They have made a big deal about how Orlando is an “ideal org”, it is also clear that it would not have happened without the Flag OT Committee. They did the fundraising. They did the files. They recruited staff. Orlando would not be ideal were it not subsidized by Flag.
But now we find out the org is actually MANNED by Sea Org members from Flag!
More of the ruse of “ideal orgs” on display. Scientology pretends they are in response to “public demand” and “curiosity” about scientology, which is “rapidly expanding” in [fill in blank]…
The truth is that these orgs don’t have enough public to make them viable in their old, small buildings, and even less in their new ones. They cannot recruit staff so they are sent from other cities or countries or even Sea Org members. Remember, the Flag OT Committee set up “staff berthing” to house the “new staff” they brought in from Eastern Europe when they were “manning” Orlando.
Love to swing by and check out the state of that “staff housing” today…
Everything about scientology is a false front.
HI Peacemaker, yes the Masonic building on Delmar right before you get to the UCity Loop. I have never driven by at night or early in the morning and I’m curious as to how many cars I would see.
Love the photo shoots.
Hands on hips………….appeals to the younger Scn demographic maybe ?
With fewer & fewer second generation recruits Scn management will stagnate
This follows on other reports of at least some Sea Org staffing at local orgs, like Valley. I’ve thought that is one of the end-times scenarios that might play out, where the big idle morgues end up relying on SO to man a few key positions and otherwise staffing dwindles to what is essentially a skeleton crew.
I keep hoping for one or more recent defectors who come forward and provide some detailed accounts of what goes on inside orgs these days, and at higher levels of Scientology as well.
* wa-wa-wa-waaaaaahn * <–Theme song of scientology ventures, such as this fiasco.
Those Flag S.O. staff now at Orlando were probably RPF’d at Flag for some unbelievable reason and then told that they were being given a 2nd chance by being sent instead to Orlando where they could prove that they could make things go right.
AnEX
Where is staff housing, typically? Who pays for it?
Just guessing. But I figure that if there is no staff housing, the cult will save lots of money on staff housing. All that money could then be used to line the pockets of the Poop who heads the scam.
“Where is staff housing, typically?”
Answer: Wherever it can be found. Mostly with org public who have a bedroom they can stay in, (theoretically ) in exchange for some kind of nominal rent or services, but when all is said and done, practically speaking, for free.
I speak from much experience 🙂
When I went UTR and began easing on down the road out of Scientology, I also downsized to a smaller home.
For cult staff working 60 hours a week for $20 paychecks there is no longer a spare bedroom.
But I have an attic they can hang upside down in.
*** love that last line.
<3
Well, hopefully more and more ins will raise their own personal, private white flag and just get the heck out before they miss out on any more time with the people who love and miss them.
(When they run out of sea org members will the cult have to make it a paid position to get more bodies?)
I’ve seen at least one account of a security contractor manning the door at an org in California, and directing people to the video kiosks. That may be the wave of the future to deal with the outside world, and then they just need a mix of a few Sea Org, staffers, part-timers or volunteers to maintain some semblance or pretense of operations, and keep the buildings open.
So PeaceMaker, I have to wonder just how much staff the cult actually has. I wonder how many are imports. Since the big donors don’t seem to care it’s easy for DM to just show them pictures of anything so why not just show pictures out of a home improvement magazine?
Peggy, the orgs seem to claim about 2 to 4 dozen staff, but I can’t find information or get answers about how many of those are just part-timers or volunteers these days. Plus many of the full-timers are essentially volunteers, “moonlighting” at real jobs that pay the bills and then nominally working for Scientology at what is really a second job.
Whatever is going on, the orgs still seem bizarrely overstaffed even if it’s just half a dozen to a dozen full-time equivalents – there must be an enormous amount of paperwork and other bureaucratic or authoritarian make-work (and they don’t even keep up with the infamous Central Files). Orgs’ active membership seems to average well under a hundred, and normal churches average about 1 minister and 1 staff person per 100 parishioners.
I pity those poor staff now. No income no students. Empty building bitching at each other. Writing KRs on each other. No time off so exhausted as well. But hey this is the best religion in the world that raises ARC NOT!!
I used to pity them. A lot. When I was in I housed them, mostly for nothing. There was almost always a staff member living with me, mostly for no exchange.
I don’t pity them anymore, not in the least.
The ones who had/have any brains, any powers of observation, and any ability to confront the truth, leave staff.
The ones who don’t have any or all of the above, stay. Their choice. They’re stupid, purposely blind and extremely stubborn, or they’d see exactly what we see, what anyone who is even halfway paying attention clearly sees.
But its obvious to me that they DO see – its impossible not to – so add cowardly to their other contemptible qualities.
What’s to respect?
I’ll respect them when they grow up mentally and emotionally, confront the truth, and leave.
Many of YOU did. Why can’t they?
I don’t include myself because I had no family or loved ones in the cult, nor did my business ever depend upon cult members, thank God. Nor was I staff or SO. So I wasn’t that brave for leaving. The cult had no leverage on me. For me it took a few years of being UTR to extricate myself but there was very little if any emotional pain and no financial loss whatsoever.
So again, with no false modesty, I don’t consider my leaving the cult one of the brave things that I’ve done in my life.
But many of you, here, and elsewhere – wow. Double, triple and a thousand times, Wow. I know each of your stories, what you risked, what you gave up in order to remain true to yourselves. Your honesty, your strength. Your courage!
Respect! ENORMOUS respect!
Point being, what you confronted, they can confront. What you decided, they can decide.
WHAT YOU DID, THEY CAN DO.
Sorry to shout. But let’s stop making excuses for them, shall we? There’s nothing they have to deal with that YOU didn’t have to deal with!
The truth is out there, all around them. And thanks to Mike and Leah and Tony and all those who help them, the truth keeps pouring out!
Let these still ins LOOK at it, process it, DEAL with it. Let them take responsibility for their own bad decisions and create new lives for themselves, as YOU did.
Or, let them not confront, go on denying, GO ON being victims, GO ON losing, GO ON suffering. \
Their choice.
Aqua, interesting – so public sometimes further subsidize orgs by providing free staff housing. Did you also help feed them, or cover other expenses?
The org – and its staff – would of course been all over your case if you had been “out exchange” with them in any way. But Hubbard and Scientology never seemed to stand on principle about such things, as long as it went their way.
The orgs and missions probably really only exist at this point due to the effective subsidy of staff who are working for less than it actually costs them to live, and the various ways public members are called on to subsidize operations including, from reports, at times covering overdue phone bills and rent. They also burden society with a lot of costs, from all the bankruptcies, to career staff who will eventually end up using public services for the elderly due to having not built up any retirement – way “out exchange,” but of course again to Scientology’s benefit.
You seem like a very decent person who they unfortunately took advantage of.
Thanks, Peacemaker.
When I was in I resented the Sea Org but felt tremendous sympathy for the staff, whom I considered unappreciated and abused by the Sea Org, as well as, of course overworked and grossly underpaid.
Mostly I felt that housing them for a pittance or for no financial compensation at all was putting IN my exchange with them.
That’s how I felt THEN – that Class V org staff were being taken gross advantage of,
And, of course there was guilt baked into this – MY guilt – because I never signed a staff contract. ‘
I KNEW I would NEVER make it on staff. There was no doubt in my mind, ever, that I could or would succeed on staff, working those hours and then having to moonlight to actually support myself…no way.
Twice I came close to signing a staff contract and twice I backed away. So I felt guilt about that, but not enough guilt to make me sign.
Long story short, housing one staff person or another in my home was my way of (I thought) putting in MY exchange with the staff.
And as for the Sea Org, there was NOOO way I would have ever, ever in a zillion years signed that contract, mostly because, when I was in, I couldn’t stand them (most of them – there were a few that I met that I liked.)
My antipathy to most Sea Org members (on the tone scale it could be pegged as Unexpressed Resentment) was rooted in IGNORANCE – near complete ignorance of how they REALLY lived and what they were actually enduring.
I had no clue. I just thought they were obnoxious personalities (Just naturally obnoxious) who skated by getting fed and clothed and housed while at the same time via their superior rank being permitted to lord it over and otherwise make miserable the hardworking Cl V org staff. My sympathy was ALL with the org staff!
That was my totally skewed view of the SO back in the day!
And I felt guilt about THAT, i.e., disliking them so much. Resenting them was not something that could be expressed! NO ONE went around saying what I was thinking nearly always, which was, “These people REALLY get on my nerves! They are SO annoying! If ONLY they would just…GO AWAY, and let the staff and public get on with things!”…No one, except me, I believed, thought these things. Certainly no one SAID these things!
Anyway, to summarize: compassion for the org staff, and the accompanying guilt about that + dislike of the Sea Org and the accompanying guilt about THAT added up to one staff member or another usually in residence a chez moi 🙂
Aqua,
Well said!
In hindsight, joining staff was the decision that cranked my cognitive dissonance to maximum tension, obliterated my naiveté, and cranked up the volume of my doubts, questions, and frustrations to a deafening roar.
The year and two months I was a staff member occurred at the tail end of an almost 4 year period of relentless stress and numerous catastrophes, all rooted in my culty delusion. Experiencing the insanity, mendacity, and ruthless manipulation that formed the SOP of “the most ethical group on the planet” on a daily basis finally snapped me out of my scientology sleep-walk. It had to get bad enough, uncomfortable enough, unbearable enough…before I could literally walk away from it, step out of the mind fuck matrix, and question it while physically removing myself from my “staff post”. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made, period. I was soooo pissed off on my last day at the org, and that anger informed my decision to say,” Enough, I can’t do this anymore!” That decision morphed into ” I WON’T do this anymore ” within a few weeks. I went back once to do a half-hearted “O/W write-up”. After more reading and reflecting, I realized that I had to reclaim my self, my life, my privacy, my sanity, my dignity, and my autonomy, and that involved educating myself about the unexamined assumptions, beliefs, and practices that I had bought into. I knew that process did NOT involve returning to ANY scientology group or organization…or any other high-control, woo-based group. Armed with Singer’s and Lifton’s criteria for thought reform, I began my long slog out of the swamp of undue influence, out of the spiritual rape of scientology(it’s an ongoing process, 8 & 1/2 years later)…
You are right: there comes a time when those still in that mire have to actually LOOK at what’s right in front of them. It’s a choice. The factual information about the “church’s” real history(almost 70 years’ worth), its real actions, its real “stats”, is readily available; it just takes a bit of courage and fortitude to, in scientological parlance, actually “apply the doubt formula”. In fact…that is what I would urge any lurker or OSA-bot reading this blog to do: be “self-determined” and actually look at court records, 501(c)(3) tax returns of scientology organizations, online information about David Miscavige’s net worth, and “obnosis” of the viability of scientology orgs, among many other points, and compare what you discover in your independent search to what church publications, organizations, and staff tell you. If the church is actually expanding at the rate COB claims it is, if Clears and OT’s and scientology “fourth dynamic campaigns” are actually “impinging” upon society as claimed, then the corroborating evidence of said should be easily found, copious in quantity, and breath-takingly impressive. You can share it with your fellow scientologists and carry on with COMPLETE CONFIDENCE, knowing that, indeed, ” planetary clearing is just around tge corner…
RIGHT? So…Look. Go ahead. And may you never be the same…
Mark, thank you for sharing your staff experiences and state of mind. You were not just a public, like me. You were STAFF. You had a great deal “invested” in being right about being on staff. And you probably got tons of corroboration from other staff members about how “right” it was for you to be on staff. And yet – and yet, you still got up the courage to LOOK. And to apply the Doubt Formula to what you saw! As a staff member, facing all that disapproval. Yet you saw the stats and they didn’t tally with the rightness of it all, the stunning LACK of observable “impingingness” (lol) on society at large. So you applied Doubt (in itself almost a crime, don’t you know, to be in DOUBT? Oh, my!) and got yourself OUT. Its a big deal when you’ve invested so much time and effort, to cut your losses and say, “Enough” and yet you did it! You refused to live a lie. You sought to live with the truth! You actually – and this is very funny to me – you actually APPLIED Scientology, to the existing scene, and ironically, the correct application of Hubbard’s principles got you the HELL OUT OF THERE! Ah, the irony! 🙂 🙂 And the truth is, all ANY of the still ins, be they staff or SO or public need to do is simply apply Hubbard’s own tech to what is right in front of their eyes, and they will have no choice but to leave! Funny, no?
Yes, it is funny! As much as I detest Hubbard and his dreck now, at that point I latched on to that piece of the dreck(doubt formula) that ultimately severed, ” terminatedly “, my attachment to and belief in it. The way you framed the situation, in scientological terms, is perfect for those still in that group.
Using their language(and being “pan-determined”), I would calmly suggest that they do “obnosis drills” and rigorously apply the “doubt formula”to themselves, the group, its organizations, and its leader. Because scientology policies consist of lies, bait-and-switch, and confusion-generating contradictions, you can ALWAYS,ALWAYS,ALWAYS find a policy, concept, or axiom that JUSTIFIES questioning the status quo; some random examples come to mind: more communication, not less, solves problems; communication is the universal solvent; ARC and KRC triangles; the code of a scientologist; the policy on manners; the doubt formula; the church’s endorsement of the UN human rights declaration…and on and on, ad nauseam. The trick is to persist with looking and questioning, which grates against the scientological conditioning and programming and hypnosis and group pressure that keeps its members from thinking clearly and analytically. It’s, minimally, a tricky and uncomfortable endeavor for those still in…
Right back at you with EVERYTHING you said, Mark,! In part and in particular, “The trick is to persist with looking and questioning…” NOTHING the cult has in its arsenal of make wrong can stand up to that – nothing! The cult is on VERY shaky ground with ANY Still In who is ready, willing and able to “Obnose”! And boy oh boy, does the cult ever know and fear this! Once again, kudos to you, Mark. Your win is a win for all of us here and elsewhere who “seek to live with the truth”. UTRs excepting, and too bad if it sounds immodest, and as flawed as we as individuals and as a group may be in any number of ways, we are still head and shoulders above those Still In who content themselves with merely giving lip service to living with the truth when in fact they are deliberately and continually turning a blind eye to it. They talk a good game; we LIVE it. “Seek to live with the truth” eh? They talk the talk; WE walk the walk!
With regarding yesterday’s post – Bait and Switch
I am an SP and I live in St Louis, Missouri. We have an empty Org here, which I used to support. So many are leaving St Louis Org looking for spiritual freedom elsewhere like Clearwater. They bilked the field for millions for over a decade and are now secretly selling the Ideal Org on Lafayette. Many members went broke because they just had to have that property. The field is ARCX, to say the least.
A few years ago, an anonymous SP sent out a flyer to everyone at the Org that showed ( the actual brochure produced by the Church of Scientology) on 1/2 of the flyer and a copy of the Sea Org Billion year contract on the other. It was entitled Bait and Switch.
I must say – that impinged. It contributed to the already built up doubt I had for years. I was prompted to look at the internet to see what the church of Scientology did not want me to see. I also watched every documentary and read every book written by ex members. That flyer hit me like a hammer and cracked my delusional bubble of implants and false data – compliments by L Ron Hubbard’s mind control trickery.
I found out others received the same brochure and staff told me ” the SP’s are howling due to the most recent expansion”.
The St Louis Org is shrinking and has been circling the drain for years. I just heard last week that another auditor left staff, Eve Hanses. She is working at a marketing company run by her brother, Matt Hanses. I thought that was a high crime to pull people off of staff for their own businesses. What is Matt Hanses doing moon lighting anyway? He is on staff.
If you want to get people out – send them the truth. LRH says – IMPINGE. He was right. Impinge with the truth.
Wow, that is awesome knews Midwest SP. I knew Eve from Flag – we were OOT’s. I am happy she left staff. It is only a matter of time before she runs into the truth and blows for good, if she is not constantly getting lied to daily by Scientology. She was at Flag for many years and then had to go back to Flag get regraded on the training. She is OT VII last I heard. She is also divorced once, on her 2nd marriage to a Scientology, Ollie Rodriguez. He is also an OT. I know him and his family, I hope they both leave for good.
Midwest SP,
I drive by the mission once a month. There are less cars in the parking lot since I started doing this 3+ years ago. Basically the building and parking lot are in dissrepair. Unlike the orgs there are no cameras. There must be some members living there. It must be on its last leg.
Gordon, you are right, it is shrinking down to nothing. Thanks for giving the update. You made my needle float! lol 🙂
Gordon, do you mean the St. Louis org, that is in an old Masonic building? It may only actually be mission-sized, but it’s technically a “church” org.
Scientology seems to have long prohibited the 60s-era practice of staff living on the premises, but I wouldn’t be surprised if desperate staff are now getting away with it.
Dear Midwest SP,
I lived in the Lou for about 11 & 1/2 years, before I got involved in scientology. I am very happy to hear that you got out of the cult and that the “church” is circling the drain there. Wishing you and yours a much happier post-cult life!
Cheers!👍🏽✌🏾❤
Dear Mark – THANK YOU!! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I love being a WOG!
Happy holidays, Midwest SP😁
Just a little heads-up about that word:
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/wog
$cientology is just another E ticket to a fantasy land. But without the lucrative toy tie in or the vomit inducing rides. If you want to binge and purge, you have to go to Clearwater.
I wonder how many of the Orlando staff are US citizens? I also wonder how many of the Orlando public are being hit up to services at Tampa or Miami or even Clearwater. Nothing like being hit up by 3 mOrgs reges and all of their ‘briefings’ or ‘conferences’ or ‘Winter Wonderlands’?
It is amazing that these Sea Org members in Scientology watch a totally drunken Miscavige run the show. Perhaps drinking Jack Daniels in our modern day society is seen as a good thing. To my knowledge Hubbard did not write anything that said that the COB had to be sober. But even if this is the case, at least one person should see that Miscavige is nothing but a homeless drunk who deserves to be tossed into the street. If I was still in Scientology, I would wait for him to pass out drunk and then eliminate him from the job.
‘It is amazing that these Sea Org members in Scientology watch a totally drunken Miscavige run the show.’
Is this true? Is he noticeably Drunk, Often, and Witnessed? Because if this Is true, there are two Positive sides to this coin:
1. The pressure is obviously getting to him.
2. If the Law doesn’t get him, chirosis Will !
Jack Daniels? I thought his poison of choice is Macallans – yes/no?
I spoke to a few people about this and it was confirmed. It is known that he drank at the Hemet base and had some one hide the empty bottles. Typical stunt of an alcoholic. It also has been reported on this blog in a recent posting that he is drinking heavily. Without help from AA, I don’t see how he is going to get any better. This alcoholism is probably his greatest flaw and should lead to his downfall. I don’t know if he drinks with Tom Cruise but I would not doubt it.
“Without help from AA.” That sure gave me a chuckle.
“Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”
“Live and let live.”
“Easy does it.”
“Accept the things I cannot change….”
Not exactly Miscavige’s style. But who knows? He hasn’t hit his bottom yet, like all of us in recovery had to – and Tom Cruise is certainly not going to help him hit it.
Amen.
His skin looks really tough. Leathery. Alcohol ages skin that way.
“Leathery. Alcohol ages skin that way.”
It does. He also sports a perpetual tan so its likely he’s a tanning bed enthusiast as well. Not good for the skin, those daily UV rays. Very likely the alcohol and cigarettes he consumes kill his appetite and keep him for gaining weight. All vanity. If he didn’t die his hair blonde and keep up his tan he’d look like the pale, grey haired, wizened little old alcoholic that he actually is. And if he kicked alcohol and cigarettes, his appetite would come back and he’d be starved as a wolf, stuffing himself with sweet and starchy carbs to compensate and put on 30 pounds in no time.
Adrenaline exhaustion will do that to you. Ask Kirstie Alley when she kicked cocaine. Blimp Time.
Edit: “keep him FROM gaining weight…DYE (not “die”) his hair.” Oooh, I miss my edit button 🙂
I wish I could find a way to shake people up against this cult. I would also like to see the IRS take their religious status away from them. I would also like to see the empty buildings used for homeless.
Mary, what I do is put my hands behind my back and have the person guess how many fingers are up.
BTW, I can levitate my legs & arms, too!
OSD,
I do that too. I hold a middle finger up on each hand behind my back so once the idiot takes a guess I can reveal the “real message” behind me. 🙂 Always a good laugh, well at least for me.
Boy, that’s really amazing!
How good it is to be free from this madness !
Joyeux Noel or Happy Holidays to all. However sad it is to miss family still in , like my 2 sisters , I am grateful to be on the outside looking in.
Thank you Mike.
Merry Christmas! Hoping your family will join you in the near future. So glad you are free of it.
But, but, but, what happened to the “arms-crossed-in-front-of-the-chest” pose? I’ll give them this, they DO have the Scientology smirk down pat!
Some of them, like Nicole in the flyer, have been going for the hands-on-hips Mussolini look lately
🙂
Whoa! Those Sea Orgers look like they’re waiting for their next victim to rip open with a flint knife and offer their still beting heart to ‘Hubbardopochtli’. Scary looking people.
They will now have to fly in foreign cult members to pretend to take services from the imported cult staff members… Hmm, doesn’t seem to be a workable financial model…
Wynsky opined:
“Hmm, doesn’t seem to be a workable financial model”
who needs a “workable financial model” when NOTHING else about the organization works? As long as Davey-boy gets his megabucks of “donations” (extorted by the Regges by fair or foul means), he’ll not care. With what he has in “Sea Org Reserves”, he can keep the pretexts up for at least the rest of his miserable, little, alcohol-addled life.