“Scientology is more than 11,000 churches, missions and groups.”
(The latest Scientology public relations line.)
They have just increased the number from 10,000. It’s funny how they can count every single phantom individual in attendance at the mini ribbon cutting for the SP building (10,273) but can only operate to the closest thousand when it comes to their number of churches….
No doubt this new number was dictated by the master manipulator just as He did when He told Heber Jentzsch to stop saying there are 6 million Scientologists in the world and just say it’s 8 million “otherwise it looks like we are not expanding.” There was no more information, and no more basis for that statement than Miscavige’s concern that it didn’t “sound good” to continue saying 6 million. And voila — 2 million more Scientologists appeared on planet earth.
In celebration of this new announcement I am going to repeat something I did earlier. Because I just noticed this new “11,000 churches” statement on their Twitter and Facebook pages.
I am going to compare their bold new claim with their official website.
Orgs — same old same old. They list 148 Official Churches, which should really be 142 because the list includes CC London (which is closed), three test centers, a community center and the PR Office in Belgium.
Even counting every one of these, including the test centers, as having a day and foundation org (thus counting each listed church as two) and including eight CLO’s, two Pubs Orgs, the ILO, Gold and Int — the grand total is 309.
Missions — the grand total is 343 (I am taking everything they claim on their website at face value — you can be sure a large percentage of these “missions” do not exist).
Just straight addition of the 148 listed official churches, the 13 management organizations and the 343 missions you come to 504 total Scientology organizations in the world right now. Doubling up all the listed orgs and counting each one as two still only comes to 652.
And we know that the vast majority of these “official churches” not only do not have a day and foundation, they actually don’t even qualify as a full fledged church. Nice, Lyon and Clement-Ferrand in France are barely missions. Edmonton r and Winnipeg in Canada? They are just barely study groups. Canberra in Australia? Harare? Polanco? Vienna? And so on. But that’s another story.
So no matter how He does His math Miscavige must be asserting there are about 10,500 Scientology groups.
Scientology Groups?
So, this is where things get REALLY vague.
There are no numbers for Field Auditing groups, though I know these number WAY less than 200 world-wide (right now I would estimate that is probably closer to 50 after GAG One and Two). At various times Miscavige has stood up and proclaimed there are “thousands” of “Dianetics Groups” around the world, and shown a few pictures of some locals holding copies of DMSMH in posed shots for the camera. But, as with everything Scientology, if there was some way of having an impressive list with every Dianetic group listed, they WOULD. They would NOT be embarrassed about listing them — they should WANT people to be able to find these groups. According to Miscavige these are the “entrance points” to the Bridge. So, if they exist at all, why can’t you find them? Let’s just say there are another 100 “Dianetics Groups.” So, that’s 300.
Same with the “Volunteer Minister Groups” that have been touted endlessly as “the Largest and Most Effective Private Relief Force On Earth” — so why can’t you find them? Try looking at scientology.org or volunteerministers.org and see you if you can locate a “Volunteer Minister group” or even a single “VM” anywhere on the site to contact for help? It is an extensive site with all sorts of “PR” and interactive “seminars” and “courses” and puff PR and NOTHING TO LOCATE A VOLUNTEER MINISTER TO HELP YOU. Why not? Because they do not exist….. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and give them 100 VM “groups”.
So far, we are at 300 groups.
Then we come to the “Social Betterment Groups” that Miscavige loves to talk about as being “Our NN,” “Our Applied Scholastics” etc UNTIL there is some flap and then they have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CHURCH.
But for purposes of His 11,000 they are certainly included as “groups.”
So, how many of them are there?
The Narconon website lists 69 drug rehabs including regional offices. There are also 22 Narconon drug education groups worldwide listed. So total 91 for Narconon. (I am not verifying whether these still exist or if they have been closed down for financial crimes or killing people).
Criminon list 59 groups in the “global locator” on its website. Bet you cannot find even 10 of these “groups” but we will count them all anyway. So 59 for Criminon.
Applied Scholastics lists 22 main organizations world wide. They also list six Delphi Schools, Greenfields school, twelve HELP centers, and the World Literacy Crusade. The World Literacy Crusade itself lists 23 groups. But the Applied Scholastics network of tutors, schools and study group could be expected to be extensive. And in fact they have a “locator” on their website which states that they have “over 500 groups”. It’s not possible to pull up the whole list so we will have to take their word for it. So lets give them the full 500 they claim, even though on checking a large percentage of these “groups” are in fact individual tutors. And many of those tutors long since gave up and went onto another line of work. And of course, none of them really even KNOW any study tech because they have not done the GAT II Totally As LRH Intended Real Final Totally On Source Student Hat.
The Way To Happiness Foundation website does not list its groups or even make any claim as to how many there are. However what is very telling is the Applied Scholastics locator with its total of 500 groups world-wide, including everything from private tutors, after school educations programs and schools. Again, Miscavige has talked about “WTH groups” with a couple of stage shots of people holding the booklets. This is supposed to be spreading around the world in ever increasing numbers — but there are no groups listed anywhere so they can be found. So, another guess. Maybe 100 if they are lucky. So, let’s call it 200.
WISE: No doubt, they will claim there are “thousands” of organizations that “use LRH admin tech” as part of WISE, though if you EVER tried to get the organizations to admit they were even associated with the church of scientology they would vehemently deny it. And if ever one of them was sued and also named a church entity, the church would also claim they had NO CONNECTION. And if you ever went into one of those business and tried to get some Dianetics or Scientology you would be looked at with blank stares. Oh sure, there are some Scientologists who own businesses that pay the extortion to WISE. And WISE has Scientology as part of its name…. The last WISE directory I saw listed about 300 businesses. Who knows if they are up to date and who knows if they do anything other than have a copy of an OEC Volume in their office. And they are certainly not “Scientology groups” or even “Scientology affiliated groups” but its the Christmas season, so in the spirit of goodwill, let’s give them 300 Scientology-owned businesses that they claim as Scientology groups.
The Real Mathematics of Scientology Expansion
Orgs: Maximum Possible Count: 309 (counting all orgs as having both a day and foundation organization)
Missions: 343
Field Auditing Groups: Maximum estimated 300
Volunteer Minister Groups 100
Narconon: 91
Criminon: 59
Applied Scholastics: 500 (claimed, not listed)
Way to Happiness Groups: Maximum estimated 500
WISE 300
Very generous total 2400. Total of actual operational Scientology orgs missions and groups world wide is probably closer to 1000 if you count EVERYTHING that is more than a single person doing something part-time.
That leaves about 80% hype. Sounds about right for David Miscavige style Scientology.
What this figure really represents is someone going through all the claims made in Int Events over the years and adding up the numbers: “200 new Dianetics groups were formed in the Congo, now that’s real grassroots expansion,” “The Volunteer Ministers trained 75 people to give touch assists so there are now 75 effective, functioning VM groups in Kazhakstan,” “the children of this Amazaon village now have hope for the future thanks to an IAS grant that allowed each to be given their own copy of the WTH in Swedish and now they in turn will be effectively disseminating this technology to other children in a thousand villages up and down the Amazon.”
On this 11,000 number they so brazenly shout from the rooftops — I call bullshit.
Funny, no journalist EVER challenges the church to provide evidence of the lie they tell every single one of them. This is one of the FIRST THINGS that the church proclaims, along with opening X “new churches”in just the last year (4?) and attacking he media for “not telling the real story of Scientology — the story of its massive worldwide expansion.”
One day a real investigative journalist is going to take them up on their challenge to “tell the real story about the expansion of Scientology.” All they will need to do is be willing to watch endless videos of Miscavige cutting ribbons on empty buildings, absorb mind-numbing figures of inches of electric wiring installed and see “testimonials” from unnamed “government officials” and once done, then go and LOOK. And ask the church for their supporting documents. It would be a VERY interesting story. And its the story the church KEEPS challenging the media to write.
Anyone? I am more than willing to assist any journalist who wants to take this on.
Thanks a lot for this. I used it as an answer to a story Dutch Scientologist Merel Remmerswaal wrote on a Dutch site for free press stories: http://www.dichtbij.nl/amsterdam-centrum/regio/artikel/3297618/scientology-kerk-sluit-2013-af-.aspx
Good work Mike!! keep up all the hard work you are doing for the cause! You are my hero!!
Embarassing, to say the least. Even worse is the lie about the OT bridge, which imo is David Miscavige biggest crime.
We in South Africa experienced this farce.At one of the many International hype events there was a big announcement that the Corbetts and our company Century were delivering the TWTH and YHR in 186 police stations across the Gauteng province. The truth was we had TV monitors with the DVDs playing and a box with TWTH and YHR booklets in the corner in exactly SIX stations. At first I thought that someone had just made a mistake and I would write and get it corrected. Then I realized that it was done on purpose as it was unlikely that anyone would actually ever check these figures.This made us realize that NONE of the PR and announcements at the events could be taken as true. We all know the” window dressing” that is taking place is for the benefit of those poor suckers still inside the church.
This is however a bit like preaching to the choir as most of the people that are reading this blog pretty well know the truth. How do we get to those who won’t look but just believe all the rubbish. Please, someone come up with a bright idea on how to feed them wiith even a tiny bit of the truth of what is actually happening right under their noses. That tiny seed of doubt is all that is needed, after that there will be a comm lag as there was with all of us but it will start the ball rolling.
CO$ers are conditioned that “Hype” is the way to promote Scientology, so they don’t mind the lies as they in turn use them on new prospects. Most know it’s pretty much all BS, want to agree with it, even fork over money to have it, thinking they’re great dissem tools that will lead to expansion and planet clearing. After all, Int Management is a trusted source to know what angles pull the bunny out of the hat, in fact see it as their own responsibility to participate in the con. If the deluded fanfare-frenzy were to die down, they’d believe somebody had dropped the ball. The public, esp. the well-off ones, want these mental-masturbation strokes to keep “The Highs” going. They want that false-euphoria ecstasy trip to keep reality in check.
HYPE is seen as “Positive Postulate”, thus false stats are merely a 3D mock up of desired expansion. Make-believe psyche-up rallys conducive to wallet-lifting.
Gaye, I’ve racked my brain trying to think of a bright idea to get others to see the truth and so far this is the only conclusion I’ve come up with: the way LRH got others to see the truth they were not-ising was by auditing them … with repetitive commands. So I figure the way we do it is by giving a repetitive command to the public we want to help. The “command” LOOK DON’T LISTEN might be the one to use repetitively until they cognite for themselves. Just like in auditing, feeding someone the EP wont get a person far, feeding the public the truth results in instant disconnection in most cases. I‘m no C/S but I cant imagine there’d be any harm done. Or is this idea just outright squirelling? I got nothing else.
Keep up the pressure on DM. Like any other dictator, he cannot afford to admit that he was doing wrong – he “has to be right”. The more pressure and nonsense is coming down the line, the shorter their comm lag could become. Most people left when they couldn’t take it anymore, no matter the consequences they had to face.
There are already doubts there. As open communication is not possible as it gets censored and “the wrong thoughts” are getting punished, these are not visible. I only found out after I was out, that others were having similar thoughts and experiences. Inside I was thinking sth was probably wrong with ME, as others didn’t seem to have the same problems. But it seemed only so, as we couldn’t communicate about what we were seeing and experiencing what was definitely wrong. The labeling (being disaffected, against command intention, CI, PTS, entheta (entha = every opposing thought or mentioning of wrongs) and the threat of SP declare and disconnection etc and the constant blame of “you must have overts” are used to shut members up and to cow them.
Somebody who wakes up, mostly needs a perfect storm where he is no longer willing to let DM’s thought police, “ethics” officers and registrars who are on the forefront of the protection racket, call the shots in their lives and is willing to draw the consequences. He has not only to overcome the cognitive dissonance but also to admit to himself that he probably was “wrong” with having invested so much of his life (too much) – and that he was believing the lies and was conned. That is not so easy to confront and can be very painful. Maybe to return the flow in reference to the issue “You Can Be Right” could help. Or sth similar to Debbie Cook’s letter which was very effective.
Good one Mike, although your generosity is over the top.
What about the “Mission Starter Packages” (A box of div 6 books and an agreement to be pimped by SMI) that have been sold for more than two decades at 40,000.00 a pop? At the Flag Land Base sometimes 4 or 5 a week would be sold. “We have the staff, you can fund it. Open a mission!” Really Dave? Really S.M.I.? If you only sold ONE a week for twenty out of the last 25 years, ………………. You should have been opening one mission a week over the last 20 years! And what about the money? What does it cost you to keep the S.M.I. staff? They are all volunteers right? Just another case of FRAUD! Embezzlement! Anyone who paid for a mission starter package has a right to know where the mission is they funded so they can go see it. If it does not exist you have a right to ask for your money back. Where IS that mission you paid 40K for?
Good point Oracle! Where is the Mission your $40K paid for? What amazes me is that none of these whales ever ask to see their own paid for mission. How crazy is that?
Well, you know, EACH Scientologist is actually a GROUP if you dig my drift (except I guess for the few who have completed OT7, but you never know). So there probably ARE 11,000 groups involved in Scientology and ……. that’s all folks! *so could these mean that there actually ARE eight million beings technically “IN” Scientology? Might be an “acceptable truth” after all.
Does that include all the “Extras” that are hired for events?
There are more Scientologist’s outside Scientology than INSIDE.
More OT levels delivered ( actually delivered) outside scientology than INSIDE Scientology.
Looks like a good story could be written about exposing fraud, to me!
Could someone define for this never in, “day and foundation” in reference to org stats?
Day and foundation is a SHIFT. Day shift and night shift. Foundation refers to the night shift. Each shift is considered a different organization. A different group. One group uses the building during the day shift, the other comes in for the night shift. So it becomes a different organization with a different group of people. Night shift also includes the week ends. Day shift is Monday through Friday work hours or until 6 P.M..
Staff knows the state of Scientology Inc better than anyone and lives with it daily. OSA explains why the org is empty to get cooperation of staff and public. Staff hears lies about expansion. Management says you can apologize for your failures to fill the org by getting the public to donate money. Therefore, our customers will want to return when they see we are right because we have money. Ser Fac, wrong why thinkology sourced at the top of the mess.
I think you’re right, Flexible. Staff DO know better than anyone what the true existing scene is. All I can do to make this make sense is to dub in my own excuse for them, which is that they, the staff, simply cannot or will not confront that they have been devoting their lives to something that has been failing for a long time. I think they HAVE TO believe, they make themselves believe that Scientology is creating very positive effects, and that its those awful SPs who are trying to stop things and so those SPs have to be wiped out and fought , etc. etc. They have to believe this. Its really sad, because they are actually delusional and while applying their intelligence, training, awareness and ability to obnose to other areas and dynamics yet will not or can not apply these to what is most important to them.
To me, Aquamarine, you have just encapsulated what is truly the most tragic thing about Scientology for me. It is a living, breathing Greek tragedy being played out right in front of our eyes. Having been a staff member myself, I feel for the staff more so than the public. They have given more of themselves and in the end, it will have been all for nothing. Broken lives, failed hopes and dreams and washed up careers are the only products that are coming out of that Scientology now and in the future. All to feed the greed and avarice of sociopaths.
I only hope that the end draws near sooner than later, and that there will still be a chance for re-connection when the inevitable does happen. There are people I love still in and I very much want to see them again.
Aquamarine and Galactic Patrol, yes, you both encapsulated the exact sad scene. It is something that I hope decades from now will be required reading in schools so as to prevent something like this from ever happening again. I hope the church crumbles sooner rather than later, as you say, and that I’ll be reunited with my family still in.
Great obnosis. It’s there, in your face but most don’t catch it. I was wondering about Ron’s Journal 38. I remember thinking that it sounded like a computer production at the time (way back 1984.) DM’s been a bold liar since well, forever. Was there ever any inside info that RJ38 was faked? In retrospect it looks like the systematic takeover took root pretty early (with the ouster of Mary Sue.)
Whshoooo generous in those numbers indeed!! EUS has only 4 or 21 orgs that have day and fdn. Boston, NY, DC and Miami. ( Detroit was combined in late 90s and Tampa was moved out of EUS and put under Flag…??? how’d that work for you Tpa?…don’t answer, we know, it didn’t and neither did that second “ideal org” cob “gave” you…still not booming sadly.) Anyhoo out of the number of orgs you calculated Mike you were generous enough to give them 17 free benefit of the doubt bonus orgs for just one management section of the country alone! and as you know most of the management section aka conts aka continents (that do not reflect actual continents for example the USA has 2 conts – EUS aka East US and WUS aka West US. Generous, very generous in all those numbers indeedie,
I’ve come to accept “Ideal Orgs” as simply feeder FSM orgs, to sift out the more “got-bucks” Scientologists who can be picked off by the higher Sea Org orgs or by CC Int and the truly richer ones get picked off and funneled up to Flag as soon as possible, where the front groups walkway of offices’ sales people can hit the most got-bucks club members for the front group donations.
It’s kind of a scene of funneling up the “qualified” (having enough money to pay the prices/accomodations, and not having illegal pc out quals), and suitably dupable sycophant minded enough to accept all the totalitarianism and know how to keep quiet about the lack of real gains. People who enjoy their buildings, and waltzing around pretending they are living the fantasy of the promotion about what they are doing!
Enjoy the Scientology catwalk show, of pretend followers in their glorious settings!
Can’t believe we don’t have some FSO insiders emailing you Mike, to tell you the FSO GI and how things are going with the auditing stats for real at Flag.
To clarify an incorrect comment made on this blog, it should be noted that COB does not “cut ribbons” when he opens Ideal Orgs.
Rather, COB — and a group of chosen and very privileged people lined up behind him — pull a Golden Rope that ascends upward to the heavens.
Whereupon, when the Golden Rope is pulled, helium balloons are released into the sky and confetti cannons fire wild fusillades of confetti upon the hundreds of thousands of people in attendance.
The “Golden Rope Balloon and Confetti Tech” is trademark RTC grand opening technology and may not be used by any other groups.
Thousands of applications are received from movie stars as well as global political and religious leaders to be in COB’s “Rope Line.” COB only selects the most prominent and ethical beings to be in his Rope Line.
For example, when COB opened the Ideal Org in Portland, Oregon, notables selected for COB’s Golden Rope line included the former Mayor of Beaverton.
You Sir, are the master satirist.
OT8isGreat I know his secret.
He reads the Pyongyang Times (North Korean newspaper). Even though LRH said in the advices to ASI that ASI staff ought read the NY Times, OT8isGreat mistook this advice and instead chose to read the far more inspirational Pyongyang Times, the news organ of North Korea:
:
http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/periodic/times/index.php
It’s very educational to read the above for comparison, no joke!
Chuck — fascinating. You are absolutely right about the comparison. This propaganda reads like Freedom Magazine (or perhaps vice versa). Even down to the corny “awards” presented from unknown politicians to the the long dead Kim Jong Il and the overwhelming “monolithic” unity of support for his son and successor.
Probably worthy of a post in itself which I shall do at some point in the future.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Agreed! How Scientology’s management and leadership have turned into this nightmare ought be laid out.
The comparison to North Korea which you and others have done for years, I recall the ferocious counter attacks against that characterization a few years back!
But that comparison is very valid.
I just read the book on Camp 14, a stunning book, as one who lived 7 years on the Scienotlogy Sea Org’s RPF, the North Korean Camp 14 book was right up my reading interest alley!
Hey Chuck. The parallels are scary. I am reading John Sweeney’s new book about North Korea. OMG.
Laughter!
Mike,
You are so right about this. I hear about “SP attacks” all the time from public scns, and they are always reasoned out in relation to either ‘widespread expansion’ of the church or the other biggie, “The Psychs”.
These two “reasons” are always given in response to any bad news, from the Tom Cruise/Nazanin Boniadi article in Vanity Fair or to a Narconon center being shut down. Anything “non-optimum” is always considered an attack on Scientology by the church and its public and is due to the church “expanding” or that “The Psychs” are behind it with their billions of pharmaceutical money being put in operation.
The CoS never takes ANY responsibility for ANYTHING.
So true, Pepper. I was always amazed at that kind of reasoning, in that people and groups doing bad things get attacked too, when their bad actions are known.
The CofS is smaller than it was when I left in 1982 in terms of real production. They had a very strong setup with the mission network sending people to Flag directly. I walked into a few missions in California which had 200 plus students on course regularly. I doubt if there is a delivery org on the planet that large now.
I think your views are universally agreed with.
Price increases hurt in the late 1970s though.
When the Apollo landed, late 1975 that had a good overall trickle down effect, with more training going on in the late 1970s due to that more open doors at the top and higher volume tech delivery at the top. Flag income took off after the tours from AO 536.
LRH was still enough on the lines and there was still a large contingent of top tech trained people in the mid to late 1970s, but the Class 12 braindrain was happening and mostly had happened by 1982, but still the tech real golden age was likely mid 1970s to late 1970s in terms of the most amount of “top” tech trained Flag tech people scattered around at the Clearwater Flag Land Base and out around the world.
I’d say the big ‘tech” evolutions, making lots of really confident qualifed auditors, and having orgs that somewhat worked without blunting people’s purposes and trouncing all over them, and before the prices just became only affordable by the middle class plus type of Scientologists.
There’s need of a lot more pulling together all the factors.
Scientology even with the tech heydays when Missions had good tech people, to me, the prices have always been just too damn high! The whole practice, training and processing are simply very time intensive, time consuming, compared to the amount of time other religions demand of their membership.
Ralph, you should be surveyed for your views and experiences, particularly on your statistics in your many decades of practice of Scientology delivery (training and auditing) since you I’d place into the “Group” category, or small mission.
What would you categorize your activity as? Group? Mission? FIeld Auditor practice?
The DM COS will always lie on the stats.
The reason is they are applying the datum of “whenever we flourish and prosper, it drives the SP’s nuts”
or something like that. So they are trying to drive the “SP’s” crazy. LOL
I think you have the cause and effect reversed.
The SP’s are “going crazy” (exposing their abuses, “entheta media”, bringing lawsuits etc etc)
They use this to claim “they must be expanding” — its the “best proof” of expansion because LRH says that the SPs scream when they are doing well. Therefore, if anyone is screaming they MUST be doing well.
ANd so they need to have some numbers to support their claim.
So they make them up….
Considering the SPs scream non-stop all the time, then they must be doing well all the time, so then there is no point even making any mention of it. Probably why they don’t use Auditors made/PCs audited stats anymore, since screaming SPs tell the whole story anyways, and why they advanced to dust particles removed and square footage of carpeting installed.
Thanks for this number-crunching, Mike. The Roman Catholic Church lists every one of their churches with their names by state and per state county. One would think that with that 11K number the RCS would have a main website set up listing them each out very clearly. One would think.
And every instinct I possess tells me you have been totally over-the-top generous in your guesstimations. But then, how else can one “think with” omitted data?
If only facts and reality didn’t keep getting in the way of Dave building his religious empire he may have actually come to be considered impressive in somebody’s eyes other than his own.
Facts and reality are the twin terrorists that never stop pursuing the liar.
That’s pretty good, KFrancis. I would call it profound. Is it original?
Yes! I put down my tequila bottle for 24 hours and had a lucid thought shortly thereafter ….LOL
Big Lie Alert indeed.
I’ve never been SO or staff but I work in a profession where I take care of people. I cannot imagine carrying on in a manner where I would willingly or unwillingly lie to people while “caring” for them in such a pathological manner as the CoS does. I would hate myself and my life in general.
I believe that those who join the SO or staff are well intentioned people who have a desire to help others and see the world improve. Unfortunately, they are placed in a positon where they must unquestionably submit to “Command Intention”, whatever thought that might be at any given moment in time. Basically, it amounts to living a disingenous life of pathological lying and betrayal of the public and society it’s supposed to serve.
Narconon was a viable and expanding network before it was stripped down, secularized and subjected to various organizational arbitraries via ABLE Int. ABLE Int has no tech or qual terminals. Nor is there anyone there who knows or understands anything about helping drug addicts or recognizing addiction. But they do know about Thursday at 2 o’clock and collecting their 10%. Instead of operating as the 100% effective compassion based drug rehab Willy Benitez founded with LRH’s blessing, Narconon has been made over into a starving cash cow by a “management” entity already awash in money.
Great idea Mike!!
Have the journalist go into the empty Orgs. Hello! hellooo, heellloooo, echoing off the walls.
Then the journalist could do an expose on the basic books into libraries scam too.
I can see it now on 60 minutes…Calling the library system and asking about the basic books and being told “No, we don’t carry those books and our entire system doesn’t carry them.” Etc. Oh the laughs that could be had!!
Agreed. One excuse to go visit an org, is to utilize the Qual Library, and study LRH’s writings in the library, which ought to be available.
Even if a reporter acted totally neutral, was polite, at least on their first go-round with the org DSA (Dept of Special Affairs person), they’d get the hopeful helpful orchestrated tour.
They couldn’t but help notice the echoing empty halls and rooms.
At one point Dianetics Centers were listed on the Dianetics website, but since it went multimedia (caution – volcano!!) they just invite people to send in details so they can mail spam forever. It’s another puff site with no apparent end value.
I went through the list of Centers once but it was almost identical to the lists of Orgs and Missions combined, which indicated that the ‘Centers’ were a file in a cabinet.
So as you say ~450 branches, same as it was in around 2000, is the best comparison with other religious groups.
IHELP UK (which bizarrely also includes Ireland, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India) claimed 70 supposed “groups” in 2010/11 however only 1 or 2 were doing anything even remotely significant. Official doc at http://bit.ly/1hJKyjv
Wow! Excellent raw doc, thanks for sharing.
Groups obviously fall apart easily, and have to be recreated, all the time.
It’s a very on and off activity, spurts, when the available and more talented Book 1 auditor type IHELP members who are willing to do their “Group” In Charge duties, which I suppose they dread, but maybe a few of them are able to find some clients occassionally, but I think these IHELP Book 1 auditors/Group In Charge people mainly do it because they enjoy doing Book 1, and seeing others do Book 1 and having wins at it.
So, it’s not like an activity that will fall apart due to the false stats.
But the Book 1 auditing is being used as a platform to claim the people doing all this activity are Scientologists or that these groups are more than they actually are.
What a Scientologist actually is, needs a little more debate, and some kind of focused researched and peer-reviewed clarifying by the experienced honest active Scientologists.
More back and forth honest debate between experienced Scientoogists and challenge the last couple decades of superficial new religion papers on Scientology needs be done.
Anyone is free to search up the current crop of new religion and existing scholarship on Scientology, and give those men and women any raw data and history, and engage those academics on the papers they’ve done on Scientology.
Thanks Mike for taking the time to sit down and “do the math” on this inflated nonsense the Church keeps putting out. You would think, given the fact that the general media knows what liars the Scientologist spokespeople are, that they wouldn’t forward their BS about how many Scientologists there are and how many Scientology groups there are. But the truth is, they don’t really care enough about Scientology to bother with any fact checking.
The general public doesn’t think twice about Scientology in their daily lives and are so inundated with generalized statistics, facts and figures all day long that these numbers don’t even register to them.
No, I think the target public for these inflated PR numbers are the Scientologists themselves. Unlike the general public, Scientologists grasp at these figures like straws, desperate to believe them so they can know that “things are so much better out there” than they are in their own dismal, empty Ideal Org.
Without a reason to keep on going or a belief that they really are expanding, the Scientologists would just give up. So Miscavige and the OSA PR liars have to keep up the pretense and spew this irrational nonsense that a child could see through. Hopefully the Scientologists who see your report will wake up to it.
Those figures are what make the sacrifice seem worthwhile.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
I don’t think this ever worked !
Roger, Big Lie Tech has workability, unfortunately.
However, the good news, and a good stable datum for dealing with Big Lie Tech is something one of our former American Presidents, Abraham Lincoln. said, (paraphrased here): “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”.
People I know look at a big lie as a big lie. And also look at a small lie as a small lie.
Look to the US. Some see Snowden as a traitor for revealing the extent their every move is being watched. He comes with truth and is made a liar. Thank god for whistleblowers.
I like your challenge Mike. Surely there is an investigative journalist out there who would like this challenge as well. Happy New Year!
Even the new religion scholars are wise to the Scientology false stats, and have written about it in several of their papers in the last 5 years or so that I’ve read.
The actual surveying done in Australia burst the size bubble downunder, and in the UK.
Jeff and Marc Headley both gave raw figures in the last 5 or so years now, first from the IAS membership stats that Jeff shared, and from the Emeter numbers that Marc Headley shared, in recent years.
Journalists could just dig into the boring new religion papers and see this, and also other media articles, religion survey numbers in several countries, have reported the shockingly dismal number of people who answered they were Scientologists in those countries, proving the numbers that Scientology claims are hopelessly false, and the new religion scholars do not support nor believe Scientology’s claims (not the old main “bad” new religion scholars like Melton, Lewis, Bromley, those 3 do take what Jeff and Marc have stated and what the surveys done show, that the truth is that the numbers are pitifully small compared to the false boasting).
I meant “Betterment” of course but it’s a funny typo so I’ll leave it.
That was a funny “error’, Sir Jeff!
Jeff,
You could have used “Social Batterment Groups” without the quotes and been 100% accurate 😉
I wouldn’t consider it a Freudian Slip under the current regime.
That’s the kind of slip that should be remembered and given to a scriptwriter who does the Monty Python version of a Miscavige event speech!
There are 10 million Scientologist now acording to Dave or 11 million, maby 12. million. So the 5000 remaining Church Scientologists must have many sticky spirits aroundv them.
Many of the “Social Batterment Groups” listed on their global locator have the same address as the local org. So you can bet if you went there and tried to contact them you’d get the local OSA rep.
Great Freudian slip or typo, thanks Jeff!
We might as well adopt your new spelling as more appropriate to the current scene….
Greta
Yes, this was very generous indeed. OK, the challenge is on: where are the auditors made? Where are the Clears and OTs? Low, low statistics.
Yes, you can have a bunch of empty buildings and claim it is expansion, but the facts speak otherwise. You have a broken field, people departing parishioners left, right and center or being declared by “official ethics missions’ which end only emptying the Orgs much more, as it recently happened in South Africa.
You can show as many videos as you want and deep inside yourself know you are lying big time…must feel horrible, but is up to you.
I have a friend who was working at a mission during the “new, updated Dianetics” release. Part of the release was that all orgs and missions were ordered to get people signed up as wanting to form Dianetics groups.
That’s “wanting to form”, not “formed”.
He tells me that his mission signed up 25 people as heads of Dianetics groups.
Three years later, NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE did the “Professional Dianetics Auditor Course”. Not one of those people went into the mission asking for help debugging a difficult case. Not one of those people selected a person to the mission to service.
In other words, Int Mgmt got their stat (25) but any ACTUAL expansion was non-existent.
He spoke to one of those people six months ago and asked them if Int Mgmt ever bugged them for stats (NO) or asked for preclear lists (NO) or ever hounded them to do the Pro Course (NO).
In other words, Int Mgmt got their stat (25) but did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to make sure they were auditing or expanding or selecting people up the Bridge.
It’s a crazy-house mirror reflecting the shrinkage of the “church” of Scientology Inc.
Maybe DM is counting independents in his figuring. This would likely bring the total closer to his number. Thanks Dave. NIce to be included, but you should give us credit. :>)
+1
Greta
I was once regged for $300,000. for three ex Sea Org who formed a group
that claimed to delete all LRH coined words from the Grades and deliver as
“Life Coaching” They had a P.O. Box and were set up by Flag.( MLO and MAA)
Long story short,I did not come up with the cash and this cabal moved onto Rex Fowler for the money.
Since Rex was on OT 7 he was leveraged in extreme ( I was not on OT 7).Rex Complied as not to be
CI to the COB. It caved in his software company, Rex went type 3 and murdered his CFO then shot himself in a failed suicide attempt. Now doing life in prison.
I did check into”Life Coaching” , it is a multitude of spin offs of many types of psychiatry.
This is true.
Jose, if I duplicated this correctly. Flag terminals (MLO, MAA) set up 3 ex SO, using, public money, to deliver the Grades minus LRH terminology, combined with psychiatry, calling it Life Coaching and this was claimed to be COBs intention, resulting in the donator, Rex Fowler murdering his Finance Officer, then attempting suicide?
WTF!!!!!!! This is kind of hard to believe. Is this documented anywhere, with names, reasons and details? I mean, lying in their PR is one thing, but this is even crazier!
“Life Coaching” is a term used by some field auditors/groups/FZers who don’t want to openly advertise their business as being Scientology-related. It is not a psych term. Anyone can call themselves a “life coach” as the life coaching industry (certainly in the UK and US afaik) is unregulated.
To Cotch,
You duplicate correctly. Flag ( Sandcastle ) MLO and MAA was gouging public for $300,000
to set up former Sea Org in business with tech that is minus LRH coined words.
Only the COB could authorise such a thing. At any rate I bailed, my saga actually gets worse.as I was threatened with being beaten up physically by CCHR fundraiser and threatened with extortion. If I did not pay CCHR dollar for dollar what I put on the Brdge the fundraiser vowed that I would not move on the Bridge, My crime was applying standard tech and purchasing 50 hours of auditing at Flag ( which I never got)
Basically I was dead meat no matter what I did so I said screw it. Rex Fowler was doing great on OT 7 until someone up lines took notice.
This is True
PS, I am doing great as an Indie and will be on OT 7 soon.
Amazing leads to do a full story/reporting on what you say here!
Cotch,
Wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Back in the ’90’s the regs at Flag were promoting Reed Slatkin’s Ponzi Scheme as the latest financial miracle that would finance their bridge plus make ’em the richest men and women in Babylon etc. ad nauseam till he got his sorry ass busted by the SEC.
Then all of a sudden it was Reed….Reed ….who?
Musta got that line from their friends at the CIA.
Anyhoo…
Wouldn’t surprise me.
Heard they backed Tony Robbins back in the day and some us already know about Ingo like Parsons and JPL is one of the founders of CCI.
Though in those days it was just promotion and support.
Like I said it wouldn’t surprise me if they actually started directly funding these people who “disseminating” the tech by handing it over to some hostile group like the CIA for example.
Amazing leads to do a full story followup on what you mention here! So much great input from commenting ex members on this blog and other blogs, enough for magazine articles detailing all these stories! amazing, thanks for sharing!
When I listened to Lawrence Wright’s many many radio and TV talks he gave in the past year, he would bring up other stories and material not in his book, makes me think he must have had to edit out a lot of material he had accumulated from all the interviewing he did.
It’s truly amazing how much details and stories there are, still not officially printed or told in media radio or TV shows
MW, Jose and Remote, thanks for the info!
Working as a lead VM during disaster relief efforts, and dealing with CRs (compliance reports for management) I know that our “VM Groups” was a stat push.
After the immediate danger was handled, we were pushed to start groups in the areas and send in pictures of them. Many times this included people who liked giving assists with us, and we put them together for a photo so they could be called a “group.” NO DOUBT they never gave one assist after the VMs pulled out from the area. Yet I also know no doubt they are still being counted as a stats.
Per policy, in order for a group to be called a “group” is they are supposed to report stats every month. And of course they do not, because they had no idea in the first place they were being formed into a “group.”
I remember once being told by a lead SO member (OSA, actually) that if VMs go to an area and leave without starting groups then it’s wasted time. Verbatim.
Great raw info! Blogs and commenting is priceless raw material later researchers who do their homework, can find all kinds of jewels, like your above comment, thankyou!
I have another math:
10,000,000 Scientologists
divided by
11,000 Orgs, Missions and Groups
equals
909 pople per Org/Mission/Group
but I don’t think that there is any Org at all with this amount of active members.
He wants to be done in, doesn’t he?
That video you posted showing what kind of help USD 25,000 could buy was a real eye-opener. Required viewing for anyone who ever thought their “donations” to the IAS were not enough, or who thought the IAS was “bringing real help to mankind”.
The trained liars of the Sea Organization simply cannot stop lying
http://youtu.be/FqwkpHUy9Kw
Thank you! Terrific reporting. And thank you for all that you are doing to help Mike. Your helicopter escapade had me howling with excitement. And then when you guys flew “Where Is Shelly Miscavige” over the Cuckoos Nest… we were all cheering.
Just for history, when someone buys something from Scientology, particularly a Div 6 course, in Scientology’s revisionist definition of religious donations, that person has donated for a Scientology service,and for that moment in their lives, they are considered a Scientologist.
Extend now this level of extrapolation to what a “group” is. Any person, out in the world, who is disseminating to other humans around them, disseminating some aspect of Scientology as if it were a spiritual (religious) commodity, that that person wishes his friends or family to have and utilize in their lives, this makes this a “legitimate” “group”, and it also makes those people who even for a fraction of a moment reach for some aspect of Scientology, as potential “group” members.
This “group” is thus made up of hopefuls, very thinly stretched hopeful people, who would never answer a surveyor’s question “Are you a Scientologist?” by saying yes.
And the reporting of “groups”, that gets done from the CLOs, from the ABLE/WISE/SMI sector heads at the CLO, who weekly send up the “group” stats, there is legion false reporting done weekly.
In fact there has never been a week in the history of the movment, I’d venture to say, when there was not some knowing or unknowing false reporting of the “group” related statistics that the ABLE/WISE/SMI heads at the CLO have done since whenever their “group” stats were first required to be reported, from then til now, just non-stop knowing and unknowing false reporting.
Chuck,
Per policy a group is supposed to apply for group status as a Gung Ho, Dn Counseling Group, FSM Group etc. before they could actually call it a stat.
No doubt this stat has been fudged from time to time to include any group or grouping of Scientologists.
Also groups like NN, Criminon, Applied Scholastics, CCHR etc which were formerly run under SoCo now ABLE are *not* really Scientology groups because they are secular activities.
Ironic how Simple Simon as Mike says is so willing to take credit for them if they succeed and deny any association if they screw up.
Amazing because of the Jeffersonian lengths and convolutions the GO went through to keep the Church and NN, Criminon and CCHR separate.
I mean at one time they tried telling us to stop calling the Comm Course the Comm Course and to stop using HCOBs in the delivery of the Tech and use their Botwo versions of the “Tech” during the short time I was at NN.
Of course we kindly told ’em to go fuck themselves but this gives you an idea how extreme they were.
Now every time the lil’ weasel squirrel hybrid opens his mouth about Scientology. He includes them as Scientology groups which is another big fat lie.
When I worked in the Sea Org, and read and heard our claims of size, I translated “Scientologist” into anyone even passing up through the lowest awareness characteristics on the Bridge, meaning anyone who mentally saw that there was some value in Scientology, and who even privately was then going to look further into Scientology for something of value to apply in their lives. Bingo, that made them a Scientologist.
This personal moment that people experience, even if for a tiny fraction of time in their lives, “made them a Scientologist”, in my mind.
Missing in the “Scientologist” full definition, is that people themselves don’t consider themselves Scientologists, even if they are beginners and even if they are just interested “seekers” barely looking into Scientology.
If people don’t openly in surveys done by credible surveyors, answer they ARE a Scientologist, then they are not factually Scientologists. They might be secret Scientologists, they might be wavering Scientologists, they might be “squirrel” Scientologists, but they are not counted as Scientologists by credible surveyors unless they answer yes to being Scientologists.
Same with these groups of Scientologists. There’s a “squirrel” group near where I live, of people I’d actually place as official Scientologists, but they actually are mostly made up of declared “SPs” (undeclared officially, no goldenrod). They are more freezone-ish, and factually, maybe, I don’t know, but technically, since they do courses, meter drills, TRs, and audit each other, I’d pretty much even include these freezone-ish Scientologists in the “group” category of worldwide Scientologists.
The Ron’s Org people in EU and US, that do pretty much the 1980s vintage tech (plus Captain Bill’s tech Bill claimed he channeled from Ron OT levels), are also kind of correct to be included, in my opinion, into the grand total of Scientology groups in the world, even though official Scientology would not admit they are part of the grand total.
I jokingly thought that if official (Miscavige) Scientology thinks in the widest terms, they/he would include the squirrel (splinter) Scientology groups too.
In which case, this expansion is thus only truly backed up by the splinter Scientology community growth.
We need a defector from ILO (Int Liaison Org) who is familiar unsidedown and backwards with the last 20 years of stats, a recent defector. Someone who knows the 2013 average weekly gross income statistic for the Flag Service Organization. To me, delivery of auditing at Flag, the FSO GI and the FSO VSD stats tell the tale majorly if this whole official Scientology show is all show, or if auditing and delivery is declining badly as everyone thinks. We need FSO GI and FSO VSD stats leaked!
Having read your comment, I was inspired to call Flag and ask someone what FSO’s GI and VSD were since the release of GAT II. I was told that “we don’t talk about stats like GI and VSD.”
Also, “GAT II was only just released and so the stats aren’t showing up yet” or something like that.
What they could say was that 1700 public were on lines-4500 people, if you count extension courses. 500 people on SRD, 20 people on the full training lineup to be Class IV’s, (this up from 1or 2 that were on a full training lineup before GATII release). Flag made 450 clears last year, up from 240. There were 360 OT 7s made compared to 200 in 2012.
Excellent work for asking and relaying this info. Too bad on GI and VSD, for which to me we would need an FLB Org defector who knows the meaning of the various GI breakdown figures and the breakdown of the VSD figure for the FSO, but excellent getting this info.
I remember, when I was one of the admin course sups for the Flag Bureau Exec College, 1977 to 1979, that when Flag Sea Org vets were off on missions, and came back, the key stat in their minds was FSO GI, and VSD.
People used to greatly desire to come to Flag for the top levels of the Brdige, for the Ls, and then for NOTs, since all the NOTs trainees first were trained at Flag first, so there was a late 1970s heyday for NOTs deliver first at Flag before it then trickled down to the AOs when the NOTs trainees returned.
Now, with the Superpower Building, this might dry up even more the lower Sea Org AOs and ASHOs, this might become another minor unintended consequence of putting so many eggs in the Flag basket of unique services that only Flag can deliver. Sort of a circling of the money wagons to Flag.
I wonder what the whole stats are by Cont, by CLO, by Sea Org AO and ASHO/SH’s, and CC Int.
One more bad ramification for Miscavige’s Mussolini management style, is when other sectors (Sea Org, CC, and the front groups) crash, if Mussolini/Miscavige doesn’t complain, then these gaping massive collapsed sectors are further forgotten about in everyone’s minds.
We need someone like Karen Hvass or Curt Hahn to defect and give us a full briefing across the sectors of the last decade to 15 years of stats collapses.
“There were 360 OT 7s made compared to 200 in 2012.”
This is the backlog of previously completed OT7s and 8s running the processes again after having attested ten or more years ago…When these individuals finish their levels, the stats will revert to their mean…I know two individuals, long time OTs, who are in this group….
Well, they only have 12,000 or so followers on youtube, twitter, etc. which comes to about one social media follower per org. And I bet half of those are inactive / lost interest but never deleted the Church.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQNvsEx7bnQ&feature=c4-overview&list=UU__gcXYVQlmVocNLZykibUw
Chuck,
According to the IRS Secret Closing Agreement and the booklet that was distributed by Miscavige’s “friends” at InterPol a “Scientologist” is someone who is a member the official Church.
The previous definition as contained in the Tech Dictionary and other sources was someone who applied Scn to themselves and/or others to improve conditions.
By the latter vague definition you could include the CIA’s DS&T and OTS plus the US Army’s Inscom Detachment G.
Not to mention anyone who read a copy of FOT or POW and decided to do the drills and exercises given in those books or anyone who picked a copy HBFPC or SA and ran the Acts or Lists contained in those books.
In short anyone who had gotten some Scientology tech from somewhere and decided to apply it somehow.
I don’t know if this would apply to the thousands of Dianeticists made from OT or DMSMH since those books only cover what is exclusively considered Dianetic procedure.
But I guess you could by stretching the definition of “Book Auditor” to include Dns as well which actually became part of Scientology again when Purcell relented and gave the copyright back to Hubbard.
(BTW any Scientology book published by Ron under his copyright was called a “Dianetic Publication” from that point.)
Also as you’ve written by the latter definition you could include all squirrel groups that have incorporated Scientology as part of their teachings. Which would include but is not limited to Howes, E-Therapy, Amprinistics, Dianology, The Process, Eckankar , EST, Avatar and the Manson “Family” plus those splinter groups you’ve listed such as the FZ and RO.
As you say if you included these you’d probably get something far in excess of the 11000 Miscavige claims which is basically doublespeak.
On one hand we have RTC and OSA trying to shut down these “squirrel” ( quotes meaning the Pot calling the Kettle black) and splinter groups while on the other hand embracing them as part of this vast Scientology network which he claims was created under the current management or more accurately the coup that took in the early ’80’s.
This is true.
The fact is under current management Scientology began to fracture and splinter faster then at any point in its history. Also now thanks to the negative press being generated by the official Government Approved Tax Exempt organization there are now fewer people who will admit to being Scientologists.
Much like most Christians wouldn’t admit to being Christians under Roman rule prior to Constantine.
So in my opinion any survey in this current environment would be somewhat skewed by this factor.
That said or written. If this is what Miscavige is basing these numbers on then it goes beyond lying and enters the area of blatant hypocrisy.
On one hand per the closing agreement he signed with the IRS a “Scientologist” is only a “Scientologist” if they are a member of the Church of Scientology. Yet on the other hand he is claiming individuals and groups that under his questionable “leadership” he has actively tried to shut down.
Take the case of Marty Rathbun.
Marty was harming no one and probably has helped many by continuing to practice Scientology outside the official Church yet was relentlessly attacked by the Church under the cover of some “independent” group calling itself the “Squirrel Busters”.
As Mike and I will attest.
The “Squirrel Busters” was resurrected by RTC based on the LRHED entitled “Project Squirrel” which was formerly run under the auspices of the GO’s Branch V which was its Intel Branch at the time and the paper trail which includes the confidential pack all of us on the project had to High Crime was originated by RTC.
The PR that this is some “independent” group of concerned “FSMs” is a complete fabrication.
In other words a big lie.
So you have Miscavige claiming he is expanding Scientology while all this time he, RTC and OSA have been attempting to monopolize it by actually trying to shut down all these independent Field Auditing Groups and Mission that are outside their sphere of control.
All you have to do is look at the Organizations history to see the evidence.
DM is a born liar!!! and he has perfected it as an art form! His middle name is bullshit and his nickname is smoke and mirrors. He is the laughing stock of America. What a tool!!
Well, His nickname is really “Asshole” but maybe that’s just me 😀
CC London is closed? Do you have a source on that? Last I checked, they still had a token presence in an office building in Central London…
Sorry, I was told that by a reliable source — that they combined with London Org. If that is incorrect I will change the post.
They have combined with London Org. It is the single most sensible thing I’ve seen in ages. I’ve been sent several emails from London Org informing me of this.
Thanks Artful. Appreciate the confirmation.
I’ve seen lots of Day/Fdn orgs where one was failing and the other not doing too well, and often thought that it would be better to combine them. But then I remember that there is a specific LRH PL that forbids this, isn’t there?
As far as I recall, almost all of the CCs ended up being absorbed by their local orgs many years ago. That is what happened to CC Chicago as well. After the feeder units dried up and these CCs were no longer the “upstat” solution (to the degraded orgs) for the WISE groups to send their chiros and dentists, well they just became a nuisance competition to the orgs. At least that’s my story and I am sticking to it…it was certainly that in Chicago.
Well, there you are. If you use MiscavigeMatics™ that means adding that extra office = 11,000!
Dave? . . . Hello . . . Dave, are you there?