Many have wondered what the scientology obsession with files is all about.
The topic of this posting is ONE type of file kept in scientology organizations — what is known as the “Central File.” There are other types of files, including:
- Preclear Files which contain notes and records of all auditing actions on an individual,
- Ethics Files which contain all reports written on a person and disciplinary actions,
- Personnel Files which contain all the personal information about anyone on staff in an org,
- OSA Files which contain any information about disaffection or criminal activities or material that can be used to “influence” someone including all their connections,
- Accounts Files which contain the records of payments and debits against those payments,
- Student files which contain everything about someone’s study of scientology courses
…and perhaps others I have forgotten.
This is the latest “promotion” about “Mighty” Miami’s files:
Every “ideal org” has MASSIVE backlogged “filing” — especially, but not limited to, their “Central Files.”
And it is always a full-blown panic to get this filing done. You will see above that of the 40 staff in the continental management org for the Eastern US responsible for managing 28 orgs — more than HALF of them have been sent to Miami to work on “Central Files” flat out. What an astonishing revelation this is.
Just what are “Central Files” and why is scientology so fixated on them?
Here is the description right from the Scientology Admin Dictionary:
There are many different things that are supposed to end up in a “Central Files” folder and no organization in the history of scientology has ever been able to maintain this filing system and make it work. It is simply too cumbersome and inefficient. If they allocate enough staff to maintaining the files they cannot possibly make enough money in the organization to survive because there will be too few staff to fundraise or deliver auditing and training. It’s a SYSTEM that has proven to be unworkable since the day it was invented. Yet, it is held in place as if the very future of this planet and every man, woman and child depends upon it.
Well, that is about how they see things. This is the word of God from L. Ron Hubbard himself — in ALL CAPS no less:
As this is one of the most important “stable data” of scientology organizations — even though it has proven to be completely untrue, and it is NOT what determines the income of an organization — David Miscavige has decreed that before he will appear to yank any ribbon on an “ideal” org, it must have all its backlogged filing brought current. Of course, one week after the video teams have departed, the new backlog begins. This also explains why, especially lately, scientology has spent millions to trace addresses of old people in their files and why people who have heard nothing from scientology in decades suddenly have their mailboxes full. Income is dropping. No new people are coming in. So, according to “policy” they believe their best chance is to resurrect the people who are already in their files they have lost track of and see if they can interest them again. It also explains why it is SO hard to get yourself removed from their mailing list.
Many have also wondered why they don’t simply computerize these files? The answer to that is as stupid as you can get. L. Ron Hubbard did not say that the files should be computerized, so they are not. He laid out an entire administrative system in scientology with invoices and debits, accounts statements, written notes from the “C/S”, snail mail letters and more. The whole scientology system would need to be computerized and fundamental policy would need to be modified. And it would COST money when labor is virtually free.
The administrative system developed by Hubbard for scientology is unwieldy and antiquated. Hubbard of course claimed it was the first true system of organization ever developed and it was superior to the “galactic confederation” that had “ruled for millions of years” because he had made “breakthroughs” that nobody had ever conceived of before him (a quality control division…). So far, there isn’t any organization in the world that has stable expanded using his “administrative breakthroughs.” Not a single one. But there are a huge number of failures. Some have tried to claim it works great but people alter it or misapply it and that is the reason it fails. But when nobody has ever made it work, not even L. Ron Hubbard himself, I would say that is an absurd position to take. (And before anyone starts — yes, Hubbard did manage to get scientologists from all over the world to come to St Hill to do the Briefing Course when he was delivering the lectures personally – and as soon as he left, it collapsed. Same with DC and London before it. He then claimed others did it in Boston as “proof”. Boston lasted for a year of heavy stat push, and today you can hardly find any organization at all as they sold the only claim to fame they had – their building).
Just for good measure, here are a couple more pleas for filing help that have come in over the last couple of days:
Me thinks Steve Jobs had a better prediction about the future than Hubbard did, at least I think it was Steve Jobs, of Apple fame,
that every person will have a desktop computer, or something like that.
seems more like a police record or FBI invading your life or bringing back something U did years ago or more,were human & not perfect were gonna make mistakes & as we grow hope we learn from what we did but your not kids who need dirt thrown at you to relive it & they don’t have business to keep records of your faults IMO anyway… smh
Truth is, the filing is erratic and most central files have scant information in them. You’re likely to get a phone call or letter asking you to complete some course you’d completed two decades ago.
…first…I want to tease you for using a BPL reference. tsk tsk. 🙂
(This is what happens when all our HCO PLs get burnt up in a glorious bonfire)
…….
back in the early 90’s ASHO had “The CF Project”. If you put in 25 hours per week you were credited with $25.00 per hour worked as training awards. It was quite successful in pulling in all kinds of help, lots of people earned training awards. Other orgs followed suit and instituted the program, including my own org. Some of us earned a fair bit of training that way.
Then suddenly it was all cancelled and we were supposed to keep coming in just out of the desire to help, with no exchange.
CRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR——-ASHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
There goes the CF projects!
I wonder if any orgs are offering such things now…? Probably not. Davey has the field pretty whipped these days. The public used to be valued, now it’s bled dry and blamed.
…..
thirdly – I love how the promo tips their hand as to how few staff there are at the CLOs, and the total admission that they will require their staff to work all night long.
“otherwise CLO staff are going to be pulling all-nighter after all-nighter”.
REALLY? You’re tellin the world you’re going to force your staff to work around the clock non-stop without sleep until this is done?
hahaha!
Let’s put that baby on the next recruit promo!
The recruitment promo is a fun read for an ex SO member like me ? ….
After years of trying to get off of the mailing and call lists, I think I finally did it. It wasn’t easy, I even resorted to begging a number of FLAG people to declare me (telling them that I wanted to see Scientology violently wiped off the face of the Earth had zero effect), nothing seemed to work until I had a complete change of heart. All of the sudden, it dawned on me how desperate these people were to ‘recover’ me and my husband and what an awful position they were in so I simply started offering anyone who communicated with me by phone or mail help in getting away from the church. I explained how I shed the brainwashing and how wonderful and non-stressful the outside world is. I spoke with one on the phone and three or four by mail with kindness and compassion. The calls stopped immediately and the mailings trickled to a stop and I haven’t heard from anyone in a couple of years now. No more letters, glossy magazines or phone calls. I am actually kind of sad as I was really hoping to provide support for someone who wanted to leave or at least be able to reach a larger number of SO to maybe plant another seed of doubt. Plus, it felt a lot kinder to offer help instead of getting aggravated at them for pestering me.
At any rate, I suppose I have reached a wonderful EP to my involvement with Scientology. The willingness to provide help and support to those poor souls tangled up with this so called church is a perfect ending to my involvement with them.
Dear Happy Texan,
You never know, you may have made a real difference in someone’s life. It could be one of the minions you spoke with took your words to heart and defected. That person might pass that message along to someone else, etc, etc. You did them a real kindness. I’d pat you on the back if I could reach you. Go to bed this evening aware you might just saved somebody from their living hell.?
I shared this story elsewhere but Scientology’s incompetent filing has always been worse for me because of the accident of my multiplicity of names. I have more than the usual number of surnames for an American male because of three things: a) I was born out of wedlock and my mother chose to use her maiden name as the surname on my birth certificate, b) nevertheless, for a while, I still used my biological father’s surname, and c) my mother married my stepfather when I was three at which time he adopted me and I took on his surname. So—three surnames before age three.
My first name is Derrick. The name Derrick can be spelled about four different ways. One day when I was ten years old I received eighteen copies of the same flyer from AOLA, all iterations of “Derrick” spelled and misspelled six different ways in various combinations with all three of my surnames. It was ridiculous. My mother couldn’t stand it anymore and she took all the flyers to Big Blue to demand that they clean up their records. Which they sort of did. To this day I get at least two copies of everything from AOLA, and, unfortunately, a bunch of other orgs spread across God’s green earth.
But the one thing my mother did definitely take care of in 1978 was to get her maiden name (my birth certificate surname) off my Central File record. That name was Jennings. Literally since 1978 I have never seen any mail from any Scientology organization that still had “Jennings” as my surname. Until recently. Not once since 1978—until now when they somehow exhume this ancient record? The mind boggles.
That’s Scientology math for you: 1 Derrick = 18 dedicated Scientologists in the World’s Fastest Growing Religion®.
I can confirm something very similar as I would receive magazines, flyers and promo in triplicate.
1. Correct name and address.
2. Incorrect name and correct address.
3. Correct name and incorrect postal code.
Yeah. Three dedicated scientologists on Flags Central Files.
Let me get this straight — 22 people are uprooted from their homes and sent to Miami to spend endless hours on pointless, soul-killing busywork. They are achieving 40% of their assigned throughput. They are being threatened with having to work through the night and having to stay in Miami after their deadline has come and gone…
Yet, “working on the Miami CF project is actually a lot of fun.” Uh, I think we’ve passed the point where that sounds even remotely plausible. No sale!
I still dont understand why this an ongoing thing. I have filed before. How is it so difficult. Just seems like another excuse.
As explained elsewhere, Hubbard’s system makes the job massive and complex. Some of the people involved are presumably doing more complex tasks like trying to find current addresses for the huge number of people whose mail is being returned and is piling up.
I’m always interested to see the huge number of man-hours required for these filing projects. If they have 40 to 50 people working for a week, that’s accomplishing about the same amount of work as one full-time dedicated staff person (who would have meetings and other normal job obligations) would per year. And if they have a goal to meet in about 5 weeks but are only accomplishing work at about half the speed necessary, that means that they have about 10 man-years’ worth of work to finish. We don’t know how long this mess has been allowed to accumulate, or how many files they have already processed, much less how much extra work they have made for themselves by not trying to correct addresses long before lots of returned mail (which presumably now has to be sorted through) piled up, but it seems like the files job is something in the ballpark of a full-time staff position that is consistently left unfilled at orgs.
I have to wonder if these files debacles ever get a few members wondering about how the CofS is really being run, and what the point of efforts like the “ideal org” push really is.
I can only imagine what the local Postal Mail Processing Facility and the LOCAL Postal Office thinks when the mail is returned “unknown, moved, no such address, etc……….
The US Postal Service discards undeliverable bulk mail. (Source: my father worked for the post office for thirty years.) Nearly all of Scientology’s mail is bulk rate and the post office does not get paid enough or have enough resources to follow up on their lowest-margin business. It’s actually a problem in the US: my 94 year-old grandmother receives scads of scammy bulk mail solicitations, especially from questionable charities. All this bulk mail is in fact one of the USPS’s few remaining profit centers — as long as they don’t monitor or police it in any way by paying employees to do so.
Thus these scammy charities and cults keep sending out reams of bulk mail which will never be corrected because the USPS doesn’t want to lose one of its last sources of easy revenue.
I know that some of the mail that I receive has a note printed on it to the effect “return service requested,” something that I think I remember seeing is an extra charge per piece that requires the service.
According to the reports we see, org’s central files do get back undeliverable mail, so at least some of what they send out must fall into a category that can be returned – probably, again, at extra cost.
It would not surprise me if Scientology was paying for some extra service that almost no other mailer bothers with. Hopefully someone familiar with the details can contribute knowledge about what exactly they do.
The other interesting twist, is that the Postal Service will provide electronic notifications of address changes, but I don’t know how orgs would or could integrate that into their manual filing systems.
Hey, I finally got off their mailing list! All it took was getting declared. Too bad I still receive crap for other people from these guys, at my flat. And what’s weird, we get mail from weird ass places that I know no one has been to, such as San Diego, Portland, and other offline places where we haven’t even come close to an org. So now I’ve got people writing from orgs that have never been visited to do services that were already done or need to be done again, as is the case with Scientology’s never ending cyclic money-grab. I finally now have some empathy for all those ask-offs I used to handle. Save the trees. It’s a real thing!
Wow 1968 was quite a year for new policy as well as attempts to appear as though Scientology had “reformed”. In case there are new eyes on this blog…..(don’t forget to ask your bookstore officer for a cassette copy of RJ 68! ) lol. Next stop, IJC.
The Code of Reform was published on 29 November 1968:
THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA
THE HUBBARD SCIENTOLOGY ORGANISATION IN AUCKLAND
Founder: L. Ron Hubbard
Cable: Scientology
Telephone: 362-921-xxxx
150 Hobson Street, Auckland, New Zealand.
CODE OF REFORM
1. Cancellation of disconnection as a relief to those suffering from familial suppression.
2. Cancellation of security checking as a form of confession.
3. Prohibition of any confessional materials being written down.
4. Cancellation of declaring people Fair Game.
If you yourself have observed any further aspect of this Church’s activities that you feel calls for reform, please let us know.
29 November 1968
THE ACADEMY OF SCIENTOLOGY
THE HUBBARD GUIDANCE CENTRE
Board of Directors:
Leaka Marenkovich, President
Julia Lewis Salmen (U.S.A.), President for U.S.A.
Anthony John Dunleavy, Vice-President
Kenneth Milton Salmen (U.S.A.), Vice-President
Kenneth Eric Urqubart, Secretary
Denny Louise Fields (U.S.A.), Secretary
Resident Agent (N.Z.), Eunice Henley-Smith
(A non-profit corporation in U.S.A. Registered in New Zealand)
Don’t get me started about the receipt of unwanted mail from Scientology organizations! After a year long attempt to shut off the mail last year – emails, messages sent on Scientology websites, phone calls, letters, returning all mail with messages to remove me, and on and on, it will flooded in. I finally wrote a letter asking for a repayment for all money that I have left on account. That stopped it for around 3 months. Then two days ago, I received a mailing from some international organization. It was a pamphlet wrapped in plastic. This is so non-sustainable and I just throw it into the recycling bin without looking at it. It looks like I’m going to have to be more insistent about that repayment, maybe consider asking for a refund of money paid, to get them to understand that I don’t want their mail.
For those of us wanting to help out Brandon with his legal expenses in his fight against CoS, Lois Reisdorf just tweeted the FundRazr page here. https://fundrazr.com/51CrD7
Here’s her tweet: https://twitter.com/LoisAReisdorf/status/828734530802454528
Please help as you are able.
Thanks so much Mick. I see you also posted it on Ortega’s. It was a very difficult decision for us to make, to put this out as we have always handled our own problems and certainly never asked for money. But any amount of money will help Brandon. I really appreciate your support. Thank you again……….
people want to help. People want to help YOU. You’re kind of doing them a favor, allowing this help. Love to you and all of yours.
Agreed! Thank you for letting us help. MIck, I appreciate you posting this.
Perhaps the best thing you could do is get your information into Central Files.
1. It costs them time money and effort to maintain.
2. They by policy can’t streamline the process.
Therefore if you truly wish to see them collapse, feed them more information.
You guys shouldn’t be trying to get off of the list, you should be recruiting every person possible to get into the files and make the system completely overloaded.
A related LRH gem is “Outflow equals inflow.”
Scientology management has interpreted this to mean that it doesn’t matter what you send out, or to whom, the quantity is what matters. Somehow in the Theta Universe, quality of promotion or quality of prospective client is secondary. Just send out more and more and more and the Theta Universe will make sure you’re rewarded.
Mailing out promo to both husband and wives; to dead people; to John Doe, Jon Doe, and Jonathon Doe all with the same address; to a Nigerian tourist who bought DMSMH thirty years ago and is now living in Uganda; and to grandparents in retirement homes all make sense to the church.
Matching the correct promo to the right prospect doesn’t seem to matter, either. OTs living in Southern California get promo from Buffalo to start their Grades. Bridge tries to get people to buy books from them, even if that person is living two blocks away from an Org or a Mission.
Outflow equals inflow. Little else matters.
Yes.. you know it used to be that the policy on “selling or giving away an org’s mailing list” (a suppressive act) also applied to OTHER ORGS. We only got mail from the org where we had been legitimately a New Name to CF. We had to have BOUGHT something from THAT org.
Now… we get recruit mail from the oddest places. For awhile we were even getting emails from all kinds of other orgs. Really quite pissy, having to put up with that nonsense.
Do you suppose they’re getting files from orgs that are closing down?
Yes. I handled a couple of letters from OC by writing really big ‘I am not your public have never purchased from you, on lines elsewhere’ and returning in their prepaid return envelope…. it worked at least twice. Now I get letters from England, and a couple typed in German …. it boggles the mind.
So, maybe they aren’t growing as fast as they would like us to think. Hmm.
But, according to Hubbard, files must be kept. Into infinity, it appears? A billion years? Dammit.
I worked in a huge corporate hospital that bought ailing community hospitals, ran them into the ground, then closed them. We had lots of paper filing, orders, reports, xray filing. The law is that medical records of all kinds must be kept for 5 years.
It CAN be a massive job. I did well at it, my director was just happy it was done, he wasnt a nit picker!
This was very informative. Now I know why I get letters from Scientology that appear to have been written by someone with a fifth grade education. They are not worried about silly grammar; just numbers. If only they would realize their illiterate missives scream incompetence. I will not give a dime to an organization that can’t put together a thoughtful letter as to why I should support them.
It’s really a good thing that everyone who makes decisions in that place is stuck into an anachronistic 1960’s marketing mode. I was in all types of sales and marketing for years, including jobs where I was selling targeted demographic lists for customers to for use in their own direct mail, fax, email and other campaigns. And as a major fundraiser for a huge international non-profit, I worked alongside the direct mail department in a huge international non-profit and it was every bit as sophisticated in its fundraising campaigns. They knew who responded to different pieces, how much they gave each time and whether or not to decrease or increase the pieces they sent to specific groups. We could tailor mini-campaigns for our large donors using their collateral. And that stuff was all but outdated over a decade ago.
Sure, it always costs more to acquire new customers than retain them, and that cost is often unfortunately borne by loyal customers (something that cable providers and big-bank credit card companies are famous for, but then they have the advantage of monopolies on market share). That may work in a closed system, but eventually you will piss off your loyal customer, member or donor base because they feel abused (and run out of money). It’s a program of finite return. And pretty soon you’ll have to lie about your actual shrinking “market share” *clears throat*.
Advertising 101 says you don’t waste money on expensive media like television ads for anything more than brand awareness. You spend it on cheaper print campaigns in trade magazines, or other ways to focus on specific potential customers. Direct mail used to be cheap, but it is not the latest or greatest way to reach your target audience. Even telemarketing, which is even less expensive, is not all that successful any more with a saturated market.
Campaigns with sophisticated demographic targeting are outdated in this age of electronics and social media. And they are far less cost-effective. The new approach is about using psychometrics (sorry, you have to dip your toes into the field of psychology for that one) in collecting specific data on each potential customer and then tailoring a mini-campaign based on their individual profiles and preferences.
One theory about why Trump won was that he hired a company who uses this method (versus the old relatively scattershot way to target using demographics, which worked for Obama but failed miserably for Clinton). You take all that data you have collected (which is of course recorded and sorted ELECTRONICALLY) and design a social media mini-campaign based on individual voter preference. It’s not only more efficient but a lot cheaper than older methods.
The LDS church are experts at collecting data – their genealogy files store info on over 70 million people for their mission of posthumously baptizing people. (And they allow public access). They have also computerized a great deal of it and use that to keep track of members and their activities.
Simply collecting and filing stuff is just busywork. And when you have to rely on a fascist dictatorship to maintain it, you are really shooting yourself in the foot. If LRH had devoted himself more to ripping off theories of social psychology (even just industrial-organizational psychology), he could have accomplished the same thing in terms of growing his “religion” as he did using para-military mind control. But something tells me that he and his successor truly enjoy power achieved by domination and abuse. I hope they keep their gaze pointed on quantum level bureaucratic nonsense forever. It’s the only way they will keep control and it also limits their growth.
Yes, I read on Monday morning that in the final weeks before the November election the Trump campaign live-tested some 175,000 almost individually-tailored social media messages based on some quantity of voter data points that had been assembled and sliced and diced by that company you mentioned, to incite turnout. By contrast Clinton’s campaign was, I guess, stuck in 2008.
REALLY don’t want to get into the politics, but Clinton’s campaign manager is only 35 years old — maybe he was too young and inexperienced at his job.
Snake – I don’t think it was just that. They hired a British firm that specializes in “turning around elections” – they did the same thing for Brexit. This wasn’t merely about inciting turnout either. It had to do with very specific messages tailored to appeal to each individual voter. It’s much more sophisticated than of the old slice and dice process for voter turnout. I think this is such a new development in election management that it may not even have been considered by the DNC. Because it is quite fascinating and scientific, I’m including the link to the article; it’s a long read but it is definitely worth taking the time. I’m sure it will be on everyone’s radar soon. And it may spur some talk of ethics in advertising. It’s pretty Orwellian in some ways, in that it reminds me of the old conversations about subliminal advertising.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win
When Lois and I were trying to pretend we were getting back with C of S to keep our kids, we had to do 100 hours of amends so we worked on their Div 6 CF. We actually did a pretty good job on the ones we worked on. Everyone had to put their initials on the folders they personally worked on. I just realized though since they now see us as suppressive people, they will no doubt have to redo everyone of our folders. Either because we are “overt product makers” or we purposely tried to sabotage their precious CF folders.
Kind of makes me feel good they have to do that.
MARVELOUS!
too bad you weren’t in any films. (I assume)
One of the times I went to Flag, “hey, where’s the “see the orientation film” on the routing form?”
“Ohhh, we decided to re-do THAT one! Wait till you see the new one we’re working on!”
PR = Lying.
I loved stumbling across the truth about that film. I wonder if good old Larry is speaking out at all.
Not being a former member I’m often lost in the jargon. And as a retired cop I’m used to nearly impenetrable lingo so I understand language as Scientology’s cloak the whole CF business equating to revenue, and my MBA hovering in the background with an Excel spreadsheet flickering on the screen in front of me, I’m reminded of that fantastic movie ‘Brazil’ and the grotesque filing foul ups therein. Was Ian Holm – Kurzmann playing LRH?
Mike wanted to start today with a big hug to you and Leah both. Without coming off too nosey I just wanted to know in generic terms how is Leah doing these days? Realizing that the aftermath can be bumpy please let her know many have her (and you) in their hearts and prayers. Thank you both so much for all you have done by revealing this sick cult to the world. We are all behind you both all the way! xxoo
Oops gremlins messed with my name.
Oh, Leah is wonderful. We are both catching up on things that went into neglect in the second half of 2016 and into January. But we are also plotting and scheming. Don’t worry.
I like the sound of that last statement! And glad y’all can catch up and maybe get a bit of well-deserved rest too.
Gee Mike I didn’t want to come off worried but you picked up on that even though I was trying to be upbeat. Hopefully, Leah can take that long deserved vacation she never got to have while she had to do her time in CL while her cast members were sunning somewhere tropical. Hope she takes sunscreen protect that beautiful complexion of hers. You both have my undying adoration and respect. We are your village if you ever need anything announce it here we will respond. xxoo
Seeing Leah melt into tears of thankfulness at the end of Aftermath 2, for the viewer support was uplifting….to know how much our support is appreciated. To hear you Mike, saying “I am NOT going to stop”…..amazing. We realize how much this takes out of everyone involved..to crack open the door of COS and into your own private former life and dedication to “the organization” and then to do a complete turn around AFTER you realized the truth….and to share that with everyone…made a huge difference to many.
Millions had no idea what goes on behind the inner workings of COS and how they “suck you in” and then take all from you, including you will ,freedom, finances, and then when you want to escape. take away the most precious of all….your family. .
I always thought there was something “off” about Scientology….TC did no favors to it with his interview with Matt Lauer and his statement on Brooke Shields….THAT began my own questions and investigations into what’s really going on .behind the closed doors of COS.
A church should have NO SECRETS…..that’s why it appears this seems more like a cult or organization than an actual church. Looking forward to Aftermath #3
Mike, the picture of the “file room” (?) above reminds me of the time I was sent to do filing in the “Ethics file room” at AOLA. Believe it or not, it was worse. Papers piled to the ceiling, and those piles were stacked on top of file cabinets that were jammed full.
Tax Free Status must be revoked from the “Church” of Scientology, and the monies not collected since tax free status was introduced should be seized by the IRS. Many of us will not be satisfied until we see the criminals in the organization prosecuted, including those who aid and abet (Cruise, Elfman, Travolta, Cartwright, etc).
Files are a classic example where Hubbard took something that probably worked to some extent at one time in some limited circumstance – such as back in the days before modern media (TV, internet and e-mail) and when organizations were small and new with limited files of relatively fresh contacts – and blew it up into a sort of generalization* as eternal doctrine, that turns out to not actually be generally workable or sustainable in the long run. Scientology is almost literally chained to a dead man, as an old saying goes about a a very unpleasant punishment that incapacitates and eventually leads to demise,
There is also a great example of Orwellian 1984-style indoctrination in the policy letter that decrees that executives who hold the common-sense and now well-proven (through modern marketing and organizational research) understanding that the quality of a mailing list is more important than its size, are guilty of a thought-crime judged so severe as to qualify as “treason.” Plus it’s interesting to see that while Hubbard specifies that this has to be “known,” presumably under pain of punishment for “treason,” he doesn’t go so far as to order that executives actually do anything about putting that knowledge into practice, which I guess is how CofS staff get away with failing to maintain the files.
* isn’t generalizing supposed to be a characteristic of an SP?
Some orgs have introduced their own bespoke partial computerization. We did back in the mid-80s, doing away with our cast iron Address-O-graph machine. But, actual Central Files was way too daunting. Even INCOMM couldn’t tackle it back in mid-90s.
More recently, my AO had a custom software package, which supports telephony, basic customer details and included correspondence history, as well as scanned documents. They were no where when it came to digitizing paper documents, but it was heading in that direction.
Around the time of The Basics, when there was a 24/7 push, massive international call-in, the church internationally adopted Voice-Over-IP, along with a centralized call-in database which was supposed to be used by all Call-In Units. They wanted to avoid making unnecessary phone calls. The software was smart enough to setup a call queue based time of day, location, and call history, Even still, people complained of getting hammered with phone calls.
They will never come close to full computerization. The physical file folder, jammed with all kinds of colored paper, carbon copies of handwritten letters, invoices, promo pieces, returned mail, on and on…will ALWAYS remain, if only as a homage to its great Creator.
Oh, yes, the Fatman’s brilliant “color flash” system! Every division had to use a different color paper, so they’d order reams of, I think, *seven* different shades. I wonder if they still do that?
“So far, there isn’t any organization in the world that has stable expanded using his “administrative breakthroughs.” Not a single one. But there are a huge number of failures. Some have tried to claim it works great but people alter it or misapply it and that is the reason it fails. But when nobody has ever made it work, not even L. Ron Hubbard himself, I would say that is an absurd position to take.”
It’s absurd for sure, but the word that really captures it is “insane”. Einstein’s operational definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results – fully applies to $cn’s stuck-in-the-50’s approach to doing business in the internet age.
My guess is that lil davey is completely aware that getting an org’s CF in order has never been the magic bullet that, once completed, suddenly booms its gross income. Like most of his other universe-shattering insights, Elron pulled this one from out his arse and, instead of supporting it with objective facts, he merely asserted it as truth and never looked back.
Lil davey continues that same insane tradition and fully expects that every $cilon in good standing will refrain from suggesting that anything different needs to be done. After all, it says right there in “green and white” that the size of an org’s mailing list and the number of mailings to it determine gross income. And to not follow this “senior datum” is to commit an act of treason against $cn.
” Elron pulled this one from out his arse and, instead of supporting it with objective facts, he merely asserted it as truth and never looked back.”
As pretty much most everything else … Introspection Rundown being a notable example.
So it’s not the Perfect System that screws everything up, it’s the people effing everything up. But part of The Perfect System are a load of policies and methods and whole departments that are there to ensure that everyone is perfect at doing their job.
Can’t have it both ways.
Mmmmm… wonder how they’d go if what they sold worked? Just a thought…
Computer databases are a wonderful thing. Come to the 21st century and stop dealing with paper files. Get in “present time”
Indeed LC. Needlessly aiding and abetting the cutting down of trees and the production of toxic bleach is widely considered a crime of some magnitude in modern times.How many emails do you see written at the bottom, “please consider the environment before printing this,” or some such concept of environmental awareness/conservatism? The Cof$ is at the vanguard of an ‘fuck you’ arrogance that rivals the destructive practices of many of the industrial pioneers. So much money and the insatiable desire for more (at any price) in so few hands has consequences for us all.
Getting rid of the paper would go a long way toward saving the planet.
Ha was going to say that! What do you bet the Galactic Confederacy simply ran out of trees blamed it on the Thetans that’s why they sent them to Teegeeak (sp?) because they’d ran out of paper elsewhere in the Universe. Only Earth had trees.
One sign of the Clampocolypse will be the computerization of the Central Files crap. They’ll do it because they don’t have the people necessary to maintain the paper files and because Miscavage has been arrested or absconded with all the loot.
CF ‘parties’ serve several goals.
1. Everyone gets to see how many people ‘bought’ services from them in the past. Sometimes the very distant past. ‘Help us return to the glory days by filing’. Said no one, anywhere.
2. A chance to schmooze with the clam bed and see what is going on with each other. A great place for a reg or ethics clam to pick up info. ‘Who has a child nearing Sea bOrg age?’ ‘Who just bought a BMW?’ Inquiring clams want to know.
3. It is a great way to measure each clams commitment to the cause. If you skip enough CF ‘parties’ expect a knock from Ethics in the middle of the night.
zemoo, nice analysis, especially in picking up on the role of them with regards to demonstrating members’ commitment.
I think that the periodic focus on files, especially when they pull staff from other areas in, is also part of keeping up the atmosphere of perpetual emergency that distracts people from thinking too much. And that is frighteningly similar to Orwell’s concept in the book 1984, of a perpetual war that the state uses to control the population.
LostControl, forget the 21st century, the CoS needs to come up the 1980’s…
Maybe if they start with the hairstyles first?
Then the Videos, let’s not forget that.
Lol
snort!
FYI–a few years ago they sent out a request for proposal for a new computer system that would tie all the org together. I presented to mgmt. I think after they figured out that people would know everything with a single report they cancelled the project. This reminds me of the movie Hidden Figures which is a great story!
The current filing system does offer something an updated system cannot: “delusion maintenance”. Eliminate all files that are inert and what would be left? A short stack of folders that can be stored in a single drawer of a file cabinet? Church-issued fantasies can’t last a minute on that!
The SIZE, not the QUALITY of a mailing list determines your income? A child of ten could see this is the exact opposite of what’s really needed. Targeted mailings to a select group of hot prospects has to be more profitable than pushing out general mailings to thousands of uninterested punters, many of whom may by now be dead.
Very true, but who would they target? There are so few people who haven’t heard what a scary organization scientology is to get involved with that they couldn’t do targeted mailings even if their policy allowed them to. Also just like everything else in scientology their mail outs are part of their statistics, it doesn’t matter in their crazy world that what they are sending out is completely irrelevant as long as their stats have improved on the week before.
They found me. After 2 holding of the cans. In 1986. After a new last name. After 10 moves. After countless ph numbers. WTF is that!
When one really thinks about that, the Cof$ practitioners really don’t have anything else to do. They lost the plot completely and utterly when ‘they’ destroyed the successfully expanding mission network back in the 80s. They cut off their nose to despite their face and now they are wallowing around mindlessly clutching at straws for ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE who showed any interest at all. It is indicative of no new bodies in the shop or any workable means to acquire them, let alone service them with something that doesn’t work.
Mike,
out of curiosity, do you know how electronic media is being kept, thinks like video recording of PC sessions, and all that type stuff is kept
Also, again from curiosity, did they get all of the OSA files digitized and categorized, ODC (overt data collection) CDC Covert Data Collection, PC folder culls, cross file index, etc. etc.
No, I suspect those video recordings have a limited life, unless they are of someone important. But I dont really know. Also no idea at this point about OSA files — there was an effort to get it digitized back in the 80’s and 90’s but who know how far it went.
Thanks, with data storage as cheap as it is, I thought they might be storing indefinitely, perhaps even on the cloud, quite terrifying from a a parishioner security perspective. I believe I remember some spokesman acknowledging recording sessions for training and quality control purposes, or perhaps it was Laura’s law suit, and I would have expected them to follow up with a comment that these recordings are only kept for 90 days or some such.
In the 80’s, when I was Reports Officer RTC and CIC RTC, I was working for months with INCOMM personnel to design a program to speed up Hubbard’s cross file policy for Intelligence data, collecting everything from Ethics data through PC data though ODC and CDC data. If it wasn’t for evil means, it was actually a pretty amazing project, really intricate and sophisticated. Anthony Pouw, I think was the name of the programmer I was working with; those were the days where Scientology was actually trying to be a pioneering force in IT.
FLB is a CONTINENT? I seem to have lost all perspective. This is all so wacko.
So is “Italy” and “Europe” includes Russia and “UK” includes India and Pakistan. But Japan and China are part of “ANZO”…. Don’t try to make sense of this
When I was in ASHO, with my Superior (Supercargo) we came up with the idea to have the entire CF computerized. I send the idea to the CLO… I was routed to HCO immediately 🙂 I thought it was a great idea… Now I am pleased to be declared and not having to work in the CF daily 🙂 anymore. What a nightmare…
I remember by ~’85 telling ED Int that host based email was the next big thing and that scientology policy needed to be updated (yes, Policies CAN be changed in scamology per El Ron) in order to be able to apply the “GI stable datum” for cost that was MANY orders of magnitude less than snail mail once enough people were using that technology.
He of course refused to look at it as L. Fraud knew all about computers and didn’t see it as the future of communication.
Geezers, imagine having your name put on an amendment to Scientology policy? Better a dead man take the blame when push comes to shove and Miscavige is the new guiding source anyway. He has hiding down to a fine art, just like Hubbard did. No, what you see is what you get with Scientology, all the way to the grave!
No worries I Yawn. Amendments were never approved that made Hubbard look like the idiot he was.
CLO EU has 120 staff? That’s some serious contraction. 10 years ago they had over 200 people on post…
Hubbard wasn’t interested in managing orgs, handling people, or being a religious leader. He was all about “SHOW ME THE MONEY!”. His ‘solution’ to Admin was to set up a robotic paramilitary organization to ‘run the orgs’. I think it is possible, even probable, that he ‘lost control’ of the orgs in the late 70’s….I certainly don’t ‘trust’ any technical writings past then….
And while dear Denise Brennan (god bless her\his soul…err, wait……do thetans have male or female identities? Or is that only Genetic Entities….nevermind.) was quite illuminating on the whole Corporate Sort-Out fiasco, who authored the prior Grade Chart changes, putting Dianetics after Grades, calling extant tech ‘old’ (i.e. OT V, VI and VII).
Central Files is Miscavige’s “hidden standard” for when he gets to yank….what a wanker.
Trying to cure the organizations income problems with central files is just like trying to cure cancer with auditing: PROVABLE BULLSHIT.
The Co$ is doomed as an organization largely because they are forbidden to notice what is and what isn’t useful in helping people. Helping people is what it’s supposed to be all about (at least to those of us who actually cared.)
The useless, the unworkable and the outright destructive edicts are inexorably entangled with the helpful.
But why stop there? Elron’s entire personal biography is so chock full of huge whoppers going all the way back to his WW11 days and beyond that it’s very hard NOT to see everything he asserted as being at least completely suspect, if not an out-an-out lie merely because it issued from his lips.
I’m constantly amazed and fascinated by Indie folks who manage to preserve a belief that the Holy Tech somehow contains essential truths and uniquely workable solutions, when everywhere you turn in examining Elron’s life and actions it’s transparently clear that he was a liar, a cheat and a scammer who destroyed all three of the families that he created and died alone, in poor health and about as far from being an OaTy super being as it’s possible to get.
Doing so for die-hard True Believers must be as difficult as it is for those who contribute huge amounts of time and effort to CF updating projects then, somehow, fail to notice that gross income DOES NOT improve as a result of all that work.
I’m not here to invalidate anyone’s subjective sense of having made gains from their involvement in $cn; I’m just questioning whether those gains can be validly attributed to anything that Elron could be credited with as its true originator. Truly narcissistic sociopathic individuals NEVER have anyone elses better interests in mind and if Elron doesn’t qualify as deserving the label of being one, then I’ll sign up for the SRD 😉
“Help?” Isn’t that inextricably associated with being a button in Scientology? Hence it is treated as an auditable notion and that is about as far as it goes. Otherwise it’s seen as a weakness to give or receive it in the real world. You are responsible for everything that happens to you, it says so right in both tech and policy.
We were approached by a firm which claimed it would help us make more sales. A couple of us were invited to listen to the spiel by management since it would impact us directly.
My memory of the meeting was that they talked a good game, but…
There was this huge insistence on having records of every person/organization that contacted us. It didn’t seem to matter what contact either. One of us asked if this meant we should track a call from a certain class of caller. They stressed again that ALL contacts were to be recorded. All.
That blew their credibility with the CEO. He knew that this particular class of caller had called us in error, we had nothing that they could use/would need.
I can’t remember the name of that firm, but when I first heard an explanations of WISE and Central Files, I wondered if that firm was a WISE member.
We in Global Capitalism HQ know the odd thing or two about computerized business systems, since we’ve made billions of dollars for our clients investing in all the significant makers of business applications over the last 25 years.
There are many problems with Hubbard’s “admin tech,” which is guaranteed to run any business attempting to use it into the ground because of its insistence on the completely ludicrous fantasy that success means that every single weekly stat must go up every single week without exception — this leads people to do crazy stuff like ripping off their customers unsustainably for this week’s stat.
Within “admin tech,” the Central Files seems to be where all your customer information is kept. And Scientology seems to be mired in simply trying to keep these files up to date, not just in validating the information but simply in getting them in alphabetical order. This is compounded by the fact that some of these files are 40-50 years old and there are undoubtedly thousands of people in them who are either dead or have moved so far away that they’re not realistic prospects to get money.
That’s where computerized systems are great: you can get rid of people from the files who are never, ever going to buy from you again, and you can figure out who in your files are potential buyers. You can analyze your prospective customers to focus on the people most likely to buy instead of sending out yet another round of direct mail (postal snail mail) to people who are never going to buy from you. In other words, you can match your sales expense for any individual customer with the actual sales you get from that customer and you can spend more on your best customers while spending less on your least valuable customers.
While the labor to clean up Central Files may be free, the cost to actually use them is not. Scientology has to pay printing and postage for everything it sends out. And that’s where they’re wasting uncounted millions of dollars with this crazy scheme. Imagine someone who paid $3.00 for a book in 1980 and who has received two direct mail pieces a week ever since. That’s 3,600 direct mail pieces. Assume that a one-page letter costs $0.20 to print and $0.50 to mail. That’s over $2,500 wasted to try to “sell” someone who has not answered one single solicitation in 36 years, someone who only generated $3.00 in revenue to offset the $2,500 in marketing cost that the cult has spent. The actual money wasted is likely to be higher because of duplicate mailings and because of glossy magazines sent, which are much more expensive than the $0.20 figure I give here.
In a normal business, even the simplest computer system would help people stop wasting that kind of money. But Scientology, because of the stupidity in “admin tech” and the idiotic devotion with which cult management follows it, will waste money eternally, or at least until they are the last organization in the country sending snail mail and the US Postal Service goes out of business.
The Flag Service Org (FSO) in Clearwater spends about $150,000 per WEEK for the printing and mailing of promotional pieces. The mailing lists are full of wrong addresses and duplicate names. Example John Doe, John B. Doe, Johnny Doe, etc. Plus there may be multiple family members at the same address. Each week bins of deliverable mail comes back. As was pointed out most of the people on the mailing list are there only because they filled out a survey or bought some book or minor service within the last 50 years. A computer print out of all public names that paid the FSO $1,000 or more over a 3 year period was only 5,000 people!!!! This was cross checked and verified as correct by my Treasury department. The FSO is not unique in this behavior because it is based on many Hubbard policies. At the same time the organization has little to no money for staff shoes, medical, allowance, etc. In addition to Scientology’s horrific PR, it has horrific administration policy to ensure it fails. Cut off its slave labor and/or its tax exempt status so that it is on equal grounds with other businesses and it will melt away like snow on a warm day.
Mike, if you know the answer to that, please chip in as well in case Mat doesn’t see my follow-up post.
Mat, thanks for the data point about the relatively narrow population spending money at Flag. As I recall, you got out over 10 years ago so the number of people going to Flag is likely substantially lower — I’m estimating that it’s no more than half what it was a decade ago and perhaps less.
Just to make sure I understand the definitions, is FSO the entity that receives all the money when someone goes to “Flag” to get services? Or do they only do the OT levels and revenue from other programs such as the Super Power Rundown or from rooms at the Fort Harrison get put into different corporate entities?
To answer JP, all the services go in one pot. Room and food another and book sales another. Unless there is a Super Power Org but don’t think so or it would be broadcast as adding to the numbers.
A Flag Accomodations Registrar told me that ALL money for services went straight to Int Management and that Int was supported by Flag. Flag itself was only supported by the income from the Accomodations income. Money paid for hotel and food had to support all of the SO at Flag – the cost of running the buildings, staff uniforms and food, ALL BILLS.
She was explaining why it was so important to have Flag public stay in the hotels and why we weren’t allowed to live off base. (ie, somewhere other than the hotels) The only people who can live off base are locals or people who can’t stay on base due to Flag rules. (heart attack risks, other medical risks and some sort of security risks)
There were a bunch of “flaps” about locals renting rooms to out-of-towners and ongoing ethics and justice actions against them. They were accused of ripping off Flag, of leeching off Flag, of stealing Flag public, and so on.
..
There is policy on the financial planning of an org, and in a class V org a percentage of the income made from selling auditing and training (ten percent? five? I forget) goes to INT to support Int management. I brought this up, as it was amazing to me that ALL income from services went to INT! She said that the orgs worldwide made so little money that INT could never survive on that small amount, and that Flag had funded management for years.
…….
the fight about staying off base has been going on for years. The rules and enforcement have fluctuated. I knew a bunch of people on VII who would buy into a Condo unit, a bunch of VIIs all sharing one place to stay in during their 6 month checks. Then this was being outlawed ..etc.
from what I can see, it appears that printing has been taken away from CL V orgs and the mags for CL V orgs and promo are all printed, collated and mailed from uplines now. We used to have printing presses in the org and have to print all our own mags, letterhead, form letters, etc, and then fold, collate, stamp, mail them out. (at least, my local podunk org sure as fire doesn’t do its own)
I wonder if they just charge the orgs now? Do you have any info?
And how does that fly with the CL V org board? It’s OK to delete that from the org board? … also HCO had it’s printer and stencils for making copies of PLs and HCOBs. I just wonder how that flys to have it just… go away.
And imagine in the LRH ‘system’ there are 5 copies of every invoice and disbursement voucher (which I always thought of as dispersement voucher). These all go places around the organization to be filed and cross referenced. Madness just like ‘ol man Hubbard’s head.
Do members get regged for the “goody bags?” What would you expect to find in said bags? Pictures of hubbard or perhaps a fingernail clipping from God Ron himself? Maybe a hit of home made methamphetamine?
My guess is that the “Goody Bags” contain:
A CCHR video about drugging children (that they give away to anyone who will take them — though they collect money for them to be “distributed” and will count every GoodyBag on their stat)
An OCA test you can fill out at home
A copy of “International Scientology News”
An LRH quotation bookmark
An envelope for you to donate
A promo piece for Nobby’s dental practice
A print out of the alphabet (to help with your filing)
Dutifully noted, processed and filed. Go ahead and ask me where it’s filed….aw shucks I’ll tell ya. Garbage. Even that had to leave the house right away.
Hi Barbara Carr – are you the same Barbara Carr that was at FLAG a long time ago and had some body problems? Were you from Kansas City, Chicago or St Louis?
I met you at Flag eons ago.
Glad to see you are okay!
Hi Idle. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m a never-in who loves a good cause a great squabble and close sense of community. Wish I knew you when. Have been keenly interested in scientology for years, but only came looking online when I found out Mike had blog. I’ve welcomed here and have adopted this cause as my own. Pleased to metchya!
The best way to keep scamtology’s junk out of your mailbox is to move and only give the new address to folks you trust.
Wish it was that easy. You can trace anyone these days — unless you dont have a phone, a driver’s license, any credit cards or bank accounts. The best way to stop getting scientology mail is to be declared — even that is not a 100% guarantee.
Both of my kids and my sister (as well as myself) have told Church reps I was dead (with lots of drama added) and to stop effing calling, This hasn’t worked. I’ve moved, changed phone numbers without a referring number, gotten PO Boxes with no change of address and in a few months they find me. I think it’s got to be something illegal going on to get ahold of private info. Last service I received was in 1996!
Unfortunately, these days you can buy information on the internet that gives you massive amounts of information. And I do mean YOU. Anyone who is willing to pay the price can get it. Perhaps a threat to sue them from a lawyer might work…
Getting yourself declared, using the return envelopes to send a message to staff members and generally speaking out will usually do the trick. The cult is like a wolf pack, actions which convey you are running away will bring about a chase.
Try using a return envelope to tell a staff member to check out Leah’s show on A & E. It blunts their enthusiasm for sending more mailing envelopes to you!
Failing that, the treat to sue is an almost guaranteed ‘ace in the Hole’ ……so to speak!
will they know the envelope came from you? It is a self addressed envelope – postate paid by the Org
Use the envelope to mail back the original letter (which has your name on it) and be sure to include the reference to Leah’s show in your handwriting on that original letter. Sign it, mail it (in the postage free envelope) and enjoy the rest of the day.
That incoming mail will land like a scud missle and your name will be removed from the list ………………… unless they want more of the same!
Mike, When I was in RTC, 80’s, someone started a campaign of taking the pre paid business reply envelope and taping it to a brick, cinder block, car parts, piece of tree stump. It was a pretty good way to get off the mailing list when you had to justify these mail costs of FP. I remember it happening in Dallas too, where it created a more sever reaction, because CC Dallas actually had to earn its money, didn’t get to arbitrarily charge the Scilon Empire what it felt it was worth to ensure an ever growing + on the cash bills, plus back charge most large unexpected expenses to Sea Org Reserves. Cash on hand over bills was something like $30,000,000 last time I heard.
I simply taped one of their BREs (return postage paid) on to a box with an industrial size TP, my return note and some pretty rocks inside. Don’t think I’d bother to go the trouble again but I’ve not received mail since.
Seriously just send them printouts from your favorite articles in Mike’s or Tony’s blogs using their return mailers. Be sure they know your return address. You’ll be off their mailing list in days. When they call, talk to them nicely, let them know how thrilled you were about points Leah addressed in “Aftermath Episode …whatever” You’ll get radio silence really fast.
Scientology will always hunt you down and find you.
We’ve moved several times without getting a forwarding order for our mail. They still find us, every time.
All of our phone numbers are unlisted, but somehow they track those too and call all our numbers all at once. I’m not kidding. We’ve had four of our phone lines: two cells, home phone and business phones all ringing simultaneously with scientology calling.
You can literally tell them to f**k off, but they keep calling. According to them you have no rights, what you want or need is not important. The only thing that matters is what they want and they want YOU…forever.
It’s like the Hotel California.
Or the Roach Motel…
Or maybe the Hotel California with a bad infestation of Florida-sized roaches.
The largest roaches of all inhabit the Flog land base. The big kahuna roaches generally nest on or around the registrar and MAA desks but of course the Pope of all roaches resides in Hemet. He has a very posh nesting box too!
Yes, exactly. Either way you can never leave.
Just throwing this out….two ways CoS may be finding people: Facebook – I know they apparently disdain use of the internet, but given the church’s focus on saving the planet at any cost, I think a church FB user could be audited out of their sin, if they had brought in a viable contact. I think this method would prove especially fertile on those who have been out for a long time or just briefly dabbled in Scn and have no fear of using social media themselves.
Real Estate Records – at least in OH, every county has real estate information publicly posted for property tax records. You can find anyone’s current address if they have transferred or acquired property, such as buying a new house. This path would not work for renters however.
I love the posted ideas of a ‘counterattack’; use their own prepaid return envelope to send information on how to get out of that madness.
You can subscribe online to numerous sites that gives you ALL records on a person. Anyone can do it, literally. ANd I am sure they use Facebook and LinkedIn and anything else they can find. These days, unless you are “off the grid” it is very easy to find someone. ANd when you employ professional companies that do this as a business, they can find virtually anyone.
This is very scary, like the plot to a horror film. I take it you have tried blocking their phone numbers? I have all known scientology phone numbers blocked on my cell and home phones, the odd one still get’s through but I just refuse to speak to them.
We had people coming to our house and my husband told them politely to leave us alone.
The person went to their car (parked in front of our house) got on the phone and then CAME BACK TO THE DOOR to try again. It was a little waif of a young girl maybe 16 years old.
Husband Unit answered again PISSED and yelled at her to leave us alone (he had his phone out to take her photo) or he was calling the police.
She continued to ignore him and talk to him (she was looking for our kids) so he slammed the door in her face.
My husband is the furthest from a mean person and I was SHOCKED. He would get phone calls on his phone EVERY DAY trying to talk to him to find out his ARCX (he did an OCA, that’s it).
Today we are STILL getting mail. It’s incredible.
PS. The young girl went away…I’m guessing she got in deep trouble for not getting the “product”. Maybe she was sent to confirm the address for CF?
Always invite young folks like that in for a polite chat, a healthy snack and a brief respite from the grim and stressful environment that they will soon be returning to. Maybe show them a few of Regraded Beings cartoons that might directly apply to their situation in the cult and talk to them about the life that they used to have before $cn.
Amazingly enough, just being a decent, compassionate human being towards them is therapeutic in and of itself, and it also plants the kind of seed in their heart that undercuts all the propaganda that they’ve been fed.
It’s easy to get angry with impolite Ronbotic $cilons who are aggressively invading your privacy, but when you understand the threat and duress that they live under, then demonstrating compassion and understanding towards them is the best and potentially most productive route to take there.
We’ve had this exact thing happen. They come at night, 9:30 – 10:00, knock on the door and refuse to leave. We slammed the door in their faces and they just stand there and keep knocking. It’s like dealing with zombies. Sad.
I get phone calls to someone I lived with in California for two years in the late 70’s and mail from the church in this person’s name and I’ve lived in Florida for over 20 years. I’m sure it’s some kind of stat.
To get the church off my back about what I now needed to do as an OT VIII, I joined staff at Belleair Msn as CF on Sundays (when no one is there). CF at this mission is predominately returned mail. Stacks and stacks of it, filling up folders and file cabinets to the point where I had to move files that no one had responded to in years to storage.
“Letters Out” is another bullshit stat.
Or you can write a Knowledge Report on Miscavige and the current state of affairs in the CoS, and mail it to IJC. I can almost guarantee removal from all mailings within about 10 days.
I don’t know how it is now but 15 years ago or so I simply called the organizations who were sending me mail and asked to be taken off the list. It worked. I even had a couple long and friendly conversations where I explained why.
Gee, L. Fraud’s ideas were bullshit. Admin “tek” doesn’t deliver what he said it did; auditing “tek” didn’t deliver what he said it did (by a million light years); ethics “tek” was simply a tool to punish people into silence who pointed out the first two items I just stated.
Stick a pitch fork in it (in honor of L. Frauds final abode) and move on with life.
“EUS has 19 org cities with 28 orgs (Day and Fdn + 2 orgs).” Is that sleep deprived seaorg math, or do some cities only have a day or a fdn?
Some have orgs that are both, but most are “combined” Day and Fdn orgs.
For a short period of time I was CF I/C at my org, and I admit to being a complete failure at the task. It is almost impossible to express how mind-numblingly boring and time consuming it is. Worse, when you’re on NOTS and you have the idea that each mis-filed piece of paper might have to be answered for in session! I still can’t believe I did these things without ever questioning anything. Man, I deserved those sec checks!
We all do dr. mac! LOL!!!
What comes to mind IS a reference by LRH….LOL
“They are stuck in an incident of long duration”
Heh- Scientologist’s – COME to PRESENT TIME!
We now have computers!!
LOLOLOLOL
Sorry, folks, not handled until OT 11 (and if you think OT 9 and 10 are a long way off …)
This is all a whole track dramatization from the planet Files eight galaxies from our sun. Beings were implanted to the point where EVERY SINGLE PERSON on the planet filed every waking moment of their life, even new born infants could file.
And get this … the names of the four continents of this planet? … Central … Ethics … Student … PC …
LRH very wisely and cannily set these file systems up on Earth to run out this former planet wide implant ….
The way out is the way through …
Are we done with the W’s yet?
I want my burgers and goody bag!