelligent, the “able”. We had to be able to PAY for his wisdom: whatever the market would bear (or bare?)
Only in LA could they imagine that an outsider might know a scientologist, or even a couple. Outside of that stronghold where they’re concentrated, and Clearwater (still probably only 1% of the population, not counting the isolated Sea Org), in the rest of the country there are just a few thousand members scattered among a popluation of 300 million.
And I doubt that a lot of younger people could name any of Scientology’s aging and mostly fading celebrities except one, Tom Cruise. Maybe John Travolta as well, plus in LA a fair number of the general public must be familiar with Danny Masterson for all the wrong reasons.
Scientology has always managed to garner outsized attention and punch above its weight, but nowadays most people are familiar with them not because they know a member or follow a celebrity who tried it out (there were quite a few of those, though decades to half a century ago), but because of media like South Park parodies and about a decades’ worth of books, documentaries, shows and podcasts exposing their dark side. Oh, and all the checkout line tabloid covers about Scientology celebrity scandals like Tom Cruise abandoning his daughter, also reach a lot of people.
Peacemaker, whenever one of them is in the bubble, they know SO MANY scns that of COURSE anyone they happened to meet (meat?) on the street HAS to know some personally. Even if they’re one of the very few in cities like Philadelphia, Minneapolis, or Miami, where perhaps 0.000001% of the population has even HEARD the word scientology, except in derogatory terms, in passing.
“…Scientology’s aging and fading celebrities…” Yup. No new blood coming in on that comm line either – ha, ha Dwarf.
Curious why so many people are Scientologists?
Let me know if you find any.
There are likely fewer Scientologists worldwide than there are Objectivists in New York City. (I was going to say lamp posts in Minneapolis, but that would have been nasty.)
I like nasty. Why don’t you come by.
🙂
Otherles, and the lamp posts are friendlier, too.
OSD. Checking. But it is gonna take time. Nobody wants to say it.
Say what?
OSD. Say they are scnist.
Scientists??? No way!!!
OSD:
FIRST , Someone would have to look for them, a thankless, grueling job. There aren’t any around the orgs, it seems.
It’s a ghost town. Seriously, IT IS A GHOST TOWN.
And I already post this the other day but I’ll say it again anyway. I went back the next day and walked around the building. I was walking on the sidewalk on L. Ron Hubbard Boulevard and said hello to one of the staff members and told him I had received auditing there many years ago. I just knew he would try to get me to come in and try to recover me, but to my surprise he had no interest in talking. And then I was walking past the little restaurant behind big blue and away from their property and the security guard on bicycle tracked me down and asked if he had seen me around before. I can only assume the staff member must have immediately reported me to security. I also told him that I had received auditing there many years ago but would have been before his time. We we talk for a minute, I asked if he knew Steve Drabin or Mike Owens. He said he knew Steve but not Mike. Then he rode off. I walked around the area a little bit longer as it was a beautiful day outside and he kept riding around keeping an eye on me from a distance. I don’t get the impression they’re interested in new people coming in. I get the impression they’re more interested in keeping people out then getting people in. I didn’t see any signs anywhere inviting people in.
I also saw three young people picking up grass with their hands, if there was a blade of grass that appeared to be higher than the rest of the lawn they would pick it up by hand. That must be the estates project Force getting ready for the Sea Org?
I’ve read that in some Buddhist sects an acolyte needed to become happy with cleaning latrines before they could move to the next level. I guess it would be faster and easier to become happy with picking grass than cleaning latrines.
I know – poor analogy.
The bigger question might be why in the world would they put people out in public picking grass. A passerby would definitely be “curious” about that.
“picking grass up” — out of the latrine 😉
There’s nothing more valuable in scientology than the bottom of the latrine. What a field day future archaeologists will have around what had been scn orgs.
Doug, I expressed the opinion here some years ago that I felt that Miscavige’s “business plan” involved keeping the number of Scientologists LOW, keeping a certain select amount of high rollers and upper middle class folks to keep paying, and getting rid of “old time” tech folks like me, ANY POTENTIAL TROUBLEMAKERS who might threaten his income stream by opening our big mouths . Thus the security folks, the having to get a pre event authorization to attend, the interrogation of who you are if you even enter an org to see what’s up. KEEP OUT ANY POSSIBILITY OF TROUBLE. Miscavige is 60 and his game is to make sure he is still king of his real estate empire for the next 10-15 years, NOT to get people into Scientology. His pretend attempts at that are to keep the paying sheeple snowed. Kind of genius really and the alleged OTs who allegedly have the ability to perceive their environment, just say “yes,suh” … Pathetic …
And based on what I saw I would agree with you. I realize this has been said many times before but it is amazing that they apparently maintain the illusion of expansion to the whales. If someone would just walk around the block at any org and open their eyes, surely they would have to wonder where all the people are.
AND, Doug, any normal person would naturally wonder WHAT all that space was for, given its obvious non-occupancy rate. At least REAL religions made their cathedrals’ exteriors into works of art, pleasing to the eyes of the beholders.
Possibly they keep their eyes wide shut because they can’t confront having wasted their lives.
Doug, one Scientology axiom I have found to be totally true is, “The practice of not-isness reduces understanding.”
These OTs and whales have been denying what is right in front of them for so many decades that they no longer perceive their environment even after a zillion hours of objectives. And so their understanding of what is really going on around them in the CoS is totally out the bottom.
One of my biggest upsets with Scientology today is the criminal way that Hubbard tried to hide his designed and theoretical beliefs about the thetan and the nature of life. I got sucked into a weak minded presentation of nonsense. The curious part is only a coverup for the weakness.
Dear George, I wanted to ask you if you remember an Italian guy Named Romano Romanini, who did the original OT8 and got very sick on board of the Freewinds. He had lots of troubles subsequently and has passed away few weeks ago.He surely read the infamous Bulletin.
Yes, I do remember discussions about an Italian guy who got sick after original OT8. Sorry to hear he passed. There were dozens of stories about negative reactions to that Bulletin. One of my FSM’s was in total fear of spontaneous combustion. I think in the end it killed him a few years after OT8. His wife my other FSM died from cancer in about five years after OT8. Her sister sued Scientology. Never heard the outcome. Lyn Irons’ wife also died from it I remember.
George, too many scns died too young and too painfully of curable disease due to Hubbard’s pronouncements. As I recall, Mary Sue was one of them. Definitely, Captain Bill didn’t have to slowly, painfully asphyxiate. He was a Bitter Ender”, and his end was far too bitter, IMO.