The big hype about “getting WTH into the hands of everyone in Sunland” is apparently not exactly that. Rather, it is sending out a “promo mailing” to addresses in Sunland.
The percentage of people that throw this sort of thing straight into the garbage is very high. I never open 99% of these sort of generic mailings and I am sure I am not in the minority.
But for the few who do — can you imagine the disappointment of finding out that the pitch for reducing homelessness and crime is to buy copies of the Hubbard WTH booklet?
Set aside the fact that the booklet is a childish rendition of “do’s and don’ts” — it does at least mention “Don’t do anything illegal.” While scientology claims that having people read this platitude has caused crime rates to plummet (never once verified), what the booklet doesn’t mention is anything about charity or homelessness.
Hubbard notoriously looked down his nose at the unemployed and homeless as “downstats” and “degraded beings” — and decreed that helping such people only encouraged them to continue their bad habits. Scientology has millions of square feet of empty or massively underutilized buildings. Never once have they offered them as shelters for the homeless. It is just not in the DNA of scientology as taught by Hubbard.
The idea that WTH is going to do anything about homelessness is even more absurd than it doing anything about crime.
Reduce Crime and Homelessness
Ban scientology
I would like to thank Mike and his blog for saving my life last week. I MEAN that LITERALLY, not figuratively.
4 years ago I made a comment that I would likely be dead soon.
Mike asked me what was I talking about.
I told him that I was supposed to get a pacemaker-defibulator for my heart but had no way to get to LA to get it.
Mike suggested that maybe some people from the blog could help me out.
I got about 200 dollars total; enough for gas to get to LA and get the pacemaker.
A week ago today, the ICD fired for the 1st time, delivering 900 Volts to my heart. It fired 20 times before my heart started again. When it finally stopped firing; for a moment I thought that I was dead.
The doctors have told me that without the Pacemaker-ICD,I would definitely been DEAD.
That you Mike and others for saving my life
Bill,
Wow, I’m kind of at a loss for words.
It’s incredible what can happen when people who actually care take the time to help others (unlike $cientology).
You must be so relieved and grateful. I cannot imagine how frightening that must’ve been for you. I’m very happy you’re still with us. Sending a cyber hug.
-Kat
Thank you, Kat; I appreciate that.
The Freewinds execs did more than just not help me out. They actively worked to sabotage my treatment when I had AIDS that I got from a blood transfusion in Curacao.
Color me not surprised. People like that care for nothing and no one but themselves and the bullshit they think they’re accomplishing.
To actively sabotage your condition is simply pure evil. I’m so very sorry you had to endure such vile behavior from disgusting human beings.
MIke, did Mary Sue show contrition and remorse when she did her time? If so, she did more of the right thing than did LRH, and she never got praised for that.
But had Hubbard let her reveal full admission and spill all the beans to US Justice prosecutors, inevitably LRH would have been more properly targeted by them, and Hubbard ought to have admitted his guilt fully too, and done time and penances and tied publicly made admissions and agree fully with the full principles in his booklet Way to Happiness.
And that might have been something good from Scientology differentiating Scientology from the other religions which don’t seem to likewise have standard procedures to sway their members with actionable felonies to turn themselves in and admit guilt.
Hubbard with his laid out procedures for the members, he didn’t get over this hurdle himself, of admitting his guilt and doing time and penances for what he was guilty of relating to the Guardian’s Office’s felonies.
Hubbard was in Treason to the Scientology followership by Hubbard’s own lack of doing what he let Mary Sue do.
And she should have admitted more, and he ought to have taken the blame and done time with her.
That’s a big failure and hypocrisy aspect to Hubbard’s legacy that is probably one of the top points to always mention and keep in mind.
Mary Sue did time, and admitted her guilt in a limited way, and then Hubbard did no time and no admissions. She could have buried him I think, and admitted far more. And forced him to actually do his own clean hands make a happy life to US Justice.
There is no question that LA is suffering a disproportionate rate of crime, violence and homelessness. The bigger question here is: Why is the place with the largest and most sustained scilon presence in the world–even a road named after the cult founder–suffering all these ills in the first place? It surely hasn’t been for lack of past fundraising campaigns!
And yet, the cult has been this ineffectual for all these years. But now, all of a sudden–35 years after their idea man’s death–they want us to believe that they’ve unearthed a brand-new solution?
Spoiler alert: The solution is not at all new. It’s the same one that the LA politicians and LA criminals responsible for the malaise offer as well: Give us your money, and your life will be better off for it.”
If you want to reduce crime then begin prosecuting the cult for what they do.
I would have thought $cientology would have learned a lesson from the Snow White debacle ,but no. From personal observation fraud and misrepresentation of federal law is still standard practice today. .
The US government needs to step up, investigate, prosecute and stop the cult from their illegal acts. That is something that can be done about it.
This always bothered me. I joined staff to help others not to charge them exorbitant rates for that help! We never helped anyone without money involved or they needed to join staff. Mike is absolutely right. They were considered degraded beings if they had no money. And if they joined staff and couldn’t work for 4-8 dollars a week they too were considered DB’s. What a racket. All it did it cause most people to hate others and lose respect for self. We were always wrong for one reason or another. Nowhere is ego more dramatized than in that group!
Desperate times, desperate measures?
I agree. Could be a good thing. Desperate fir a reason. I would suspect not enough funds coming in.
Well safetyguy , I guess if even a fraction on the people return the postcard they would have the opportunity to not only get money for the WTH magazine but maybe someone to pester to see if they can lure them in.
Peggy add that those booklets in the first place were already heavily and excessively funded by fundraising.
I am a “never in” but have read a lot about them since I started watching the show which was very educational. What I see from the outside is that it is sort of like a pyramid scheme except there is no pyramid. Simply a spire, if you will, sending all of the money to the top of the spire. None taken off on the way up. The people from the bottom to the next to the top folks get primarily nothing while the person at the top gets everything. All the “help” one gets in this is being told you can buy happiness by buying different levels on your way to the top of the bridge. It’s all about the money that is then taken straight to the top.
What is just creepy to me is that in their process they take away everything that I find happiness in. Family, friends, people who are different than me with different ideas with whom I can have a conversation with and try to understand why they think differently than I do. But this system takes all of that away. The only way that you can find happiness according to them is by giving more and more money to the “cause.” The cause? “cause they said to.
Big idea, money does not buy happiness. Period.
Oh my goodness safetyguy. You said is so perfectly!! There’s a lot of pain with zero gain, and horrible losses.
“Desperate times, desperate measures?” 👌
It’s Final Count Down for them..
Fake promises, fraudulent activities & fictitious logics exposed them on social media.
It’s just a matter of time …every staff member having mobile phone have access to social media …Wogs are exposing them with life and liberty …..for them soon it shall be matter of fight or flight …if situation persist for long they may start sending vedios from inside.
That’s why leave the Evil Wogs world…go in isolation for next 50 years …keep in touch with lesser Evil Wogs through poultry and dairy farming.
It’s not me it’s written on the wall…….
The way to reduce ANYTHING negative clearly isn’t to read anything written by Hubbard.
Making money off of pamphlets is just another $cientology ‘game’. A game where the House always wins. Be it your financial future or self respect, $cientology wants both.
Wait a minute … They have to BUY it????? Are you sure about that?
Because if true, how absolutely moronic. I would think there would be a postcard inside someone could just drop in a mailbox (which is already more than most of us do nowadays when we just click on something) and then they would be mailed a copy of TWTH and thus be on the mailing list as a prospect.
If someone is silly enough to respond to this, won’t they be surprised in an unpleasant way, when the tons of promo and letters start arriving.
Joe among other things they have a stat called BMO (bulk mail out) which according to hubbard measures the possibility of money coming in in the near future. That promo falls into that stat.
The truth behind these mailings to anyone they can is the hope that money will come in somehow. Then someone takes the bite even better.
Mailings are one of those things that did work better in a bygone era, particularly one in which Scientology’s reputation for exploitation and abuse was not so widely known. People used to respond to other antiquated pitches like ads in the back of magazines, too.
It’s a reminder of just how stuck Scientology is doing things that are outdated and no longer effective, if they really even worked that well to begin with. During the prime years of the baby boom youth movement Hubbard profited off the huge turnover of large numbers of people attracted by appeals including “body routing” on the streets, who often did a few courses and bought a few things without staying involved for very long, but that was during the peak of a unique historical phenomenon.
They are really slimy scoundrels who play with words. This is on their site:
“Does Scientology believe in charity and welfare?
It does. However, Scientologists also believe in the principle that some form of exchange is necessary in any relationship. If a person only receives and never gives, he will lose his own self-respect and become an unhappy person. Therefore, Scientology-sponsored charity programs often encourage those receiving the charity to make their own contribution in exchange by personally helping others who are in need. Such contributions enable one to receive help and yet maintain their self-respect”.
The typical scn non-answer to a simple question. They actually do nothing for free and count donations for services as charitable works.
So according to what they say, charitable works for needy people should ONLY be done if there is an exchange involved.
IRS! I say, are you reading it?!?
There are actually charities that ask beneficiaries to do something in exchange, to the extent possible – though some of the most unfortunate are simply unable to do anything. What would Scientology due with paraplegics and the severely mentally ill, except to put them in Hubbard’s category of those who can be “disposed of quietly and with sorrow”?
The CofS isn’t really even trying, they’re just using “exchange” as an excuse to do nothing for the less fortunate. For example, programs that do ask beneficiaries to do their part require a lot of oversight, and Scientology is obviously more into quick photo ops, or disingenuous efforts like ‘human rights’ intended to ‘safepoint’ mainstream society as part of their grand scheme where “the Scientology-organization in the area becomes its government!”
Peacemaker right. However, SCN does not help anyone in trouble out of the bubble, even if those receiving the help are willing to do something in exchange.
It is noteworthy that if they actually did it, their bad image would have benefited a lot. An infinitesimal fraction of all those billions would have created better long-term PR than any other bullshit we’ve done so far to get rid of the fame they have.
But they didn’t and never will.