Since 1982, when Hubbard wrote that directive, the number of missions in scientology has been steadily DECREASING.
In 1982 there were about 150 orgs — the same number as today (despite the “massive international expansion”). I have commented on this a number of times.
Yet, at no time in scientology history has there ever been anything CLOSE to 1500 missions (10 per org).
Today there are less than 400 with a large percentage of them nowhere near an org — off in the wilds of central and eastern Russia and other former soviet bloc countries.
Hell, not only are there dozens of states in the US that have no org, there are states that don’t even have a single mission.
But there is the promise of Ideal Orgs that Miscavige claimed with his little “arrows” diagram. He asserted these orgs would result in many new missions and groups opening around them and they would in turn become orgs and the cycle would “begin all over and keep repeating.”
Back in the day, scientology published a list of missions and orgs in the back of books. But that became too embarrassing as people could easily track the numbers and locations and see when they disappeared. Now they list the “continental organizations” only in the books.
Even if you go to scientology.org there is no simple way of finding the total number of missions. You have to search by zipcode or city. You cannot just get a complete list of all missions or even all missions in a geographical area.
Let’s take Florida for example home to Flag, three “ideal orgs” and the largest community of OT VIIs and VIIIs on earth (not to mention those with super powers, Cause Resurged and stably At Cause and Exterior with Full Perceptions from the L’s). By Hubbard’s mandate there should be at least 40 missions if they were operating at a minimum….
Here is what the result of searching “Florida” is:
This doesn’t even include Miami org.
So, if you use “Miami” as the search term, you get the following:
Just to be sure, I tried “Orlando”:
So, the grand total of missions in the entire state of Florida is THREE.
Belleair
Ocala
West Palm Beach
The Missions in Clearwater and South Tampa closed their doors. So too Ft. Lauderdale. That is all there has EVER been.
This is the “ideal” program at work. “Ideal orgs” are NOT opening missions. And the “ideal” insanity has spread to Missions as a gimmick for fundraising. Two of these missions are “ideal”. Ocala which was a pet project of the Travolta’s staffed with Eastern European imports and Belleair which survives off Flag rejects and Flag public trying to avoid the regges by claiming to be “on course” at the Mission.
Of the supposed 12,000 (or whatever number they are using today, I think this was the last figure I saw) “orgs, missions and groups” they tout around the world, only about 500 are orgs and missions. The rest are anyone’s guess. But whatever it is, the number of places where scientology is available continues to shrink. And even those missions that ARE still counted are primarily part-time activities run out of someone’s home or office. The days of the big missions with 100+ staff are long gone. In fact, they were wiped out pretty soon after Hubbard wrote this quote.
Steve Evans — whoever he is –may or may not know all this.
But no matter because all scientologists are ever hopeful that their dreams will come true. Always sometime in the future. No matter how much evidence there is it will NEVER happen — 10, 20, 50 years of proven failure — they maintain a completely irrational belief that it WILL happen “because Ron says so…”
And he remains ever deluded that “scientologyTV” is actually causing anyone to be interested in finding out more about scientology….
So sad.
It will probably get down to “Ideal Shacks” and “Ramshackle Missions” before too much longer. Maybe they could make a deal with the Tough Shed® people.
It looks like scientology.og has a new location where it is pretty easy to get the numbers. Missions are mixed in with other types of groups, but there are so few organizations, counting them Here is the page for the US: https://www.scientology.org/churches/regions/united-states-of-america.html
I count 98 total and this includes test centers, community centers, missions, orgs, and advanced orgs.
Clicking around the other links I find 41 missions and “religious groups” in Russia.
The old wag about not remembering history and being doomed to repeat it pops up here. IMO it would be a brave soul who would paste a target on themselves after the mission holder massacre of 1982. Miscavige is not going to hesitate to do it again if any mission or missions look like they are doing well, so why would anyone even think about becoming a franchise holder?
Valerie, anyone who looked at a franchise would see that they are doomed to be small orgs run by SMI as badly as or worse than orgs are. In 6 decades, Tubby could only ever get one org at a time to be truly (in his mind) profitable, usually because he was AT that org and drawing surpluses of patrons to his current location. More recently (since Ron’s death), the result of his mismanagement policies and DM’s “doing it all” micromanagement is that ONE org is really profitable: Flag. The flagship,”Freewinds” SHOULD be wildly profitable for many of the same reasons Flag is, but it isn’t because it can’t deal in volume as Flag does and can neither expand nor overcome the built-in bureaucratic “bloat” required by Tubby’s paleolithic, never-to-be-changed policies. While he was on the “high seas”, the Apollo SHOULD have been very profitable with him onboard and developing the OT levels, the Ls and the Class XII auditors, but that was hamstrung by his policies and his mercurial moods when dealing with the governments where they docked and operated. Finally, he ran out of ports he could run away to, so he returned to land (Clearwater & the Flag land base), but NEVER examined reality and couldn’t see that he should have made a few changes “here and there”. DM has no reason to change because he can continue to live like an Arab prince with the cash and slaves he has to hand and Flag’s income alone can keep the rest of the shell of scientology financed until the game is over there IS no shell of scientology to prop up. Currently, there are only a few whales being milked for their money until they dry up and are tossed away as useless relics.
? What happened to the show tonight? Is the season over?
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE:
Future Mission Holder
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to exceed the statistics of Martin Samuel’s network at the peak of his success in the 70’s. This message will self-destruct in ten seconds. The destruction of your ill-founded hopes will take a little longer.
That’s funny and sad at the same time
Few if any of the the orgs can exceed the statistics of the most successful of the missions during Scientology’s heyday.
But what did Samuels do to achieve that success? Did his missions, like others that were appearing to thrive, resort to facilitating loan fraud, treating staff like Sea Org with long hours and low pay (and often the necessity of moonlighting or relying on other sources of money), and hounding members including if they tried to leave?
A search turned up that Samuels ended up embroiled in a couple of infamous fraud trials in Portland. He appears to have conceded in court that rooms at his Portland mission were bugged, which was a common tactic – taken from the “hard sell” tactics of car dealers, so that supervisors could listen for customers’ weaknesses, and even spy on the discussions of couples when sales people had left the room, and better figure how to manipulate them into closing a sale:
http://www.lermanet.com/scientologynews/portland-titchbourne-1983.htm
Samuels was part of skulduggery, including witness tampering and perjury as part of a GO operation, during a 1979 fraud court case (the same year that Bent Corydon’s large Riverside mission was raided by authorities for loan fraud):
https://www.scientology-lies.com/press/oregonian/1985-04-19/witness-says-judge-probed.html
I realize that some people didn’t experience any of this, or just a little bit that they didn’t realize was as extensive as it might have been – such is essentially my case. But I also think it’s those people who had it best, and escaped the worst, who may be more likely to maintain a bit of interest and even nostalgia, and comment in forums like this, while those hardest hit by unethical and even illegal tactics and left bitter or actually ruined, and with the most first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing, may be less likely to be heard from.
Also, it’s interesting to note that Samuels’ and the missions of just one or two other mission holders accounted for something approaching half of all US missions income – apparently only a couple of people, with the best locations (mostly on the West Coast) and a hardcore if not even lawless attitude towards making sales, could really make a go of Dianetics and Scientology, regardless.
At $5 grand a pop and you are required to have 2 and you want to be an auditor it kind of thins the herd. Surprised there are any Missions left. Not sure what a 12 1/2 hour intensive is right now at a Mission, $3500?
Didn’t I read an story where all mission holders were called to a meeting in the 80s and were forced to hand over the keys to their missions or risk being declared on some trumped up charges and Miscavige joking later that he showed them. Apparently they were disloyal somehow or had real estate that Miscavige wanted.
Only one thing comes to mind: stick a fork in it, it’s done.
Mission franchises were always listed separately from orgs until on the CofS website they combined the listings a couple of years ago, presumably to try to hide the vastly shrunken number of locations. I started an analysis of the US listings, and came up with about 45 missions including a couple of “life improvement center” franchises, which seem to be a sort of “ideal” mission in very nice storefront-type space, subsidized by local whales.
Of the missions that the CofS still lists, many are on their last legs, reduced to cheap out-of-the-way commercial space or the extra rooms of members’ businesses (a fact often carefully camouflaged by making the address appear slightly different), and even in aging franchisee’s homes and apartments. Scientology has also in recent years resorted to having rich members assume responsibility for failing missions – Ocala was taken over by a mission holder from California, and then when he was reportedly declared (perhaps because he could no longer support money-losing missions) those were taken over by a wealthy new franchisee who is also a major donor, and runs a string of dental clinics as his real business.
Reportedly, a couple of the old missions in good locations in Scientology strongholds like the LA area are still financially viable, serving clients looking for better service and lower prices than available at upper-level orgs. I can’t imagine the CofS will succeed in a push to open more missions, unless they convince some whales to subsidize them, or do more of their longstanding practice of selling mission starter packages to rank and file members who will never be able to really open and maintain a franchise location.
Also, I think some of the missions still exist, and existed to begin with, because during Scientology’s heyday their mission holders actually had field auditing practices that brought in clients, and could afford the rental of storefronts or locations with better visibility (often a walk-up over shops). People like that hang on until the end, perhaps still serving a few clients, but they are getting to the age where their retirement or demise (and even the occasional late-life divorce) is marking the end of many of the missions.
And, of course, Scientology now has a lot of small and failing orgs (SFOs) that are really just the size of a rather modest mission – many of them old missions that shouldn’t have been made into orgs to begin with, but were elevated to that status do to some accident or machination in CofS history.
I went to the Social Security office today to get my benefits letter.
I also asked them about my FICA earnings reported by the Church.
I joined the SO IN 1979.
The printout shows earnings for 79, 80 and 81 but no earnings from 82 to 95.
In 96 it says I made 536.01 for the entire year. In 2001 it says I made 5829.96. So in 01 I made over 10 times what I made in 96?
I had the same job working the same insane hours (Not that it matters as we are not paid by the hour. I was actually paid about the same for those years.
One thing we know about the Church is that it cannot tell the truth.
I thought that after the IRS recognition that they were paying into Social Security as required by law. If they don’t report the income which is required by law then they do not have to pay the tax. And the IRS is not going to know whether I am still working for them on a ship in the Carribbean.
The Captain finally told me a month before I left in 2002 that in 1989 they took me off the crew list so they could take me off of their insurance as the premium was going to go up from my hospital trip with my ulcer in 89.They paid top dollar for the AIDS virus contaminated blood products that the provided me.
Aside from the foul play the Church did to get tax exemption they are not following the existing agreement with the IRS.
There is a fraud hotline number on the printout. Who knows maybe i’ll just pick up the phone and call.
Maybe someone knowlegeable or Mike himself can answer this: Why did they pay FICA on my earnings in 79, 80 and 81 and then not pay anything till 1996? I understand the argument that they considered themselves a Church but why did it change back and forth? In 1996 they realized that they agreed to pay in 93 (or 94) and so they started paying again?
And they pulled the numbers out of their asses. Even a first grade math student can see that 50 dollars a week times 52 weeks a year does not add up to $5800.00 even with the longevity bonus and Christmas bonus. I never sold books or had any other income. In Scn terms I had no other fish to fry.
These lyin cockaroaches got away with fucking over their public. They got away with fucking over their staff. They even got away with fucking over the IRS. But, as the likes of Hitler found out, you can’t just keep getting away with larger and bigger crimes. The bill to pay for their crimes has come due. It’s time to pay the piper.
Please do not post this comment. It is more of a personal remark to Mike Rinder than anything pertaining to this blog.
[EDITED COMMENT AS PER REQUEST]
Thank you for your kind words Skyler. Appreciated.
The only worthwhile mission is to expose this church of fraud.
How do members reconcile the obvious truth of reality with the hyperbole spouted by the “leaders” of the cult? I mean I get the ones who are cocooned in bubble wrap and prohibited from taking a step out of fear of being punished, but the ones who live amongst “normal” people??? I understand that the church tries to stop them from going on the internet or looking at things that could be negative, but in normal day to day life you have to be living in a cave to not hear the roar of outrage from people…there’s got to be an exodus going on. Or at least starting…
That brings me to my second question: how does Scientology make money now? It seems like they have pretty much bled their current members dry- there cannot be many new members coming in, and they are spending enormous amounts of money on TV channels, commercials, brand new buildings (which must have huge electricity bills just to have the appearance of being used) and all that gilt that goes into their decor and stage sets. The economics don’t work for long. I realize they have a lot of bank, but they have to pay millions on PI firms alone, not to mention lawyers and security. How are they planning on keeping afloat much longer? A few rich supporters can’t cover these bills forever. I won’t be surprised if they start quietly trying to unload some real estate soon…
Kat, they’re ALL, in various ways, out of fear of being punished, prohibited from “taking a step”, meaning, of questioning, of contesting, of acting upon what they observe as the difference between what they’re being told and the reality which is the evidence before their eyes and under their noses.
They ALL see NO evidence whatsoever of the expansion that the cult continually assures them is occurring.
The difference between them is that SOME of them can’t or won’t lie to themselves about what they observe and know to be true. Some of them can’t LIVE that way. This inability to live a lie comes from WITHIN the person. Its a force motivating him or her from within.
These are the ones who leave. These are the ones who are UTR (under the radar) while pretending to be part of it all – for varying reasons – and/or who are quietly planning to leave. Leaving is their GOAL.
As for the rest, well, they have all kinds of reasons, all kinds of excuses, understandable excuses, heart-renderingly real excuses, self serving excuses – but in the end, they’re excuses.
These die hard still ins are ok with living a lie. They’re OK with pretending to be believe what they know isn’t true. They’re OK with being scammed, and scamming others.
The GOOD news is that every “Outie” was once an “Innie”, knowingly or unknowingly living a lie,
At some point, each of US had our moment where we said, “NO. Enough. I’m leaving.”
What it took for each of us varies. But we each were once in, and had our moment.
What occurred for us Now Outies CAN occur for the Still Innies.
Its a personal thing, a personal decision.
“Enough. No more.”
Because they DO SEE. Its impossible not to. So they see, alright. But how long they can go on justifying, twisting and turning away from what they know is true, well, its up to each of them, individually.
Aquamarine,
Thank you for responding to my questions- I will hope that more I nies become outies!!
Kat
Kat, “Members” don’t look at reality or compare the hyperbole to it. Those who do look and compare are ex-members for the most part.
Okay, went back over the databases and discovered I made a slight error. There are 7 “Missions” that disappeared from the IRS Exempt Organization database between 10 Dec 2018 and 11 Feb 2019, but 2 new ones popped up. That’s why I thought only 5 changed when I compared total numbers for the two databases. These are the differences over that two month period. I shortened ‘CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY to COS to fit the comments better:
“Missions” that are part of Group Exemption 4167 that appear in the 10 Dec 2018 IRS Exempt Org database, but not the 11 Feb 2019 edition of the database. The first number is the EIN:
680451903 COS 267 NEVADA ST, AUBURN, CA 95603-4617 MISSION OF AUBURN
710935073 COS PO BOX 236, FOLSOM, CA 95763-0236 MISSION OF FOLSOM
270054550 COS 6710 MELROSE AVE, LOS ANGELES, CA 90038-3412 MISSION OF MELROSE
770546964 COS 604 MISSION ST STE 600, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105-3509 MISSION OF SF-SOMA
770415961 COS 3226 SCOTT BLVD, SANTA CLARA, CA 95054-3007 MISSION OF PALO ALTO
954096984 COS 13517 VENTURA BLVD, SHEMAN OAKS, CA 91423-3867 MISSION OF BEVERLY HILLS
382473225 COS 7388 FENTON RD UNIT 1, GRAND BLANC, MI 48439-8963 MISSION OF GENESEE COUNTY
New for the 4167 Group Exemption n the 11 Feb 2019 IRS Exempt Org database:
364863291 COS 400 OCEANGATE STE 550, LONG BEACH, CA 90802-4388 MISSION OF LONG BEACH
800290879 COS 5681 RIDGE RD, PARMA, OH 44129-2939 MISSION OF CENTRAL CLEVELAND
That’s weird. There is one in Chatsworth. I know positively because I RV camped across the street from it for a week last August. So does that mean it’s not tax exempt?
Probably no matter. I saw a total of 3 adults and 2 young children the entire 7 days.
Scientology is so dead.
Waiting for my children and old friends to figure it out.
Thank you to everyone speaking out ?
Cece, maybe this one? http://www.chatsworth.scientologymissions.org/
The one on Ventura Bl. calling itself “Mission of Beverly Hills” lol. Off by a few miles, a few ZIP codes, and 45 minutes of LA traffic over the 405.
I suppose Sherman Oaks is one of the better addresses, if you must live in the Valley. But it’s on the north side of Ventura. Everybody knows that in Sherman Oaks, you wanna be south of “The Boulevard.”
PickAnotherID, thanks for that.
I know that the Cleveland (Parma) mission is a long-existing one, and a few years ago it was in a dentist’s office, while now it’s off a back parking lot entry to an old row of storefronts, so maybe it just changed franchisee. Or perhaps there was just a reporting error, or it actually went dormant for a year or longer while changing hands. There’s also long been some vestigial Long Beach mission, so that may be more corporate and organizational shuffling than something new opening, though perhaps someone is trying to resurrect it:
http://www.xenu-directory.net/documents/corporate/entity.php?ntt=1427
Among the 5 dropped, just off the top of my head, the Melrose mission was one that the Angry Gay Pope documented as having closed, though I think maybe it technically lived on for a while with its phones answered at the nearest org; and SF SOMA sounds like it might have been Jenna Elfman’s failed celebrity mission, which was long ago shuttered but could have continued to exist on paper until recently. I’m not surprised that missions in Auburn, Folsom, and Genesee County (Michigan) weren’t viable; and if I recall correctly Palo Alto was the site of Sarge Gerbode’s once-popular mission, though they have an old web presence saying it was founded in 1996 by Cindy Feschbach, from a famous Scientology family, who turns up as having moved to Austin, TX about 5 years ago, where there’s a moribund org that moved out of their building a year ago, but at last report had yet to start renovation work to make it “ideal.” It’s plausible and even likely that all 5 of those actually closed.
What a mess!
Co$ is so lame. One of the “400 missions” is in my town. It used to be across the street from the county jail, upstairs from a bail bond place. There was a printed 8.5×11 piece of paper stuck behind glass on the outer door, saying scientology, suite 5 or some such. I went there once to find the suite door unlocked, the two-room scientology suite empty, a pile of mail on the floor that had come through the mail slot, a chair, a bit of construction dust where someone had drilled a hole in the wall. A few months later it was gone. I suppose it was too much of a high rent district. So I looked up the new address online then tried to find it. The new place is in a small industrial park, off the freeway but almost impossible to get to. Lots of little rooms off of an outside corridor in a two story building, with little signs on the doors for selling widgets or whoever they were doing. I parked in the lot and looked around for the address but could not find it and I swear that there was no door with a scientology sign on it. So I can’t imagine how anyone would ever find this place. I haven’t been there in a year but it is still listed online (I just checked). For all I know, it too is gone. By the way there is an empty ideal org 40 miles north of me, and another one 10 miles south of me. What a fail.
$cientology is a cult that operates on many levels of self-delusion and deliberate obfuscation to keep the con going as long as possible so diminutive Prince Davey can live the high life in mostly solitude.
so from Dec to Feb they lost 5 more missions per the IRS report mentioned above by, “PickAnotherID.” Good job by the way. But that report still says there are 55 missions across the US. If there are only 3 in Florida I wonder if there are even 55 now? Which 5 shut down between Dec and Feb I also wonder? The truth is now out there so people can make an informed decision, so the “people” can choose for them selves, instead of being lied to. It’s all about the truth
I opened a mission in Miami in 1988 after OT VIII. The only way we expanded was by keeping the Miami Org people and SMI out. I had to close it in about a year. The Miami Org CEO came in and ripped us apart for not having base boards installed in a new facility. He came in and demanded we send tons of PC’s. IAS came in and raped us for money. SMI called about 6 times a day and at midnight asking for stats. We expanded when we offered mind blowing auditing at reasonable rates. Our whole purpose was to literally make people cry, bawl and scream. They seemed to get some relief from the meter sessions when we could do that.
Typical Sea Org “competence.” The SO fucks up everything it touches.
Wait, so are you talking about some kind of org chart aka base board? Or are you talking about those little decorative board on the bottoms of walls?
The little boards on the bottom of the walls
There are no $cientology Missions because no one is going to be that brain washed or insane to compete with an Ideal Org when the Ideal Orgs ALL sit vacant, are they?
Not only that, trying to get 1 person in to do a service is like forcing Xenu to come out of hiding and expose his naughty self.
It ain’t happening.
Yet, the Tax Exempt Scientology still pulls the old….
“We are going to give you some of that Scientological HELP that we advertise by $elling you the Mission Package for a mere $35,000. It includes some books and the “right and privilege”: to ruin people’s lives.
I got into the CULT through “Toastmasters”. A Scientologist was recruiting members from that group.
I was unfortunate to meet a really sleazy highly trained Registrar. The Registrar was very manipulative. I did not realize it because I was in a church and felt relatively safe. He conned me into taking on debt I could not handle and he called that HELP. In reality, I was his stat for the week.
I was a lonely, ignorant WOG hunk of RAW MEAT that just wanted a 2-D and a few balls to ask one out. I also was interested in making more money. Who isn’t?
I was like Fred Flintstone – on the episode where he is a gambling addict….I was all glassy eyed and wired…..”BET….BET…..BET”. Like a gambling addict high on the hopes that I would strike it rich.
The Registrar told me he was only helping me and put me into debt I could not handle. He was able to get me open credit cards and max them out, had me borrowing from family and friends and even using up all of my equity refinancing my house. I did it ! I was so VGI’s – for a few seconds – I secured my Bridge. The happy moment was fleeting and then I realized I was financially caved in. Other Scientologists met my story with “What did you do that for? That is your fault” which further caved me in.
Now I get it – BK is the EP of securing your Bridge to Eternity.
Believing it was my fault, I went away quietly to lick my wounds and “be accountable” for caving myself in financially. I stayed away for years.
A Flag recruiter got me when I was vulnerable again and I went to FLAG, the Mecca of Technical Extortion, where I thought they used the tech better than the Class 5 Org. After all, I was dealing with the most ethical group on the planet and surely Flag would not hurt me. Right?
The MAA could not find a cash flowing transgression so they picked the scab off of my BK to extract some cash.
I found out later that tons of Scientologists are filing bankruptcy. I heard MAA’s were using the ole “Pirates and Bums” reference with some Scientologists that filed BK. Unfortunately, I had a stat hungry MAA that obviously was tired of eating BEANS AND RICE.
The MAA said – “How did you pull off filing bankruptcy?” “I said – the Registrar told me to secure my Bridge and money and a 2-D would flow to me”
The MAA said – “you need to deliver a BLOW to he enemy….so give us $35,000 so you can be “ACCOUNTABLE” for opening a Mission” trick.”
Scientologists call that help. Wogs call it – caving a person in.
I said I would not do it after a full week of extortion – not letting me go into session knowing I had to get back to work – the MAA and I struck a deal. I told them I was going to pass out WTH booklets in Clearwater as my amends or I was leaving. But the whole time I am wondering why I am doing something for Scientology – what about the creditors that did not get paid? Should I not be making amends to them?
I have talked to many apostates. The MAA’s at Flag, ASHO and AOLA use this little trick. I wonder if they have fruit plate wars over it? For you lurkers and never in’s that have joined us – Google: HY LEVY on You Tube.
By the way, RIP Hy Levy – you delivered a blow of epic proportions. Thank you.
Hi Boycott.
Your post is soooooo very similar to my experiences in the cult. I categorically REFUSED to go into debt though.
They did manage to help themselves to a lot of equity in my property however. (I finally realised what a crock of crap it all was and took them to court to get my money back).
The number of times I heard of people who were ethics particles because they were in serious financial problems was countless. And the Ethics Officer’s response was “Why did you let them reg you for all that if you couldn’t afford it” WTF???!!!! This was the SAME Ethics Officer who had his own house repossessed due to the amount of money he was conned out of………… Unbelievable…..
Actually, if the police knew about the financial frauds, extortion and downright theft that went on in my old Mission, then I think it would have been shut down and the execs slung in prison.
That place was like a Mafia organisation, except you probably get something in return from the Mafia…….
Would you mind if I asked whether your court case was successful? I would guess it would be one thing to win a judgement from them. But much more difficult to collect any money from them. Although, unlike most cases, these people own property so maybe you could get some money from them. In any case, if you were able to get any money from them, it would be an extremely valuable experience for other people trying to do the same thing. I have never heard of anyone who took them to court and got some money out of them as a result.
Hi Skyler,
Yes, my court case was successful. Well, what actually happened is that the cult settled out of court as a “gesture of goodwill”. They had to in the end because they knew that if it came to court then all the financial crimes of the mission would come to light. As I said earlier, this place was a complete illegal entity when it came to financial crimes.
I am based in the UK, so various legal issues will differ in the USA where the cult is a recognised “religion”.
I don’t think that the mother “church” contributed anything to my claim. They basically threw the mission under a bus and hung it out to dry. I had heard that intense regging went on to pay off myself, and other parties, in our claim. This probably backfired when the newer members woke up and also claimed money back at a later date. The entire place was a continuous circle of money in to pay off the legally flapping repayment requests, then later on rinse and repeat.
As a final note I will say that if anyone wants any considerable sums of money back from the cult, then get a good solicitor/lawyer. Most of the organisations are flat broke, and if you wait for them to repay you then you’ll be waiting for an eternity. The ONLY way to do it is via the legal process.
Thanks for sharing your post with us exbrit. I think sharing horror stories on the internet are some of the most healing posts for me to return back to my old self. Just to know you were not crazy and that you were defrauded, lied to, manipulated and conned by Scientologists.
Now the Government needs to step up and take away that tax exemption and religous cloak so $cientology and David Miscavige have to abide by the laws of the land.
When a Scientologists says “It is your fault – you pulled it in” – that is so fucking cruel and inhumane to say to someone who is already hurting from the devastation of financial ruin.
Recently, Tony Ortega posted a story about an 80 year old woman who was scammed at AOLA. I think it is worth repeating here:
Please read lurkers – this IS Scientology:
“They asked me for $3,500 for an intensive in LA to get my hearing back. And $300 for six days in the hotel there, at $50 a day — which turned out being $75 a day.” When she balked at the overall cost, one of the missionaires offered to pay for her flight. (An “intensive” is a block of 12.5 hours of auditing, Scientology’s brand of counseling.)
In Los Angeles, she did the auditing at the Advanced Org, AOLA, and she says she enjoyed it. “I thought I was doing better. I was having wins. I was excited,” she says. (Later, when she returned home, she had herself tested and was disappointed to learn that she had lost another four percent of her hearing.)
On her second day, however, she was asked to meet with some of Scientology’s very persistent fundraisers, known as “registrars.”
“They put me in a room for five hours. ‘You want to go up the Bridge,’ they said. I said I can’t afford it. ‘If we can find you a way, will you do it? We’ll get you a line of credit,’ they said. So, OK, we’ll get a line of credit.”
One of the people pestering her, a man named Morgan, was using a laptop computer the entire time, she says. She found out later that Morgan was applying for credit on her behalf, using all of her private information they had on file. “They said I was the one on the computer. Then they had me sign a paper — ah, I was so stupid I signed whatever they gave me.”
They escorted her from AOLA to a local bank to complete the transaction. “They had all of my information. My Social Security Number, my mother’s maiden name. So the bank said it was a proper transaction.”
At some point, she says, one of the other registrars asked for her smartphone, saying that he wanted to put the Scientology TV app on it. “I thought I was getting a letter of credit. But what it turned out to be was three credit cards. I only later realized that what he actually did with my phone was activate the three cards.”
At the time, she was just glad the “regging” session was over. She assumed that a letter of credit was something she could draw on later, and wasn’t an issue at the time. She went on with her auditing.
As the week came to a close, she was looking forward to going home. But as her return date neared, she realized that they had other ideas. “They didn’t want to lose the stat. There were very few people there. They didn’t want anyone to leave.”
They wanted her to draw on her credit to buy many more intensives of auditing. She was told that what she really needed was another 23 intensives, or 287 hours in total of counseling.
She just wanted to go home. By 1:30 pm on her final day, she had completed a routing form except for one final signature, showing that she had completed what she came to do. “For hours and hours, they worked on me, trying to get me to stay.”
She sat in the Advanced Org, and sat. At 11:30 pm, she decided that she was going to walk out.
“I said I was going home. They all surrounded me, walking me down the front of the building. They wanted me to go to Ethics. But I went to the hotel, and they followed me. A little later, at 12:30, they called me in my room, saying that I had to come by in the morning at 8:30.”
She then learned to her surprise that her flight reservation the next day was still intact. (She assumed they would have changed it to keep her there.) At about 4:30 am, she put on as many sets of clothes as she thought she could get away with, and made her way to the lobby. She knew that she had to leave her luggage behind.
“The only way I could leave was to pretend I was going for a walk. I walked down the block, and I found some men who looked sketchy. I went into a Motel 6 or something and asked the guy behind the counter to call Uber for me.” Within minutes her ride picked her up and went to the airport. “I was shaking like crazy.”
She got home without incident. But then, she finally discovered that it wasn’t a letter of credit she had obtained, but three credit cards — and a balance of $59,500.
“I had no idea until I got home. Two of the cards arrived in the mail, the third one never arrived. I took the two down to our local church,” she says. She complained, but she was told that she had approved the transaction. “I never said yes. I don’t have that kind of money,” she insisted.
Meanwhile, she went to her bank, reporting the transaction to the fraud department.
“The bank decided it wasn’t fraud,” she says. “I went to everyone I could think of. I appealed the decision. They said it would go to the executive office, the highest it could go. In November, they said they would call me the next day. I never heard from them again.”
She also sent letters to local law enforcement, and even to the attorney general of her state. Again, she got nowhere.
But in the meantime, one thing she was sure of: She was no longer a member of the Church of Scientology.
“My kids are happy that I’m out. They’ve been very supportive.” At one point, when she told them she was trying to get her money back from Scientology and would probably be the subject of harassment, she said she planned to leave town so they wouldn’t be targeted as well. But they immediately drove over and told her not to leave.
“I was afraid of them. I’m not as afraid now. But I was still a Scientologist — until I got home and found out what they had done. It gradually dawned on me what they did. I’d been brainwashed. I’m still working on it.”
A couple of weeks after our initial conversation, we checked back with her and she told us that she was very pleased: She had just spoken to another law enforcement agency that seemed very interested in what she had been through, and asked for copies of her documentation.
We hope something comes of it.
CODA: Now, that update we promised. We heard last night from Graham Berry, whom we first wrote about almost 20 years ago (wow, how time flies). He sent us this happy dispatch…
“I am pleased to inform you that I successfully represented Efrem Logreira in his claim against the church. A confidential settlement agreement permits me to state that Logreira’s dispute with the church has been resolved to the parties’ mutual satisfaction. Consequently, Efrem is doing very much better and his situation is greatly improved.”
Wow, that’s good to hear. And Graham had another update for us that he asked us to relate to our readers…
“I am now preparing another pre-litigation demand letter in connection with a similar situation to the one Efrem described and endured. If it must go to litigation it will be worth substantial damages. It should also be worth an award of punitive damages. However, a plaintiff who wishes to sue a California religious corporation for punitive damages must make an early showing of merit. To that end, I would very much like to hear from anyone who, during the last five years, signed up for Scientology books, courses or auditing with bank loans, overdrafts, credit cards, or other forms of loan or credit; particularly where a staffer has assisted with the opening of new credit cards or obtaining increased credit card or overdraft limits. I can be DM’d on Facebook, emailed on grahamberryesq@gmail.com, telephoned at (310) 745-3771, texted at (310) 902-6381. I also have an encrypted account at Hushmail.com.”
IRS – you need to investigate this. ^^^^^^^^^
I also believe we need to expose all of the foreclosures, the bankruptcies and financial ruin of all Scientolgists who refuse to look at what they are involved in.
Shame them out of Scientology.
Also – if you have been financially exploited by Scientology – contact Graham Berry. A true humanitarian.
I’d call regges a bunch of assholes, but that would be an insult to assholes.
BTW, what’s the “Pirates & Bums” reference? I’m not familiar with that one and not having much luck searching it.
Since SMI was created, there ARE NO Missions, only mini-micro orgs hamstrung by the same policies and mismanagement that keep the orgs small and inviable. As someone else said recently, there is ONE “mission” which survives on Flag’s cast-offs which seems to be somewhat viable for the moment. Other than NOI, there are no new scientologists being recruited, so Flag will eventually run out people they can cast aside. Flag can’t really pull people in off the street, try as they might with the failed “block party” and similar, so that mission will have to somehow break free of its bonds and find its own public for the few services they’re allowed to deliver
That’s a cool looking fort. If I were 12, that would have been my dream house.
?
Missions have no hope. This is because of the lies in Scientology’s PR that have backfired on them.
When an organization shrinks due to bad PR generated by defective products or services, management is supposed to “come clean” and change something to improve the situation or the Board of Directors is supposed to remove the management and find new management who will improve the situation.
This “come clean” strategy is a well known organizational PR solution that is practiced all around the world by businesses, governments, or any organization that needs a favorable public persona. It can be expensive and painful to correct defective products or services but it is HOW you save a brand/company, like Pierre bottled water (They recalled $250 million bottles of water tainted with benzine in 1990, fired 700 people, recovered their stock value and eventually sold out to Nestle).
However, if there is deception or lies in the “come clean” PR process, then it does not work. It is well known that lies in PR will backfire and spin the brand faster into the toilet of history. LRH was NOT the first to discover that lies in PR should not be told because they can backfire and make matters worse. But, he was the first person to build an entire organization based on lies and then advised OSA/GO not to lie in their press releases. Instead, he said to tell or manufacture an acceptable truth. So, after fleecing 10,000’s of members with a bait and switch con, he suggests to just help an old lady across the street and promote that old lady, who is not a member or staff, as the charitable purpose of your organization.
Against this background it is amazing that any mission exists..
“Against this background it is amazing that any mission exists..”
No scientology “missions” exist, or at least none who bring in new members in any quantity sufficient for them to stay open to continue luring in new members.
with all of the old, viable ones imploded into the SMI network, which won’t allow them to do anything that might WORK, there’s no existing workable models which can be followed. And the old mission-holders, AFAICT, are all declared, so can’t help by imparting their wisdom, can’t step IN the mini-orgs that SMI has dictated and suppressively enforces
Does anyone know what happened to the Charlotte, NC mission? I suspect it closed down years ago. It was owned by Alan James and his wife Jay. I wonder from time to time if they are still drinking the Kool Aid.
Jae James is a friend of Mary, the woman who betrayed me big time and ratted me out to Scn for reading blogs and spied on me and reported to the church. Her husband was working as a volunteer for OSA and I was under secret investigation for my reading of the blogs. She, the friend of Jae’s, even placed bugs all over my house to further spy on me, and I’m sure it was at OSA’s behest. All this when she herself was and is UTR and hates DM by her own admission. She is pretending to be a faithful KA drinker so as to keep her son and his two kids and not lose them to disconnection. That’s all well and good but she shouldn’t have betrayed me just to show the church how loyal she was.
Last I heard Jae was still drinking Kool Aid. She and her husband are divorced. The Msn they used to run in Charlotte is out of biz now, closed down.
Wow that is interesting, thanks for the update. I’m not surprised Jae is still drinking the Kool Aid. Do you know if the husband is still drinking the Kool Aid? The last time I saw Jae, I was at Big Blue and she was crossing the street to the AO. My auditor, Bob Lowery said that Jae thought she was a past life clear and worked with Hubbard in her previous life.
Is there any stat that shows how many viewers the Scientology channel gets on a regular basis? I am interested to know if they even have viewers, (who aren’t Scientologists)
Google results yield little useful information. It’s available at YouTube and other outlets as well, so getting the right numbers is proll a bit difficult.
This, OTOH, isn’t good.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.9news.com.au/article/da5ce870-38af-40d2-9ba0-913f54b310b1
I wonder if David knows about this. Not good, David. Not good at all.
Or in the US only a couple of angry neigbours in Chilocco Oklahoma a week or so ago.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%201-m&geo=US&q=scientology%20tv
Mary, I do not know it’s true but someone recently commented that the CSN had numbers too small to be reported. Certainly, their web address gets too few hits to be bothered about. Sadly, I’ve clicked into their domain a couple of times lately by accident. SO I boosted their “stats” by one or two, which is bad, but the drivel didn’t at all make me “curious”, which is good and I’ll be checking where links are taking me more carefully, another good thing.
I clicked onto their sites twice, thinking they were ANTI blogs and felt stupid afterwards.
Mary…i watched about 20 minutes of the Scn channel as i was staying in a hotel due to the Camp Fire in No Calif..
Pretty boring..i don’t see how anyone can watch for long
They believe it will happen ‘because Ron said so’ … and because miscabage keeps repeating it at events, with fancy videos and music.
As long as there is someone repeating the lie over, and over, and over again there will be people ‘believing’ in it.
After all, it is a cult, isn’t it?
So important to understand this is TRUE. So long that someone keeps on repeating the lie,. the duped one will believe it is true – no matter how patently absurd it may be. They believe it – even thought it is so completely unbelievable, they believe it. And even if they didn`t believe it what difference would it make? They got your money and you got shit on a stick! IOW – you got “bupkis”. (an ancient word from an ancient language)
Thank you Mike and Leah for the powerful work you’re doing.
Hmmm …. I wonder just how many rubles it would cost to get permission to buy a shack in Russia and call it a new ideal … Hmmm …. Oh! I know! How perfect would it be to call it a “Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious Mission”? I wonder if that would have cost any extra rubles?
I would guess that it would not have cost very many rubles to get permission. Shall we make an attempt? After all, isn’t that just the kind of name that L. Ron Blubbard (a tip of the cap to Wynski for the idea to use that name) would have liked?
A quick check of the IRS Exempt Organization database for 10 Dec 2018 shows 60 ‘missions’ listed for the US, including the SMI headquarters, under Group Exemption 4167 granted by the 1993 Closing Agreement. A check of the EO database for 11 Feb 2019 shows there are now only 55 ‘mission’ listed for GEN 4167, including the SMI headquarters. I’ll figure out which ones went away between Dec and Feb after my brain gets it’s morning coffee.
Missions (Franchises) were supposed to be FOR profit orgs feeding newly made scientologists into upper Orgs. Since no sane person (in the USA) wants to join scamology there is no place for Missions.