Even in the world of scientology relentless money-grubbing for everything, perhaps the biggest boondoggle ever is the “L. Ron Hubbard Hall.”
This is a project that is even LESS needed than “ideal” org buildings. Some orgs have resided in shitty premises for decades, so there is some merit in improving their facilities. Though of course not to the extent of moving tiny, failing orgs into 50,000 sq ft buildings in industrial parks replete with custom furniture and carpets.
But there is no need whatsoever for an “event facility” dedicated to scientology events. They cannot fill Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater for their one event a year to sing happy birthday to L. Ron Hubbard, nor the Shrine Auditorium in LA for New Year’s. They fill up a tent for the IAS event in UK, but they have to import people from the US and all over Europe (which they could not do in Clearwater). The “Maiden Voyage” events are held on the Freewinds.
So, for 3 events a year that they cannot fill their existing facilities, they are raising money to construct a “state-of-the-art” (everything in scientology is “state-of-the-art” except it isn’t – they are still selling and using CD players) event facility.
Because they cannot justify needing a hall, they promote it as something that will “bring freedom to mankind.” Just how this is supposed to happen is not explained (of course). The events scientology holds are NOT available to the general public. They are kept under highest security to prevent them being put on the internet, Which, when you think about it, is strange as they are supposed to be a showcase of the remarkable accomplishments of scientology around the world — you would think they would WANT them seen by everyone. In fact, they are worried their claims will be fact-checked or that those who are shown in their puff piece videos might find out they were taken advantage of….
But they are going hell-bent-for-leather top raise funds and have recently put out a 24-page color brochure full of Shermanspeak.
The hype is oh so typical and such purple prose it is hard to read…
I’m not including the whole hypefest, but skip to the list of donors suckers — many familiar names. But the “statuses” they are bestowed are pretty comical.
Illuminare?
Legion of Honor of Distinction?
LRH Hall Senior Master Member?
The idiotic titles of scientology “statuses” are alone enough to scare off anyone who has not been completely brainwashed by scientology.
This is the entire list of people who, over the last 20 years, have been convinced to turn over money to buy this Brooklyn Bridge. Frankly, if they truly believe this is such a vital step in their plan to build a Cleared Earth, this is a pretty poor show. Only a couple of hundred people are with the program. In the entire world.
From the L. Ron Hubbard Hall promo: “Within its walls will also be the ideal, attendant gathering places”
As many people in this blog community know, that is code for:
The ideal able-to-be-sharply-and-unexpectedly-closed-off spaces for IAS fundraisers, Flag registrars and the like to fully restrict attendee movement or the person’s opportunity to leave, eat, or even use the bathroom in favor of being thoroughly fleeced for further large donations to whatever.”
[If you are a Never-In, “IAS” stands for International Association of Scientologists and those fundraisers are brutes. They will all but push a needle into your arm and start extracting your corpuscles. In fact, if they knew this would fetch a price on the open market, they would hand you the needle and the collection bag and demand you do the extraction and subsequent transaction immediately (or at least before Thursday at 2:00) yourself.]
DAMN! … I sent in all my money last week cause I thought I would reach ILLUMINATI, but too late realized that once again … misduplication!
Can I get my money back?
Joe Pendleton asked:
“Can I get my money back?”
NEVER!
As part of the small group of SPs who regularly protest outside Saint Hill when the annual IAS event is being held, I can tell you that even their premium ‘Gala’ has been shrinking.
At the last one in 2019, the tent was visibly smaller than in previous years, and our observations of numbers going in put attendance at no more than 1500 clams — about half the previous year’s total, and part of an obvious decline over the years.
Most of the coaches hired to bus people in were almost empty; some were even sent back round through the front gates several times to make it look like there were more attendees than there really were — presumably all this was being done for our benefit alone.
Miscavige probably heaved a secret sigh of relief when he didn’t have to stage a 2020 gala because of COVID: even with all-time low attendance, the event is VERY expensive to stage, what with hiring the tent and acres of decking and walkways so guests don’t get muddy feet, renting a large stage and AV/PA rig in the UK (and/or importing their own equipment from the US along with the usual Nuremberg rally-type set), costly cordon bleu caterers brought down from London for all the free food and drink, and especially a huge contingent of security guards to protect Saint Hill’s long perimeter — from all ten or so of we protesters. 😉
So these days Dave Miscavuge can barely pitch a tent. Why am I not surprised? Thank you Dr, Utrecht is proud of you and all those who carefully watch the $cieno world.
Thank you Mike.
So many S.O. members on the list. Perhaps they’ve left?
So Kelly Yagermann is now a Pomeranz?
My guess is most these folks are UTR. The game really has gone on to long. When people get to be in their 70s, their accomplishments matter more and there is just no way to think much has been accomplished by scientology especially if one pays attention even if just to their friends.
On the other hand, by leaving scientology – that is truly an accomplishment.
Congratulations to us 😘
I think that for prestige and propaganda purposes, Miscavige probably needs a new — and smaller — venue that he can move major events to, claiming its construction as a “win” while hiding Scientology’s shrikage and inability to attract the crowds it once did. I suspect that plans will end up including features that help hide when the hall isn’t full.
I’m wondering if, after the pandemic, Scientology isn’t going to have real trouble filling the Shrine Auditorium in LA for the New Year’s event. They have been headed towards that precipice for a long time, and have already had to move less prominent events from the Shrine to other, smaller venues; the pandemic may accelerate that and other milestones of decline.
However, I’m not entirely certain Scientology is capable of pulling off such a major construction project at this point, when they are faltering and beset by problems, not the least of which is what to do with all the empty buildings they have accumulated in Clearwater. But then again, if Miscavige ends up desperate to avoid the embarrasment of increasingly empty venues, there may be a real impetus to make it happen.
They haven’t been able to fill the Shrine for any event for more than a decade
Yes. I should have written “make it look full.” They have still been able to produce event photos showing the lower level appearing full, and people visible at the fronts of the upper balconies, but at some point they’re going to run too short of people to even manage that.
They’ve NEVER been able to FILL the Shrine, in my estimation; UNLESS they hired a bunch of starving actors one year. And I didn’t hear of that debacle.
Mike and Leah have probably already seen this, but I wanted to share because it made my blood boil! A judge ruled that the sexual assault victims and Danny Masterson must resolve their lawsuit through Church of Scientology Arbitration! Hope something can be done!
@Rachael I saw this too—stunner. The C of S is now, also, a bona fide criminal court? And in one of the hot spots for the entire #metoo movement, Hollywood. What a mess.
They used to have one in downtown Cincinnati and it was in a very bad part of the town and a very run down building but they have since upgraded apparently to a nice new facility built from the ground up across the river in Covington, Kentucky which they consider part of Cincinnati.
I never see anything about them anywhere on tv in newspapers, nothing
Right, Shawna,
Geography is yet ANOTHER weak spot in their education;; or rather in their RE-Education experienced in Davey’s personal fiefdom/fiefdumb.
My eyes played tricks on me when reading the names of different levels of donators. Instead of reading, “LRH Hall Senior Master Member” I read, “LRH Hall Senior Master Bator.” Oops.
In one of Mike’s recent posts, it was shown that many or the Scn Orgs are boarded up. The new Ideal Org in SLC, UT is now boarded up too. We don’t know if their excuse is “because of Covid,” or “in anticipation of riots after election results,” or if it is just plain old, “we don’t have enough public to keep it open.” What do you think the reason is for the boarding up?
Cindy, there’s evidence and reports that some orgs, and thus I think probably all, are continuing to operate behind the plywood — though of course at the further reduced levels that the pandemic has resulted in. They may just be afraid of having their windows smashed during protests, as happened in Portland. Scientology tends towards conspiracy theorizing and even paranoia, so they are probably more afraid that most organizations and people would be, that there may or will be further nationwide unrest to come.
I also see it as likely reflective of an increasing siege mentality in relation to the ‘wog’ world around them. And it’s possible that Miscavige is even leveraging it to heighten us-against-them sentiments, and to implicity blaim the faltering state of the orgs on outside attacks and conspiracies against them.
Both in China and in India they are two growing economic realities and they have in common the construction of buildings that cover huge areas, and many of these buildings are deliberately kept empty.
Why? It’s a simple fact of real estate speculation.
I wouldn’t be surprised if scn is doing something like this with all these empty buildings around the world and things like this hall for hubbard’s never truly understood grandeur.
Investment funds and other groups do more or less similar things. They propose deals in which people invest their money. The analogy with scn is quite interesting (but scn usually lies about the real purpose and people don’t get back anything). This can be translated in a big scam.
LMR, the problem is that most of the buildings Scientology is buying, and what they’re putting in to them, are terrible investments. They’re currently purchasing the cheapest of dated older office buildings, ones that other buyers might even have acquired for the land under them and wrecked to start over, and renovating them in unsual and lavish ways that no future buyer would value or want. I have some experience with commercial real estate, and I would estimate that when many of these properties are finally unloaded, probably after years or even decades of maintenance neglect, they will mostly go for pennies on the dollar compared to what Scientology put into them – except for a very few prime properties in the downtown areas of cities, and even then those may be hard to sell white elephants.
It’s more like an investment fraud, where the scam artists running it don’t care if investors lose lots of money, so long as they can skim some for themselves and profit off it personally. In Scientology’s case, Miscavige apparently gets to solve his potential problem with the IRS that he can’t let too much of the money coming in just sit in reserve accounts without any obvious purpose, and presumably counts all the money put into buildings in his personal “stats” of increasing assets — the problem of their actual low actual resale value, will probably fall on his successor — along with the “expanding” count of square footage that Scientology likes to tout. I think it is characteristically driven by Scientology’s warped and often self-defeating emphasis on largely illusory short-term numbers, rather than any real financial strategy.
The blogger who goes by the moniker John P. Capitalist, who is a Wall Street investment analyst, has written about the ideal orgs as destroyers of wealth, from a similar perspective.
One thing that’s not clear is how the LRH Hall money is being accounted for. There’s reference to “LRH Hall Membership”, but nothing else about where the money is to be sent. Legally it makes a difference.
If donations are being collected for the construction of the LRH Hall, legally it can’t be used for any other purpose.
If the donations are being collected for LRH Hall “membership”, it can be used for pretty much anything, within the confines of whatever rules bind the members, voted on by the membership.
If the donations are going to the IAS to “support the LRH Hall”, it’s basically going into a slush fund controlled by Miscavige’s whims.
The money goes to Church of Scientology Religious Trust (CSRT) and they can do anything they want with it providing it is within the scope of the purpose of the Trust — which is broadly to benefit the scientology religion and provide buildings and other things in assistance of achieving the aims of scientology (or something similarly vague that encompasses anything they want to do with it).
Legion of Honor with Honors!
😂🤣
Patrick…have you been drinking?
No, not on Sunday. Why?
MORE LIKE:
LEGION OF HORRORS
*Salutes*
SIR!
I know, I read that and was fucking dying! 😂
I bet within three years of completion we will be able to rent it for an evening to a closed showing of “Grease” and have JT show off some old guy dance moves. That’s about what it will be used for. No kidding.
I haven’t been to Flog for a while, but aren’t the LRH Hall registrars part of the gauntlet that every Flog new arrival must pass through? Of course this shiny brochure is meant for the brainwashed.
This looks like less than one “donation” per week. I think the position of LRH Hall registrar is for Sea Org members trying to handle their debt problems (caused by Scientology in the first place) by earning commissions. It is a thankless post nobody really wants, much like the post of IJC.
O/T. Scientologist Billionaire Robert Duggan donated $4.8 million to reelect President Trump in 2020.
According to Open Secrets, Robert Duggan donated:
(a) $4,000,000 to reelect President Trump through the America First Action Super PAC in 2020;
(b) $139,400 to reelect Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) through the Security Is Strength Super PAC in 2020; and
(c) a total (including the above) of $8,278,800 to outside money organizations in 2019 – 2020.
See:
https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/donor_detail.php?cycle=2020&id=r0015054167&type=I&super=S&name=Duggan%2C+Robert
and:
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donors?cycle=2020&view=om
Forbes reports that Robert Duggan gave a total of $4.8 million to reelect President Trump in 2020:
Forbes: Trump Picked Up Six-Figure Checks From These Billionaires In The Days Before (And After) The Election
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/12/09/trump-picked-up-six-figure-checks-from-these-billionaires-in-the-days-before-and-after-the-election/
* * * * * BEGIN EXCERPT * * * * *
After making a $200,000 donation to a committee supporting Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee in August, pharmaceuticals billionaire Robert Duggan said he would “do considerably more as we head towards the election.” He certainly kept his promise. According to federal filings, Duggan gave another $4.6 million to groups supporting Trump in the waning days of the 2020 presidential campaign.
* * * * * END EXCERPT * * * * *
As I previously said regarding Scientologist Patricia (Trish) Duggan, my point is neither anti-Trump nor pro-Trump. I would post precisely the same thing if the contributions had been made to the Biden campaign and Democrats
I believe it is significant when Scientologists are politically active. I believe it is far more significant when Scientologist billionaires are politically active.
The importance of these donations is not just how much is donated, but also what they portend for the future.
Republicans could reasonably think, “If the Duggans have each already donated millions to Republicans, and together donated $360 million to Scientology, how much might they donate to our candidates in the future?”
Will any Republican in Washington take on or antagonize Scientology if it means pissing off the Duggans and causing them to stop making political contributions to Republicans?
Robert Duggan can do one thing with $4.8 million (or $8.2 million over two years) that neither the Church of Scientology nor the IAS can legally do, and that is donate the money to political candidates and PACs and Super PACs supporting political candidates.
The money Robert Duggan donated to reelect President Trump, to reelect Senator Lindsey Graham, and to the Trump campaign and Republican party generally did far more good for Scientology than if he had donated the same amount to the IAS.
/
Wonder if the cult gave all that money to Duggan telling him to pass it along to Trump et al. Isn’t the cult prohibited from using its funds for political purps? Maybe the IRS should delve into this.
I don’t believe the cult “gives” money to anyone.
On another subject, I browsed the list of names and found Nancy Cartwright in the first column.but no other big celebrities.