More evidence that the “fastest-growing religion” is a sad lie. This time from the “home of L. Ron Hubbard” – the scientology headquarters in England at St. Hill.
This was a “national” event for the most important activity in the scientology world — fundraising for “ideal orgs.”
Here is where the UK stands on the “ideal org strategy” after 13 years.
One ideal org in London — bought by IAS. For ALL of London. CC London closed down.
Buildings in Plymouth, Manchester, Birmingham and Sunderland that have stood empty for years as they do not have any funds to renovate them.
Nothing at all in Brighton and Edinburgh. They are part-time “orgs” hidden in backstreets that nobody can find.
Not even a part-time org in Wales, N. Ireland or Eire.
This is a flatlined scientology scene.
Now on to the newsletter reporting on this “huge” event. They claim 250 people “attended” the activities; though seating looks to accommodate about 145 and there is no photo of more than 150 people. The entirety of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland couldn’t scrape together more than 150 people? And you know this was a big deal event — they brought in Guys in Medieval Garb on Horses!
They have some other “massive expansion” stats too — a grand total of 63 UK public on Solo NOTS (you can bet most of them are not auditing). And total UK Super Power Completions is 93 in more than 2 years. Wow. 63 on Solo NOTs out of 70 million people — less than ONE IN A MILLION! Now THAT’S massive expansion! And they are so excited about it they put it in their newsletter.
But, they saved the best for last…
Tom Shuster is the first person in the UK to complete the Golden Age of Knowledge line-up. One person after TEN YEARS!! And he had previously done the SHSBC. (He is also an infamous former GO staff member who is featured in Steve Cannane’s excellent Fair Game book).
For those new to this blog — I suggest you read this earlier post Scientology Shriveling which documents from scientology’s own publications the true state of scientology “expansion.”
Oh, and those outfits. You gotta love the outfits. It’s like a Monty Python convention for the socially inept.
Yeah, but how many Saint Hill Special Briefing Course graduates did they have? Isn’t that course the specialty of Saint Hill?
Oh, wait. No.
His Holiness, the Pope of Scientology, Chairman of the Board Religious Technology Center, Mr. David Miscavige, has stopped all delivery of the SHSBC. Good thing ol’ 4-Foot-13 is here to fix all of the Fatman’s fuckups and re-release the BC as it always should have been.
I expect Him to add some Lost Tech about how to properly slap your PC.
Enlarged the “Banquet Hall” pic and there appear to be 12 tables with seating for 14 people at each. Allowing the empty seats may be people walking around, that would be 168 people, plus the 6 staff standing around, for a total of 174 bodies, not counting the horses.
A &E in Canada is running the 20 20 Scientology a war without guns. I thought they were going to have one more episode centered around Leah.
Hi Mike…Love the series your on with Leah !! You would have never known this goes on without your experience ! I was curious though if you and Leah are still constantly being stalked and do you ever feel your life is in danger and would the Church stoop so low to hire a hitman to stop further productions of your series since its so damaging to them ?
I encourage everyone to click on Mike’s Scientology Shriveling. Pretty eye opening!
All this festivity and ye old merriment over nothing. There’s no reason for scientologists gathering together as scientologists to be merry and festive. They should be sitting down and talking serious business about the floundering of their church. All this play acting at being happy when NOBODY wants to be there doing that nonsense. It’s childish and embarrassing. It’s straight out of the mind of Kafka, this artificial cheerfulness where everybody is pretending to each other. It reminds me of an episode of The Twilight Zone where everybody at the party was a mannequin.
Just for history, the two photos with CO CLO UK in them, show Alex Wheelis, son of famous Sea Org Leslie Epstein and step son of Jono Epstein (famous Sea Org Reserves money man at Int for decades, long ago), and young Alex was Gold staff, busted to PAC RPF, and when I arrived on the PAC RPF in Nov 2000, Alex was then the bosun of the RPF. The second generation Sea Orgers who were unflappably cheerful seem to have stuck through thick and thin, as young persons like Alex didn’t have a life before his Sea Org life, and now he’s CO CLO UK, boss of the UK continent in effect.
Alex was husband to my RPF twin, Mai Wheelis, wonder if anyone’s heard what happened to Mai?
The ups and downs of Sea Org life and careers.
Another person in this photo montage, is Brenda McQuade, she’s ex Sea Org, an OT, and was on the PAC RPF also when I transferred to the PAC RPF in Nov 2000.
Reading between the lines, I’ll bet she had something to do with the recovery of the two McQuades added back to the UK OT Committee.
I also, even years earlier, was Course Supervisor for Mike Rickets, who was a short-time Executive Director trainnee for one of the UK orgs, and Mike’s hung in there all these years it seems.
Mike also had the unflappable cheerfulness tone level.
Brenda, Mike and Alex, I’d say they all share that tone level of unbriddled cheerfulness.
Nothing Scientology has done to them doused their outlook, it seems.
I also see Peta Grafton has completed the Student Hat. She’s only been in the Sea Org at least once, gosh I helped train her 4 decades ago. Hazel was her mom, and I think for some persons, they just have found a home in Scientology somehow dodging the flak or not noticing, and it’s just what they grew up in, and Peta I think was in CMO in Clearwater very briefly.
Chuck I remember Peta from CMOCW ~’81 or ’82. She must be about 54-55 years old now.
Didn’t Leslie Epstein pass away? Any idea what happened to Jonno?
I doubt if the two MacQuades needed any encouragement to join the OTC. When I was last at Joburg Org the two were on staff there (looong time on staff!) and complete stalwarts, plus being two of the nicest scientologists around. I imagine they’ve just returned to the UK and done what they’ve always done – be on lines.
I just wanted to take a moment to ask you all to tweet to: @AETV to express our gratitude and hopes for a Season 2 of this amazing brave series. Maybe ask for a RT (retweet) so your @twitter friends keep the message going. Thank you!
+1! Outstanding idea!
So … let me get this straight … this dude Tom Shuster … studies every single thing released by LRH … includes the Briefing Course, the ACCs, the Congresses, yadda yadda yadda … and when he’s finished all that … AFTER all that … (“since then …”) he does … the friggin STUDENT HAT!!! Say what?????(Tommy, you couldn’t remember the three barriers?)
Student Hat for the third time? Since he did do the Student Hat, is he going to do the purif as well as the SRD? I mean, starting off at the bottom, again, must be fun!
“Times over equals certainty” is how I told my students to think of their having to redo courses and redo materials.
“Times over equals certainty” is one of those Hubbard panacea handlings for the members!
Another is “Tech Downgrades” which when I was a course supervisor was more important to how I framed my students compared to even “Tech Degrades” policies.
The whole mentality for course sups and students, and how to think of what one is supposedly attaining in terms of understanding, were always grounds for the Pink Sheets I wrote on students to correct them into the correct attitude.
“Keeping Scientology Works”
“Tech Degrades”
“Tech Downgrades”
times over equals certainty principle
Student Hat study tapes, particularly tape 4 but also tape 2, were my most often pink sheeted or snippets I showed to students to budge them into absorbing Hubbard’s crap.
I mean it’s so easy to lay out their brainwashing mentality, I did it for years in pink sheets and in referring these references to students to overcome their objections to absorbing Hubbard’s crap.
Student Hat, is way way more indoctrination into the Scientology mindset, due to the Hubbard study tapes.
One thing, outsiders, even the great pair that did that funny radio show series of hours of episodes, they didn’t even get up to the Student Hat.
Student Hat itself, I would, were I still a dupe staffer and totally standard course supervisor, would have NO qualms for having ANYONE redo the Student Hat.
Over and over. I myself as course supervisor reviewed Student Hat material over and over myself, as for one, the course students in any classroom will consist of some students on that course, and today likely more than half of the students on the Student Hat will be repeats.
But, I mean, another way I justified it, was by thinking, while I was walking around in my course supervisor years, in my head, during the days I was course supervising, I’d think, well, out there in Christianity the followers and ministers just repeat repeat repeat the Bible and that’s standard.
Hubbard redo of ALL of Hubbard’s theory is just similar.
I mean what do other “religious” practices do. They redo their core operation’s theoretical stuff and so forth.
Hubbard’s stuff even as I write this, hasn’t been even all laid out, how the members, how the staff, how the upper “scribe” personnel in the LRH Compilations Unit, all think about the presentation and the absorbtion of the Hubbard crap.
The delivery of the Hubbard crap is just minutia more detailed, rejected as frivolity and absurd details rightly so, but the details just go on and on, hours and days and months of accumulated Hubbard writings on the presentation of the Hubbard crap knowledge to the followers.
What a huge massive waste of time, I hate to be triggered into the real behind the scenes long history of Hubbard writings that lead up to today’s “Student Hat” course, and all the rules and principles behind how Scientology today delivers not just the “Student Hat” but how Scientology delivers all of the other hundreds of courses and internships. Just a massive history of stupid details. aaaaaaahhh
“A genuinely excellent meal was served”. Genuinely excellent, huh? My God, who writes this shit?
“More evidence that the ‘fastest-growing religion’ is a sad lie”.
Mike, shame on you! Stop the drama, here!
Take a cue from our dear Kellyanne Conway: what you called a “lie” is merely an “alternative fact”.
See the word-clearer, please.
I write this shit. I just not very good with grammar.
You’re cracking me up today, OSD!
Wow. So many running themes going on here: Renaissance Fair, Medieval Times, and Harry Potter all genuinely, tastefully and uniquely carried off by all of those concerned.
I find that going the opposite way of these folks usually works out well. The Tom Schuster “achievement” is a gem. I’m going to see if I can delete from my memory every concept, word
and idea related to scientology. I realize I’m throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I’ll just
chance it. I’m going to start with tech and theta, batting first and second in my own “clearing’
lineup and move on from there. Clear will go next, ot, etc…
The buildings in Plymouth, Manchester, Birmingham and Sunderland are empty for a reason. Like fine wines, Ideal Orgs must be seasoned for ten or twenty years. This allows the Ideal Orgs to take on a complex and whimsical bouquet of routing forms, KR’s, reg cycles, and that peculiar pungent skunkiness of COB .
Laughter!
Hey, Jeffrey, do the orgs become witty and nuanced also?
Being witty & nuanced are frowned upon. Only Wogs use those words.
Well EXCUUUUSE ME!!! How about dry and sly. Ooooh. That sounds like actual scientology speak
Wines and Wogs can be witty but orgs can’t? Scientology can help you with that.
Trending in the News… Laura Prepon and Ben Foster expecting first child. If only her Org’s staff could freely search the Internet! They’d surely be relieved to be able to claim a member uptick this week.
Poor kid…..
Hey there, I am a new to this site and to the SCI world. I was intrigued/horrified when I actually learned what this was on Leah Remini’s show, and now I can’t stop myself from finding out more information (no matter how shocked I am that this actually exists in our day and age). Of course the first thing I did was look and see if there was anything in my City in Canada here and found one tiny location in the most busiest part of downtown. There are comments that pamphlets were distributed every once and a while in this area but nothing other than that. After doing some more snooping I found that there is a building bought by SCI in 2007 for 2.2 million (highest paid per square footage ever heard of in this location of our city) and nothing has been done to it yet. This interests me even more because this building is a pretty big landmark in out city and yet no one has questioned this positively or negatively? Looking forward to learning more and finding new ways to help.
Hi Steph. I’m Canadian too, and was wondering where you live. I live in Mayo, Yukon, Canada, and there are no scientologists here. We are only about 450 people. I know, however, that there is a small “church” in Ottawa, above a store. I feel as you do, can’t get enough info. Read Going Clear. I’m reading it now and there is so much in there that I didn’t know before.
Read, Bare Face Messiah as well as A Piece of Blue Sky.
Iceblue and steph. Ontario Canada here and not “in” but very much on board with shutting down sc$
Cambridge is my closest church and I am planning with 20 people so far to go up there in mid Feb.
I will keep you posted.
Hi, I am in Winnipeg, Manitoba and really don’t hear much here but I feel the need to kick them out of my city though, with the fear of them recruiting people I may or may not know haha. I will for sure look into those books, thanks for the recommendations.
I have been really tempted to go take a look at their location as I work extremely close to it and have even tried to get my husband to come with me, but he thinks i’m crazy and I feel nervous that they would suck me in LOL! (we have this video camera that looks like a pen and I am so convinced I can catch something. As creepy as this camera sounds it really just cause my husband loves all tech.)
I just keep thinking, maybe I can find some dirt on them and put it in the right hands and bring them down!
Not likely to bring this monster down with a surreptitious recording in Winnipeg I am afraid. It would probably be pretty low key and not very obnoxious. It’s all sweetness and light getting you in to begin with.
In episode five of the Aftermath series, Golden Era, Leah provided some real insight into the kind of rationalizations that $cilons like her go through in order to continue to remain devoted and donating members. She mentioned having recurring doubts about her religion which were allayed for her after attending the cult’s annual, must-attend events in which lil davey recounted the many triumphs of the preceding year in $cn. After hearing about all the great stuff that the cherch had been up to, she felt as if all her sacrifices for the cult were worth it.
That episode took apart and deconstructed the lies, half-truths, omissions and exaggerations that went into the production of these gala events, showing them to be largely hype and puffery that would never stand up to objective scrutiny. Leah, Mike and Marc all agreed that if True Believer $cilons actually knew the truth behind these mass propaganda events, then it would be a very effective means of undermining the cult’s hold on folks and their ability to continue raising funds.
Since then, Mike has been hammering home that same argument by using the cult’s own figures to put the lie to their claims of miraculous expansion and never before seen heights of theta-gasmic plenitude. When you engage in some simple arithmetic, using the cult’s own numbers, the claims of expansion don’t just seem like minor hype, but evidence more of wholesale denial of reality. As Mike put it today, with less than one in a million folks in the UK on solo NOTS, claims of incredible expansion just don’t add up. Indeed, they seem so obviously wrong that any 10 year old could figure it out!
Since many of these duped and defrauded $cilons are of at least average intelligence, you’d think that at some point they’d put together the same screamingly obvious facts and begin to ask some pointed questions concerning the vast distance between what’s being claimed and what the actual stats underlying the generalized claims of “never before seen expansion” and “47X growth” actually are. But if you think that everywhere else in the $cilon world is doing great, except for your local region, then you’re more likely to just feel guilty about your own local region’s lack of success than to question the validity of the success stats in general. A big part of the problem there of not being able to perceive the broader scope picture has to do with not having ready access to what we have here and on Tony O’s site, which is an around-the-world view of $cn as a whole.
For example, anyone who’s been in the cult for awhile knows the history and significance of Saint Hell in the development and spread of the cult in its early days. And since the “Saint Hill size” is the benchmark against which all Ideal org expansion is to be measured, the fact that even Saint Hell hasn’t been Saint Hill-sized for many decades just never enters anyone’s consciousness is pretty astonishing. Our own perspective here is much broader and, as a result, it’s almost impossible NOT to notice that, instead of the exponential expansion claimed, $cn has shrunk to microscopic size in the very home that is now being used as a goal to be reached by every ideal org in the world.
Hitting the cult with its own stats time after time to put the lie to their hugely inflated claims is a very effective way to take it on because it directly undermines the kind of self-satisfied belief that many $cilons have about how all their sacrifices have been worthwhile because of the fantastic results and expansion the cherch is undergoing. And it does so without resorting to opinion or subjectively biased views because the numbers, when accurately reported, speak for themselves. The fact that almost no Ideal org has made it to old Saint Hill size and sustained that level is a fact, not an opinion. And folks who are still in deserve to know the truth about what all their efforts and donations have actually resulted in – a shit ton of very expensive, but almost empty buildings and virtually no one getting onto the lower bridge.
I’m sure that there are a lot of people in Scientology who do question these things in their minds but know that investigating them might get their asses sent to Ethics.
Hey Mike, calling Scientology the fastest-growing religion isn’t a sad lie, it’s simply “alternative facts”, lol. It’s unfortunately the new normal…
Some great places to discuss this stuff with like minded individuals is on the site Reddit.com
See, share and help fellow members and ex members:
reddit.com/r/Scientology
reddit.com/r/exjw
reddit.com/r/exmormon
As seen with Ron Miscavige, the internet and connecting with others is the game changer. Thanks Leah, Mike and A&E!!
In a pouring down rain, I saw 10x the number of people at my local Renaissance Festival than this event. Perhaps turkey legs, face painting and comedic acrobats are more important that Ideal Orgs.
are they sure it wasn’t a Medieval knights party & they just said there Sci’s & gotta love the Movie reference & Growing I’ve never met anyone or one or seen one of there “churches” & glad for the Net for ppl to fact check,get info just need to look…
I’m sure this is a dumb question, and someone knowledgeable can tell me how “OTC members and public were appropriately costumed in medieval garb” is APPROPRIATE exactly?
Also, English. Oy. “This was the most successful […] event ever held in the UK up to now.” If you’re saying this event was the most successful EVER held, then adding UP TO NOW is frigging redundant!
Not to be cruel, but being a dead-ringer for King Henry VIII is not a good thing. That means that you’re morbidly obese, at least the popular image of Henry in his most famous portraits. Of course, if you look like Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) or Damien Lewis (Wolf Hall), then more power to ya.
A dreary afternoon with culties AND a second-rate Renaissance Fair (“across from the car park”) in the same day? That’ll have them beating down the doors … to get out.
Mike, someone is gaming the google search results for “mike rinder”. http://www.whoismichaelrinder.com came up as the 1st result. That has NEVER happened.
Thanks. Comes up as #4 on my Google search after the blog and Twitter and another page of the blog…
It comes up as #3 for me
Not sure if you’ve read all of it, but there is one ‘article’ under the section of ‘Blog’ that says it was written by Taryn
Yet the writer refers to the children you had together.
So is Cathy Rinder Bernadini Flintsone Partridge Brady (or whatever name she uses these days) writing under the pseudonym of Taryn Rinder?
I’m so sorry that you’re experiencing this Mike. And everyone else who has had one of these ridiculous ‘who is’ sites dedicated to them. Miscavige needs a new playbook because only the strongest of the Kool Aid drinkers believe this garbage.
I would be ashamed if anyone in my church supported stuff like this.
I feel even more sorry for your daughter. What kind of church asks a child to do this to their parents?
Sick sick sick
the smear site was first on the result list this morning and still the first as of now in my neck of the woods. Asshats. They won’t be able to sustain it, it’s been like that before.
“So is Cathy Rinder Bernadini Flintsone Partridge Brady (or whatever name she uses these days) ” …..
This is AWESOME. You slayed me. Brilliant.
This comes up first here.
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/
It’s back down to #4 on my search as well. Must have been a database glitch on their end.
For me, “Mike Rinder” google search brings up this blog, then Mike’s Twitter account, with wikipedia entry in a box on the right. The third entry is also this blog. The fourth entry is “whoismikerinder…”
They must have done considerable manipulation to get it that high in the search results. Time to recheck their smear domains and do a time graph of Miscavige’s insecurity.
What’s even better is that a search on “wife beater” brings up Ron’s smear site at about result 20, then Mike’s at the bottom of the page. Perhaps SEO is a new WISE training course.
My first thought in scrolling through the pictures, is that it has a sense more like that of a reunion of people who did something together in the past. That’s perhaps in part due to the relatively old age of the people in the first couple of pictures, something notable in a lot of Scientology promo these days.
The promo piece also refers to the “next UK Ideal Org in Birmingham.” Birmingham is the UK’s largest city after London, so it’s the next location obvious location that someone like corporate managers would pick to focus on. Since it’s one of the sites of “ideal” buildings purchased about a decade ago and then left to decay by local Scientologists who evidently have been unable to complete the fundraising, I wonder if it has been identified by Scientology international management as a place they’re willing to put in funds to keep up the appearance of progress with the ideal org program. Also, if it’s like what we’ve seen start to happen elsewhere, there will be promo trying to get members outside the Birmingham org area to contribute, though I doubt even that will be enough to pull off an opening without Scientology contributing funding.
I was just going to make the same comment concerning the average age of the folks pictured in these promo shots. It’s ironically fitting that a bunch of old-time $cilon bitter enders love to play dress up and re-enact distant periods in history…almost as if, on some unconscious level, they’re aware that the cult is on its way out and will soon be as much a relic of history as the period that they’re play acting.
It would be great to bring $cn down in one fell swoop, overboard lil davey and distribute the cherch’s vast wealth to those that it’s victimized, but regardless of whether or not such a dramatic cult finale occurs, the reality that can be directly seen from these pics is that, at least in the UK, Lyintology is going to die out on its own as these oldsters follow Elron into the great Beyond and no new $cilons step in to take their places!
Sooner or later the cult’s criminal antics and massive civil/human rights abuses are going to be brought to a halt. It’s not a question of if, but only a matter of when!
I doubt that DM would pop for Birmingham. His core business is still in the USA. I think he views Saint Hill like Scn’s Disneyland; a place all Scnists must visit, if only once.
Last official records indicate there were only 2500 Scnists in the UK.
Statpush, I think Scientology management under Miscavige feels that they have to keep opening ideal orgs or admit that they’re “doomed” as a CMO missionaire was quoted yesterday as having put it. If that’s the case, they’re probably juggling various priorities including where ideal orgs will have the greatest impact and visibility, which are the ones that local members will fund the largest part of, plus eliminating some of the embarrassments that having been sitting decaying for around a decade since they were first purchased. There is also increasing attention and even threats of government action in the UK over the abandoned historic buildings going to ruin there.
The Birmingham property is one of the ones that has been languishing, and besides being in England’s second largest city outside London, it is far enough North to give them some hope of raising funds across a large region. It’s also South of two other white elephant properties in Manchester and Sunderland that they might then be able to get away with abandoning, and whose sale would go a long way toward funding Birmingham’s final renovation.
Scientology has been opening ideal orgs in place like Denver where, as we saw in comments on yesterday’s piece, there are only 75 to 125 scientologists. It will be interesting to see what they actually do in the endgame, but they have the financial reserves to do almost anything that their leadership dictates.
“It’s like a Monty Python convention for the socially inept.” There are some definite contenders for ‘twit of the year’ awards pictured here. I love the guy wrapped up in a poorly decorated bathrobe.
None of the ‘participants’ can note all the empty chairs and how the tables take up more and more room in the show. No one has blinders that are screwed on that tight. I enjoy these fables that the clampire tries to sell its minions.
‘Twit of the year’ awards. Gosh, there’s so many contenders! I just don’t know who to vote for!
Not funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRBkgshj8Cw
Do not laugh.
Politically incorrect material viewable only with unlikely church approval.
No cell phones permitted.
May contain R rated material.
Not to be viewed in some countries.
You’ve been warned.
Ok, honesty time:
Did you photoshop Tom Shuster’s face to make it smaller than normal? I mean omg, if that’s how he really looks…..
Simply, lol
David Miscavige’s semicolon research finding: “May you never be as sane again.”
Haha. Good one!
….time marching on… GAT II and superpower/cause resurgence were released November 2013 – so that’s THREE years for those 63 Superpower Comps, and of course…
over three years of no Saint Hill Special Briefing Course!
oops…93 comps…
Thanks for the correction. That makes it look SO MUCH better for the church (/sarc).
I see there’s just one mention there of spoilt little rich boy John Alex Wood (otherwise known as the “Scientology Bell-End” for his irksome Twittering): no wonder he’s so obviously away with the fairies, if he’s doing brain-frying SRD/Objectives courses. No sign at all of their camera-shy and litigious lawyer Peter Hodkin — I guess public notoriety counts for little inside this incestuous and ever-shrinking group. To judge by the photos, after the slap-up feed most of them have enough sense left to leave, before Lizzie Calcioli can start maundering on, or the reggers appear…
P.S. And what’s up with their cod Henry the Eighth? Hydrocephalus? Or has his whole head turned into one huge LRH-type fatty lymphoma?
That claims requires the obligatory skewering by XKCD:
https://xkcd.com/1102/
The ones still “in” have no idea do they.
On a lighter side. Small numbers in the UK !
Does anyone know what “rundown survival” is?
I think it’s when the cult runs you down and you survive for another day…
Consider me run down.
You are considered.
Laughter!
Just a thought:
In season 2, make one of the episodes the celebrity x Scientologist show. Try to get Lisa Marie, Jason and all the rest.
Ratings would sky rocket. The message would go into hyper drive. More media would cover it.
I’m working on Bolivar. It’s coming soon.
According to the 2011 UK Census only 2,418 self identified as Scientologists.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/11/census-data-religion-jedi-knights
That was as of 2011. Undoubtedly the number is now FAR less.
And the census was taken just before the Debbie Cook e-mail. So how many of the 2418 blew after that I wonder? Mind you, with a number that microscopically tiny it might represent the hard core of the hard core that not even a Debbie Cook e-mail could enlighten.
Graham, yes the type of person changes when you get down to the “solid core”.
I had this insane urge to go to an org building speak with some of the faithful, slip them a copy of one of Mike’s blogs, begin to point and laugh at a picture David Miscavige, declare myself and exit right.
I remember one time i was watching an event at the local org. I had the pleasure of listening to COB tell us how the gutted and abandoned looking building i was sitting in was actually the new idea org building. Then i got to see pictures of this super nice new ideal org complete with CGI renderings of what it would look like. Latter i find out that the church did not even own the building yet. Not to mention the countless times i have been invited to the Valley’s Ideal Org opening.
David M, I had a similar experience at my former org. A fundraising video event proclaiming. “THIS is our new building”…as we watched a fly thru of the actual building and then what it would look like when it was renovated. Two minor details I discovered later: 1) That building was not owned by Scientology,and 2) It wasn’t for sale.
Soon after discovering the above (quite idly and by accident, not because I had been at all suspicious, btw) I calmly queried this situation with an OT8 committee member. He serenely replied, “We have to show a building up there. If we don’t show a building, no one will donate”.
Yes, he actually said that.
Boy, what a douchebag!
No, not you, Aquamarine. I mean the OTC member.
Laughter! Thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, he really was. I still can’t believe he said that!
Mike, You forgot to mention the most absurd part of the flyer. Not only did Tom S. previously complete the briefing course and now the “full” (to be amended as necessary) golden age of knowledge line up, but they also threw in that he THEN completed the student hat! The student hat AFTER you just did the golden age of knowledge be all, end all, line up???!!! And the sheep applaud and smile. The mind boggles………….
Mine boggles on an hourly basis.
Since I escaped, my mind WOGgles.
SNOOURT!
It is so hard to come to this blog every day. I sometimes force myself to do so because it is a necessary evil, to remind myself that I have escaped but there are those who have not.
When distilled down to its stark reality, we are given a glimpse every day into the world of an evil man continuing to torture captive lab rats lured in by the promise of a better day.
It has always been human nature for people with the twisted minds to attack the helpless to prove their power. This control is something which is wrested from those too young or otherwise helpless to resist. The person in control pretends he tortures them in order to toughen them up. His motives are not anywhere that noble. Nor are they forgivable.
It is heartening that more and more are escaping the control.
Valerie, the truth is, the Still Ins are not captive lab rats. They are sentient human beings. Like them, we were once trapped too. We were once just as trusting/brain-dear/brainwashed. There’s nothing we who got out of that trap have that they who are still in don’t have. What we gave voice to in ourselves, what got US out, can – and will – get them out. Who, least of all us, would have thought it possible that WE could have cognited and left? And yet, we did. So can they. It IS possible. We did it, so can they.
By the way, I’m not being “glib”. I do believe this, wholeheartedly.
I was glib once. But, after some excellent Merlot, I got over it…
Thank you, Aquamarine. Your post gives me hope that I will be reunited with my two kids again one day!
Glad you were able to escape. Ove at Tony Ortega’s blog he has an interview with a former Sea Org member and she mentions something similar: that children are targeted as Sea Org members.
So, if it is such a big deal that this gentleman completed this whole range of study, why did he then complete the course of how to study thereafter? Does this mean he has to do all of them all over again because he’s finally learned how to study the things he’s already studied?
No, it actually means this:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!
Get the picture?
Is that a rich snake hissing?
Yes and its name is Miscavige.
trdunsworth, alcoboy is right, this IS the goal, and the POLICY applied to reach this goal is summed up by something baseball legend Yogi Bera said: “Nothing is over until its over”.
Scientology is a cult!! Don’t be stupid!
But Carol, maybe stupid is the best they’re got. They’ve work long and hard for many years to end up with the numbers & accomplishments they have. Maybe we should start recognizing that more positively, you know… just to neighborly like. If one had to choose a cult to be in, which one would be the best at doing the greatest amount of mind numbing damage to you in the quickest time? It’s pretty hard to go past Scientology!
It’s impossible!
I just glanced at this, will read it in detail later. But I did note the “James Bond themed” event at St. Hill, dubbed “Ideal Royale” … oh my … it’s good that Ron’s not in a grave right now or we know what motion he would be doing … as delusional as LRH could get on occasion, his successors have taken hallucinatory “reality” to unprecedented heights …
Wait…what? Hubbard’ dead? Really? Man, I’ve got to start paying more attention…
Attention?? Isn’t that standing like a ramrod on command? How did it a turn out to be a currency? Ah, so that’s what Scientology demands you pay along with all your money, children and a billion years… confusing isn’t it? I’ll go back to bed now.
I never paid attention when i was in. Except for some of female course sups.
It really depends on how you define ‘fastest growing’, when you say ‘fastest growing religion of the 21st century’.
Looking at all other religions, whose membership decreased in the last 100 years, $cientology has gone from 0 members to some … so technically it’s growing.
Also, they have added more new buildings than any other religion – even if they sit empty.
So, technically it’s true…
But of course the implication is that they’re filling their brand new buildings to overflowing, and hundreds of thousands of people are clambering to join. That’s obviously very far from the truth – but apparently there are gullible people out there that fall for it.
It seems there is even less action in Canada. Can Mike or anyone on here comment on the situation up here? I live in a major city but luckily I did not see it on the list provided in the other post. But similar type of pyramid self help schemes have popped up.
I’m in Canada’s capital – and yes, CO$ here is a hole in the wall storefront in the same area as a homeless shelter, pawn shops, and marijuana dispensaries. You’d think for a major centre we’d have a beautiful welcoming building … heck, even in Edmonton they had the CO$ storefront near the university – where you’re likely to get lonely idealist students to join. In downtown Ottawa you’re more likely to have homeless addicts trying to get in out of the cold than clear the planet.
Calgary has a mission according to a website. I didn’t look up Edmonton. If Ottawa is a hole in the wall, I’d imagine even less in other cities.
Calgay Mission is, if memory serves, the one with the massage parlor next door. It must be admitted that we had fun here after those photos came out. Almost as good as knowing that the derelict Future Idle Morgue of Bulawayo hosted a makeshift brothel while it was waiting to be “funded”.
Many if not most of the missions you may find listed, effectively no longer exist. There were once a lot of missions that even had their own storefronts, but now the mission holders have often moved them to the back rooms of other businesses if they have not closed entirely.
Here is their list of places in Canada. If you look them up on Google maps and take a look at the street view, it appears that only a few places that are not on the second floor or in some hell hole area of a city, that they may actually own the premises.
http://www.scientology.org/other-churches/canada.html
Straight up and vertical right?
More like horizontal and falling…
Jen the 2011 Canadian census showed 1,550 people self IDing as scientologists.
Thank goodness. I’m guessing, hopefully, even less now.
Lmao ! A Monty Python Convention! Another great read! Thanks, Mike!
Well, I was going to be a bit of a smart-ass and say that their expansion goal of “straight up and vertical” should be changed to “flat-lined and horizontal”….but that wouldn’t even be accurate. I suppose “hemorrhaging and collapsing” is a better description.
And yeah, those outfits……perhaps they need to hire some of the “knights” from one of those Medieval Times dinner shows or something. When I’ve gone to those, their gear looked much more realistic than what CoS seems to have put together here.
But perhaps on a more positive note for Scientologists, if the St. Hill org numbers keep dropping and get low enough, then maybe DM can claim “global St. Hill Org size” and release the “much anticipated” higher OT levels he’s been holding back on (but then again, even DM himself doesn’t seem to truly want to release them……wonder why?)
I would call the ridiculous state of affairs of this church “sad”, but based on what I’ve been learning the past few weeks (which is still probably less than 1% of all of the stories available out there), I find these stories of dwindling members to actually be more “encouraging”, especially for those still in it (even if they don’t realize it yet). I truly feel we are seeing the final days of the enormous power and influence that this church has wielded in the past couple of decades. The drip, drip, drip of exposure is turning into a tidal wave at a rapid pace, thanks to Hurricane Leah and Tsunami Mike.
That’s nothing, Mick! You should see the swordplay and tapping on the shoulder whenever some sucker ponies up a nice wad of cash!
Oh, and welcome to the blog!