This is a page from the Int Scientology News “New Years” edition where they repeat what was said at the New Years event for the few hundred remaining scientologists who managed to ignore the dozens of phone calls, visits, texts and emails about attending the video showing of the annual spectacle of bullshit.
A big feature of every Miscavige Event is numbers. Strange numbers. Weird “factoids” that you cannot wrap your mind around as you sit at the event.
Marc Yager (“Cueball” to Miscavige, who loves calling people by derogatory names) is the master of this technique. It’s an official “hat” he has of creating sort of impressive sounding numbers and comparisons out of very much less than impressive numbers.
Here is how it works.
If the total number of Clears made in the entire scientology world is 2366 in a year, obviously Miscavige cannot say “We are making planetary clearing a reality, we had 2,366 new Clears this year” as even the dimmest bulb in the chandelier is going to recognize this is not only not impressive, it is feebly pathetic and scientology is going nowhere, slowly.
So, they work out how many hours per week a typical org is open. 9am to 10pm 5 days a week and 9am to 6pm on weekends. That is a total of 13×5 plus 2×9 = 65 + 18 giving a total of 83. But there is lunch and dinner, one hour each for weekdays = 10 hours and 2 lunch hours on weekends = 2 hours. Subtract 12 from 83 and you get 71 hours a week.
Staff are supposed to get 2 weeks vacation a year, so an org is actually open the equivalent of 50 weeks a year.
50 x 71 = 3550 hours x 60 =213,000 minutes.
2,366 Clears made in 213,000 minutes = one every 90 minutes.
This sounds like any org you walk into, they will be making a Clear every 90 minutes. In fact, there are 175 orgs so it’s actually on average one every 11 DAYS per org.
And this is on the assumption that the original figure of 2366 was accurate — which is a BIG assumption. Orgs count “clears” being those “confirmed” as Clear. If someone was Clear earlier, then “undeclared” and now declared Clear again, that counts. So, probably the number of Clears being made is inflated by 50%, i.e. there were really 1600 and that is one per org every 17 days.
Even 2366 Clears in a year would not register on a Mark Super VIII Quantum planetary E-meter. There are 83 MILLION people being ADDED to the planetary population each year. Scientology is losing the planetary clearing battle 80 million to 2500 (rounding off) or for every Clear made there are 32,000 new “not Clears” being created on earth each year.
But presenting this as one every 90 minutes sounds like it must be good — especially when accompanied by loud crashing noises, graphs shooting out through the top of the screen with fireworks and confetti and Miscavige’s weird cadence designed to elicit standing ovations from the well trained seals in the audience.
So, let’s take a look at their other “impressive” numbers:
122 Million books and lectures in the hands of public — actually, this is NOT “in the hands of the public” it is “sold by Pubs orgs”. The orgs and missions have HUGE stocks filling their basements, closets and any other available nooks and crannies. They will all eventually be thrown out when the next new edition comes. Also, they count all Way to Happiness booklets (not “books”) in this figure. But they cannot keep their shit together even on this — as one WTH official site says they have now distributed 115 million copies… This number also counts one for each CD that is in a set. So a single “Congress” would count as 12 “lectures in the hands of the public” even though the binder of CD’s is sitting unopened in an org basement. Or if someone actually bought it from the org, it is sitting in their garage unopened.
Every 90 seconds a Golden Age of Knowledge course is completed — these are “extension” courses. And each chapter of a book anyone reads counts as a “course completion”. Many scientologists have taken to sending in one of these “course completions” every month or so as a ploy to keep registrars off their back “I am studying my Golden Age of Knowledge courses, I do not need to come into the org and see a Reg.”
Every 60 seconds someone completes an Academy training course — almost certainly this number is just made up out of whole cloth. Even though they count anything that is not an “Intro Course” as an “Academy Course” — this includes the Student Hat, TR’s course, Book One Course and any other stuff. They count these courses from Missions and label them “Academy Completions” even though according to Hubbard policy Missions do not have “academies.”
13 times the number of OTs made since the Golden Age of Tech Phase II for OTs — well, this one is really desperate. 13 times what? Average number per week before GOAT II? There were 100 OT’s on earth before GOAT II and now there are 1300? I cannot twist my mind into a logic pretzel and come up with what this MIGHT mean. But it is fascinating for what it DOES NOT say. How many OT VIII’s that completed in the year and how many there are total on earth… This is the ultimate measure of the success of scientology — how many reach the “top of the Bridge.” Not even any mention of attaining the long postulated dream of 10,000 people onto or through Solo NOTs which has been going on since the 1980’s and they STILL havent gotten to 10,000…
Every 4 minutes someone learns how to audit another on Book One — another classic. Someone figured out how many copies of Dianetics were sold, counted each one of those people as someone “who learned to audit Book One”, added to that the number of DVD’s of “How to Audit Book One” shipped by the Pubs Orgs to orgs, missions and groups and added to that the number of people who attended a Dianetics Seminar.
4.2 million square feet of Ideal Org spaces worldwide –– it’s a lot of square feet. But we could reverse the Yager effect on this and say this is equivalent to the One World Trade Center in NY. In other words, Flag, PAC, all the Advanced Orgs and all the Ideal Orgs on earth, the entirety of the ideal scientology empire would fit into one building in NYC. One empty building.
Now, let’s consider for a moment what else is NOT reported on:
How many new Missions opened in the last year.
How many new orgs opened in the last year.
How many Class V auditors were made in 2017.
How many new people COMPLETED an actual Introductory service and SIGNED UP to take another one.
The total number of hours of auditing delivered compared to the total number of hours in previous years.
How much money the IAS collected and how much they spent on “4th dynamic programs”
How much money scientology as a whole made (with SO MUCH focus on this by every single person in scientology, wouldn’t it be something relevant?)
The total number of Sea Org members this year compared to the previous year. Same with org staff. Same with Mission staff.
And finally — the TOTAL NUMBER OF ACTIVE (ie with a valid, current annual or lifetime membership) MEMBERS OF THE IAS IN 2017 COMPARED TO THE 5 PREVIOUS YEARS.
If you REALLY wanted to demonstrate “GLOBAL” expansion, that above ALL ELSE would be the accurate measure of the growth in scientology.
Speaking of which — Jonny Jacobsen has published the first of his series of articles about scientology’s numbers. There is more to come.
And in the meantime, scientology will continue to lie, lie, lie.
UPDATE:
I was just forwarded a link to this video about how Perth “ideal” org is going to open in 2018.
This a screenshot from it.
Like most other things in scientology — grandiose inflated claims were not invented by Miscavige. L. Ron Hubbard set the example.
This is one of the more absurd claims about scientology size ever.
What happened to those tens of thousands of people who completed the PE Course? Not even 1% of them continued in scientology? Perth’s population in 1959 was around 600,000. That would be 30,000 completions. 1% would be 300. They cannot round up 300 scientologists in Perth and never have been able to to do so…
What is even more amazing is the cluelessness of whoever put together this video.
Perth now has a population of 2 million. 5% of that is 100,000. Look how far away they are from that today… This is the “progress” they have made in 59 YEARS. If you take Hubbard at his word (well, just for the exercise of it), he had conquered 5% of this city 60 years ago and today they could maybe claim 200 active members. Or 0.0001%.
Ooops.
It’s very simple to see “behind” appearances.
Let’s says that “all this is true”. [What the Orthodox Church is claiming to have as “final-product”]
Know take that statistic that “supposedly is not a over-product <== [product fake or not as should be] due to lighting speed process -or- alter-iss, say that, all Orgs, and Scientologists affiliations around the world are giving true statistics wish mathematically are in contradictions with the amount of Saint-Hills Orgs that is needed to achieve such stats and only working in ideal conditions" That this fluent torrents of free from aberrations and super human came to exist with a sky rocket income for the Church "avoiding even the mockup to the effect to the Church by the 2-season of Investigative Report by Leah and Mike knowing as "aftermath of Scientology" and illogical Bla and more illogical Bla and Bla.
OK, what ?
What will all this new -unaberrated and super humans beings do with it? historically since Scientology exist, all those peoples who has been clear and OT's and those who dint have the money just to handle to only do some training and curses. What are they are doing know regarding that? [of-course we are not counting those who the Church handle really hard to make them came back for "Sec-Check" or with luck come to a new event to buy new "re-mastered or stretched materials" plus those staff who are obligated to be seated in all Orgs watching such event… So if this stats are real, and "each of those peoples" since Scientology exist has been clearing and "super-humaning" should dint take -/- clear Teegeeack [planet earth] or over-number wogs [regular humans] by now?
My point guys is that, Even if Scientology dint lie. all those people will go back to regular lives and forgot about it, except those who became in debt or drain their fortune due to certain thirst to drink the kool-aid know as Secret or Advance Tech, that we know as OT Levels.
Scientology can lie all they want about some illogical mathematical stat that only is believable in their "quantum world". The fact in this world is that. [All those peoples, will came back to regular lives] 'even Staff and Members' dint stay that long inside the Church. Any ex-sea org member who watch updated videos posted in YouTube, know what I just say.
It occurred to me to go back to the claim “Every 90 seconds a Golden Age of Knowledge course is completed,” and figure out what that would work out to if what was really going on, was that Scientologists were submitting something like a chapter read in a book about once a month, to keep the reges off their backs. It turns out that it would only take about 10,000 members submitting completions at the once-a-month rate to produce a “completion” around every 90 seconds (of the standard hours that orgs are open).
I think that illustrates pretty well how Scientology’s contrived apples-and-oranges statistics manage to create something impressive-seeming, out of the sad reality of organizational failure and insane efforts to keep up appearances.
I posted in the Aftermath group on Facebook about a Netflix documentary called The Propaganda Game. It’s about North Korea but it is a great example of “what if Scientology was a country?” In a closed society with no access to real information, the people accept what the leaders tell them as gospel. In North Korea the people are fully convinced that the United States started the Korean War by invading their country.
What you say is so true that once in FLAG I cant hold it and say.
This is not a communist country.
They were cooing about making a clear every 90 minutes back in 2016. The training completion stat hasn’t changed either. Oopsie. Not very impressive… ?
Ref: https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-lies-new-years-edition/
I never bought into Clearing the Planet and a lot of the other BS although I never vocalized it. I figured I could gain some abilities and help others.
I trained as an auditor and a person could become a proficient auditor in three of four months of intensive training which is a lot faster than training as a mainstream psychologist, but it still took too long and cost too much, especially when they kept jacking up the prices. Even in the 1970s when the world (over)population was about half what it is today the math didn’t add up.
“There are 83 MILLION people being ADDED to the planetary population each year.”
Thanks, Pope, and the rest of the be fruitful and multiply crowd. How about worldwide free or low cost birth control? Estimates vary on the carrying capacity of spaceship earth.
I have decided to become the richest man in the world. Richer than Bezos, Gates and Buffett combined.
I am making this a reality. This last year I made 2,366 dollars.
This is a 47X expansion on what I made the year before, which was 3,148 dollars.
Yay! So glad the math is finally making sense now. Lol!
Maybe they could also include the number people who’ve left Scientology and families disconnected.
Where are you Tom when your cult needs you so badly right now. Perhaps a demonstration of your cult powers leaping off one of those MI4 Dubai high building’s and floating gently to Earth? (Oh wait you can’t jump higher than about .75 feet before colliding with a guard wall and scraping your knees.)
“This is a page from the Int Scientology News “New Years” edition where they repeat what was said at the New Years event for the few hundred remaining scientologists who managed to ignore the dozens of phone calls, visits, texts and emails about attending the video showing of the annual spectacle of bullshit.”
Hands down – the best paragraph ever read on the internet.
HAHAHAHA
Yes, our blog host wields a wicked pen.
Thanks for this post Mike, I often wondered back when I was a true believer, I wondered what did Management do, all day long. I didn’t even know there was a “Happy Valley”. By all accounts, it wasn’t so happy.
I mean I was a staff member passing out OCA’s on the street, writing letters out, trying to get my stats up so I could get a meager bonus or book commission, or a day off.
By your account, truth revealed. while I was working my ass off, why DM and clueball are rhetorically inflating stats thru words. Not to mention shermanspeak, another bullshit artist.
Hubbard even said there were millions of scientologists back in the 1960’s, another bullshit rhetoric artist.
Shoot, Hubbard even claimed he cleared 270 people in the 1950’s dianetics book!
Here’s my challenge to Chris Shelton, Jon, Pete, Karen, Tony O, Leah, you Mike Rinder, Jerry Armstrong, etc, any critical thinking of scientology person, where are these 270 clears?
Or is it a hell of a hoax?
What a useful idiot I was.
I’m sorry, I’m not following the “one clear every 90 minutes” thing: could you please clay demo it for us? 🙂
I’m so sad that Marty is back with or defending the “church” he seemed so committed to being blown for good. My heart is broken. I hope he’s able to once again see how evil these people are
He won’t. He has a symbiotic relationship with CoS and SOB. He loves being on the team that gives him the power to bully, manipulate and torment anyone unfortunate enough to get trapped in their orbit. Team Socio!
Team Decency has “morals” and “empathy” and other bullshit that won’t even get you a cup of joe at Starbucks. What a drag. Losers!
I might suggest that the number of OT VIIIs completions is not the ultimate measure of the success of scientology. It’s how many of us stayed in Scientology after OTVIII. I know more are out than in these days.
One thing about scientology is not a lie. If you work at it, the Bridge truly is a bridge to total freedom.
Because almost all OT VIIIs, victims of the con of the century, have left scientology, and are free of scientology forever.
An expensive lesson, but whatever.
EP of OT8.You are alone,broke,conned,disconnected and now enslaved to the emperor’s clothes club.How can you respect the integrity of those who stayed after OT8?
And…
How much money they spend on Private Investigators…it was $250,000 a WEEK back when PIs were less expensive…
Tenting is it?
With that paid Even I would like to got some job as “Fart Brain 007” for the Church.
Fart Brain is a military term, for those who believe way up about themselves.
“Cueball” to Miscavige, who loves calling people by derogatory names…
The mentally and physically steroid-stunted COB is likely aware that there exists an extremely long list of derogatory names referring to him.
It would be fun to watch his little infant rage as he reads through them.
Bullshit baffles minds. A baffled mind accepts almost any input, with sort of a glazing over of the eyes. In Scio terms that equates to a ‘fixed dedicated glare’. When bs is all they’ve got, they must splurge on it! There is nothing else for them to do, except engage in mental exercises of delusions of grandeur & help out in central files I suppose. Notwithstanding being really stupid with your money, family, friends and career.
Oh my…
Mockingbird has been writing about exactly that, the use of confusion, the devious power of which Hubbard talked about openly quite a bit very early on, and which is indeed well known as a technique that can put people in a suggestible if not hypnotic-like state in which they are, as you describe, susceptible:
“Increasing stress leads to a point when we go from seeking the best solution to the problem at hand to seeking a solution just to reduce the stress. Herbert Simon called this ‘Satisficing’.
Confusion is used in many persuasion techniques as a way of destabilizing the other person. Just as a drowning man will clutch at a straw, so also will a confused person grab at any idea you offer them in the hope that it will help them crawl out the sea of confusion in which they are wallowing.”
http://changingminds.org/principles/confusion.htm
Einstein will be shocked over their calculations! Not even close man.
Joburg org suddenly started “making clears” again after more than a decade of not being able/allowed to. Most of the notices going out about these people are “re-clears”. I have 2 full sets of congresses and basics wrapped in cellophane sitting in my basement. I know of many Scios who had upwards of 6 sets each sitting in their garages – most of them bought as penance for some ethics cycle they were put through. Many others I know of have dumped or burned their sets. Someone I know used his congress CDs as bird & pest deterrents in his veggie patch.
Let’s hope the birds can’t read CDs. It could be Alfred Hitchcock all over again.
Gawd that is funny 🙂
As an original OT, by the very hands of LRH himself… OT meaning Operating Tomato … there is only one known fertilizer that keeps me alive:
LRH printed tech, shredded, then mixed with ash and urine… Oh so nourishing.
Thank you Ron!
To LRH!!
(Leaf “arm” folds over in a salute, much like Tom Cruise might do.)
“How many OT VIII’s that completed in the year and how many there are total on earth… This is the ultimate measure of the success of scientology — how many reach the “top of the Bridge.” Not even any mention of attaining the long postulated dream of 10,000 people onto or through Solo NOTs which has been going on since the 1980’s and they STILL havent gotten to 10,000”
In July1989, I was in the group of about the first two-hundred OT VIII’s. After Miscavige changed the Bridge, there were no new OT VIII’s for over ten years. Most of my OT VIII friends have left the church. New OT VIII is simply a review of past auditing and a statement about starting to look at life again. I would never return to Scientology now that I know that Hubbard just simply copied from the 19th Century Occult movement. I thought OT VIII would at least at a minimum start to develop some of the OT abilities. Truth of the matter is that OT abilities as defined by Hubbard, even if they existed, could never even begin to develop based on his totally false assumptions. I have read hundreds of statements by OT VIII’s and Super Power graduates. None even come close to Hubbard’s promises. None of my friends reported any OT abilities. The most extreme story I ever heard was from a fellow OT VIII who claimed that he could pass through walls. He ended up broke depending on his daughter. I suggested he go to the nearest bank and get a few samples. When I met Miscavige in 1989, he was on a high horse of ego thinking that he had some supreme OT abilities. I suspected at the time he was trans-sexual and I have not changed my opinion. Good luck with it, Dave.
OT 8 list here
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KTq41-3rbSBe2xMWHGwZ-dn4BKDYx6kn13G3p2y9fug/edit#gid=0
About 2,400 of them
WWP thread where this was compiled (based on a Patty Moher list)
https://whyweprotest.net/threads/ot-viii-project-where-are-they-now.103693/
Thanks!
I followed the links and appreciate the information.
Marty’s Blog is a great record of my dedication Buddhism. My wife and I are more concentrated than ever. The only changes are that I am now well past the crusade to separate Hubbard from the Buddha; we have simplified our practice; I now work as much as possible on documenting Hubbard’s occult roots.
Hi George. Are you planning to write a book about your research? I would love to read it.
I would also love to send a copy to every evangelical church in the US too.
I am sure they would LOVE to know about the satanic base of LRH’s tech, not to mention scientology’s practice of forced abortion on the Sea Org members.
Hi whatareyourcrimes
I have written a long article which is going through peer review and editing. It will be published but will take some time. I’m blogging to spread the news about Hubbard’s role as Lucifer. My writing style is evolving as I get feedback. Hubbard was serious about his demonic basis. Some people find it difficult to see that Hubbard was really satanic to the core. Satan has hardly been discussed in the role that Hubbard intended. Hubbard and Crowley were serious anti-Christians but it is covered up by Miscavige. It is a complex issue.
I’d say a large percentage of the human race believes in non corporeal, disembodied beings or entities such as angels, ascended masters, saints, spirit guides, ghosts and the list goes on.
Taking it even further, a belief in God, gods or Satan is a belief in non corporeal sentience.
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with your thesis about Hubbard.
Just conversation on a blog 🙂
Hi Richard,
Do you think belief in spirits is increasing or decreasing?
George – I’d say belief in spirits is decreasing. Science continues to isolate thought to various parts of the brain and maybe most people go with that. Could be. Watson and his Artificial Intelligence brethren might figure it out for us.
So glad I don’t show up on the list!
TrevAnon,
I looked over that list and see five names I know that are out ………. not that the cherch knows because I don’t think any have been publicly declared. And I really don’t know that many folks, not having ever been on staff.
It makes me sad to know how much fun I must have missed! Not to mention the money I could have made as a staffer.
George,
I just finished reading ‘Phenomena’, by Annie Jacobsen. She wrote of multiple US agencies trying to use the talents of Uri Geller and others to ‘remotely view’ people and places, to telepathically influence world leaders, and so on. In the book, and amusingly to me, the agencies rejected 80% accuracy because they could not scientifically account for someone being able to do it , and when the volunteers tried to train to do it they went unstable. To the Army, CIA, FBI, etc. if you cannot explain it in physical universe terms they want nothing to do with it. Maybe that is best, after all.
And, regarding DM’s sexuality, it seems that Narcissists are more Uno-sexual: It matters not whether they have similar or different partners, it’s all masterbating in their mind.
Jim, Thanks for the book lead. I read an Army document from the 1980’s which talked about “remote viewing”. It seems the Army Intelligence unit was “looking into the subject”.
In about 2008, I met a woman who told me she got near enough to Miscavige to give him a big hug. She said it creeped her out because he felt hollow to her with no outgoing emotion.
Rumor has it He doesn’t reflect in a mirror.
They should have tried “Be three feet in back of your head!!” first to narrow down the field of volunteers. Whoever it worked on would have been a natural.
A few months ago for about five minutes I felt like a passenger in the car I was driving. Not exactly exteriorization but it was a unique and interesting experience. I surely don’t think I can recreate that experience so I suppose I just have to wait and let the paranormal experiences come when they come.
Richard,
Different agencies had different criteria that tried to enhance a latent talent. Along with Crowley and Hubbard they failed. The Agencies worked on it as a scientific method problem, and the notion that; If one human can do it any human can do it.
I too have had spiritual zone experiences this life. More so since doing Scientology, or perhaps more noticeable since Scientology after I had labels to put on the experiences I have. I got a great piece of advice (1970s) from an old-timer was: Don’t get upset if you have problems at first (exterior perception). You are not fully reoriented, and you can view a place and a time that is not where/when you thought it was. Practice, if you don’t practice you will never get there.
Jim – Thanks for the reply. Your reply extroverted (not exteriorized) me – laughter. I choose not to get too analytical about zone experiences, the how and why of them, but it’s possible that scn might open the door to them in some way.
Here’s a rewrite of my last sentence above. “I might be able to recreate that type of experience but for now I’m willing to let them happen when they may.”
I’ve been taking a break from spiritual questing and as Mr. Einstein said, “Time is relative.” (something like that – lol)
“To the Army, CIA, FBI, etc. if you cannot explain it in physical universe terms they want nothing to do with it.”
NOT true at all jim. If they could have found people who could actually do what they needed they would have been satisfied. The problem was, not a single person could pass muster.
“I suggested he go to the nearest bank and get a few samples.” George, you too friggin funny!
Thanks!
They really are insane (sofc-leadership) and it´s even more incomprehensible that the rest inside this bubble somewhere choose to believe in it.
I’d like to know how many rolls of ideal toilet paper were successfully deployed last year.
🙂
I’d say maybe one! It’s hard to deploy that which you don’t have and never buy.
What would Marie Antoinette say? Let them ________________!
OMG 🙂
Somewhat related, it seems to me that any organization truly operating for the well being of it’s clients/members would be happy to provide actual statistics of how their customers are doing in life. After stumbling upon a story about Herbalife recently I found out that:
The Federal Trade Commission is mailing checks to nearly 350,000 people who lost money running Herbalife businesses. The checks are the result of a July 2016 settlement with the FTC that required Herbalife to pay $200 million and fundamentally restructure its business. This represents one of the largest redress distributions the agency has made in any consumer protection action to date.
“We are pleased to announce that hundreds of thousands of hard-working consumers victimized by Herbalife’s deceptive earnings claims will receive money back,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Along with changes the company will make to its business structure, this is a win for consumers.”
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/01/ftc-sends-checks-nearly-350000-victims-herbalifes-multi-level
Perhaps one day the FTC FBI and other government agencies will have an unobstructed pathway in order to initiate a close inspection of Scientology claims and it’s actual business practices along with it’s intimidation techniques to silence detractors. Scientology will never disclose the the actual statistics of former members, number of law suits filed against the cult, number of dead OT’s from cancer, number of former founding members close to Hubbard, number of people declared SP, number of disconnection letters sent etc. It is very troubling that not only do they not make those numbers available but they will initiate a public relations smear campaign against those who seek transparency and accountability. Full disclosure and full transparency regarding Scientology statistics are illegal in Scientology and not in Scientology’s best interests per their business model. By hiding behind the “religion angle” Scientology simply adds fuel to the growing demand for all churches from all religions to pay their fair share of income tax. Because Scientology is still recognized as a religion, more people continue to lose money, fortune, family friends and their own lives as a result. Per Hubbards own theoretical description of suppression, the Church of Scientology commits suppressive acts against ordinary people every single day and those are numbers they never want known about.
4.2 million square feet of Ideal Org spaces worldwide ––
How much of that “square footage” is actually IN USE and/or occupied either on a FULL or PART TIME Staff?
How many “orgs” are completely up and running to THIS day…..
How many were opened and then closed???
For anyone not impressed with 4.2 million square feet of empty org space, think of it instead as 604.8 million square inches of empty org space.
… and away goes scamology, down the drain.
🙂 Roto Rooter! I remember that jingle.
Mike, this is real “facts & figures” journalism. Much appreciated.
Scientology PR would be good material for a study of propaganda techniques.
Below is the copy of a post I put on ESMB at the end of august last year. I hope Mike will allow it. Original here http://www.forum.exscn.net/threads/estimates-for-new-members-and-total-membership.44306/ (and in some groups on Facebook.)
Tl;dr (too long, didn’t read 😀 ): this post is about an estimate of new members in the last few years, and on the total number of Scientologists EVER.
For those who don’t know: there’s an old database around on the net which is called http://www.truthaboutscientology.com/
I have used this a lot for finding names for the big list. One way of doing that is harvesting the names from the site by way of copy/paste so I can easily check a list of names I get somewhere against completions with Excel.
In June 2011 I harvested the names, and ever since I have used the list I got then. Now just Sunday I once again harvested them all again.
Now let me first say there are lots of problems in the database because of spelling, women changing names through their lives because of marriages/divorces (often more times than one), and some parts of the world not being entered in the database. Let me just say there is a reason people have social security numbers.
The people who entered the data, Kristi Wachter and Patty Moher being the most important contribuants AFAICT, did a stellar job though. First of course because of the sheer amount of work (thank you!), second because I’m sure the COS tried its best to get the site offline (but look, it’s still there!) and third because the site tries to deal as good as possible with the limitations the data have. You can check the site out yourself.
That being said I think there are some interesting preliminary conclusions possible.
The first one is based on a comparison (using exact search) of the two lists I harvested. For the 2011 list I don’t know anymore for what month the last completion entered was. The date of the file I have is from June 2011, so that’s what I’m going at. The last completion added for the list I got Sunday was for May 2015. There are 47 months between and the 2017 list have only 3625 names that were NOT on the 2011 list. This gives me about 77 new names per month on average. Shocking, I would think.
The second possible conclusion is based on the following. There are about 100k names in the trutaboutscientology database.
As I said before, not all people whop were ever in are in the database. The question is how many. I am assuming that only half of the names of people who were ever in are in the database. This is based on two checks. First, I checked the big list against completions using exact comparison (vertical search in Excel). Second, I checked with a list of names from the ban aftermath petition, same method. Both gave a hit rate of about 50%.
Let us now give the COS the benefit of the doubt and assume that only half or a third of the names of those who were ever in are in the database, that gives a total membership for 200k to 300k over the total COS history.
No exact science here, just “guesstimating” (if that is even English, lol).
Any insights welcome!
Well, at the HIGHEST, HIGHEST point for the America’s, there were about 65,000 names of people who had done a Div 4 service (anyone else was NOT considered a scientologist yet). That was in late 70’s. The list of people known to be in shrank from there on out.
Considering that the UK (Commonwealth) & EU were a SMALL % of that at the time, the TOTAL ever in scientology (having done Div 4 services) is more likely in the 120,000 range.
Maybe a way to judge the number of people who actually participated in or experienced scn is the number of people who received metered auditing, the very essence of scn. Other than that a person would have no subjective reality of the subject. Just a thought and debatable. Obviously that number would be a guess.
I posted the above before I looked up Div(ision) 4
Div 4, Tech. Where the Academy courses and HGC, Hubbard Guidance Center, auditing are done
Going back to when scn was first incorporated the number might be somewhat higher than 120,000
Doubt it Richard. All or close enough to all) those people early on were included in the figures I gave.
Wynski – 120,000 sounds right to me. That’s a lot of people but a tiny percentage of the human population. As ex scn-ists we’re Special!
Thanks Mike. Any way you look at it, the “stats” are bloviated. The only people who would not question these claims are hypnotized Bots.
I was bloviated once. But, I bruped and felt much better.
Mr. OSD, I’m assuming that was post Scientology?
Come on Dude. Which end did it really come out of?
” Scientology is losing the planetary clearing battle 80 million to 2500 (rounding off) or for every Clear made there are 32,000 new “not Clears” being created on earth each year.”
Yea but Clive says that all those Bee Tees (space cooties) that are leaving the bodies of bankrupt still-innies are now clear beings looking for a body of their own. It must be that the 80+ million new mouths are at least mostly clear mouths and thus the job must be getting done.
Yo Dave,
So that’s why You’re runnin out of customers these days good buddy! Nice work.
Yo Clive,
You’re commin up on 20 years to get your 10,000 on or threw. How zit going? Don’t forget to remove the Ess Pees like me. Remember, I don’t count so now that’s one less.
Hey …. what about all those cooties? Word is out, they’re pissed and want to come home! Turns out clears do best in groups so ………. “we’re baaaaack!”
🙂
Dave,
One less Police Chief in your back pocket.
Beck is leaving in June. Keep your 10 tiny fingers out of the selection process for the new LAPD Chief.
One Masterson investigation continues with the Abuse Task Force.
You are being looked at for TORTURE charges, by the new Feds in town. Your Hole, and that depraved family in Perris, are in the same category. The statute of limitations clock starts when new/old victims file reports after becoming aware of the CRIME.
Just a quick point on this: “If the total number of Clears made in the entire scientology world is 2366 in a year, obviously Miscavige cannot say “We are making planetary clearing a reality, we had 2,366 new Clears this year” as even the dimmest bulb in the chandelier is going to recognize this is not only not impressive, it is feebly pathetic and scientology is going nowhere, slowly.”
There is always a good possibility that this figure of 2,366 a year is based on a six month period a few years back where they pushed a whole bunch of people through the lines to get a backlog handled; took that figure and used it to describe a whole year; then stated this is what is happening all the time.
Personally I’d be surprised if their entire empire was factually getting even 200 a year through to clear.
“Personally I’d be surprised if their entire empire was factually getting even 200 a year through to clear.”
Yes, I was surprised by a number in the thousands. They only had thousands sign that petition against Leah. They must be counting the same people over again, right? Is that one reason that they keep making people do it all over again — to be able to count them in the statistics again? At this point, the evidence for “Scientology lies” is greater than any evidence for any alternative account. If they’re okay with perjury and “acceptable truths,” why should we take any of their claims seriously?
I have said it before and I will continue to say it. Scientology is a corpse, but the maggots and bacteria on the body don’t know it yet. It is our job to make sure they gain awareness.
In other words, the heart has stopped beating, the body is technically dead, but there’re still live cells…I get it. And I like it. Gruesome, but I like it.
Thank you!
Dontcha love how numbers can be twisted to make things sound really good? The best dictators and their propagandists learn this early on. Looks like LRH and Miscarriage knew/know it in spades.
I’d say LRH was a master at twisting words ‘ to make things sound really good’. And he sure didn’t want to clutter up the field with pesky facts or even worse, ‘the truth’. He also found faithful followers to carry on the charade.
There certainly seems to be a portion of this race that is perfectly content to have someone else tell them what to think, do and how to behave.
The other key ingredient is in teaming up with those that really like to tell others (spelled ‘enforce’) what to think, do and how to behave!
Yo Dave,
Let’s take a random pot shot at the group You like best good buddy! We know that the only issue You have with literacy is of course a few random punctuation thingys (I heard you have major issues with semi colons) so I guess that puts You in the control group.
I suggest You get back to inspecting Your colons in search of random semi’s. You will find a target rich environment down on Hollywood Blvd ………. get on it! Oh yeaah, sorry about the word twist but I’m sure You understand. When in doubt, add a colon to Your semi.