One of many brilliant shots taken by Andy Porter – visit his website: andyporterimages.com
Our friend Andy Porter submitted this as a comment in response to Terra Cognita’s recent posting: Why Scientologists Don’t FSM. I felt it deserved to be a posting to supplement the thoughts expressed in that post.
I worked at the Bellevue Mission and was in the Mission Network for many years. One thing I would constantly hear was that it was MUCH easier to bring new people into a Mission, rather than a Class 5 Org because the new people were handled “better” in the Mission, meaning that they were not harassed as much as they were in an Org.
Another thing that I observed over and over was that ONLY new people into Scientology ever disseminated at all! The Old Timers, almost never.
It worked like this: a new person would get into it, have some wins on the Communications Course or maybe Life Repair Auditing and get all pumped up, go all missionary like, and start telling all their friends. Sort of like, I had these wins, and did this course or whatever, and so YOU will get the SAME wins and YOU need it too! Their base enthusiasm was their ace, and many would have success, getting in their friends and relatives.
But in by far most cases, their friends and relatives that they brought in would get chopped up, mishandled and leave. Then they were left with the problem of their closest friends (and relatives) NOT liking Scientology and telling them that it was bullshit…sort of a problem!
Now in many cases this problem, their friends and relatives NOT digging Scientology was simply handled by finding new friends. The new “friends” would inevitably be those people already IN Scientology. And the “old” friends, the ones who didn’t like Scientology, they were dumped like yesterday’s garbage!
That was the end of their dissemination! They quickly learned to NOT tell anyone about Scientology, and NEVER FSM’ed anyone ever again. Because it created problems.
If they had disseminated to someone at work, say, and got the person in, and the new person left, unhappy, now you had to deal with this person at work every day, who thought you were a nut, or to put it another way, they were “entheta” and you would not want to be near them…so bringing in a new person really just created new problems for you! Now you were connected to someone antagonistic to Scientology, and you couldn’t hold your gains if you were connected to anyone who didn’t LIKE Scientology…not good…what to do…? Aha! Don’t ever tell anyone you’re IN Scientology and for SURE don’t ever bring them into the church! Situation Handled!!!
So that was my observation: ONLY new Scientologists ever disseminated, and then, only once or twice.
There were a very few people that would go disseminate to new people who they did NOT know personally. This sort of “solved” the above problem: If they did not stay “in” Scientology, you could easily write them off as SPs or psycho, or whatever. But an incredibly small number of people ever even tried this.
Then there was the FSM Award Program. If you brought in 100 NEW people to Scientology in a year you were a “Power FSM” and if you got in 1,000 NEW people in a year, you were an Elite FSM. In the late 1990’s this was a big thing. Almost ALL of the awardees back then were from other countries, places where Scientology was new and expanding and not so fucked up just yet: Russia, Hungary, and Taiwan.
Then there was the case of Mike Edwards: He was awarded for bringing in 10,000 NEW people “into” Scientology for his dissemination efforts in Colombia. They used the Way to Happiness, got huge numbers of the Colombian military people to do a WTH course and said that they were all now “in” Scientology. All of the promoted promise of Scientology spreading all through Colombia, making it the first Clear Country were utter bullshit, but it sure looked good at the International Events, and appearance was all that mattered.
Of course the nee plus ultra of this was the Incredible Tom Cruise, who PERSONALLY disseminated to more than 1 BILLION people!!!!!
He got 1 Billion people to take a look at Scientology and decide that they didn’t want any part of it!!!!!!!
ANYTHING was okay to pad the stats and make it look like there were more Power and Elite FSMs. I was involved with this progression for many years, when I was in Russia I was awarded the Elite and Power FSM status 5 times, although I NEVER personally got any new people in: I just worked at Missions that did. My handlers at SMI Int would insist that I come to go on stage and get the award, even though they knew full well that I was NOT getting new people in.
I met and spoke to dozens of “Power FSMs” almost ALL Power FSMs from the US were from Celebrity Center: They had some sort of free lecture at CC INT, sucked in some new people with the promise of helping them get into acting, got them on a Communications Course and that was it. Of course almost all of the new people left immediately, but, hey, who cared?
As time passed and less and less people got even close to making Power FSM it was a problem…what to do??? Some genius in Management had a brilliant idea: Change the rules of the game! Now to be a Power FSM all you needed to do was to “select” ANY person for a service in Scientology!
No longer did you need to get a NEW person into the Church, all you needed to do was find some person ALREADY in Scientology and “help” them get paid for their next service! So even though the actual stat of new people getting into Scientology was plummeting there were always scads of Power FSMs on stage at the New Year’s Events.
As with everything else in Scientology these days it’s all about keeping people in, re-doing the same services over and over and over…
This is the best explanation I have ever read about the weird relationship Scientologists have with disseminating Scientology. Andy, you spell it out with exactness. That initial burst of confidence in Scientology and one’s enthusiasm for it is heavily penalized, because invariably the person or people you bring in are “mishandled.” It is an experience that is darkly humiliating, and is a great way to permanently lose friends or a close relationship with a family member.
That’s it. You’ve been burned. Lesson learned. No one except the most rare individual is again going to “disseminate” to a person they know and bring that someone into the org.
After the “ideal orgs” came into existence, I re-examined some of this phenomena and did a head scratch. From what I could, pre- or post-ideal org, THE LEAST amount of disseminating came from people on their OT levels, including people who had reached the highest available level in Scientology, OT 8.
Seeing the massive amounts of money so many of us sunk into the project, the miles of debt we were in and feverish efforts to pay off our six-figure donations to the almighty “ideal org,” I could not sort out: What kind of success is this if the individuals who made it to the TOP of this “Bridge” make no effort to bring anyone that they KNOW into the org?
Sure, the OT 8’s would run around with a meter at local county fairs or similar to do a “pinch test” and sell a Dianetics book…TO A TOTAL STRANGER. But heartfelt “dissemination” – those enlightenment and handle steps – with a person to get them to begin their journey to “Total Freedom”: Never did I see an OT engage in this; same for people on staff.
The proof, therein, is in the pudding, I began to realize. If the people who should be walking, talking poster children advertisements for the greatness of the experience of being in this group and doing these services take no interest in concretely transmitting the ‘gospel,’ speaks volumes.
Of course there are many factors now involved in why FSMing is no longer successful, if it ever was that successful? There have probably been periods when it has been far more successful than now.
The first and probably the largest problem IMO is the “donations industry” regging for IAS and Idle Orgs and other stuff which provide no tangible exchange to the donor and essentially is just a rip-off. That now is like the elephant in the room scenario for Orgs and fortunately I do not have any experience of this.
What I do have experience of and have seen in action so to speak, was the advent of heavy and out-gradient regging in the early 1980s. People would be selected by their FSMs or walk in off the street and would immediately start to be hit up for (say) 100,000 bucks if it was found out that they had a recent inheritance or similar. Or, as in most cases, asked to run up a bill on their credit cards when they had had NO WINS on the subject and so of course promptly hit the high road. The most successful reg I knew was a guy who would get new people to do several basic courses. When after a while they had done these he simply broached the idea of now doing (say) the Academy Levels and the people simply signed up, without any cajoling or pressuring. It was like a conveyor belt. They were usually happy to do so and it also made people Scientologists or rather the wins they obtained did, of course. It was and is simply a matter of obtaining the sub-products (basic courses then one could say in this case) to getting the main product (of a Class IV Org) of students training on the Academy Levels and becoming auditors. Somewhere along the line someone introduced “unreasonableness” or simple aggression or however what might one call it into the regging line-up and there went the ball-game, overwhelmed, with no wins, and out of the door never to come back.
I also believe that the regges were, since the 80s. never trained how to do this rather simple skill of obtaining sub-products and waiting patiently for the “particle” to fall off the conveyor belt into their laps, which sounds very impersonal and cold-hearted and commercial but is not what I mean – I am using it as an analogy. Or the regges were encouraged to “get it all now, this week!”. So, someone has thrown a big spanner into the regging works. Whether it was Miscavige or not I do not really know, but someone has thrown it and the cog wheels stopped decades ago. FSMing won’t work with that sort of background awaiting new people in the Orgs.
FSMing, spreading the word of Hubbard’s offered wisdom/therapy/exorcism procedures to purify and make a soul transcendant powerful enough t fly out of a person’s body and be a free thetan operating in the MEST universe, I personally felt I had to reach the high ability stage of exterior thetan, and capable to really be an “OT” for real, before I could disseminate for real.
I never disseminated.
I spent decades hoping and in semi-denial regarding our pitiful lack of real “OT” persons who were exterior with full perception and full “OT” powers.
Hope that Hubbard’s “OT” simple definitions, of a thetan who could operate outside of and without need of a body and do good things, like an exterior ghost, I believe and hoped.
FSMing was frankly out of the question, and only OT 5s or above ought to even be disseminators, as everyone lower on the Bridge were NOT even “products” of the OT final goals!
Lack of “OT” phenomena, in the end, sobered me up.
NO “OTs” as the song says. Scientology and all of Hubbard’s procedures are truly a failure just as LRH lamented in honesty to Sarge, at the Creston Ranch before LRH died.
I never even felt qualified to disseminate, and only “OT” thetans who could fly exterior outside their bodies and do “OT” things ought to legitimately disseminate LRH’s Bridge to Total Freedom.
Who else ought to disseminate except those who attained the “OT” real deal abilities?
In the seventies a scientologist was not a dupe who is giving all his money and the money of his bank to “his church”, it was someone who could listen to and help another person. The first thing I learned was to listen. All my non scientologists friends could see that I was now listening. Before I was speaking all the time. My first 2 years cost me quite almost nothing. Nobody regged me and I learned through TRs and later auditor’s course to listen and understand another person. That was scientology at this time. To earn the right to be a scientologist at this time one had to be an auditor. Scientology was auditing, that’s all.
No international events, no IAS, no Ideal orgs, no WISE, no eligibility sec check, none of those things existed. And there was also no Miscavige.
Returning to “no Miscavige” would be a major step toward the rehabilitation of the subject.
Yes, that (Miscavige) is the core of the problem here. The Church has been sabotaged from and since the early 1980s, including the advent of heavy regging as one of the tools of the sabotage.
Since the name came up, why not…
Consider “Mr. Billion” himself, the most committed scientologist ever–at least in SOB’s acquaintance. The guy with the biggest, gaudiest medal.
After his first billion, and on such an unprecedented tear toward global clearing, what did he do? Retire from the “game?”
You certainly won’t find any “Ask me about scientology!” bumper stickers on Tom Cruise’s cars. In fact, as a reporter, if you bring up “THAT topic,” you can be sure that you’ll never speak to Tom again. So what gives? Surely such a great humanitarian–who knows all about psychiatry and is in possession of the ONLY help for humanity–would be determined to go for a few more billions.
Of course, his ex-wives (including the prospect for wife #4 whom they helpfully pimped to him) are a lot more decisive. They’re all long gone from scientology–even the one who dun brung him! Along with the Hubbards and many of the Miscaviges.
So if such “epically” big beings can’t do it, what hope is there for the rest of the rank and file?
Went in on my own, saw a late night commercial hosted by Michael Fairman. Bought the kit and within days got calls from the local org. Audited a friend, had amazing supernatural experiences then found out that I couldn’t get auditing, I had a relative in the media! Well, my friend went in on her own and bought the purif. I got a check! Knew nothing about Scientology, FSM or illegal PCs, she blew, wouldn’t even go back for her money, luckily she never held this against me, and we’re friends to this day! We still have incredible things happen when we’re together. Good juju! I’ve blown several times. Gone back, blown again, been critical, yet haven’t been declared! This is how desperate things have gotten since the 90’s. I wanted so desperately to know the secrets the fat man held, when I finally looked I never went back! Evil shit! Black magic crap crazy ass psycho. Please any still ins, run!!!!
A relative in the media as an excuse to debar someone from the Bridge? Never heard of that one – must either be a new addition from COB but I don’ t recall any HCO policy that states such, which is not to say there might not be though, but as I say I don’t recall it. Wonder what they will think of next to keep people off the Bridge?
My ex boss was into Landmark Forum. (Some people call it Scientology Lite) This has a similar pattern. After visiting one of their open house sessions, I came to the conclusion that I had better things to do with a weekend.
Let’s be honest here: no religion except this one gives out cash bonuses for recruiting new people. That’s the purview of multilevel marketing schemes. Scientology is Amway or Herbalife with a primitive lie detector and a bullshit philosophy. Anyone who MSMed and still believes that Scientology is a religion should be utterly ashamed of themselves and what they’ve done.
Sorry, I meant FSMed, not MSMed. I’ll blame the hay fever, thank you.
Thank you Espi, as always you’ve cut right to core. I’ve never given much thought about MLM as practiced in the CoS and your comparison to Amway and Herbalife is right on target. I’m quite sure Catholic priests do not hand out commemorative rosaries for bringing in a convert or a Mormon priest awarding collectors item temple garments to their missionaries.
i learned early on that fsming new people wasn’t easy. the 1st person i got in died shortly afterwards of cancer which she had already. i got a guy on the com crse. and he blew. but how i did well was getting people already in to go further up the bridge, especially on nots and solo nots (1980’s and 90’s). lots of $ on those cycles. i fsmed over a million $, but still got declared in the 90’s. i guess i regret that now, but it paid for most of my auditing and training.
Yes Andy, it was like you said. But back in the seventies there was a big expansion, it occured in my org. In the 1980 they started to flub new customers on a regular basis.
By then I wouldn’t tell anyone I was a scientologist !
Flares, platform shoes, and Quaaludes were big in the 70s too. None of them have ever made a comeback. And all of them are more useful and less harmful than Scientology.
As odd as it may sound but due to various reasons, I never disseminated SCN or attempted to convert anyone to the cult. But I enjoy reading all of these stories. I was born into this nonsense, went to the Apollo at 17 with my family and stayed at INT basically until I blew. After blowing I didn’t want to tell anyone of my past involvement in the cult due to being embarrassed plus I knew it was BS by then. It is hard to disseminate SCN when you have an AKA and say you worked for Operation & Transport Corporation to the locals. But, I’m glad I was never forced to sell a book or talk someone into taking an idiotic OCA test.
I think at the moment one of the hardest jobs in the cult would be a Div 6 reg.
Great article. Yes, that Tom Cruise bit about disseminating to a billion people, but they aren’t IN Scn now, certainly is an example of an OUTpoint. A rather large example! Pretty darn funny that this is such a cool thing to them. SMH
The thing that has always amazed me is how the religion is supposed to be helping the whole planet (and beyond) but they never advertise, call, or go house to house. I live a mile away from the Buffalo Ideal Org and yet I never see or hear from them apart from the fliers they mail out when there is an event happening. Back in the 70’s and 80’s they spent a LOT of $$$ on TV commercials and all of a sudden stopped. The Jehovah Witnesses go door to door in my neighborhood faithfully every week. And they keep coming back after getting doors slammed in their faces every time. Where are the door to door Scientologists? Where are the phone calls? How can the planet be cleared when they only have time to work on themselves???
Don’t give them any ideas. They must stay under their rock.
angryskorp,
Answer, They ran out of vacuum cleaners.
angry:
I agree with you there is a certain halfassedness to their dissemination program. It shows in the way the display table is folded up and packed away as soon as someone comes by, asks real questions about the religion and hangs around to ask again demonstrating to other passersby that the table manners are petrified of confrontation. OK the odd one will pretend to take a photo or two on their phone but I doubt they download them and put them in a rogues gallery since they seem filing challenged. At my local they don’t bother with tables any more but on lone recruiters – young, good looking and somewhat eager – that also can’t stand probing questions and walk away or put their hands over their ears if I say anything that maybe taken negatively. I don’t know where these kids come from but they don’t seem to be out there much or for very long. I’ve never seen the same one twice. I see the odd older member going into the org and I’m always polite and say hello. Rarely will they say any more but I’ve noticed they don’t seem to be bothered when they invite me in for a personaility test or to read a book and I tell them I have had a p-test and read dianetics and sci is not for me but I’,m glad they are getting something out of it.
Then there is the great door to door dissemination campaign which consists of a bookmark size invitation for a free personality test on one side and an ad for the Dianetics bible on the other. This little slip of paper is delivered with the mail every few months along with more domestic promitions. You fill out the slip for an OCA test (value $200) and mail it to them or give your information over the phone or by e-mail. The one time I e-mailed there was no reply to set up the appointment. Then again I didn’t give them my phone number or address and maybe their on-line time is limited for some strange reason.
So I can see why they probably like the idea of Miscavige Studios in Hollywood relieving them of the recruitment duties. Little do they know it will never be effective either.
Angry: Simple answer re: why not try door to door dissem. Lack of confront (and lack of knowledge about their own religion).
Joe, I think it is more along the line that they still have a shred of goodness left and don’t want to drag more people into an evil cult.
I think that it’s the infectious enthusiasm for those first few wins that makes the most compelling argument for others to investigate Scientology. People respond to other people on a human level. If I’m correct, DM cut out the whole dissemination zeal when he replaced people at the Orgs with video stands. Now he completely controls the message, but the human interaction that propels most responses to ecclesiastical missionary efforts is gone.
The video kiosks may do a better job of explaining what Scientology is, but it is people who get other people to watch the videos.
Heh – I just had a WOGNITION! THanks Valeen. …Not only are the people still in the cult of Scientology ROBOTS…but the panels in the new Idle Morgue’s are just that….robots
Scientology ~ the Science of disabling the able and making ROBOTS!
Robots work and make money – they don’t need money or love and that Keeps Scientology Working.
Wasn’t it stated some time ago that Miscavige’s real intent is to ruin scn which he’s doing proudly.
Yes Valeen, this (changing the Div 6 line-up) is yet another example of the DM sabotage, not that the old Div 6 way of doing things (OCA, body routing etc.) was that spectacular however.
Andy Wrote:
This is exactly what happened to me.
When I first got involved in Scientology, and before I joined staff at the Peoria Mission, I had 2 Dianetics Bumper stickers on the back of my Honda Civic. I stood out very prominently in the cornfields of Illinois.
In one of the last times I saw any of my old friends, one Saturday afternoon I walked into a bar owned by one of my friends and filled with people I knew.
When I walked in, everyone went silent, and looked away from me. It was clear as day that the topic of conversation had been ME.
But I was “uptone” and winning! and so I just shrugged it off and said hi to everybody.
Just then another friend walked in and yelled to the whole bar “Hey! Is Al in here? I just saw the Dianetics Mobile outside!!”
Everyone burst out laughing.
I did too.
But that totally harshed my Scientology buzz. Way too entheta. And it was the last time I saw all my old friends again.
Until I became an Ex-Scientologist.
Then I had to go around and apologize to people for how much of an asshole I was for trying to get them to join a cult.
They have been surprisingly forgiving and understanding.
I have always been grateful for that.
Alanzo
The “Dianetics Mobile” ! Ha!!!
Yes, I recall, with much chagrin, having the same thing happen, where my friends didn’t get it, or made fun of me for being in a cult…and my response then was to day dream of the time (coming soon!!!) when I would really impress them with my Yoda Jedi Master Superpowers and they would be in awe and realize the error of their ways…
I mean really, I was planning how I would attend some High School Class Reunion and be so bright, powerful and able that no one would be able to stay away, all demanding to know HOW did I get to be a real OT Jedi…and then I would get them all on the Bridge to Total Freedom……
I used to have these day dreams too about how I’d show everyone at work how powerful scn had made me, eventually even I came to the only obvious conclusion – it wasn’t going to happen.
Big hug Alanzo – we are all cringing. Humility is good though….it will get us back to feeling ourselves again! Let the CRINGES fly SP’s……..it is normal human reaction and emotion for getting ourselves sucked into a viscous and evil cult!
Great story! Thx!
Andy: Excellent! I could SO related to your words. Thank you.
I could relate. As a newbie in Scn, I was so gung ho that the first Xmas after I got in, I gave everyone in my family, all siblings, parents etc, each their own copy of the Dianetics book. The look on their faces when they unwrapped it told volumes if I’d only been open to listening back then.
I did the same thing….CRINGING AGAIN! Sigh…..I gave “Dianetic’s” to all of my best friends TOO.
They called me later bitching me out cuz the Org’s would not stop calling them.
Of course, I had to disconnect from everyone in order to “hold on to my WINS” .
What a fool I was ….but that is okay….I trusted this group / church and learned the hard way – never to trust anyone $elling Religion.
They all forgave me, welcomed me back with open arms and were happy when I blew the Cult of Scientology for good.
Idle, the majority of us have been there. I was forced to disconnect from my Mom. We were all fools at some point. Welcome to the club!
As for bringing new people to a mission rather than an org, I went a step further and only brought mine to a field auditor. Most of them stuck around, at least until they had to go to an org for their next service. Of course the field auditor program got squashed even before the mission fiasco, and long before I bailed out myself, I quit bringing in new people altogether.
Yes, again more sabotage from DM – the field auditor program. The evidence is mounting!
I concur Andy, based on my staff experience in the 80s and 90s.
There is another interesting element to this that you touched on. The hierarchy of organizations, that being:
Field Groups
Missions
Class V Orgs
Saint Hills
Advanced Orgs
Flag
Many people will speak fondly of the “days at the ol’ mission”, and how relaxed and cool it was. I have no reason to disbelieve them. It always sounded like the way things should be. However, senior organizations tended to view the lower organization with some disdain. They didn’t produce enough, were off-purpose, or, heaven forbid, were off-Source.
It occurred to me that the higher one went up the hierarchy the more serious and more crazy it got. And the closer you got to Hubbard’s wack-o paramilitary Sea Org, the more fanatical and brutal people became.
Combine that with Hubbard’s management by statistics and you end up with “desperation management”, heavy demands, heavy ethics, soul-crushing, take-no-prisoners operating basis.
From what I’ve heard, this same hierarchy of brutality exists within the various Sea Org entities as well.
The ‘lower levels’ of the clampire are the only ones who have time and perhaps ability to ‘find a person’s ruin’. Selling that ‘ruin’ was and still is the ‘raison d’être’ and modus operadi of $cientology. The personal touch beats out a video kiosk every time.
Making everyone a ‘power fsm’ is like handing out ‘participation awards’ at the annual Little League banquet. $cientology is an Amway that just sells to each other.
Ha! Yes, back in the 80’s Missions were generally more successful than Orgs. The higher you went on the food chain the more mean and nasty things got. Staff would sometimes get Nazi-like and try to enforce some stupid “ethics” bullshit on each other, like someone mentioned in a comment here, sending a new student to ethics because their bus was late!
In Scientology the term “unreasonable” meant (or was supposed to mean) that you were applying Standard Tech. In reality it was interpreted to mean that you needed to be cruel, have NO compassion or understanding and were an asshole!
Later when I left the Mission to run the Org it was a running joke of mine that Class Orgs were SO standard that they were empty!
Most of us who got in and stayed a while can recall that there was some staff member who could use the tech with out acting like someone from a Fascist Boot Camp.
I am guessing that anyone with any common sense and decency, anyone who would try to use the tech to actually help someone is now long gone from the church…
Who does that leave, who is still there? Sort of scary.
I guess some people actually LIKE being in bondage, being told what to do, being tortured…or maybe they are there because in Scientology they can do that shit to other people….and get rewarded for it!!!
Andy Porter, wow you are spot on about the FSM cycle here and the post above…
I noticed the Staff at AO Flag in 2005 seemed more like stimulus – response entities. They just act in certain ways when fed certain stimuli. Like poking a fish that flips about, they act the same way. The act of thinking about what they are doing, when they do it, is totally missing. I guess that is being hypnotized? In any case, I found no one who could use the tech “to actually help someone”. These kind of people were gone from the Flag AO and Qual by 2005.
“The higher you went on the food chain the more mean and nasty things got”.
True, that and it used to puzzle me no end, and made me want to NOT move up the Bridge!
Great article, Andy. And you’re a superb photographer, by the way.
Andy,
You are absolutely on the money. I was in div 6, and we had a real ‘machine’ going on with bodyrouting up to 150 new people into the org each week, selling them books, getting many of them on course each week after the lecture on the reactive mind… and keeping them moving onto new courses and even staff (nobody beats the stats of the 70’s). We didn’t have the money grubbing IAS ! As a new person, I was informed of the HASI…’WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN’? You get 15% off of your training” etc. Yes or no was accepted. No push, no regging. The push was only toward getting the person to pay for THEIR OWN BRIDGE. NO REGGING FOR BUILDINGS OR SOCIAL GROUPS (NARCONON, APPLIED SCHOLASTICS, CRIMINON ETC.). Still, people didn’t have the confront to fsm because the way one is told to do it is artificial, and from my experience, most people are not comfortable with patters. Not everyone wants to be a sales person or push someone into doing something, which is really what the ‘game’ of fsming is about. It is all about control instead of natural enlightenment. I mean, if you go to a movie or read a book you usually talk about it easily and with high energy. Auditing and training are personal and subjective. If you are winning doing one or the other or both…yo will tell someone. That person will either be interested because of their own desire for betterment, or they won’t. That is really most of it. You can’t force it. Finally, I have always hated people trying to get me into their religion, so as a div 6er, I used enlightenment and good communication. I never used any patter. I didn’t care if they agreed or disagreed with the famouns OCA. I would acknowledge that is was ‘just a test’ if they didn’t agree. Then, I would get in comm because I really did care. That is all it really took. I loved doing it. However, fsm ‘training’ involves everything but just using your own natural comm skills. Controlling the individul and getting them to take action now now now. Geeze. Finally, the orgs were and are hyper neurotic.
Ron insisted on hard-sell, which only works for the moment if at all. He says its about caring for the individual, but very few people who regg are truly caring for the person in front of them as their senior intention. They are worried about the money line, their stats, their own ass. You can’t let a person walk away without having sold them something or getting them to start their course right away. On the other hand, Ron speaks of letting a person take their time and read books and says that it actually takes YEARS to make a scientologist.”Books make booms” as he says, but the church always manages to arc x the hell out of people anyway due to the high pressure for upstats. Staff get into anxiety over making targets and getting upstats, so they do whatever they need to do so they don’t get put in a lower condition. If the extreme pressure was not there, and people could truly wander in, sit and read in the library, listen to tapes, hear lectures etc without having to buy anything or be asked a billion times if they want to take a test, or get pressured into doing a course, then the orgs could be ‘islands of succor’, which we all know is about as far from the truth as anything can be! Just look at any org CF …where are all those interested beings?
Unlike many posters here and on Marty’s blog, I feel intensely sad that something that works to make individuals more aware, more enlightened beings, is encased in an organizational structure comparable to the Nazi party. LRH was racing against time, and fighting enemies, but created enemies and antagonism along the way. This mad dash to “clear the planet” (and make some cash taboot), run the orgs like military facilities, the staff like troops, with an even harsher penalty system, was wrong. He was one way flowing too long on the enemy line, hiding his own overts, witholding, and generally being PTS. You can’t greet new people and offer them enlightenment in a frantic, and potentially restimulating environment. Also, you can’t sell a religion like one sells soap! If the church wasn’t so fanatical about the stats being up….hour to hour, week to week, etc., and if they weren’t bent on expansion or bust, but simply concentrated on SERVICE and HELPING OTHERS IN THE COMMUNITY, then scientologist who were new and old could be proud to say they were part of this group. I use to think that if we just built shelters for homeless, worked with other agencies to get people/cities cleaned up, gave money to Boys and Girls Clubs for new facilities, etc., and dumped MONEY into visible, WORKABLE things that were NEEDED AND WANTED by the community, we could have had the best PR ever, and all the money it took to get up the bridge would have been well spent. But, too little too late. LRH set up unrealistic targets. He acted like staff were troops and public were either ‘with us or against us’. He didn’t apply his own Theory of Expansion, and now dm has taken this policy and violated it in a way LRH never did. DM, the sp, has taken hte ‘church’ down to a worse level…all illusion, and an expensive one at that, while all the current members think he is a magnificient being.
Well julia, you can do it the way YOU want to now. No one is stopping people from delivering scamology outside the “church”.
Time time to test your ideas in the real world…
Thankfully, there are people in the field who have been auditors for 30, 40 years and more, and who just go about the business of auditing. The ones I speak of are getting rave results from their pc’s. Granted, there isn’t alot of auditors, but these are the people I admire, along with the whistle blowers. As far as anything else, I have my area of help, and I work with actual PROFESSIONALS, rather than people who think they have all the answers and reject others.
I cringe at words like “rave results”.
I would like to see people “raving” less and seeing more that there’s little to no improvement in their lives, in fact, in spite of feelings of the infamous scientology euphoria.
I used to come out of session “flying”, beaming from ear to ear, walking on air, so to speak. BUT. My life didn’t get better. It went from bad to worse.
Yep, that’s the way I saw it too.
The SO as a “military styled” organisation is indeed whacko and is observably quite insane the higher you look up the command structure. Hubbard was well out of touch with reality expecting a military command based structure to be ever capable of thinking. Military styled structure and workability were born out of human interaction and the necessity of employing the ever changing/variable tactics of aggression and defense. They depend almost entirely on the weapons (force) available or deployable or the perception they can be. With the so called ‘weapon’ in the arsenal of Scientology being a greater understanding of the human mind and life – geezers – how’d that work out for ya Ron? It’s irrelevant if the tech works or not really, the structure it floated on was and is entirely inappropriate and failed miserably – look don’t listen!
Scientology as an organisation needs to be entirely erased imo, and then let’s see what clever people do or not do.
Keeping the idea alive (at all costs) that the only way of avoiding doomsday is with an intact Scientology organisation is a motivation which just gave us the mess we see today. There is no shortage of morons like Miscavige to prey upon such intentions.
There was a time when I thought the purpose of a “military styled” organization was to “do battle” with the forces that make this planet insane (which it isn’t). Their purpose is “to get ethics IN on the planet.” One day I asked someone “exactly how is it that the Sea Org is getting ethics in on the planet? I mean, what do you do day-to-day?” Then I noticed – the only people the Sea Org “does battle” with is THEIR OWN PUBLIC. When makes them a police force, not religious warriors.
Indeed, and a highly corrupt police force at that!
They are supposed to be intelligent and caring but the highest role they played was being thugs. Your money or sign your life away here, otherwise I’ll beat your spiritual head in, you low life BD was more their style when you think about it.
Ethics in has been totally subverted into Money in.
I worked in Div 6 and it was my job to get new people in. Imagine how tough that was! No wonder we felt like we were in the front line trenches!
When I got into Scientology in 1968 I has high on LSD and exterior to my body and saw a card stapled to a telephone poll that said Scientology works and had a triangle and an address. I thought that this was part of my LSD trip and went to the address and was shown the LRH interview with Tony Hitchman. I immediately saw an older man(LRH) who had the same drug induced vibes as I, who was seeking higher knowingness.
A sort of a Tim Leary father figure.
I felt this was cool!! An LSD trip that turned into reality. I finally entered an alternate universe that I could play the game of being at a higher knowingness level than the average man.
A sort of an insiders only will know the coolness therein.
I felt high when doing TRO without having to take drugs so told my friends about this high and got them in!
I allways felt that LRH had to lower the gradient for those who couldn’t get it, that were lower in awareness.
But as for me I had a duplication of the higher overall purpose to be exterior and never have to have a body to have a game.
Hell even the drug RD and the Purif just got me higher as it replaced one high for another.
So when I read OTIII it was like, right on man, of course this makes total sense to me.
But atlas the game got taken over by the lower awareness ones, as they out numbered us cool dudes.
Peace and love to you all.
Far out!
Willie Boy… I had exactly the same experience. But by 1980 all that was gone! Now only is left kool aid drinkers and stupid anti-scientologists.
From 68 to 78, scientology was matching!
Jesus, that’s funny Willie. Scientology is like LSD without the LSD. I guess only someone whose done acid knows what you’re talking about. Man, that would be one bad trip.
LSD kept me out of the SO. I’ll always be grateful to that drug….
To Willie, AKA Good Ol Boy….it is interesting to me that people who got into Scientology in that time period, late 60’s and 70’s actually had reality and desire toward spirituality. Of courese, hallucinagetics were being promoted. I wasn’t a fan after some experimentation. I got in because I wanted to know more about operating exterior to my body, which I easily did, but not to the degree I wanted to. I read The Upanishads, and then OT stories from AO mag. There were a batch of us who knew who we were and what we wanted. I came for the OT stuff, but I do not believe that the current 7’s and 8’s hold a candle to the ‘old’ OT’s , although I do think that the ‘old OTs’ often did dramatize, their abilities were in place despite it. Unfortunately, it is now all about MEST MEST and more MEST and newer people, from the 80’s forward, don’t seek or seem to know about higher level abilities. It’s not discussed. There is no ability gained/ ep other than getting out your wallet to show your OT IAS Status. Obviously the church could never really deliver the real OT levels as how many OT 8’s can even leave their bodies at will or even communicate telepathically at will, which is actually natural…pathetic.
Willie, Are you Willie lNewman?
Good one Andy.
The similarities between Scientology and a leper colony are uncomfortably comparable.
Nothing good comes from being associated with the Cof$ – NOTHING – zip, narda, zilch!
Scientology is like the wicked witch of the west when Dorothy throws water on the Scarecrow and hit’s the witch, and she cries out, “I’m melting! I’m melting! Oh what a world, what a world.” Scientology is indeed, melting…
DM announcing the new program for Ideal Model Super Power Power FSMs in 3.. 2.. 1..
Nice picture, inspiring.
As for FSMing, it’s a scam, proof
is look at all ideal orgs,they are empty.
I think it was easier to disseminate in the pre-KSW days. Many new people were spooked by the Keeping Scientology Working policy letter, which became required reading on basic courses. Maybe this was why the watered down Div 6 courses were introduced, which I believe lacked KSW.
KSW pronouncements like this spooked some:
“The whole agonized future of this planet, every man, woman and child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.”
In 1996 the Orientation film became required viewing for every new person. Near the end of the film, Larry Anderson spoke the following:
“If you leave this room after seeing this film and walk out and never mention Scientology again, you are perfectly free to do so. It would be stupid. But you can do it. You can also dive off a bridge or blow your brains out. That is your choice.”
Orientation was very required viewing. It was in a clause in the membership contracts that the person had to agree that they’d seen it.
WhatWall said, “I think it was easier to disseminate in the pre-KSW days.”
The biggest boom in scamology happened in the early ’70’s. AFTER KSW. 😉
MW – “The biggest boom in scamology happened in the early ’70’s. AFTER KSW.”
Interesting. You’re right.
During the late 70’s at my Class IV org the Comm Course room was full at night and the org seemed very busy overall. KSW was in every checksheet then too and it didn’t seem to spook many people.
When did the Nazi-KSW attitude take hold in staff & SO? That might be the turning point for FSMing. It turned me off. Enlightened individuals don’t act that way.
Verbal & physical abuse are not the path to a higher state, but ARE reflective of the individual who started this scam and of the current management.
To current Scientologists: By all means, bring your friends to your org so that they can be enlightened by the abuse you’ve endured. You’ll lose your friends but will have done your part in educating the public about Scientology.
Hi WhatWall. In the SO it was the Class 8 course end of the 60’s. For Class IV Orgs it was after the Quickie Grades eval ~1971 or ’72? There was also the FEBC evolution mid 70’s?
Thanks, Mike W.
Didn’t Tom Cruise wax poetic about how it all comes down to KSW for him, in that nutty video presentation? I would love to hear him disavow that stuff publicly, which I know for sure will never happen, even if he one day disavows it privately.
Long time Scientologists have dived off bridges and blown their brains
out in every case after giving huge sums of money to the church.
Larry Anderson was a prophet!
I could be wrong but I heard that Larry Anderson was declared after the film was made. Any truth to that?
You heard right. He was featured in an article in the Tampa Bay Times. That will get you an unpublished declare pretty quickly…
And I just thought he had a helluva sense of humour! 🙂
“You can also dive off a bridge or blow your brains out. That is your choice.”
And they expected people to hand over money after watching that film??? I’d be backing out of the building slowly and then running down the sidewalk, jumping in my car, and peeling out…..
Old Surfer Dude – that is a suggestive “implant” and one girl I knew did just that….blew her brains (so to speak) out because of that implanted suggestion from Scientology – IMHO.
The staff members tell people that don’t want to do it (especially drug addicts) that they will go back out there and do drugs and die if they don’t stay in Scientology.
That is a hypnotic suggestion and it is powerful!
Do some research lurkers – on hypnosis.
The logic fails on that intro short subject.
Truth is Nancy Cartrights 2d gave a million to the IAS
and jumped off a tall bridge in Carmel.
Rex Fowler blew some of his brains out in a failed suicide
after murdering his CFO all while on OT 7.
there are many more prime examples.
A great number of people I knew on 7 just vanished, never heard of or seen again. So much for the wonders of the top of the bridge. It sure is a bridge to being miserable, dead, sick or lonely but certainly financially screwed. NOTs is spiritual poison, peddled by an absolute asshole and it awaits anyone silly enough to ignore the signs not to do it.
Fuck the Cof$!
I heard from someone who heard from someone close to them in the SO, that there are a couple of thousand people who’ve blown OT 7.
Good one Andy. I too loved the TC remark. So true!
I saw what you speak about at Belleair Msn. If some OT from Flag came into the msn for the first time and did the PE Crs. It was a stat for someone “new.”
Here’s my experience from the late 70s. If I recall correctly there was a portion of the HQS checksheet that required some sort of dissemination effort. I think you had to come up with the names of two people to bring in. They didn’t have to sign up for anything, they just had to be brought in to the Div 6 reg. The mission where I was at was doing pretty good at that point in time, but even so, it was only slowly expanding, not doubling in size for every HQS graduate.
Most of us were reluctant to disseminate for various reasons named in this excellent posting. My reluctance came from what I observed when I took the Comm Course at a mission that tended to handle it’s public with kid gloves. One evening, a woman who was taking this course came in late and was sent to ‘ethics’ as a result. She was late because her bus was late. Apparently this was her fault and she was routed to the ethics officer to make sure that it didn’t happen again. It didn’t happen again because she was smart enough not to come back. I wasn’t. When I started the HQS course, one of the first things I read was KSW. I didn’t want anyone I knew, who was not a scientologist, to know that I was accepting what was written in that policy letter. I wasn’t smart enough to bail right then and there, the hook had already been set.
That’s perhaps true for the scientology some years before LRH died – or left to hide himself from criminal and tax justice. True, when scientology was not so expansive, not always asking more money and more FSMing, FSMs kept FSMing for years, even while on Clear or OT steps.
LRH made a complete fool of himself the day he started to say that devaluation had to be compensated, increasing prices of services at 1421% a year, and materials at 230% a year (these are the real figures at 5% a month or 10% a month).
Yes Roger, that was in 77. Services became out of reach. And the GO was a forunner of RTC.
I knew french scientologists, for them you were a kind of monster, member of ADFI with Tavernier (is she still alive?).
I also remember you being a Mission holder. You certainly FSMed much more people to scientology than the great majority of sceintologists, and they might be still in!
Tell me, that you are an ennemy of the church is one thing, but do you have abandonned any belief in the tech, or do you still think some concept as scientologists.
What I learned on academy levels I still think it makes sense.
But when you got your mission closed by those dogs of RTC, must have been quite an upset. And then, it sort of opened your eyes I imagine. Difficult to be half in and half out…
Actually, for a price increase compounded monthly, these are the figures:
+5% per month: (1.05^12) = 1.80
This is +80% per year
+10% per month: (1.10^12) = 3.14
This is +214% per year
This error notwithstanding, I agree that the +5% per month increase carried on for years on end was patently ridiculous, at least regarding its purported purpose. While there was high inflation at the time, I don’t think any even vaguely credible source would put the number anywhere close to +80% per year. Even if the price increase was also intended as a correction for previous devaluation, it should have been ended much sooner.
Of course, I join many others in suspecting ulterior motives: increasing advance payments, charging as much as the market would bear, and increasing members’ loyalty (due to the greater required commitment to remain in).
I was subjected to that 5% cost per month in the very early 80s. And being a cheap Scotsman, I was not a happy camper. I got away with spending “only” $6,000. And I’m still a bit pissed that I handed it over…
I know that feeling, OSD. I earned Silver Status for donations to Ideal Orgs, not much money by any account but today I’m still p^*ssed off that I gave it!
I soon afterwards, though, made up my mind to never do that again and didn’t. But still, I’d like that money back! 🙁
Hi Andy, Gorgeous photographs and wonderful comment.Loved the Tom C line! So True! xo
In South Africa this became a polished scam. In a country with huge unemployment, all you had to do was go out in a truck and pick up people off the street by offering them free snacks and a free course, which they could use to pad up their CV (ha ha!) to maybe get employment one day. My wife used to deliver these PE courses and verified the vast majority of them could not so much as speak English and were there just for the snacks. It was also pretty disillusioning for the people who thought theyw ere being helped. Warren Brockmann and Ciaran Ryan were awarded Power FSM several times for this scam, not not a scientologist made. As you can expect, quite a few unemployed joined both staff and the SO, thinking they were getting bona fide jobs. They were of course also never to be seen again.
It probably still goes on. Warren Brockmann and Ciaran Ryan (“OT VIII”) were in another scam together, a Ponzi scam, and ripped off innocent people of their life savings. Those scientologists who were ripped off were asked by “Ethics” to forgive and forget!
One was a single Mom that I knew had sold her house and wanted the money invested for her children’s tertiary education. She never saw a penny back and in fact, got into trouble with ethics because she was making a fuss! One could ask why she was so stupid but her answer was that she never suspected it of an OT VIII. If you can’t trust an “OT VIII”, who can you trust?
I too came up in a Mission. A few to be exact. What I saw was that the VAST majority of people brought in just didn’t like scamology. Based on the highest numbers in the church at any time, in a country this size, that conclusion seems to hold true. NOT, that better handling wouldn’t have kept a few more in but it wouldn’t have been anything significant.
As a person who worked as both the Treasury Sec and the Dissemination Sec for the FSO, I’ll need to take the time at some point to explain the whole FSM scam from all its angles. Only Scientology could evolve such a cluster f#@*.
Please do.
Please do, Matt. We’d love to read it.
Wow Mat. that would be quite the story. I’m cringing already but fascinated none the less. Organised misery is a good term for the Scientology Organisation and Flag sits at the top of the heap.
I think an additional factor that plays into the notion that only newer people disseminate is that they haven’t had a chance to run out of money, so spiritual freedom doesn’t sound like a far-off and expensive endeavor.
Additionally, as the lower levels of Scientology do have some workability (due to Hubbard smashing together already successful ideas), those at the bottom rungs of the Bridge/Life Improvement Courses are more likely to have wins, particularly tangible ones. As one proceeds up the Bridge, contrary to Scientology propaganda spouting epic-er wins the higher up the Bridge one is, the wins actually get more strained, less easy to describe/perceive and fewer feel them. This leads to increasing amounts of disappointment the higher up one goes, particularly with all the hype over the OT levels and their promises of superpowers
So, Dave continues to perfect the Hamster Wheel of Retreads. With enough Kool-Aid they think that they are going over a Bridge or climbing a ladder or something . . . Scientology: ‘Aren’t those the people who listen to a bunch of mumbo-jumbo and double-talk and are led on-and-on endlessly?’
Nezquik: I like both your points.
Thanks, Andy.
Another example of cognitive dissonance at work.
Excellent, Andy Porter.