Our friend RB had a commitment with his family this week. I pulled an oldie but goodie. This is one of the first RB’s, way back in 2014… That’s how long we have been being entertained by this very talented scientology satirist.
Something Can Be Done About It
Speaking of finances, this is from memory but I think the numbers are fairly accurate. When I got into scn in 1975 auditing was $25/hr. and my first e-meter cost cost about $150. Dianetic auditing came before the grades on the grade chart and the Dianetic auditor course cost around $500. After you learned how to audit you could co-audit for free, maybe with the proviso that you were “on lines” doing some other training.
Sometime thereafter Dr. Hubbard decided that prices needed to be raised 5% per month to keep up with inflation and auditing went up to about $50/hr. but I had a small construction company so that was still within my price range. Around 1980 Dr. Hubbard decided the scn was STILL not keeping up with inflation so he re-instituted the monthly price increases. This caused the Great Exodus in LA when hundreds of scientologists, myself included, blew in protest.
Numerous blown scientologist get together groups sprang up and I joined one. There were about fifteen of us and we met weekly at someones house for about two months and discussed other practices and listened to a lot of channeling tapes. In another group some OTs released a tape where they had recruited a channeler and were grilling the “entity” on whether OT3 was real or not. Specifics about The Incident were edited out since there was still worry that premature exposure to it might have dire consequences. Despite determination by the OTs, the entity hedged and replied, “Well, that is one of several possibilities . . ” and went on to expound about other exciting possibilities in the “theta universe”.
I didn’t follow what was going on in scn after that but I finally learned about the OT levels after watching “Going Clear” in 2015.
Richard, $25 in 1975 – when the minimum wage was $2.10 – was the equivalent of about $120 today, adjusted for inflation. I think I’ve seen at least introductory auditing packages at local orgs pricing auditing in that ballpark, so at least to start off maybe it’s not so different, though going up the “bridge” (with more steps than half a century ago) and taking into account the huge amounts of sec checking that seem to be necessary along the way, the scale of the economics is indeed different.
The monthly price increases of that era were of course an unjustified overcompensation – from what I can tell it was probably in part Hubbard’s attempt to make more money off of fewer people, as the baby boom youth wave started to receed, “body routing” began to falter and orgs’ income was dropping off. DM has practically made an art of that, but I think he is just trying to work off Hubbard’s playbook from the 1970s and early 80s.
PeaceMaker – I agree. The point is that scn was once “affordable” to a middle or upper middle income person, something probably most current scientologists are unaware of. If you earned four or five dollars an hour you could trade a week or two of wages for an intensive of auditing. Such a deal!
Doctor Hubbard!!!!!??? That was more queer than a $7 bill. As with everything about Tubby other than his obesity, it had ZERO correlation with any reality in the known universes.
Jere – Lol – I was being facetious. Somewhere in the course of his travels in some foreign country he attempted to set up the “Hubbard College of Philosophy” or something like that but the authorities got wise to his scheme and booted him out.
My favorite background sign is the “Personal Solvency Test!”
Come IN! Sit right there and we’ll figure out exactly what your “personal solvency” is and – incidentally – how long it will take us to completely strip you of it.
I also like how the speech bubbles obscure some of the signs, and in subsequent panels, they are gradually revealed.
I like how that sex therapist can stop people from being gay. Such arrogance!
Today is the Buddha’s birthday. Everyone can have the day off, but don’t fall for human love on your last leg of the journey, Mara will be watching…. To hell with
Mara (Yama) I’m in for human love, you only live once………right? At one time, we were all just an egg in someone’s ovary. How to you get 75 million years out of that?
I had a dispute with my employer who, like myself, was a scientologist. I was working for him but not myself a WISEguy member. He was out-ethics, actually, criminal, and refused to pay me for the hours I worked. Several thousand dollars worth. I took him to a court of ethics at AOLA. I got a ruling in favor of myself, that he had to pay me my back pay.
Shortly thereafter I was told I couldn’t enforce the AOLA MAA ruling on him, but had to go to WISEguy “arbitration.” After much protest and KR’s, I was forced to go to WISEguys.
Of course the WISEguys ruled against me and even wanted me to work for him for free. It was a setup decided in advance.
I petitioned it all the way up to IJC. They wouldn’t even read the petition. So I said, OK, I’m going to take him to the labor board and to court and sue his ass because you guys are not making any kind of ethical ruling here. That instantly got me a review of the situation, a meeting to sort it out with the employer and Iz Chait. (After some other drama) and he paid me some of what he owed me.
What this taught me is that: 1. “Ethics” was a sham. If you were paying more money or were more favored by management, you got the favor. No matter that truth and facts were on your side, the other guy would win and executives wouldn’t even consider the evidence. 2. The only way to get action in scientology to correct something wrong was to threaten or cause a potential public (wog) flap. Still true to this day.
Absolutely correct Michael.
Had my father not threatened to call the FBI my wife would have never gotten off of the Freewinds and I would have died of AIDS from a blood transfusion after they sent me to a chiropractor for treatment.
‘ethics’ is about as valid and workable as the ‘tech’. It’s not. It’s all bullshit and merely a world class con that continues to this day fully protected by the 1st Amendment in the US because it is a sham “religion”. Sad but true.
Scientology Arbitration is just another way of saying, “Kangaroo Court”.
“Michael Tilse realized:”1. “Ethics” was a sham.”
That’s true IF you forget that “ethics” in scientology is just another word for “punish”, that “ethical” really means “Do what Dwarfenführer® wants you to do, even if he not deign to tell you what that was, or told you to do something else.”
I MISSED this somehow. Reading for the first time now. Major LOLs! The “WiseGuys” promo…Alone in my office LMAO! Thanks, RB!
Coming back to check in before taking off tomorrow…”…the comfort of knowing that your false reports will stick.” Some more LOL before going upstairs.
Hope you enjoyed taking off, Aqua.
I especially liked the “our tech is so standard it makes Ponzi look like a pansy!!!”
Congrats and thanks to Regraded Being for his great work for ‘lo these many years now. He never runs out of ideas because the cof$ never runs out of scams to run. Thanks for the biting satire.
One of the great things about RB is that it never goes “stale”, it’s always spot-on.
When I first came to the USA, I was very surprised to see those Televangelists and felt very contemptuous of them.
I thought they were a bunch of out-exchange robbers and con-men.
So different to Scientology, I thought, where money is only handed over for services although granted the prices were too high. I got to the point where I had paid for everything I needed and regges left me alone.
I didn’t realize that Scientology was already changing.
When I left, the IAS existed but regging for it was not very aggressive.
I was shocked when statuses first came out.
Hubbard said that life is a game.
I suppose that ascending this ladder of statuses is a game of types but it is a game for cretins.
Let’s see who can give away their life’s savings the fastest???
These days, Scientology is far worse than even the greediest of Televangelists for money-grabbing, for unethical high-pressure salesmanship, for lying and huge out-exchange.
Thank you David Miscavige!
Cavalier. You are completely right. There is no other “religion” so obsessed and continually attached to the life of its members and their money.
Yes, we should thank DM for his contribution.
The statuses : A game for cretins .
Excellent !
Yeah the televangelists just ask for your money and are happy with a donation of whatever amount, they don’t even care to know your name…the regges ask for your life and are happy with NO AMOUNT until they pursue you into bankruptcy or a grave whichever is first.
That is correct. A benign religious group will make its members aware of expenses, put out a donation box and maybe ask for donations but there’s no pressure. A bad religious group will put their hand in your pocket and go through your wallet (e.g.: mormons make tithing 10% a requirement for full membership, including marriage and other events in the temple; some congregations require a look at your taxes). A bad religious group run by con artists will put a vaccuum hose into your pocket and suck until they get lint (most televangelists). Flat out scams will use that hose to also suck out and sell your blood and organs, caring not if you live or die (some televangelists, prosperity gospel “preachers,” Multilevel Marketing Companies, Scientology).
Cavalier said:”Thank you David Miscavige!”
Agreement. No one else could have so thoroughly dismantled scientology as quickly as Davey-Boy. That’s the sign of a truly evil genius of a sort.
This is outstanding satire RB. You nailed it. It reminds me of the poor veterinarians, dentists and chiropractors who get duped by the various Scientology WISE groups.
If you use Scientology WISE consultants, you will get duped and crushed. Anyone familiar with Scientologist Lesli Beilhart. She is one of many Chiropractor Business Consultants who uses the “tech” to destroy her clients. She is a super sleazy Wise Scamontologist. She is fraudulently deceiving, manipulating, lying and bankrupting clients. You see, SCIENTOLOGIST Lesli Beilhart, the criminal con woman and last I heard, runs
“Chiropractic Business Academy” and she is a total rip off.
Thanks to her, Chiropractors will go bankrupt and their lives are torn apart.
Lesli Beilhart is pure evil.
Scammed no More said:”Lesli Beilhart is pure evil.”
ANYONE who uses LRH tech in the way he intended it to be used is pure evil, even if they “honestly” have the purist of intentions. The “tech” never was apparently workable except in the so-carefully-controlled environment of scn, and that apparency was obviously false to anyone with any integrity. One of the friends I had to leave behind when I was beached now seems to be one of the wiseguys touting Tubby’s techniques. I’m sad for her as she could do better in an HONEST job selling ice machines to Eskimos.
An oldie but very much a goodie.
RB is so good with his parodies. Love “wiseguys” instead of WISE.
GAS – The Golden Age of Storage, etc
ARC X Loans
Personal Solvency Test
These are some classic RB brilliance.
Even as they numbers drop below 25,000, below 20,000, maybe even below 15,000, we must remember the abuses this organization is willing to apply just to get money from members, to be forever placed into a fund which only uses it for the benefit of one person, David Miscavige.
Thankfully even he is mortal. We can expect an average lifespan for him, then a big shakeup in the CoS as a few of the remaining members scramble for control of those IAS millions. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more of the Dave’s lawyers became secret Scientologists just so they can have a shot at the golden ring.
In the background, the aging membership will continue to struggle on $50 per week (less Dave’s birthday and Christmas present donations), living in sordid conditions, depending on scam operations like WISE, CCHR, and Narconon to give them some legitimacy.
Wait until Covid invades Sea Org berthing. It’ll get there. The youngsters won’t have much to worry about – they might be uncomfortable for a while but they won’t die. But those exhausted, stressed Sea Org senior citizens continually forced to “disagree with the physical universe” by working despite their aches and pains and other body problems, continually having to prove that they’re still “useful”…Covid could well have a field day with them, I’m sorry to say.
And I don’t say that with glee but with regret, because, as most of you know, though I’m no fan of the Sea Org in general I do like young people very much and in general they seem to like me. But this was not the case with young Sea Org members.
The older SO I found, at least when I was in, were far more human and likable and down-to-earth than the middle aged ones who were mostly regular-army tight-ass types.
As for the young SO, forget it, they were BEYOND obnoxious, to be avoided whenever possible. But the few old, veteran Sea Org members I knew were for the most part OK and “real” and I don’t wish the CV them, no I do not. But it will inevitably come to them, packed in as they are, day and night, 24/7.
Ammo said, in part:”WISE, CCHR, and Narconon to give them some legitimacy.”:
The front groups only APPEAR to give them a patina of legitimacy. And IF they get caught using the SOP of scn, scn’s minions will diallow them faster than Tom Cruise can bust up an ankle doing stunts he’s not qualified to attempt.
Youse wants to get to your next IAS level or I’ll get your spouse to leave you!!!
What a business plan, and a 10 to 15% commission for the Wiseguy. Rackets aren’t only for tennis.
It’s astounding how a 6-year-old satire can be so dead-on now. Fantastic job, RB!
Who else remembers when satire could luxuriate in broad strokes and subtle details? Now RB is using the pointy end of hammer, and events have a habit of overtaking the jokes before the ink has dried.
One of the BEST, EVER! Well Worth seeing it again. Love the signs in the background. Especially the one for the sex therapist.
D lawless. Yes. Laughing. RB is really excellent. The doctor name is “B. Trey”. One you can trust. Lol.
“Free Personal Solvency Test” lol
The registrars I knew seemed to know who had money and how much. They had my credit card numbers as well. I could really use that $120,000 which I paid to get to OT VIII. I feel better because I avoided the millions that some paid to get to that level. My FSM’s lost their lives. I miss them.
I can verify that reges kept lists of credit-card numbers. I remember an exchange where the reg sold something over the phone and the person went to give their card number, and the reg said it was okay, they had it. It seemed icky to me. Is that illegal? I can store my card number with online store sites.
Off Topic. But I want to congratulate Losing My Religion for coming out of the pandemic in Italy OK.
It must have been a terribly scary experience and they now report that Italy’s rate of infection has dropped so low that the pandemic has almost been eradicated in that country now.
What a great achievement. The people in that country were able to co-operate with the social measures and they have now transformed that country from one of the highest rates of infection to near zero now – as I understand it.
Congratulations to LMR and everyone else in Italy!
Skyler. Thanks a lot for the thought. Two months ago I took family and granddaughters and we closed ourselves in a house near the sea. It went well.
We have entered “phase 2” for a few days. Not much has changed except that more businesses are open and that you can move around more. But you must always be careful and always with gloves and masks to prevent it from resuming.
It turned well because people respected the restrictions and because the doctors were heros.
Thanks. My thought to all of you that everything is fine.
Plus Italian Dr.’s have willingly shared their experiences ,failures and triumphs in treatments of Covid19 patients. Giving US healthcare professionals a head start on what works and what doesn’t. Italians showed remarkable courage and unity in their fight against this viral predator. I too am glad to know “ Losing my Religion “ came thru this pandemic well. Thanks for all your updates !
Battle lady. I thank you. The doctors are heros. They did big things everyday single day. Over 130 of them died for th CV in the last months. Our part was to stay home and don’t get more sick people to collapse the system. And we did it.
A last word to those like the cult that in face of who died kept spreading their crap about ‘hysteria’ or other nonsense stuff:
You literally did nothing. Your VM people (heads filled of theta) did nothing.
Your super powerful OTs did really nothing. Your vulture management even less.
The only sure thing that everybody (and sure that is not a generality) has seen is you cult-guys trying to keep making money using this CV situation and complaining about your stats going down.
If your stats are not bettering or improving a bip this world what are you existing for??
LMR, please forgive me if I am mistaken in thinking that you did not intend to call Ballet Lady, “Battle Lady”.
After all, after reading many of her posts, I would have to agree with anyone who claims she would be a most excellent ally to have in this battle with the scam.
But perhaps you honestly thought her name is “Battle Lady”? Or perhaps you just made a typo when you wrote her name that way?
I would hate to think that you had intended to make a joke and I was just too dense to understand that. Unfortunately, that seems to keep happening to me as I grow older and older.
But I would also hate to think that by calling her “Battle Lady”, she may have had her feelings hurt for any one of a number of reasons. Ballet Lady is one of my very most favorite people here. Hardly anyone can be as supportive to others as Ballet Lady while at the same time not offending anyone for any reason. IMO, that is a skill that takes a lot of work to master and she is truly a master of that skill.
I love her contributions to this forum and I truly hope you will forgive me if I am mistaken and have (once again) managed to hurt the feelings of some people by shooting off my big mouth.
Skyler. I agree fully with your point.
You must believe me if I tell you that it was certainly not intentional and that I am sorry, and that I hope she has not been offended.
My first language isn’t English, this does not justify me but sometimes it can happen to mess up things.
Still sorry to Ballet Lady.
And thanks for the note.
I’m very sorry if I made you think an apology was in order.
If anyone needed to apologize, it was me.
For someone whose primary language is not English, you must possess some huge intellect because it is almost impossible to guess that English is not your first language.
I would hope that most readers would have just found the matter very funny and I hope you would see it that way too.
When dealing with this terrible cruel scam, I relish any opportunity to laugh and IMO, you have given the readers here one of the best laugh moments in a long time.
Again, just my opinion, but I think people really need a laugh these days.
Thank you once more.
Skyler I thank you. Really. I think to have no huge intellect. I also speak and write French. This helps. Additionally when I have doubts I grab the good old dictionary. You know I don’t want create headaches to who reads the comments. Lol.
You are a great man.
P.S. LMR,
I had the thought that it is very probable you have likely never heard of the English expression, “Battle Axe” and I want to suggest to you that you may get a laugh from looking up that expression in Wikipedia or perhaps on some dictionary site.
The reason I recommend this to you is because the term “Battle Axe” almost always is used to insult a lady who is often elderly and it’s almost always used in a seriously insulting way. It is actually a pretty good insult (meaning that it is a serious insult intended to hurt her feelings to the point that she will cry. I do not suggest this to you because I expect you might actually want to insult any ladies. But I thought you might get a laugh from seeing what peoples’ first reaction may have been when they saw you call Ballet Lady with the term, “Battle Lady” because “Battle Axe” is a truly evil insult in the English language and I’m thinking you almost certainly have never heard it used before.
Skyler. Never heard about. Laughing. What a gaffe I was about to face. Thanks Skyler.
Skyler. I could be ‘WAY off, but I took “Battle Lady” to be an ‘auto-correct’. That “feature” has been a great source of amusement since it was (necessarily) introduced for tablets and smartphones.
I’m surprised they left out one very important aspect in their advertising.
They said they are the most ethical consulting business on this planet and several other planets. But for some reason they forgot to say they are also the most ethical consulting business in this time frame as well as several other time frames.
You know dimensions in the future as well as in the past.
The most ethical here and now as well as forever in the future and forever in the past.
They also forgot to point to one of their star clients who they helped to increase their production of bull shit one thousand percent. They really need to tell people about all of their incredible wins.
Wins? What wins? Only the Wise consultants and those in the commission loop have wins. There are several good you tube vids with former Wise customers telling the truth about Wise. Why are there no or very few WISe plaques up in businesses these days? Because any association with $cientology is a curse.
Zee Moo, It’s GREAT that any association with scn or its too-well-known front groups is a curse now. It’s not only celebrities rushing to escape that sinking ship.
BTW: Did you change your avi? The hat and horns seem new; I like it.