This is another in the series of scientology promotional pieces that reveal far more than they intend.
Apparently, the senior OT scientologists at Flag believe this lady is going to “save New Zealand.” This is the sort of magical thinking these people pride themselves in. They aren’t merely deluded, they announce it to the world as if this is perfectly normal. And inside the bubble, IT IS. That is what is so remarkable.
Sorry Marion Moffat, you have been on staff for decades in Auckland and have accomplished absolutely no impact on anything. Now, because you are telepathically “auditing” body thetans — which is delusion if not utter madness — you are going to “save” the nation. From psychiatry? The media? The Fifth Invaders?
And what do you mean — “being one of the 2,000”? Since the early 90’s the target has always been 10,000. Of course, decades roll by and this meager target is never approached. So now they’ve cut it back to something more manageable? 2,000 on Solo NOTs?
Just one point of note. The question is asked often — how many scientologists are there. And there are various ways of estimating the actual number (scientology these days just says “millions” they got up to 10 million in their claims at one point, but they don’t seem to be saying that any more).
But if it is a great achievement to have 2,000 people on Solo NOTs, that is a pretty good measuring stick of how many actual scientologists there are. Everyone is expected to get onto Solo NOTs. 1 in 10 might make it — ie have enough money to get there (even though scientology supposedly has ALL the tech to make money and make you succeed and “make your postulates stick”) — so that puts the total number of scientologists once again around 20,000. This is the number most formulas seem to arrive at.
I think even that number is diminishing every year.
If someone on Solo NUTS can telepathically communicate with an unconscious being why can they not telepathically communicate with a conscious being right next to them?
Any lurking NUTS auditors care to explain?
If anything, holding them up to the 10 mill estimate is being generous. Over 50 years ago, in 1970 when scientology “ministers” were still talking to journalists they told George Malko (“Scientology–The Now Religion”, Jan 1970) they had 15 million. Apparently, this was no isolated claim as they supplied the same number to the NYT.
All of this was of course long before 47x, more growth in the last two years than in the last two decades (or variants of claims to that effect), graphs with no numeric labels but dizzying trajectories, the ideal real estate program, superpower, sci tv, and the golden age of financial extortion. Or long before entire countries–the further away the better–saved their culture by reading WTH, embraced scientology enthusiastically as their official religion and pelted “captain” Dave with medals.
From 15 million they went “straight up and vertical” to 8 mill, 10 mill and now “millions” stampeding the orgs. Well, maybe not exactly stampeding…
Great post. I love Matt Pesch’s input. So helpful
Heh, check out David Miscaviges photo on Tony Ortega’s website.
It is frightening. My twelve year old was looking at my desktop as I checked into the bunker and she let out a gasp when she saw DM’s pic. “Who is that guy? He looks sooooo creepy”. My oh my – All that LYING, slapping, drinking, smoking, adultry, hot water enema’s and abusing others is catching up with the creepy Dictator of Scientology.
So after listening to Mike and Leah’s podcast and watching Netflix Scientology & the Aftermath docuseries, we decided to deliver more blowage to Scientology.
Will you help?
If you are out and not anonymous, please post reviews on Yelp, Google and all consumer Reports about your personal experience on Scientology. It’s time to TELL ALL!
Mike and Leah are working tirelessly around the clock to expose Scientology.
We can also help!
Mike Rinder is right! SOMETHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT!
Please help and spread the word!
First all of when Scientology makes a statistical claim you can already cut the actual number by at least 25%. So let’s start with 1,500. By “on OT VII”, what they actually mean is started OT VII at some point and have never officially completed. There are various colored tags attached to the 1,500 names. They range in categories from actively auditing and regularly visiting Flag for the mandatory checks, to the person hasn’t audited in years and has openly told Flag to shove OT VII and the PC folders up their ass. For years a staff member of mine had to call all those names routinely under the never ending pressure of RTC to get and keep as many people as possible auditing on OT 7. The public were routinely so upset and abusive that I had the staff member make ALL the calls from the other side of my desk and using my phone. That was so I could help keep the staff member from just crying and giving up. The idea that Scientologists are just happily auditing away on OT 7 and doing great in life is just COMPLETELY FALSE. The opposite is true and it is a complete nightmare to get these people to continue on OT 7 while FLAG works to take them for everything they are worth and more.
I wrote a post a few days ago on this point, but it seemed to disappear into the ether. When I was at Flag on OT6 the supervisor once collared me and explained to me how students almost always under report their student points. She showed me a couple, and said on average it was about 25%. I felt it was a bit weird why she was telling me all this, a bit like justifying padding stats. Later, I was the stat-in-charge of our OTC and I did exactly the same. On the basis that people would fail to report all their stats I just inflated everything by 25%. Later, at the Freewinds Anniversary events, when OTC stats were announced I knew for certain those stats were false. I wondered just how many people along the route ‘uplines’ added on an extra 25%.
dr mac asked:
” I wondered just how many people along the route ‘uplines’ added on an extra 25%.”
I’m sure that few stopped at 25%. Reporting your TRUE stats was always a sure route to ‘ethics’. Ever-increasing stats is at least improbable in the real world. At some point, you’ll always run out of resources despite what Tubby said.
So, let’s look at HIS primary stat, ‘clears’: NEVER has that come up past zero. Not ONE Book 1 Clear in 70+ years. And thus no OTs, either. guy was in long-term Treason his whole life for not ever producing a single valuable final product.
Hi, I think you can help me. I was on OT II for almost a year, but I got stuck and came. .I’m still very curious about what an OT II EP is? Can you help me?
She believes in:
Puff The Magic Dragon
The Easter Bunny
The Tooth Fairy
Santa Claus
Big Foot
The Invisible Man
Beam Me Up Scottie
Clearing The Planet…..
Need we say more????
Oh No! You mean Puff may not really be magic?
1) The Magic is they get YOU to BELIEVE their SALES PITCH
2) Good Magicians, they can easily make your money disappear
Happy Mother’s Day Darling Ladies!
If they were honest they would call it “Solo NUTs” because it is so expensive, time consuming, and delusionary. A complete waste. But we mustn’t forget the mandatory visits to Flog.
If there are 20k $cientologists, how many are staff or Sea bOrg? I am guessing that around 5 thousand are staff and SO. That is one hell of an overhead to carry.
ZeeMoo. Somewhere they said there were about 7000 SO members.
But the figures are certainly lower.
There has always been a continuous turnover, some go away while others are recruited.
Lately, first with the Aftermath and then with the pandemic, their recruitment has plummeted while those who left have never stopped.
In my opinion their real figures (not just the number of staff or members) are more tragic and dramatic than we can suppose.
Zee, 25% staff overhead is actually pretty low, compared to the “good Ol’ Days”. Ron’s Disorganizing board has always been so bloated to make sure there were sufficient staff. ‘Course, he never paid them, so they were forced to go onto other things to survive, so he came up with recruiting in force or some such concept. Since most staff left quicker than they could be replaced, those remaining just had to “make it go right”. Of course the right way to go was Out The Door.
Zee Moo surmised:
“If there are 20k $cientologists…”
That’s quite an assumption.
The last time I saw evidence for even that many was quite a while back, and I’ve since seen plenty of evidence of clapping seals slip-sliding away and joining our ranks. Openly or “just” UTR.
This also shows how they’re pushing aging staff up the ‘bridge’ in order to get ‘stats’ up. With big empty buildings and little to no business coming in, it appears they’re finally making good on the longstand promise to provide services to their own, that went largely unfulfilled when they had better things to do. There’s been a pretty consistent trickle of photos like this over the last couple of years, and particularly recently.
And what business is coming in, seems to lean heavily towards aging “public” members, who often look as if they may well be retirement age, meaning they too could have reached a point where they have time on their hands.
I once ran a D & D game based on Monty Python And The Holy Grail. I was told by one of the players, “that was fun, don’t do it again.”
Did you give the PCs coconut shells instead of mounts? 😉
No.
The thing that amazes me is that just underneath this lady’s message, the truth is screaming out to be heard. That truth is all about money.
When she says, “The Advance Solo Auditor Course courseroom is like a big family, everyone with the same purpose, willing to help and coach to get each other through fast. The supervisors are exceptional, tough, unreasonable and spot on.”
(There is no such word as “courseroom” and to say “Course courseroom” is just ridiculous)
But I think it is important for me to now translate what she said.
“Everyone with the same purpose”. What could this mean? Since everyone in the room is working on different course levels, it cannot mean that they help each other with learning the material.
Since people are not allowed to speak out to ask questions which would indicate they do not understand something, it can’t mean helping each other with learning the material.
So, what does it really mean?
It means finding ways to beg, borrow or steal money they can donate to the cult or pay the cult to take the next level of courses.
“The supervisors are exceptional, tough, unreasonable and spot on.”
Wow! There is a ton of hidden meaning in this statement. She calls the supervisors “unreasonable”? It’s really worth considering what that means. It means that when she is asked to donate more money than she has or pay money for courses that she cannot possibly conceive of a way to get, the supervisors will pressure her to find a way to get more credit cards so she can borrow the money she will never be able to repay. Alternatively, it may mean the supervisors will provide her with some lies to tell the credit card companies so they will increase her credit limits so that she can get the money she never before considered was possible. It also means that when she ultimately will be forced to declare bankruptcy, the banks may try to have her charged with fraud because of the lies she told them in order to get a higher credit limit so she could get the money to give to the cult.
So this “same purpose” they all have is to help each other find more money – to beg, borrow or steal more money and to give all their money to the cult. But her prison of belief likely prevents her from understanding that is the truth.
It’s like the quote that Bruce Ploetz posted yesterday from Stevie Wonder:
When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain’t the way!
Just a note about my above post.
When she said everyone had the same purpose and I asked what that could mean, I should have asked why she just didn’t tell us what that purpose was. Why didn’t she just tell us what that meant?
I’m guessing the reason may be that she doesn’t really know what that means. She has been brainwashed to the point where people have been telling her over and over again they all have the same purpose. But it wouldn’t be very good for the cult to explain to her that purpose was driving her to bankruptcy by getting more credit than she could ever possibly pay back.
I sometimes wonder what the average scn’s credit score is, what with the credit card fraud and loans they never intended to pay back. Hey, they’re just wogs, right? They don’t deserve our support. And wog laws are inherently suppressive, so must be subverted at all costs.
“One big family” could also be expressed as:” Misery loves company.” Shared travails does bring people closer together.
We must not forget that scn needs constant control of its members to keep them well indoctrinated, especially those who have recently joined their ranks.
In my opinion many of those caught before the pandemic have fallen back into the sea out of the bubble and are now very difficult to recover.
They could be even less than 20 thousands.
Scn has nothing that is a call to people. Those who have been on the staff know it: many as soon as they understand (or just can’t) what it is they run away without even using the door.
As a final note there are more Mormons just here in Italy (26.000) than scientologists worldwide.
I had to Google how many scientologists in Canada 🇨🇦 it’s 2500.
Joe. Here in Italy in 2019 a scn PR said that all italy had around 2900 members weekly. But this is just PR. Here why. I was on management in the 90s and 00s and I never seen such figures. Much much less. They include anything. This guy was even giving figures like 250.000 total members but then it came up that these ‘members’ were just receiving a magazine. He was talking about the mailing list of the central file!!! Just PR crap.
LmR, IF their CF was ‘properly’ constituted, CF would include ‘only’ everyone who had ever purchased ANYthing from the organization. Money received from them for anything means they’re scientologists, whether they believe it or not.
Jere exactly. But most of the CF people don’t want have anything to do with them.
LMR, I think it’s plausible that there are 2900 IAS members in Italy -including lifetime memberships long ago paid for. So that might be some week’s count – the number would fluctuate with 2nd generation members being added and older members dying, and even the occasional new recruit – but not those actually actively participating, as they may have tried to imply with weasel-wording.
My basic reality check is to look at the number of “church” orgs – 12 in Italy (ignoring missions because they’ve become so few and insignificant, and even the CofS rarely lists them anymore anyway). 2900 members would be about 240 per org – no way that’s the number coming in every week for services, the reality is probably closer to 1/10th that.
The other reality check is what local orgs themselves portray on social media and in promo pieces. We see pictures of 2 to 4 dozen active diehards at events, and maybe in the ballpark of 100 for some major special once a year event that likely involved and all-hands call. A quick check suggests that probably applies to italian orgs, too.
Peacemaker thank you. You are right. The PR guy certainly was talking about a figure that includes any possible person contacted somehow, not only by the orgs but also from all front groups and it includes people just briefed about some topic. That’s just PR. No real stuff.
The HIGH water mark for Italy was from ~1982-1989 and didn’t have that much BIS weekly back then. That was when Milano org had 200+ staff members.
Real. Correct. Certainly the PR guy counts everybody who got even just a briefing or a talk including not just the orgs but all front groups and missions as well. And uses always the figures from the highest pick ever made.
Joe, I think on censuses and surveys quite a few people answer to “scientologist” when they are those were involved once and may continue to identify philosophically with scientology for lack of any other religious affiliation, but who would never again be active with the CofS itself – including indies, who seem down to tiny numbers at this point. Plus of course there are a lot of people who bought – or were pressured – into buying a lifetime IAS membership at some point, who haven’t been involved for years if not decades.
It looks to me like active membership is less than half of such numbers, and maybe more like a quarter to a third. There are only 8 “church” orgs in Canada and based onw what we see such as pictures of events they hold, I think they’d be hard pressed to actually get 100 members to show up at each of them.
Joe, A 2001 census found only 1,525 Scientologists in all of Canada. Ref https://www.cambridgetimes.ca/news-story/2623575-cambridge-church-new-regional-outpost-for-scientology/
Based on that it would be AMAZING if out of that there were even a few hundred left.
That’s still too many being fooled by the scam.
Absolutely, Jere. Any number is too many.
Also, if people don’t know how Google gets the number 2500, it’s worth considering how groups like Wiki and Google get the numbers they use. I’m pretty certain that most everyone here knows there is no official agency that is responsible for providing these numbers. From what I know of Wiki, these numbers are really just someone’s guesses. The best numbers may be those numbers that two or more people have agreed are close. But if you have any doubts, just ask yourself what would be required to find out the true number.
IMO, there is no way to know any absolute true number. No way to even tell what number may be close to the truth. The best way I can think of to get a fairly good estimate is to ask people like Mike Rinder, Tony Ortega or Lawrence Wright.
There have been a few reputable surveys cited in recent years. The US census IIRC, counts those who self-report as scns. Then there’s the American religious survey which asks people point-blank. Either one shows fewer scientologists than Jedi Knights.
The last time I did a US census I didn’t answer any religious questions. However, one can find videos of most if not all Ideal orgs in the USA including Pac orgs and FLB. If one were to count a scientologist as one taking services of any kind at at org, a representative sampling could be had from those videos and would indicate, exclusive of staff members, MAYBE 5,000 scientologists left in the USA. At a maximum.
As for “Indies”, those could be counted as a few score, maybe.
Jere, I don’t think those surveys have been done in over a decade – before the tidal wave of critial media, Debbie Cook’s e-mail, and all sorts of other hits to the CofS and its membership. So the numbers would be down significantly from even then.
If I recall correctly, the IRS just included ARIS’ numbers in an appendix one year. And I think that they stopped surveying about Scientology because the numbers were so small that it was just falling within the margin of error.
I think that 20,000 is generous when it it comes to active membership at this point.
Jere. As far as I understand, they are not having new people like years ago. Furthermore, statistically, of those who are dragged in there remain 1-2 out of 10 or more. And this applies to the first few months. Then over time the number tends to thin out more and more. They will therefore have to bet on the recoveries of those who fell off the lines.
To do this DM will have to invent something really “unprecedented” never seen before! (Maybe that he got a message from ron that everyone needs to know, wow! Few years ago he did something similar at an event saying something like ron is here and you can feel it. And everybody went “yeah!”)
True. ALL reports tell of empty org buildings which used to be “happening” places. there’s not enough awareness of scn to get any notice of it outside of their bubble. I have a news feed searching for nothing mentioning scientology. It only very rarely comes up with anything. Last “news” was that Tom Cruise was splitting from the group. It was from a “click-bait” tabloid, of course.
Not all empty orgs, I drive past the Melbourne org regularly and notice it is doing well, car park full every time I go past, people walking around etc.
As for official figures theirs around 1,900 Australia wide according to the census. Globally it may be around 40 k
Car park full? Even during lockdown?
Yes, they did a Denver Org! (renting the parking lot out) LOL 😉
Does the Melbourne org rent out their parking lot spaces like Denver does? Though looking at Google Street View, it appears to me that the local org may share it with an adjacent complex, which probably accounts for the cars.
There are only 6 local orgs in Australia, and about 135 worldwide. It’s uncommong to see a picture of an org event with even 50 people in it, and only for rare events like special annual gatherings that must be “all hands” do we see a picture with morel ike 100 in it. So the reality check is that the actual counts have to be pretty small these days.
Their active membership is probably at best about a third of numbers like those cited, though they may have that many peope who hold IAS memberships, lots of them people who bought lifetime memberships long ago but who haven’t been in an org in years.
Any census or survey will include indies, besides people no longer active in any type of scientology who still use the label scientologist if asked. The same sort of thing is true of many declining old religious denominations.
p.s. I checked, and Melbourne org’s social media feeds show only handfuls of members gathered, and no major events since the opening of their idea faciity a couple of years ago.
Mike in reply to your question, im unsure how full they were during lockdown as we were not allowed to commute more than 5k from our residence, the org was well out of my zone. We havent had lockdowns for months now. Peacemaker, I dont think they rent out their car spots – accross the road Yarra Trams has their own car park, on one side they have the street seperating them from the next business. Street parking is also available.
As for the census figure, 1900 in a country of 25 million really isnt much, i do think that figure is pretty accurate as ex scientologists have the option to chose the athiest option, why would somebody claimthey are a religion that they are not. In any case they arent many and you hardly hear of them (other on the occasional controversy in the media).
As of 2006 there were ~2,500 scientologists in Australia according to gov survey. Fifteen years later given the shrinkage seen in the USA they would be LUCKY to have 500 members now. So Xenos those 500 must be all in Melbourne org?
LMAO
Are you sure it was only 2,500 in 2006 ?
My mistake, last census was only 1684 therefore significantly down from 2006. At the end of the decade they will only be in the hundreds.
Yes Xenos, I am sure. I made a note a couple years ago when I found the gov pdf online for a couple of countries. Scientology was in a grouping of those religions with <5,000 members and they broke those out and scientology was 2,500.
So, 500 today would be about right based on what has happened in the USA during that time
Xenos, thanks for the update, but there’s still a discrepancy between those census figures and what can be observed, or deduced,
The 6 orgs in Australia can’t have more than 50 to 100 active members each, unless Scientology is hiding a lot of event photos full of people – exactly the reverse of what such a propagandistic organization would be expected to do. So between say 600 active members and the approximately 1,600 figure on the last census there’s some combination of continued dropoff in membership or self-identification, and of people who will check off the box for Scientology even if they’re not really involved in either the CofS or the independent field (which is, by similar reality check measures, miniscule).
And it does look to me from pictures, as if the Melbourne local org shares its parking lot with a complex that it abuts, which likely accounts for most of the cars in the parking lot. Compared to reports from other cities, if they really had that much traffic they might be far and away the busiest local org in the world – which not only seems implausible if not impossible, but, again, is not in keeping with their social media and promotional flyer postings that only occasionally show handfuls of people, and only once in the last couple of years a larger interfaith event of some sort that they hosted.
What’s particularly unusual about scientology is that they have spent vast sums of money on expanding a huge property footprint, for a small and shrinking membership – 50,000 square foot buildings that normally serve only a couple of dozen active members at a time, if that.
Thanks for the drive-by report. Normally they are telling, but I’m pretty sure that in this case the waters are muddied by that parking lot being shared.
No problems, its not like i drive by deliberately, i do alot of driving for work and when i go past i have a look. As for sharing parking that is only a assumption, i cant see why this would be the case when Yarra trams opposite has their own parking, theirs street parking for others etc. As for only 600 members, i have a tendency to believe that the census figure is more accurate albeit its millions off the quote i was given when i asked one of their staff members. I understand we may have differing opinions here and i respect your right to your views – after all i have Greek heritage – the fathers of democracy. Have a greatday.
As for the upgrade, its stagering to think that this org is on prime real estate in a afluent suburb and a large block (ex school). It would have been far from cheap moving from the city to building to there.
It’s all delusion, nothing but delusion.