This is a report about the “ideal org” in David Miscavige’s hometown of Philadelphia. A Special Correspondent took some photos of the “new” building and also visited the existing org. He reports a sad scene.
These shots are of the “ideal org.” It was bought a decade or so ago and sits empty and graffiti covered.
What a complete waste. What an utter failure this program is — for everything except Miscavige’s “PR.” There are buildings like this in Detroit, Chicago, New Haven, Kansas City, St Louis, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Bulawayo, Cape Town, Birmingham, Sunderland, Plymouth, Montreal and I am sure in other cities that I cannot be bothered to look up. They were announced with great fanfare and CGI “fly through” videos years ago. And nothing happens. Harlem has been featured in about 4 events now — and it is still not done and open.
And here is his report from the existing org:
I also went by the current org, and feel kind of sad.
There were two older people visible: a woman outside smoking and a man who was so surprised I walked in that he didn’t even know how to greet me.
He asked if I knew anything about CoS and I said not much, I was just walking by. He asked if I wanted to see a short movie about them and I said no, I heard they always ask for money and make you disconnect for people you disagree with and I didn’t want to get involved in a group where I’d have to stop talking to my family if they disagreed with me. He laughed very nervously and said they have some courses and he is the director of extension courses there.
There is very little foot traffic in that location – I sat for 10 minutes at 9:30 am and saw 20 people total walk by, all of them appeared to be on their way to or from a local parking lot. There aren’t any stores on the block, just a big parking lot, some office buildings and the org.
I felt so sad when I left, just so sorry for them I didn’t have the heart to ask them any difficult questions.
The Ideal Org Program is a failure with respect to generating any expansion of scientology. It has also made it impossible for any EXISTING org to expand. They have been told repeatedly they cannot expand UNLESS they are ideal. So a tiny, failing org like Philadelphia just continues to shrink. While they have a large new building a few blocks away, they have no chance, not even any hope, of getting into it. They could not raise the $10 million that will be required to install the marble, custom furniture, high end AV equipment and Warehouse 8 meters in a thousand years. Eventually Miscavige is going to have to pay for the renovations to be done (it’s no problem really, he will just spend the money and get the building reappraised and keep his total reserves stat up) and then he will show up in his custom suit, yank the ribbon with 20 cameras rolling and turn it into another “Ideal Org Grand Opening Video” which will be “proof” of the massive international expansion of scientology. The org of course will remain completely empty and unable to pay its utility bills like all the other “ideal orgs” around the world.
Scientology – the world’s coolest cult.
What are you doing Mike? Dave is going to make it Ideal as a Fuck you.
That’s OK – an ideal org is an empty org.
True.
The fundraising site for the Philadelphia Ideal Org, complete with donor listing, is online at http://www.philadelphiaideal DOTorg; while the rest of the site has not been updated since 2012, periodically, donor names have dropped off this list over the years. Perhaps people here will recognize some of the names, and whether they are still in or not.
And the city was in a position to fine Scientology and take them to blight court in 2013, but this seems to have stalled since the news was announced.
In the meantime, this property is still tax-free.
Their exemption was revoked in 2017 and now they are fighting it in the court of common pleas. The residents of Philadelphia…the tax payers who essentially footed that bill for 7+ years should file a class action lawsuit against Scientology….
Mountain View is another one that’s dropped off the list.Many years ago, they moved to a location (Easy Street) that seemed far better than their previous one, but it wasn’t ‘ideal’, so they had to almost immediately start looking for a new building.
It seems that two adjacent buildings were purchased in 2008, but they never were able to raise enough money to open it. And now it looks like they are no longer at the Easy Street location, either. It’s listed as ‘permanently closed’ on google maps and scientology.org website lists their address as 3226 Scott Blvd, Santa Clara, CA 95054 — which is a decidedly non-ideal older office building they share with a Mr. Copy and some other businesses.
I guess they’re still in their old digs at 1315 Race St.? They shoulda bought the Duke Building! I hear the Philadelphia brokerage firm of Duke & Duke was driven out of business some 33 years ago by Louis Winthorp III and Billy Ray Valentine (with the assistance of Winthorp’s butler, Coleman). That building would suit the cherch well!
Florida orange futures…perhaps they need to Clear…water and plant those trees there…
No money to pay the heating: Scientology the coldest religion (in winter) or the hottest (in summer)
Thanks for this very good piece, Mike. It really has gotten to me.
This reminds me of the story the Village Voice carried a few years back by one Tony Ortega (he was later fired for something having to do with scientology altar boys, if I recall the Freedom mag article correctly, and is now a bitter unemployed nobody on Skid Row that no one will listen to).
The article, “The Top 25 People Crippling Scientology” rated the people who are doing just that. While Mike Rinder came in at a respectable #8, #2 was one David Miscavige (#1 was LRH himself as he’s number #1 at anything he does or says).
I was unaware of one of #2’s most devious devices dismantling the, er, church. So the orgs don’t get to grow until they are ideal? That one was news to me. But it makes perfect sense: Shrink the base of your marks and shrink the base of your donors. That way you’re all but certain to have an empty ideal org on your hands in the unlikely event that it ever opens.
Of course, in this brilliant plan, time is #2’s friend. The longer you wait, the more entheta will be spread to make sure that no one will want to go there anyway. And the more your locals will be thrilled about the urban blight that you helped to create for a decade or two.
He’s a #2 all right.
And an empty org with no customers means the building can be conveniently sold at a pure profit, without having to worry about a lot of troublesome PC’s and students who are receiving services. There’s no way that David Miscavige loses monetarily with the Ideal Org program, while he’s decimating Scientology and keeping the staff mired in loss and despair. Oh, and causing the staff who leave to feel tremendously guilty, for “lettingdown the group”. – lets not forget that key element of COB’s Ideal Scene. A real win-win on every dynamic for this sociopath.
The Affluence Attainment Formula includes “doing what worked before, not new things untried.” In the 70’s quite a few orgs and missions had 200 students on metered auditor training. What worked for them to get to that size wasn’t anything remotely resembling the Ideal Org strategy. All the large orgs and missions started very small, with just a handful of staff operating in tiny, inexpensive quarters. They had good tech delivery, at affordable prices, from Saint Hill trained Class 6 Clears and above, who actually cared about helping people, and who weren’t distracted and impeded by a huge management bureaucracy. Miscavige’s Ideal Org strategy is a “new thing untried” and “having to have before you can do.” Wrong why. Add to that the fact that he altered the tech to be even worse than “not quite with Ron,” and the result has been “the public staying away in droves” exactly as LRH said would happen.
Beautiful comment, My 2. What you’ve described is what got me in and, for a while, kept me in. I never cared about the MEST. It was the people who reached out and were interested in me and my problems! AND I got help, and it worked. That was the miracle for me – caring people, and real help! That was my experience for many years. I didn’t even care about the lack of toilet paper. I’d just bring my own when I went on course 🙂
A Little Puddy, A Little Paint will make it what it Ain’t
I am a never-in. I have commented a couple of times here. Again, I want to say how much I admire all of you….how much strength and bravery that it took to leave the only life you ever knew behind. It takes guts!!!!!
I have a question this time….maybe one of you can answer, or give me your best guess….
Do you think that Miscavige realizes that the noose is getting tighter and tighter? That one day he will have to answer for his crimes? He reminds me of Bernie Madoff…and we all know how that turned out for him. Does the thought even cross his mind? It’s all gonna end one day?
Appreciate your comments.
Thank You.
Just an opinion but david miscavige is of the mental mindset where he is unable to look at his own transgressions or failings. I think he will fall but it may be with him sipping his favorite scotch in a country with no extradition treaty.
Over The Bridge: It’s kind of hard to figure out the mind of an individual who acts and struts like a psychopath, who physically and mentally abuses his underlings, who states/believes that only HE can do anything, can accomplish anything. One thing I’m sure of is that he has built his getaway long ago and has stashed very significant monies in a variety of places, countries, banks, etc. There will be gold and silver also secreted and a very few semi-trusted individuals who will be well enough paid to help him disappear.
However, the world has changed dramatically since he was born and he appears to be blind to the changes. “Hiding” is going to become extremely difficult, no matter the country or supposed laws. Those who are “protecting” him will demand more and more and he will be helpless to do anything about it. If the money he has is sufficiently large, there will be those, totally unknown to him, will track him down to get at that money. People hires to protect him will know his fortunes, too, and at least some of them will willing to torture or kill him to get at his fortune. There will be no Constitution or Bill of Rights to any longer protect him.
I do not envy him his future lot in life.
I’ll add to this by opining that he would probably kill himself before allowing himself to be exposed and humiliated in front of his sheeple and the world.
Dave,
YOU. ARE. A. JOKE.
If ideal orgs are expanding apparently a lot of the public at Denver arrive dressed as empty parking spaces.
Since they are all OTs, they don’t need a parking lot. They always find a spot on the street, right in front.
High bloody time they took off the pirate costumes!
Philly is just one of the non-existent mOrgs. Chicago, Albuquerque, and so many others are waiting for their ‘idea’; tv screens and marble floors. And most mOrgs are going to stay that way until the locals pony up and pay for it all.
That well appears to have dried up. The locals are dying or escaping in droves. There is nothing that the littlest führer can do about that, except open up the bank accounts and pay for it all. All for that 1 hour of a ribbon yanking that means nothing to anyone. Too bad no one can actually report on the number of active $cienos, that number must be one straight down and vertical expansion.
The best looking thing about that building is the graffiti. Tough luck, losers! Get the f’ out already.
All of this would be quite hilarious if weren’t for the fact that lives have been (and are being) destroyed. Anyone that is remotely connected to Dave’s “bright idea”, from Sea Org members, staff members, public Scnists – AND their families, are all adversely affected by this.
Individuals and families have squandered their future. Home ownership, debt-free, college educations, acceptable standard of living, proper healthcare – are sacrificed to finance Dave’s Folly.
Staff members, many who have dedicated their adult lives to staff service, are being horribly betrayed. There is no affluent future that awaits them.
Even those who are not Scnists, but are connected, are subject to the toxic effects. Simply criticizing this ludicrous plan is enough to get you on OSA’s shit list, and may result in family members disconnecting from you.
I used to laugh at the stupidity.
Now I just get mad.
You could always approach it from a get even standpoint Statpush. Remember all the good things you used to say about the cult? All the folks you disseminated to who you helped get in!
I am trying to 5x my stats in the other direction as part of my amends. I want to get 5x the number of folks out as I got in and say 5x more truthful things (although shockingly out ethics) about the activities of the cult that expose their lies.
And all the anger disappears when you play a game where everyone wins!
Yo Dave,
How about doing a SuMP interview with one of your Oh Tea Ate comps? Bring Clive …..
Excellent observation. It’s bad enough that the whales prop up the facade. When the average Scilons push their mortgages, 401K’s, college savings, and careers to the cult, the long term impact has real and unpleasant circumstances.
statpush, that’s not the only thing awaiting them. They’ll be getting little to no social security. My Mom mentioned this to me when she came over to Honolulu to check up on me. I of course, was drunk of Kool-Aid at the time. These old timers, still in, don’t stand a chance. Don’t know how they could possibly support themselves if they ever do leave. What a sad, sad situation….
Yeah, it rips your guts out when the reality of the Cof$ sinks in. I have no idea how to consul my step daughter and her blindsided family. They have zero reserves, no assets and are all aged well into the late 40s to the 70s. They work 6 days a week to pay off loans ($ for the Cof$) that are held against everything they own. It’s one thing to slam and criticize Scientology, it’s another completely to hold the hand of a crying girl when the realization of what has befallen their family becomes reality. Their future is catching up with them very quickly, like many others connected to the cult of depression. Oh my…
.
Yes, that is really something to be concerned about: how someone is going to be able to financially survive after leaving the group, and they are in their 40’s, 50’s or older. Not having paid much, if anything, into social security and unable to qualify for benefits, not having property or a home, and possibly not having marketable skills. I’m thinking that this may be a factor in their decision to remain in the group. Add to that, family members and friends still in, and you have another reason to stay, even after the desire to continue in Scientology is gone.
“Anyone that is remotely connected to Dave’s “bright idea”, from Sea Org members, staff members, public Scnists – AND their families, are all adversely affected by this. ” Include in this all the toxic aspects stemming from Hubbards insanity and you’ve pretty much nailed it. Connection to $cientology in it’s current form makes your stats and life crash.
See if I have this straight: The reasoning was that giving the money would result in expansion. Then, if the fundraising target is not met the people are made to feel bad for not making it go right. Or if they do achieve the fundraising then the parishioners are further made wrong for lack of expansion since no questioning of the Ideal Org strategy is permitted.
Without any oversight one can only imagine the amount of money that parishioners have given to this program, only to have the blame heaped on them when it fails. This really is a bad deed of magnitude.
Indeed! But, the bad seed was the precursor of the bad deed. We bad…….
You have it straight, Don_M. And you can’t make sense out of any of it because its insane. Many of us posting here, myself included, have been declared or officially/unofficially declared SPs for pointing out the total insanity of Miscavige’s Ideal Org Progam. To this day my mind gets blown that seemingly intelligent, trained staff and public have bought into this, believe that its a good thing, that it can work. Blows my mind, I tell you.
Feeling sorry for these losers in a hell of their own making is a mistake!
Speaking of feeling sorry…this just in from Clive Rabey, Deputy Commanding Officer of Flog, the Friendliest Cult Compound in the Hole Universe…..
” Dear All,
It has come to my attention that there needs to be more involvement from the OT VIIs and OT VIIIs in LA to get the entire LA field to the Maiden Voyage Events.
These events are MAJOR in terms of importance. And I do mean major. Each one announces the latest epic advancements of our religion and NO Scientologist should miss these events. I need you to take it upon yourself to make sure of that. The attendance needs to be way above highest ever so that all Scientologists get and can then forward this news.
I want you to know that a) you yourself will be attending the events — whether you were on the ship or not and b) that you’ve confirmed at least 10 people to go as well.
Write back and let me know.
Much Love,
Clive Rabey
D/CO Flag AO ”
Yo Clive,
All of your highest ever stats will have to be recovered using past track date and locate proceedure on the remaining geezers in your cult good buddy. The only stat that will continue an uptrend is the number of people speaking out about the atrocities that occur under your watch. Keep on keepin on Clive …… fleecin and floggin the tribe!
Gee, it sounds like Clive got some heat over poor attendance at recent, stupid events that no one in their right mind would want to attend. DM must have been pissed off! I wonder if he handed out a few slaps.
I’m so happy to know that there is obviously very poor attendance at these events. I’m dancing a jig!
Holy fucking shit! They need to get the entire L.A. field to the Fleecewinds? Well, that really shouldn’t be a problem. The L.A. Field has what, 300 or so public? Less? That’s a walk in the park to get that amount of people to the Flopwinds. However, being charged with rounding up 10 more per OT, well, that’s going to be a problem.
No, I think Clive meant that people in the LA area need to go to the Maiden Voyage events wherever it is there are being held in the LA area.
My first thought in reading Clive Rabey’s totally out of touch email:
“And just who do you think you are that you order these people around?”
“I am the monster”
“Yeah, I can see you are the monster”
Exchange between Inspector Kemp and the monster/Young Frankenstein
I second the Inspector’s obnosis. What a tool.
If your members aren’t going to events, it’s because they DON’T WANT TO GO TO THE EVENT. Maybe the COS should fix their events?
Dear Clive, I need to know that you will be at my house this Saturday at 6:00 with your 10 still-in, Kool Aid drinking friends to be briefed on the true state of affairs within the church. This event is MAJOR in terms of its importance and I do mean MAJOR. I promise that it will set you free. Write back and let me know who you will be bringing.
If he shows up he will likely have Sandy Dodwell and Bill Batchelor in tow to do some spot sec checks. I would love to have Bill ask me a few questions these days!
He doesn’t seam to see/know that his Religion is SHRINKING! They are not going to have actual HIGHEST EVERS EVER again unless it’s HIGHEST EVERS of people leaving but there may not be enough people left for that! Of course, he could just reset and simply forget about the last highest evers by declaring a new era. Era of Die Hard Loyalists!
Demento knows it’s shrinking and falling apart, he’s just making sure he hordes as much cash and property to take with him when it finally crashes and becomes like Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias”:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I always had the feeling that Shelly was writing about the rise and fall of Napoleon.
Yes, these EPIC videos from the Failwinds are being shown every Saturday night. Just what I want to be doing on my night off…
So, fuck off, Clive!
AGP, you show up in the darnedest places!
Pope, what you wish for others, you wish for yourself…
I hear you, AGP, and I can understand and agree with that viewpoint, but it can also be looked at this way: What is sadder than a person in a hell of his own making?
I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost…
I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in…it’s a habit
My eyes are open; I know where I am;
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V
I walk down another street.
….
that was by Portia Nelson.
I like to add a final chapter:
VI
I walk down the street.
I know there is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
that people have fallen in.
I want to help them get out.
and to warn others that there is a hole there.
*addendum by T.J.
Always nice to get some good news (and I MEAN that) before I get ready for bed here in SE Asia. In fact … it’s almost IDEAL news!
How do the “Ideal Orgs” pay their utilities? I am not asking a rhetorical question. I want to know if it is as Mike says that they can’t even pay utilities, then who does? (And I’lm not questioning Mike’s or the correspondent’s facts here. I just want to know.)
In some case, like reports from Berlin they shut off the phones and elevators. In most cases, they pay their utilities by stealing the staff pay allocation and then the “admin supplies” and “uniform cleaning” etc etc. Eventually they dwindle down to begging public to cover their basic expenses or trying to reg for IAS statuses or booksales to get the commissions to cover utilities.
That’s why there is a chronic low or no toilet paper condition Cindy.
Toliet paper is a WOG problem
The “no toilet paper condition” is accelerating the decline. The few new public that do walk in, smell poop, then run out. WAAUGN…..achoo!
It’s Catch 22. The more they can’t buy toilet paper, the more people will leave and the more they can’t buy toilet paper…
The low/no toilet paper was endemic to the NY Org back in the late 60s. (And they were in a long term power trend both D&F. It has apparently been the first victim of every org since then. LOL
It’s a universal situation. Durban org had no toilet paper, nor Johannesburg. I bet my head on a block that this goes for the rest of the country. Scientology is synonymous with no toilet paper. Scientologists don’t sh-t, they just absorb it day in and day out.
Well…toilet paper, hmm…in my experience there was always a dearth of toilet paper, going way back before Miscavige cooked up the Ideal Morgue Program.
OHHHH My GOD. I just read this. This is funnier’n Hell. It wasn’t just MY org that never had any damn toilet paper? hahaha. Of course! Why had I never thought of that one before – OF COURSE all the other poor starving orgs full of broke-we-all-share-shitty-apartments staff members wouldn’t have toilet paper!! Staff can’t afford to stock it from their own homes and FP was a joke.
Staff used to have secret stashes. If you worked in the tech area you kept that one bathroom stocked for the PCs. Hell, some PCs brought their own!
It would be super fun to get a roll call on which orgs suffered from the No Toilet Paper “engram”. haha.
Damn, what High Class problems we had to surmount to Clear this Big Ole Planet. Glad it’s done.
Mike, correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the city of Philadelphia suing the Church of Scientology for leaving the property dormant and unoccupied the way it is?
If the Launceston shop, sorry, cherch is any indicator what the sheepbots do then they rely on ambient lighting from outside and if it’s dark they turn one light on inside. Otherwise it’s a dark gloomy little dungeon manned (personned?) by 2 – 4 over 50’s.
Rigor mortis has set in. This Ideal Org ploy is obviously running its course, and I am very curious to see what ingenious plan miscavige comes up with next to try and keep the rotting smell out.
“Scientology – world’s coolest cult” is a way better t-shirt than “…world’s coolest religion.” I actually think that would be a better draw for the church. At least it would show it had a sense of humor.
““Scientology – world’s coolest cult” is a way better t-shirt than “…world’s coolest religion.” I actually think that would be a better draw for the church. At least it would show it had a sense of humor.”
That rings true for me. It would get smiles and be an ice breaker. “Coolest religion” is offensive to others and might still get a smile but it won’t be an ice breaker.
Sense of humor IP? You have got to be kidding.
Indeed.
Wait Wha….? Newcomer, you don’t think the Church of Scientology has a sense of humor? How about David Miscavige?
Oh, man, Mary! I wish I had thought of that! You are just so damn clever! “Scientology: The World’s Coolest Cult.” Or, maybe, “The World’s Kinkiest Cult. You da woman, Mary!
So true. So predictable.
Mike, you are a master of snark. lol
COB during the MV announced GAT3 (Golden Age of Tea shirts):
“Newly discovered advices from LRH state that if you have a tea shirt that says “Coolest Religion”you stay cool in summer after your electricity is turned of in the Ideal morgue.Now that’s what I call breaking barriers for planetary clearing on the right order of magnitude!”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Laugh at the craziness of it all, but cry for the people involved.
“…get the building reappraised” Does DM really have a WOG appraiser do an actual appraisal? I would think DiM’s word alone on the building’s new value would be good enough. Here is a tip DM if you need raise your total reserves stat just tell accounting to revalue some of your old ideal buildings. Tell’em the real estate market is improving or some other lie. It really doesn’t matter what, tget fear you too much to query you.
“Laugh at the craziness of it all, but cry for the people involved”.
I think that pretty much sums up the Co$.
What wonderful sentiments! I agree!
Yes, a cogent sum up. Thank God that Mike can make me laugh or I would indeed be crying at the sheer waste, the pointlessness of it all.
Yes, it is a FLUNK!
But Miscavige does not care; in fact all these Ideal Orgs’ plans are geared toward the destruction of the organizations themselves as so have Missions, FSMs, Field Auditors, Int Management and so on.
Miscavige is not interested in Scn growing, far less in having to work in taking care of it. His mind thinks in ‘destruction, total control and other macabre principles’.
All this is not an accident – he profits monetarily from them, he has something to show up at events and, because the blind indoctrinated few show him lots of admiration (which DM starves for) he will keep these Ideal Morgues going for as long as his followers remain applauding him.
Great comment, Silvia. I think you hit the nail on the head.
Yep, very good Silvia. The intention is destruction, which he has been doing for over 30 years. “The products of an Org are well taught students and thoroughly audited PCS.” All that has gone by the boards. He has also made the whole subject into a nasty snarling abomination with staff and public members constantly at each others’ throats, either to rip them off or to do them in in some way.
I have to say it again; this is SO sad. All true, and almost too sad to confront. The staff – my God! Its going to be rough for them, really rough, once the truth finally dawns on them.
That is indeed MY idea of an “ideal” org. Always pleased to hear news like this from my former stomping grounds.
I lived, schooled and worked in Philly for about 8 years. I was near the area where the active and blighted org are. I never heard a peep from them. I never knew they were there. I do not recall ever seeing their free personality test tables at any events, parades or street corners.
I’m glad that this project lost them the owner of LeBus! Good! More whales need to wake up!
Thanks! I keep saying I’m going to make a trip into town, but I loathe the drive. Maybe this summer or fall.