This is a report sent in by Peter Bonyai. He wrote a book I highly recommend about his years in Scientology and the Sea Org in Hungary that I covered in a blog post entitled Money, Power, Servitude.
Peter keeps tabs on the goings on with scientology in Hungary and has some news on that front that indicates all is not so rosy in the straight up and vertical, 47X expansion world of scientology.
OTL Central Europe (also known as OTL Hungary), the local Sea Org unit in Budapest, will be dissolved in the next few weeks. They have already vacated the building they rented (I am sure they left quite a few unpaid bills behind) and almost every staff member has to report to Copenhagen for reassignment. A few Sea Org members will remain in Budapest, though all I know for sure is that the WISE office stays (judging from current trends, I guess there will be an IAS Reg as well).
“OTL” is short for Operations & Transport Liaison – it is basically a small CLO, responsible for all Scientology activities in a few countries. There used to be four OTLs in Europe – OTL Russia, Central Europe (CEE), Italy and Iberia (for Portugal and Spain). As a note, OTL Iberia suffered a similar fate – when the Madrid Ideal Org opened, Dave ordered the “useless” OTL to be closed and its staff were used to fill vacant positions in Madrid Org. According to my wife, who was there when it went down, OTL Iberia was essentially bankrupt and they were even regging money to try to feed the Sea Org members.
Since I spent my entire Sea Org career there, I though it would be appropriate to sum up its history.
OTL Hungary was founded in 1996 by Miklós Fekete, a Hungarian Sea Org member, who was a Freewinds staff member, on leave in Hungary. He could not or did not want to return to the US, so he came up with the idea to establish a Sea Org unit here. At that time, there were more than 10 small missions throughout Hungary along with a large one in Budapest and hundreds of new Scientologists who knew next to nothing about the Sea Org or the Church in general. They were more than 50 people who were eager to join to Sea Org in Clearwater but could not get a US visa.
So, Miklós thought he could set up a Sea Org base here and draft all these people who wanted to join the SO. He contacted Walter Kotric, the CO CLO Europe and told him his idea. They agreed that Miklós would carry out his plan without asking for approval from Int Management (as it would take forever and would not be granted anyway). Miklós and the new OTL would get into production, provide something of value and that would justify the existence of the unit.
I wrote about his in my book:
Walter even had an idea, and as all great ideas in the Church, it included collection of large sums of money.
At that time, the Budapest Mission was using photocopied unauthorized translations as course materials, as except for a few basic books, no Scientology materials were officially available in Hungarian. According to one interpretation of the relevant policies, the Budapest organization should have paid royalties on the pirate copies to the publishing corporation of the Church called New Era Publications International in Copenhagen.
So Walter fired a mission, formed from the staff of the freshly established OTL, to calculate all the royalties owed for the course packs locally produced in the past 7 years and to collect all the backlogged monies owed, complete with interest.
According to Miklós, his first task was to “get in ethics” in the Budapest Mission. According to Sea Org logic, if someone does not pay royalties, he is stealing directly from L. Ron Hubbard, the biggest crime of all. So Miklós and his cohorts called a special staff meeting and announced that everyone had to do an overt/withhold write-up. Walter warned Miklós beforehand that during the initial briefing there would be staff members who would try to stop this by stating that such actions had to be approved by the Case Supervisor, so they were to prepare to address this eventuality head-on. One of the missionaries was supposed to take photos of any such elements, and another was to conspicuously take notes on a black clipboard.
Just as Walter predicted, one of the staff members stood up and voiced his concerns about Case Supervisor approval for such actions. Immediately, a photo was taken and notes were written. This proved to be enough to dissuade anyone else from protesting. Miklós then summoned the executives of the mission and briefed them on his task. He asked them how much work would be required to collect all the invoices written for course packs in the last seven years (they were stored in big cardboard boxes). One of the Mission executives responded with an answer that became a running gag in OTL later (almost always mentioned when we faced seemingly impossible tasks or deadlines):
“100 people working for 10 days fulltime!” Miklós just smiled and said: “OK then, let’s get cracking on those boxes!” Naturally, this meant that every staff member in the mission (they had almost 100 staff at that time) had to stay there for the night to sort and collect invoices. They managed to get it done by the following morning, the debt was calculated and Miklós and his missionaires relentlessly pressured the executives until the organization paid the bill in full, mainly by forcing them to rake in as much cash as they could.
Since it was a rogue action to begin with, there was almost no interference from international or continental management. And fortunately, the leadership style of Miklós was quite different from what was in vogue uplines. Miklós preferred PR (and extreme manipulation) above ethics and punishment. Unless he was under pressure from Walter (he was his boss), he almost never resorted to justice actions. He tried to find out by trial and error who responds to what and adjusted his approach accordingly. He only threatened those with dire consequences who did not respond properly to PR and sweet-talking. To be fair, he was quite good at getting things done.
So, the OTL expanded and grew and we even managed to open an org – Budapest Mission was converted into a Class V organization, which then achieved Saint Hill size (in the usual stat push way though) and then its area of responsibility was expanded to the entirety of Central Europe.
By 2001-2002, the OTL had around 100 staff members, plenty of cash reserves and every key position was manned. Our success brought greater interference from Church management and that’s when the slow decline started, which turned into a freefall in 2004. A series of CMO ethics missions were conducted and by 2005, almost every single division head (with one exception) and above was either declared, removed from post or offloaded from the Sea Org. In the following years, staff numbers slowly dwindled to the 10-20 range, the reserves evaporated and it turned into your familiar struggling Scientology organization – a few diehard and loyal staff members fighting off the hordes of angry creditors.
Apparently, someone to decided to finally put it out of its misery.
Believe me, if things were booming as they claim they are, there is no way they would close down a “management org” that presumably had been instrumental in the massive expansion in their zone… It just is NOT the way things are done in scientology. Like everywhere else, scientology in Hungary is imploding.
It always seems funny to me that some Orgs can flourish until the Sea Org gets their paws on them. Then they crash and burn. I thought the Sea Org was supposed to expand things and bring reason? But mostly they bring insanity and decay, being the tentacles of the mad dwarf.
Tony, the expansion is like a diamond – it takes millions of years of pressure to manifest itself so you and I won’t be around to see it. If you were in the Sea Org only then would you understand.
Miniscavige and scientology have the opposite of the midas touch; everything they touch turns to s#it
I believe the picture is a representation of what an ideal hole looks like.
Way off topic, but does anyone know what tech films are being used now that so many of the original actors have left?
Edit: “…there would be NO actual structure to appoint someone to be the head of RTC…” Also, RTC isn’t supposed to even have the power that Miscavige has grabbed for himself.
Having done the Data Series I understand that David Miscavige is a Who and not a Why for the Co$ implosion.
But, in this scenario, here’s a Who who has abused his power by getting rid of the corporate structure which would have or could have removed and replaced him, or anyone who might have tried to get rid of him.
From what I’ve read, there are no checks and balances on Miscavige anymore, and to a man and woman all Sea Org execs in and out of the Hole are merely straw people doing Miscavige’s bidding while keeping up the pretense to the sheeple that they are doing LRH’s policy.
All orders come from Miscavige and what is done or not done is what he wants, when he wants it.
OK, now, if he were removed, or if he decided to remove himself, there would actual structure to appoint someone else to be head of RTC, so if anyone else seized the reins it would be a coup and not an organized, on policy replacement.
Where am I going with this? Not quite sure…but with Miscavige gone, it would be theoretically possible for those terminals theoretically holding positions of power in Scientology to actually wear those hats – the operative word here being “theoretically” because these individuals are unlikely to be in the mental, emotional or physical shape necessary to wear these hats.
Again, this makes him appear to be the Real Why, but if he were removed, or if he flees, who knows what would fill the void. Similar to all of these 3W countries with one dictator after another – each of the dictators are only Who s.
Well, I don’t have any conclusion yet; just thinking out loud. Thanks for reading, if you still are 🙂
Dave is gatshit gaga and needs to come up to batshit crazy.
All I can say is, Where is that photo from? It is amazing.
It’s the Guatemala City sinkhole of 2007.
It’s Daves back yard. Call it a shithole, straight down and vertical.
You have a mission with 100 staff, public so wanting source material they are, by themselves, translating and copying it and they dont grab the guy/gal who put this all together, get him better digs, personal staff, and an expense account and let him loose on the whole country???? Footbullets does not begin to describe those idiots!
You wouldn’t understand. It’s a Dave thing.
Throught the history of Scientology whenever the SO get involved with ant successful action it ends up crashing and burning.
They are so out of touch with the reality of the rest of the world that their “putting ethics in” guarantees failure. LRH’s warning to not try to put SO ethics in on “wogs ” because they can’t handle it, is totally ignored under the current dictatorship and the results speak for themselves.
Tech, schmech. Its all about the money. If they can’t afford the vig, scientology doesn’t want them. And that ain’t just davey, that was ron, too.
Just for the record and speaking of expansion vs. contraction ………….looks like we need TWELVE more apostates to get defrocked and bitter enough to sign up for the INDY 500 over on Steve Halls blogsite. That would put us at 500 to begin the new 2015 year.
Whaddaya say apostates????
Yo Dave,
We could use a little help from the Cee Oh Bee on this. Can you kick a few more of your downstats out before Thursday at 2:00. It would help your straight down and vertical hole to hell good buddy.
Mike,
I just can’t think of a more appropriate image for DM and his underlings than the impressive sinkhole
photo you have used.
Greta
I can, but it is not printable.
I guess this is the slash and burn method of evangelism. I have seen this pattern so many times now, it is obviously an intentional waste of human life. I see over and over again, a person finding something interesting in Scn. they have some kind of personal, significant win, on a life repair, or running an engram or 2, or having a certain problem addressed for the first time in their lives. When these initial wins occur they get excited about the potential to handle more and are drawn in. Then they get sucked into the meat grinder called the C of S third dynamic where the militaristic, undereducated, power drunk, money motivated, morally ambiguous, sexually repressed, case damaged, misunderstood ridden adolescents reside. Where lying is normal, human decency is theedy weedy and honest communication is dev-t. Where cutting off family members is more important than loyalty and trust, and where getting money is more important than the spiritual well being of the individual. This group is false, not true, deceitful, out integrity and broken beyond repair.
I sure wish I could write as well as you Hallie Jane. What you said here is beautiful. The ultimate betrayal of trust.
You got it Hallie.
The Meat Grinder, nuff said.
Hallie Jane,
You have really described the CULT to a tee! Bravo to you!! I especially appreciate:
” Then they get sucked into the meat grinder called the C of S third dynamic where the militaristic, undereducated, power drunk, money motivated, morally ambiguous, sexually repressed, case damaged, misunderstood ridden adolescents reside. Where lying is normal, human decency is theedy weedy and honest communication is dev-t. Where cutting off family members is more important than loyalty and trust, and where getting money is more important than the spiritual well being of the individual.”
+100
OMG…what she said!
Very well said!
+10 — thought this apropos ….
“In a room where
people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot.”
― Czesław Miłosz
Your words Hallie Jane came across like a .45. 🙂
Odd
This is a fascinating story. Just the fact that someone had the initiative to start something without Int Management approval. And then the inevitable demise once he got on COB’s radar.
At least the consistency is there and easy to see, and from that the greatest error any tyrant can make – they’re predictable. The complete contraction of miscavige can’t come fast enough and one of these days that will occur. History is not on $cientology’s side, all despots run their course and end up in the ditch. I can’t think of a more hated man than miscavige – what an asshole!
I’m sorry, I Yawn, but, really, that’s an awful slight to all assholes which perform a vital function. It’s impossible to overstate evil. And that’s what will consume him.
Anatomy was never in question Dude, just the smell and miscavige excels in that department, His stench oozes into every aspect of $cientology.
+1!
David Miscavige can be depended upon to stamp on upstats. Such a strange man.
Mike, it looks like those jumping arrows which emanate out of Central Orgs to represent new groups starting up, are, in the Miscavige graphis representations, travelling in the wrong direction (outward from the Ideal Org). Here we have the “Ideal CLO Europe” with its outpost closing down, so the arrow is travelling back from the perimeter to land back on the emanation point. This is probably happening a lot these days with missions and groups and outposts closing up shop.
A natural law called SBE – Scientology Boomerang Effect.
I like your way of putting it. I think it all started with the mission holder’s conference back in 82. What a total waste of energy and human resources. This type of management is worse than Stalin’s. It is the perfect exemple of what should be avoided if you want to get any results. I wonder how long all this is going to last. The bubble gets more and more out of touch with reality.
“…almost every single division head (with one exception) and above was either declared, removed from post or offloaded from the Sea Org…”
That’s what happens in organized crime syndicates when you don’t hand over all the money to the head ringleaders further up the line. These criminals were taking money from the rubes and keeping more of it than that shitting dwarf David Miscavige wanted them to, so the head ringleader sent his violent goons to put a stop to it.
The fact that the insane crook now got *nothing* instead of the percentage of the take that he should have been happy to get, well that’s not the way criminal enterprises operate. You allow one criminal office to keep more of the take than you allow and then suddenly they all start doing it, and there’s nothing left for the head criminals up at the top.
I love watching the IQ of the typical criminal in action.
I doubt these execs were declared because they wouldn’t hand over more dosh. I think it’s simply a case of SO-style management.
SO management has to justify it’s existence. And to do that, well, you gotta “manage” something, which means you have to tell people what to do. Which means you have to show them they’re doing it wrong (even if they’re successful at it).
The reason they were so successful was probably because:
1) unfamiliarity with LRH policy
2) lack of involvement with SO management
So, these well-intended execs were probably bullied by an SO Mission bent on “getting their ethics in”, or “knocking off the squirrel admin” or some such nonsense. In the process they will have undoubtedly been assigned wrong ethics conditions, put a head on a pike, sleep deprivation, extreme penalties, unreal targets, and no rewards – you know, toughen ’em up a bit, standard admin shit.
Those who didn’t rise to the occasion were toasted.
Scientology is so theta.
Any lose for Scientology is a big win for me.
Oh noes! But but but… But Scientology is the only hope for mankind! How can our prison planet be samed if we doezunt haz Scientology any morez?
Gives me a sad.
Criminal leaders attract criminal followers: per this story Miklos just went ahead and, of course based on lies and manipulation, got the mission to pay the money, made staff guilty for using whatever they could to deliver courses, hid all this from upper management, etc.
Miklos starts all his activity based on a personal purpose to not return to USA, uses lies and threats, etc. This was doomed to destruction, it was (as tradition dictates) all build up on lies and, even if CMO had not arrived and dismantled it all, it would have collapsed eventually.
The assumed magnanimous leader established that same path: based on his own twisted personal purposes has lied, abused, stolen money, and so on.
In other words, it seems that in scientology you can not speak straight, do something openly, or build something of use. And as Budapest story, the rest of the scientology dishonestly built groups and organizations will collapse
The irony is that the head criminal of this enterprise David Miscavige might have allowed this office to continue to operate if only the office had given him a larger percentage of the take. David wanted more, and since he couldn’t have it he destroyed the office so now the insane crook gets nothing. 🙂
Some entheta evening
You may see Miscavige
You may see Miscavige
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know
You know even then
That someday you’ll see him
Again and again
Some entheta evening
Someone may be screaming
You may hear him screaming
Across a crowded room
And night after night
As strange as it seems
The sound of his screaming
Will fill all your dreams
Who can explain it
Who can tell you why
Dave calls you SP
Wise men never try
Some entheta evening
When he craves your money
When you feel him call you
Across a crowded room
Then lock all your doors
Don’t pick up the phone
Or all through your life
He won’t leave you alone
Once you have lost him
Get your friends to blow
Once you have lost him
Get your friends to blow
Hungarian prepubescent teeny bopper staring at DM’s picture on her bedroom wall. She sings the following song to the tune of Soldier Boy by the Shirelles:
Davey boy
Oh, my little Davey boy
I’ll be true to you
You were my first love
And you’ll be my last love
I will never make you blue
I’ll be true to you
In the whole world
You can love but one squirrel
Let me be that one squirrel
For I’ll be true to you
Yet another example of the toxicity of the Sea Org. Kotric’s actions to collect royalties is reprehensible. Guaranteed, Sea Org “management” took a sizeable group of enthusiastic, well-intentioned fledgling Scnists, and sucked everything of value from it and left behind human wreckage.
This IS the parasitic nature of Scn. It happens at ALL levels.
“By 2001-2002, the OTL had around 100 staff members, plenty of cash reserves and every key position was manned. Our success brought greater interference from Church management and that’s when the slow decline started, which turned into a freefall in 2004. A series of CMO ethics missions were conducted and by 2005, almost every single division head (with one exception) and above was either declared, removed from post or offloaded from the Sea Org.” This statement of Peter’s says it all. They became too successful, so the church management stepped in and the decline started which turned into a free fall. Don’t think this was by accident. DM wants the orgs to fail and makes sure they do.
“DM wants the orgs to fail and makes sure they do.”
I get that, and I applaud it too. But, for the life of me, I can’t get WHY he pursues this course. Is there any known line of reasoning where failing orgs don’t lead to declining revenues for Miscavige?
DM: Spirit of play, dude. Pass the Scotch.
Successful orgs create freed beings who can look. More money to be had by buying buildings and IAS reging.
Good ol’ Slappy. Snatching Defeat from the jaws of Victory yet again. Just doing what he does best.
What a nice r6mas gift! Thank you Peter and Mike! That was very thoughtful, just what I wanted.
This is what happens when you use a ‘Hubbard School of Management’ graduate.
Scientology under Miscavige has been very good at squelching expansion. This is a very good example.
Thanks for the report Peter. I also second Mikes recommendation, Peters book is very good.
So Dave moved the hole to Hungary?
Rape, pillage and burn.
“Take what you can. Give nothing back.”
– Pirates of the Caribbean
My house in Budapest
My hidden treasure chest,
Golden grand piano
My beautiful Castillo
George Ezra knew!
Someone forgot the most important part: Pillage THEN burn.
Adds a whole new meaning to “We come back!”