This is a recent (paid for) “press release.”
These come out periodically as an effort to generate any sort of semi-positive media in the face of the overwhelming barrage of negative coverage that scientology continues to generate.
What is amazing about this one is what it DOESN’T say.
Supposedly, Scientology commissioned this religious scholar to conduct a study of scientology throughout Germany.
The entire reported conclusion from this study conducted in 2013 and 2014 is precisely NOTHING.
Tacked onto the end is the assertion from scientology (apparently not from the independent study) that “church volunteers” conducted “more than 600 individual events in 2015, distributing more than 229,000 drug education booklets in Hamburg.”
There is no link to the report from Dr. Mate-Toth. One would think that if they got some sort of favorable report and they are paying for a press release about it, that they would include some information?
Was the paid-for report really that terrible?
Likely so. Germany (and Europe in general) is not prominent on the scientology radar screen. You see NO mention of the “ideal org” program happening at all in Germany other than “re-opening” of the Hamburg Org. That building had nothing to do with the ideal org program — it was purchased because of the criminality entangling the former Hamburg org property – circumstance that ultimately resulted in the ED Hamburg (Wiebke Hansen) being shipped to Int where she was made to join the Sea Org and became a sets painter in Cine Gold where she remains to this day. There was an ideal org in Berlin paid for by the IAS, but they cannot afford to keep their elevators operating or phones turned on. The rest of Germany, including the once relatively large orgs of Munich and Frankfurt are disappearing faster than ice cubes on the sands of the Sahara. The other ideal orgs in Europe are all in bad shape too — Madrid is empty, Brussels is not just empty but is in the midst of a massive fraud case and nobody even knows if the “ideal” org in the industrial estate in Malmo and the one in Basel even open their doors any more they are so off the radar. Nothing happening on ideal orgs at all in France (it’s ALL bad news there), Austria (is there even an org in Vienna these days), Portugal (same question about Lisbon), Greece (same question about Athens) and Holland has a raft of tax problems. Norway and Finland are never heard from. Denmark is still not done even when they combined two orgs to make it happen (and Arhuus might as well be stricken from the list of “orgs” too). Hungary is struggling still to get an ideal org, even though Budapest was supposedly a SH Size org. All the other countries in Europe have no orgs at all.
In all of Europe, this is the best they could muster to prove their 60X expansion and unprecedented popularity. It says it all…
I have passed by the Berlin ORG quite a few times. It looks like a total ghost building with NO ACTIVITY. Sad that a beautiful building like that in Berlin is being wasted on this.
Spot on Todd. It’s one of the more obvious areas of the disingenuous nature of that organization. Even while in, that section of the Orientation film with Michael Roberts’ Chaplain telling Anderson how they even care for those less fortunate – cue picture of poor homeless person (although they’re obviously just downstat, down tone, out-ethics, out-exchange scumbags who’ve pulled it all in anyway), never sat comfortably with me. Come to think of it, none of that propaganda piece sat well with me. Have they made another yet?
Re: Dr. Mate-Toth: Sounds like he needed the cash, perhaps for his bad habits, about which he does not have to fear being exposed, now that he has become a brick in the wall.
Secrets are the mortar binding lies as bricks together into prisons for the mind.
Was the paid-for report really that terrible?
Uh- Yes Mike!! It is Scientology!
One of the most yawn inspiring pieces of crap I’ve seen yet from Scamology. The 600 “events” was 595 regging the robots and 5 “genuine” events which no doubt included much regging.
Your title is apt, Mike,
What they don’t say………………
What was it LRH said, the hardest outpoint to spot is the missing.
For example, the CF is filled with book buyers, or lookies who came into the org or mission, lots of people. It’s a stat well promoting, until one compares it to how many stuck around or continued.
There’s something breath-taking in the way that the cult manages to combine lies, damn lies, and statistics every time they open their cake-holes. The fact that they’re getting away with it ( or they think they are) makes it even more breath-taking. There has to be a point when the clubbed seals open their eyes. It’s just frustrating to us that they haven’t done so already, due to the fact that what the cult’s done is so obvious to us. But the day will come. One day, there will be one lie too many.
I wonder what Mark Twain would have thought of these guys. I pretty much know what Ambrose Bierce would have thought of them. He could have produced a second volume of The Devil’s Dictionary composed entirely of L. Fraud quotes.
Classic (but hardly classy) bait and switch. The article’s heading claims to be on a study, and there is NOT ONE word about the study in the entire article. Instead it rambles on about unverifiables and mostly, well, nothing. Sort of like: “Michael Jackson was indicted on child molestation charges yesterday. But we just have to tell you about the unbelievable new train set that he had installed at Neverland. The locomotive…”
In the past, the “church” has paid for other scholars and journalists to investigate other, important issues, such as “Would you expect apostates to hold bias toward their former church.” Now we’ve known for at least the last two and a half millennia (Socrates got the credit; but I doubt he was the first one to think of it) that the answers that you receive depend just about entirely on the questions you ask (or make off-limits) in the first place. In other words, “ask and you shall receive,” or conversely, “don’t ask if you’re afraid what the answer might be.”
After asking all the “right” questions, all you need is one nugget from a study that is highly credible because it came from an academic–any academic (incidentally, what does that say about freshman flunk-out Hubbard’s cred), to make the point you were determined to make all along. Such as: “As our bought survey shows, 68% of all embittered apostates are negatively biased toward their former church. That proves, once and for all, that Mike Rinder is a liar!”
So what happened? Their handpicked pet academic was unable to provide EVEN ONE quotable word? One shudders to imagine what would have happened, had they asked an academic to investigate the validity of the efficacy claims Hubbard made in Dianetics!
Another thing conspicuous by its absence is ANYONE picking up this article. This “news service” will promote ANYTHING (“Lose 50 pounds in two weeks without any lifestyle change, while growing an extra 4 inches someplace or other–as seen on TV!”) with a shamelessness ordinarily reserved for Elron hisself. Any web site sufficiently shameless can carry the article, fill some space with no-cost content, and get paid for their trouble. So far, no takers…
I for one can’t wait for this “news” to appear–if it ever does–on a web site that actually has a “comments” section.
“Hundreds of German Scientologists participated in the survey”. How did he find ‘hundreds’? Now I know why all those central files parties happen, they have to comb through 50 years of book sales to get any surveys filled out. I suspect that only 20 clams participated in the survey, they just had to do 50 surveys each.
With all the prosecutions in France, Belgium and Holland, the clampire has to buy any ‘positive’ news. ‘Religious scholars’ are a dime a dozen and will write anything for food. The clams have been putting out the paid for press release ‘stories’ for a long time, but they are now the only ‘positive’ news that ever comes out about the clampire. They don’t come near to the readership of ‘Katie Holmes disses Tom Cruise with Her Latest Role’ or ‘Tom Cruise Has Found His $cieno Approved Next Wife’ ‘stories’.
Why don’t clams attend all the ‘interreligious confrences’? Because they don’t like being laughed at.
They attend religious conferences, but they do it under cover. Just to report to OSA what’s going on and find lines to use as “victims” of bigotry and religious persecution.
Well Mike I guess we can grant the following statistics, expansion, and so on to Mr Miscavige and, lets ensure, these statistics are higher than the las 50 years combined:
-Amount of dollars stolen and rip off from parishioners.
-# Inches of bad press on Scientology
-# of staff abused by the ‘religious leader’
-# of LRH materials altered, cut, shortened or otherwise modified.
-# of public leaving the church – openly or under the radar.
-# of dedicated scientologists declared (like in South Africa to name just one)
-# of staff blown departed, gone, disappeared and/or kept prisoner if could not blow.
These, never seen before in history statistics are more than 47X, unprecedented, super, super highest ever and the recognition goes directly to the ‘leader’ Miscavige.
Very astute naming of the current, actual stats, Silvia.
Well, you named them, they certainly are getting them but I don’t think anybody WANTS them.
Dr. Mate-Toth claims: “Oct 2009–Mar 2011: Multimethodological research on the organisation Scientology in Hungary. Content analysis of 500 news paper articles, survey on 500 members of Scientology, semi structured focused interviews with 25 long time members and with 12 former members.”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andras_Mate-Toth/info
Where did he find 500 members of Scientology in Hungary to survey? And that time, he only analyzed 500 newspaper articles? He’s a lightweight who’s barely trying.
http://umbraxenu.no-ip.biz/mediawiki/index.php/Category:News_article
A quick Google search for Andras Mate-Toth brings up several less-than-flattering articles in Hungarian. Several articles accuse AM-T of nepotism and success due to his network of friends. Another article throws shade on his diploma saying it is clouded in mystery. No doubt he is a serious academic – Szeged is one of Hungary’s Universities – and he must be a top dog in something because he’s very close to a man called Jozsef Palinkas, a respected academic who is the current Head of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (acronym in Hungarian; MTA). And Palinkas is both a respected scientist and a good guy. I have met him on several occasions due to work.
I’ll see what I can find out on AM-T when I get back to Budapest.
Mark, I heard a rumor why he did it. If you are interested, please contact me in a private message (I can’t say this in a public forum).
60 X expansion ? Wow, that is a stretch.
David Miscavige is going cut short his Cruise
on the River DENILE, probably announcing
that Canada has gone CLEAR!!
or was that Indonesia. Anyplace far away from
Los Angeles.
And Denial is NOT a river in Egypt…
LOL , osd
Forgot to mention that as of 2013
there was 20,000 active Scientologists in the World.
That number is a lot less post “Going Clear”.era
Capt. Davey is on a whale hunt every day.
From what I can tell, Whales are an endangered species, especially the type that likes a daily dose of Kool aide!
Yeah, Newcomer. Death by Kool Aid.
This report totally shows that Scientology is creating quit an effect upon the wog world and SP’s. Just ignore the wolves nipping at your wheels and keep moving towards victory! Also send us more $money.
In a teeny microcosm of what Miscavige has done, I know a girl in her 30s who five years ago lost a lot of weight using illegal drug supplements bought off the internet.
One of the side effects of these pills was that they brought out the absolute worst parts of her already abrasive personality. She made sure her (now ex) friends were aware of how good she looked and how fat they were. I was personally called (among other things) a “sloppy fat f#\}>g b/-:h by her.
As a result, she lost the support of all of the people who had cared about her. No one will go near her. Her father says she now is suffering from severe depression and has gained back all the weight and more. She usually doesn’t leave her bed much less her house. Her husband is a saint to stay with her but he may soon take the children and leave.
She has, by her own actions, backed herself into a small dark corner and is unwilling to do the small amount of apologizing it would take to have people forgive her. She has also become the person she made fun of.
David Miscavige has done the same thing on a much grander scale. He continues to repeat the actions that backed him into the corner because he too is incapable of admitting that he had any hand in his own downfall.
His empire of dust is contracting rapidly. Even those who pretend to bow and scrape at his feet are secretly passing on information to this and Tony’s blog.
I wonder if deep down while he is swilling his scotch and pretending to be someone, he understands how few true mourners he would have should he die. What a sad legacy to leave.
Well, Tommy would go, I’m almost sure.
@eagle there is a huge difference between going to a funeral and mourning someone’s death IMHO. I’m sure they could find a few dozen lackeys to show up. However, how many would mourn?
Tommy, Johnny, Krusty and Bobby would be the pall-bearers!
Psychopaths don’t really have the emotional intelligence to introspect like that. He is just a crocodile brain looking for its next fix.
Same ol, same ol scientology news really. If one looks and uses other perceptions but does not listen, one easily gets the whiff of a rotting corpse of an organisation. Without the whales donations there wouldn’t be scientology orgs.
I could pretty much surmise that scientology doesn’t have any new public worth a hoot. I would be interested to know the honest stats of auditors made and PC hours worldwide but I already know the answer to that. I just can’t get the concept of third dynamic masturbation out of mind to describe scientology, it’s the best description that comes in hand.
Europe is simply cleansing itself of them.
“Europe is cleansing itself of them (Scientologists)”. Does that sentence just roll off the lips or what?! It’s….It’s music to my beers………I mean, ears.
The “Dickless Dictator” will soon have no one to dictate to
A Dickless Dictator with no one to dictate to? Oh….how very, very sad. That’s about the saddest story I’ve ever heard….
Dave,
It’s time to retire.
Just take the checkbook and go.
The Rest Of Us Out Here.
What a ridiculous report. It could have been one sentence. Scientologists in Hamburg handed out some booklets and supposedly helped a couple of refugees.
They are claiming 11,000 Churches, Missions and groups, with 20,000 Scientologists internationally, that means there are less than 2 people in each one of these.
Right. It’s a bunch of blather. Whenever you see people doing lots and lots of talking, to try to convince you to do something, or buy something, raise the red flag. They may be trying to mislead you into thinking what they want you to think, give you a false impression, or get you to do something you may not ordinarily do.
$cientology has large financial reserves and can exist for some time without new income coming in, even while paying large sums for lawyers and private investigators. But without members, the facade that it is a church will collapse, even if David Miscavige hires extras to attend the opening of empty orgs and flashy Nuremberg-style rallies where he lies about expansion.
I talked with a friend today that is doing superpower. I asked her oh is it crowded? “No, not too bad about 5 people in the class room.” I said wow it much look empty with that large building and 5 people in it. “Yes it does look empty. But in the summer when people come in for holiday it is more crowded. Upstairs in the HGC there are about 10 people in the waiting room.” I observed that nothing seemed odd to her that she saw 15 people out of 20M. So strange.
Well indeed, the scientology totalitarian system gets the results it should: too much pressures for money fabricates no money at all. Too much pressure to get kids of scnists makes no kids at all. But as soon as anyone “studies” the many many orders and rules of the systems, he realizes that’s “We are always right” is the motto. Then keeping where from comes the “we are always rright”, one sees it’s always from LRH and those obeying to his orders.
That leads immer gerade aus toward failure, in every and all systems of politics having preceded scientology and other totalitarian systems.
Seems the nightmare is coming to an end everywhere.
In Budapest there is still some activity but outside Budapest the mission network has pretty much collapsed.Press here is 100% negative and even Scientology Wikipedia listing in Hungarian now resembles the English version with plenty of local controversies and scandals.
The remaining Scientologist in Budapest are all middle aged.Nobody new coming in.
Local scene documented on objektivszcn.blog.hu(use google translate)
Two words, “Epic fail”
Keep doing what you’re doing RCo$.
Gee, it’s so good to be out of that bubble and be able to see what actually goes on in that world
Isn’t it Katie! When one is in and then leaves, one gets their life back. All of a sudden, you can do whatever you want! The day I left staff in Honolulu, I went surfing at Waikiki Beach. Something I wasn’t allowed to do previously.
This is fascinating valuable information but not surprising. Any difficulties the church is having stem from its own members attempting to do criminal things with LRH’s technologies. 🙂 If the church were to release parts of this blog’s data to its members they would be a lot wiser. A lot of church members read about Scientology on the internet in spite of that oppressive approach to becoming enlightened and do not tell the church. 🙂
Is reading information on the internet supposed to read on a meter as an O/W or W/H? I once encountered an OT VIII (full L’s, Class VI, etc. etc.) that was “cowering in the corner” in life and of the mindset (while he was a grown man of over 50 at the moment) that “I am not allowed to read bad things on the internet about my church.” Those were almost his exact words. My advice, try finding some good things to read about the church on the internet instead and see which one turns up more results! 🙂
Lawrence, I finally got scientology to stop calling me by telling them that every time they did, I donated to one of these type blogs.
The response from Larry Jacobs was “well, I’m going to blacklist you because it’s obvious you read the Internet.”
I laughed and said, “well, yeah.”
Valerie, I would stated it slightly differently: “Fuck yeah I did! You should read the internet too so you’ll know how fucked up your cult really is.” Jacobs, if you don’t that indicates to me that you’re one sad ass weenie with no redeeming value. Deal with it…..
Haaaahahaha !!! That’s hilarious. You made my day! Thank you.
So what are the RESULTS of the good Dr.’s study? They don’t say. What? What are they? No results, or , most probably, lousy results. Aaah, makes me feel so good. =)
Oh, there’s a BLACKLIST now??
Is that like a Super Charged SP Declare? An SP declare isn’t good enough anymore (because there are so many of them, no one takes them seriously) so they have to have a “new level” like the IAS?
haha. Inverted status declares: PTS Type (A, B, C, D,…), SP declare, and now! The new, “BLACKLIST” for those who have read AND posted on Mike Rinder’s blog! Get ’em while they’re hot!
And then there is the mindset of a scientologist ex-friend of mine who, when he queried “not reading negative things about scientology on the internet,” received the answer that it starts to make one think negatively about the church of scientology. The good little scientologist agreed with this “logic.”
…and stops himself short of ever reading anything negative about scientology or david miscavige.
Mary, like I’ve said before, the cult imprisons the gullible using their own minds with ‘thought stopping techniques.’
Hey Mike, you’r forgetting Milano! It’s in Europe (as all Italy pretend to be) and they just had a grand grand opening as the heavly photoshopped pictures documented.
I feel a litte upset for this oversight. Can you explain? (oh, may be Milano is not (jet) ideal?)
Scientology does not include Italy in Europe. It is a separate “continent”. There are 3 “ideal” orgs in Italy. Milano, Pordenone and Roma.
Mike, the article mentions that there was a similar study done in Hungary. Well, it is true for a change, but they failed to mention that it was fully financed by the Church… The results of the study were published as a book called “Alternative Religion – Scientology in Hungary” by dr. András Máté-Tóth and a co-author (it is only available in Hungarian). I was also interviewed for the book along with other ex-Scientologist.
As the Church had the final say on the manuscript, they did their best to delete anything critical and any reference to “confidential” materials and add their propaganda. Also, the Church got permission to add an entire chapter to the book, which details their “unprecedented and rapid” expansion in Hungary (it is full of generalities and questionable statements).
Still, a few mildly critical remarks made it through the CofS sensors, so the book is not entirely positive.
The professor seems to consider Scientology as an “alternative religion”, which is “significantly different” from the mainstream ones.
Generalities and questionable statements by the most ethical people on Teegeeack as we know it today? I’m shocked! Shocked I tell ya! Are you sure you’re not mistaken, Peter?
Seems apparent, Mike, that the death knell has sounded in Europe, loud and clear.
I’d like to walk around the orgs of Europe while ringing a large bell and proclaiming: Scientology is dead! (ring ring). Scientology is dead (ring ring). I wonder if they would notice me…..
Who would be there to notice you?
i’ll follow behind, playing some Dead tapes on my boombox. That’ll show … nobody.
Haha! The ultimate method to prove the stats. They’d probably try to count you two as Bodies in the Shop.
I would be interested to know what they consider an “event” to be. At 600, that’s 3 “events” every 2 days. IAS Events? Ideal Org events? It is hard to believe that these events were solely dedicated to passing out drug education booklets.
Regardless of that, these are simply booklets (e.g. promotional materials). If the public wish to avail themselves of Scn’s solutions, THEY HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM.
So, this is about as altruistic as your local sandwich shop handing out flyers of their menu.
Statpush they are all reg events!! All events now are reg events.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, Willie, but, it seems to me that if you just don’t go to the regging event, you won’t lose any money!
That’s the problem with the big numbers. Sooner or later you’ll see evidence of something or other, whether you actively take an interest or not.
Post super bowl, the “church” launched an online ad campaign claiming that they have a humanitarian force of 1.5 million members. That’s about 30% larger than the Salvation Army. While I don’t know much about the Salvation Army, a drive around town shows me that they have at least two functional, non-flashy facilities (that I found without trying to) that offer drug rehab to people unable to pay $30k for saunas and vitamins. I’ve seen their facility where they feed and shelter the homeless. I’ve come across flyers for their outreach events. And every year, without fail, their bell-ringing Santas show up at grocery outlets in even the smaller towns.
Meanwhile, at the local org, only the pre-screened get to enter. A homeless person in need entering the org (or even lingering outside for too long) would undoubtedly be leaving it with the assistance of a police escort. And you’ll be looking in vain for “church” sponsored soup kitchens, shelters or community assistance centers of any kind. The only “free” offering, the “Oxford” personality test, turns out to be as “free” as a timeshare pitch.
I have yet to hear of even ONE person finding themselves in need, wondering whether to turn to Catholic charities, visit a local church, go to the Salvation Army or the Red Cross, or whether they should seek out a scientology “church” for help! So where are all those humanitarians hiding?