It is getting to be an incredible joke what the IAS is willing to claim responsibility for. They are taking on comic book superhero status in the scientology bubble, though they are bloated as a result of not DOING anything meaningful.
Though they really do virtually NOTHING other than buy buildings as directed by Miscavige, and invest a bit of money to shoot videos they can use for fundraising, they work overtime to create the impression that they are “responsible” for everything.
If there is something done by CCHR — that is the IAS. Same with Way To Happiness. Drug Education. Youth For Human Rights. Education programs. Volunteer Ministers. Org. Missions. Groups etc etc etc
And now, they are even responsible for the scientology “online courses.” I guess those people in the spiffy IAS jackets and IAS sunglasses are sitting at computers somewhere grading the online answer sheets rather than vulturing for cash. Not.
It is astonishing how brazen their false claims have become.
The IAS literally IS scientology these days. All of it. It’s just a money collecting machine. As someone so aptly put it recently, a self-licking ice cream.
And apparently the church is not only not embarrassed about it — they shout it from the rooftops. Just like they shout from the rooftops that there is no Briefing Course. There are no auditors. And that everyone is redoing everything from the bottom of the bridge on up — and THAT is the “Golden Age of Tech.” Talk about propaganda by redefinition of words. If one were to accurately portray this era it would be the “Dark Age” or perhaps the “Stone Age.” Regression to beginning of the evolutionary chain. The last time everyone in scientology was on the Student Hat was in 1965 or so when the lectures were first done. The last time everyone was on Objectives was back in the 50’s.
But I will say there is no “regression” with the IAS. This is “innovation.” It is the first time scientology has proudly promoted itself as an exclusively fundraising “membership” organization (though they won’t release any figures of how many members there are in their membership organization). L. Ron Hubbard went to great pains to distance scientology from this concept. His “What Your Fees Buy” (see one of my earlier articles on it here) proclaimed that ALL activities of scientology (including everything the IAS claims credit for) are funded EXCLUSIVELY by payment for scientology services. Now even scientology services are “funded by” the IAS. It’s totally ass backwards and nobody seems to care.
While there are plenty of people who take the position that scientology today is the same scam it was during the time of LRH, having experienced both “Ages” first hand, I can say with certainty that this is a false premise. There WAS more substance to the subject in the “Golden Age” of the 70’s. It is true that money has always been what has driven scientology down the highway. Today it just pours the money into huge tanks by the side of the road and nobody drives anywhere at all. It’s all about how big and shiny the tanks are and how full of money they can be made.
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His intent all along was to make it a money spinner by taking out the ”opposition” [missions] in the early 80’s and then creating the IAS soon after.
You seem to have the inside track on divining the intent of L. Ron Hubbard in developing his tech with such total certainty. I am not quite that good at reading minds. But I am wondering if you have ever received any Scientology or Dianetic auditing that enhanced your life or if you ever audited another person to a good result, yourself.
My opinion is that there were some very good intentions behind the development of these subjects.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
Well, I do not at all agree with your opinion that Dianetics and Scientology are a “load of crap” as you put it or that people “wised up” to this fact. I do agree with what Mike said:
“There WAS more substance to the subject in the “Golden Age” of the 70’s. It is true that money has always been what has driven scientology down the highway. Today it just pours the money into huge tanks by the side of the road and nobody drives anywhere at all. It’s all about how big and shiny the tanks are and how full of money they can be made.”
The difference is that in the 1970’s there was VALUE in the services delivered for the the exchange of money that most people found (at very least) quite acceptable. What Miscavige did was to gradually alter the Tech so that it became less and less valuable in its results and, as predicted in the Tech, organizational income then plummeted. To keep from going belly up, DM has gone from one, out-tech, off-policy solution to another to keep up the material illusion that he and the organization are doing well. The difference between the 1970’s and now in my opinion is mostly purity of motivation. In the 1970’s, for the most part, the collection of money was a means to the end of spreading the Tech to the people of Earth. Today, the collection of money IS the end.
And in my opinion the “end” for this low, shallow sort of motivation is very near. Fortunately, it is unsustainable. As you point out, people do wise up to an out-exchange condition. The only people who haven’t wised up at this point are ones who have a vested interest of some sort in not seeing what is right before their eyes.
Fortunately, there are still people outside of the “church” who are delivering the original tech with a pure heart in a way which has value to many.
IAS = Itinerant Ambidextrous Swindlers
I agree Mike, the time of LRH was very different, to me, like night and day. There were 30 students on my Dianetic Internship in 1976 and people were eager to go in with us rookies. Wins were occurring in large quantity by origination constantly with no provocation. I was an auditor a long time and found LRH to be very committed to compassionately freeing people. That’s what I personally experienced. I did my last OT level in 1983 and after a long break raising my kids I tried to do the next one in 2006. Oi fucking vey! was the only appropriate response. This was my first time at flag too and the place was creepy, mean, uncaring, sad, low confront, basically the polar opposite of what I experienced prior at San Francisco org and AOLA. I told someone afterward, that I went to do Scn at flag and it wasn’t there. I was out and declared pretty quickly. The ias is like the bastard stepchild that took over the family business and turned a nice publishing business into a toilet paper factory. I believe that the wins of the earlier period, were the fuel that allowed people to be so generous with the ias. That is, until the lies started to be exposed leading to the knowledge that the money was going to nothing. All I can say is that the goodwill of that earlier era, has been used up.
That makes quite the read Hallie. I know what I personally experienced too but Flag sure left an awfully bad taste in my mouth and is a creepy place indeed, I was so glad to get away from it. I agree there is nothing left of anything good that existed prior to miscavige – it’s all rotten now in the Cof$.
Thanks for the info Mike. Last IAS event I attended the idea was pushed very hard that only the IAS can guarantee the future of Scientology. The IAS will ensure the attainment of the goals of Scn.
The IAS has been given THE central role. It conflates the goals of the movement as their goals and switches the members’ purposes they have for the movement to the objectives of the IAS, as the same thing.
It is clever and sneaky and down right evil.
This conflation is the actual device used to switch from service donations to straight donations, I think.
IAS = I Abhor Scientology.
+1 Subsection.
Spot on, Supreption. You confronted the evil. Well done. We need to get more people to confront that evil and act.
The IAS – the sickest joke in the religious world of the 20th century. Be nice to see it disappear real soon.
IAS = I’m Anal Suppressive.
LRH in the 60’s and 70’s gave me a gift of truth and happiness and hope for a better world. The exchange of Courses and Auditing for what I paid were in abundance.
DM destroyed Scientology and gave me nothing but lies and Daveshit.
+1
LRH in the 1970’s literally gave me a new life. I had a marriage on the rocks, two little kids, and was heading toward alcohol abuse. Made it though with auditing and training. I never had an issue with the exchange and feel to this day, it was worth every bit I (and Dr Denk) paid. In fact, based on results, I believe it was exchange in abundance as well.
I just hate it when I don’t finish my comment! So, to finish it and bring it back to the topic: The IAS has been a point of contention with me. Not two weeks after Dr Denk passed, I was contacted by Howard Becker to raise my status in the IAS by taking out a home equity loan. He said COB had a big problem. He also wanted to use Dr Denk’s name to get others to donate to the IAS. That is absolutely one of the worst things that can happen to a new widow. We had never donated to the IAS but for my initial membership (founding member) and I should never have been considered a status-raising prospect at that time.
+1
Well said GOB, me too!
Maybe DM has seen the futility of the tech and
slowly shifted his main activities to fundraising
in order to keep Scientology going for some
time even when he leaves. That will give him
an “out” with the legacy of it still being there
after his departure at least for a few years and
then it will be someone else to take the fall when
it folds.
I think you are absolutely right. He is probably preparing to abandon ship in the next year or two, with enough money and blackmail in his pockets to keep himself safe.
Marc Yager, the new COB…
They’ll have to get Yaeger out of the hole so he can take the helm.
Results such as these are made possible through your support of the IAS. Make a donation to the IAS today.
Well, sorry but I don’t follow. Results such as these were not only possible but were being achieved long before the IAS came along. I guess this is a way for the IAS to toot its horn.
A long shot, but maybe by being near LRH when he died and being aware of his doubts about his own tech, DM first tried Basics, GAT, etc to correct it, and when that wasn’t successful gave up on ‘tech’ and went the donations, IAS route to increase income…not sure of the exact timeline or whether he tried both simultaneously……
John — he wasn’t near LRH when he died. Nor do I believe LRH doubted his own tech. If you read the end of Larry Wright’s book and see what Sarge Pfauth said, he was VERY MUCH convinced in his own tech, though seemed to think it was not working well…
LOL! Now that’s a modest assessment considering he wanted the have his meter plugged into the mains! I guess if you can’t coax the beings out with ARC you can always go in and burn ’em out with electric shock!
I think I’ll sit on the mountain for awhile and enjoy the scenery!
I’m an electrician by trade. I have been shocked several times…110, 220 and once a minor
jolt by 440 volts. I certainly didn’t notice anything flying or falling off my body. Nor did I hear any tiny screams of pain. If LRH would have asked me I could have told him that didn’t work either.
I always considered it the ultimate irony that Ron decried electroshock his whole life. Made it the penultimate evil to all his students, set up CCHR to counter it and then desired it as a therapy for himself.
How in God’s name can anyone consider this fact and not see who he was.
An insane man instilled insane concepts into sincere willing seekers.
This desire of Ron’s to kill BTs with electroshock and kill off his body seems such an obvious indication of his mental state.
I have a theory re old age. I have been with friends, family at their end life experience. And my theory is:
When people do not handle their issues while the body is young, their issues become caricatures of themselves in old age.
Ron assigned his personal problems to external forces- BTs, CIA, FBI, Communists, Marcabs, Xenu, SPs, Journalists, Politicians, Priests, Implanters, Invader Forces, PTS, on and on.
When has LRH ever confessed to a fault of his own? When?
The only one I can remember is him blaming himself for trusting those who betrayed him. And that is not real responsibility.
The amazing feat he accomplished was saying he was teaching cause while installing victimhood as church doctrine and getting us to pay for it.
When has LRH ever apologized for a fault, and so reveal a causative connection between his own actions and his own condition?
Scientologist’s justify Ron’s condition because Ron taught victimology. They are out to get us. It’s hard for us “only way” Scientologist’s to become popular because there is an evil cabal out to get us. And Ron was victim of this evil cabal.
So this paranoia, and victim mentality, not truly being handled in Ron’s life resulted in his actually desiring electroshock to kill BTs (Ron’s own thoughts)
I will second yr view on LRHs tech about if he did or didn’t doubt the developments of his TECH He DID NOT DOUBT HIS OWN DEVELOPMENTS.Its Utter rubbish
Makes sense as, after all, IAS has been one of the routes Miscavige very likely has used to fill his coffers.
The messages are coming across very bluntly, as you noted, and I perceive they also have been conveyed with a ‘sense of urgency, desperation, and even begging”; this is what I read between lines.
Thank you Mike.
Any and all scientolgist ‘s in the Indepts throughout the world should dominate what LRH DID and disown IAS for what they think belongs or they did .
They only distroyed all of what scientology stood for . Its the duty of all of us to campaign widley The Tech LRH developed the Tech , and made it open for people to use.
The church today turned into a money making machine . which should be seperated compelty against IAS
“.HOW TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS“The end result of this course is that I greatly sharpened my problem solving skills. Instead of running away from conflict, I have learned to continuously ask questions and dig as deeply as possible to locate the Third Party and find the truth and root cause of conflict. ”
Precisely. Only you don’t need THAT course. Try using the online Blogs for free. And know this, when you have dug down really deep and hear the squeal of the perp being found out ………………..don’t stop there. Keep digging and drag the whining, sniveling, yellow bellied cult perpetrator out by his short hairs and toss him on the compost heap of $cientology.
Yo OSA,
We’re comin for ya.
Yo Dave,
We own your ass now. Keep turning though good buddy, the brown blotchy color may even out in time.
It doesn’t really matter if one likes or dislikes Hubbard, Miscavige or the Scn of now or back when.
It all boils down to exchange. Before Miscavige’s grand plan, people simply paid for something and
then received what they paid for. Now that is not happening. I think Mike’s description of Miscavige
being incompetent sums it up quite well.
And that exchange was what got them income tax exemption, i.e. parishioners were getting something of benefit spiritually. Raising money to carry out requests for more money is not providing parishioners such benefit.
Alanzo – DM also doesn’t have to deal with the aspect of refunds and disgruntled PC’s. It’s just give us your non-refundable dollars for a non-extant hope of planetary clearing.
While Hubbard may have tried to maintain an illusion of delivery of a product (How many clears have the attributes promised in his tech?) , he wasn’t much different from DM who’s maintaining an illusion of social betterment. In both cases the exchange is out – no product.
Sure, there are wins here and there from the tech, but wins aren’t stated ep’s. Why all the need for the PTS SP courses? If your grade 0 was in you could talk to SP’s without bad effect, and if your grade 1 was in they could never give you a problem. So why the need for those courses? Or disconnection from people who go on the net?
The basic problem with either flavor of Scientology is summed up in KSW #1 “You can only be upbraided for lack of results”
Mimsey
Its a supressive setup and degrading and they should not be given the time of day and there should no intrest made at all to what they do or say .
Well I for one agree with you completely Mike in your assessment that Scientology used to be about services and materials,i.e. exchange, for money. Yes, it was money driven but there was always the idea that you were going to get something for your money. I’ve said as much in all of my articles and videos because I used to live that concept as an org staff member and Sea Org member. It was the violation of that concept of exchange, in fact, which was one of the first things that made me start wondering what the hell we were doing when I was still in.
I think that LRH came to believe in the tech. It was, after all, based on work of Freud, Jung and others and did work for some people (though they preferred standard clinical treatment) and he tried to make it work for more people. Davey never went clear, hasn’t been audited in years, and, in 2011, said the tech was unintelligible.
“The IAS literally IS scientology these days.”
I agree Mike and I might add that while the IAS is sustained by Bubblites’ belief in Scientology today, Scientology will not necessarily sustain the IAS in the long run.
The IAS is biggest barrier to new Scientologists becoming card-carrying Bubblites. Management cannot stop the IAS from ARCXing and screwing newbies out of their money because they need the money now, now, now. from anyone.
So, long term, Scientology will not sustain the IAS. The Church is dead and the IAS has taken it’s place, but the IAS is doomed too. “Rip-off” as condition of exchange is not sustainable. Not even Scientology is exempt from the laws of exchange.
Excellent points, Robert and Mike and Roland. DM can’t make FP 1 from training and auditing because there is very little of that going on compared to the 70’s and 80’s, so he has to just get straight donations to fill the coffers to meet the FP 1 nut as well as line his pockets. But in his incompetence (a failed auditor, no green on white training, no experience managing a business and a bypassed case himself), he messed up the re-doing of the Bridge in GAT I and II. And as stated, rip off exchange will not last. The end is near for the church. Newbies are not going to stand for the rape, pillage and plunder of the IAS.
On another note, take a look at the South African Blog article on religion. Good food for thought. And take a look at Tony O’s article yesterday by Jeff Hawkins on 12 things Scns who leave the church should know. Very excellent article. I’m saving it for any people who come out of the church, to give them as their first road map. And as usual, Mike, great blog!
+10 Cindy.
Rather than savin it though, you might want to connect up with OSD and pass it out as flyers around the Morgues. That at the very least might cause the staff hiding inside to venture out to see what is on their stress test table.
Most excellent post Mike. It is so blatantly obvious, but the old adage apparently holds firm, can’t see the forest for the trees, or put another way, how walking bent over has become the new phenomena on the road to OT.
It makes it easier for Dave too!
It is rather shocking when one pulls their head out of the bubble and realizes that Scientology has never done anything they say they will do. That it was simply “smoke and mirrors” to give the delusion that Scientology was a humanitarian group
What is sad is that Scientology is guilty of the very crimes they accuse others of and their crimes are so much worse because they $ell Religion for a huge profit while the members work for nothing and give up their lives.
This has gone on for so long. One wonders what karmic kickback David Miscavige is going to get from the universe for keeping Scientology working after the ole fart died. He should have come clean when Huddard died from his degraded status and health.
No wonder he is so paranoid. The World re stimulates his overt’s and withholds and he is hiding some pretty big ones from the clubbed seals.
Idle Morgue, I agree completely that little Davey is going to recieve major “karmic kickbacks” I have never been into Scientology but will repeat what I have stated here before,that I am very against human rights abuses. I am not a fan of organized religion,but believe in live and let live. I also believe very seriously that karma is real. I have seen it roll around in good and bad ways,felt good and bad karma myself. We reap what we sow…tiny mini mister Miscavige has a bunch of it coming,and all the cash in the world will be of zero help.I sincerely hope everyone so deeply scarred by this man and his whims gets to watch.The more I research,and lurk here in comments,the more I see how widespread and painful this experience has been to so many. There’s no way he will end up in a happy place after being the cause of such upset.
El Cons life ended poorly for sure. Dave’s will be much worse along with all of those who remain supportive of the destructive cult whether staff or public.
Make sure you have established a good distance between yourself and anyone connected to that cesspool of a cult. Try not to get any on you when she blows ………… coming soon to a body thetan (I mean router) near you.
Hypnotised by the almighty dollar is what they are in the bubble. It’s all that matters now.
I wryly noted the geographical locations of the wins. All places which are unknown to the general czerch population. And you are so right, Mike, re the HUGE differences between what was being produced in the 60s and 70s,,,and what has become the total NON production exhibited today. And LRH, as well, is being squeezed totally out of the picture. At best, he remains only a “token source”.
It seems to me that he’s been minimized completely. It’s almost a complete takeover by Miscavige. Who else can change the definition of a floating needle and get away with it.
Mike wrote:
“While there are plenty of people who take the position that scientology today is the same scam it was during the time of LRH, having experienced both “Ages” first hand, I can say with certainty that this is a false premise. There WAS more substance to the subject in the “Golden Age” of the 70’s. It is true that money has always been what has driven scientology down the highway.”
If by more substance, you mean that LRH’s Church of Scientology made its money by selling auditing and training in the Golden Age of the 1970s – instead of making it all by straight donations – then I would say you are totally right, Mike.
Your experience here is invaluable, having worked with both LRH and DM.
So I would ask you why you believe that DM made the shift from selling auditing and training to straight donations?
Do you think it was because DM, as an SP of the first order, was terrified of thetans going free from Scientology technology and had to shut down its delivery to the Peoples of Earth?
Or do you think he made the shift for some other reason?
Alanzo
Thanks Alanzo.
Yes, you duplicated what I meant.
I think the answer is somewhat complicated as to the motivation of Miscavige to shift to straight donations. To make it far more simple than it really is, but for sake of brevity, I believe the primary reason is incompetence. It takes a lot more skill to manage an entity that delivers a service than it does to “sell” an illusion. That can be done with cameras, editing bays and computer programs. You don’t need real people, let alone trained auditors which are a very costly commodity to make, a difficult commodity to retain and require enormous logistical backup.
In a nutshell.
I would add ignorance, lack of intelligence and lack of imagination to “incompetence.” Hubbard was a liar, but at least he was a “creative” liar, and while he was no rocket scientist, he had at least been exposed to the real world and was a master manipulator. Miscavige’s only tools are force and violence. He doesn’t have the intelligence, creativity, or even people skills to run any kind of “long con.” He can only destroy.
Well, I don’t agree with your assessment for a couple of reasons.
Intelligence and intention do not go hand in hand. Anyone who thinks Miscavige lacks intellectual capacity doesnt know him.
And as for his capacity to pull off a long con — he has been running scientology since the early 80s, longer than Hubbard ran scientology. And under his tutelage, he has amassed at least a billion dollars, probably more like 2 or 3 billion.
He might have produced dollars but for who’s and what purpose. What is evident is its appears to be seen or produce a falsae image of all is well. and to be looked upon as a good person on the surface
such in way of bildings empty Ideal orgs . Plus dont forget he himself lives a extragate life style along side eats and sleeps well , but behind the scenes His oyal followers scared out of their wits, and are degraded
and bullied by him or his hench as if they are his slaves .To say he produced more than hubbard in terms of money is an insult to what scientology is suppose to stand for .You need to read the purpose of scientology and what it stands for not just money.
You’re talking about a man that doesn’t see his own wife, so he isn’t someone who wants to manage an organization and handle clients and customers. It’s just beg, beg, beg…
Mike, is Miscaviage really a scientologist? I think he is not. He has just waited for the known scion con to run out, he never counted on all you bitter defrocked people to expose him. I think his actions have shown he is in it for the power and money. Saw the possibility of having it all after LRon died, and went for it. But, he is really not a capable admin, he is a sociopath, and even with his street smarts and intellect, which I believe he has, he does not give 2 hoots about tech, LRon, or anything about scion, except for the moolah! How on earth do people follow this Cretan? Only for DISCONNECTION!
“So I would ask you why you believe that DM made the shift from selling auditing and training to straight donations?”
You didn’t ask me but please allow me to try to answer that question. The “Church” needs a certain amount of money per year to pay its bills. It is a LOT. At current day values, as a low estimate, I put that at $450m per year. It could easily be double that but let’s just assume that figure. If that money is not coming in then the “Church” goes bust. DM will be fully aware of this and know the current and projected outgoings as well as the current and projected income. There is not enough income from training and auditing to keep the Church afloat. This was initially because the public had wised up to what a load of crap Dianetics and Scientology was and that resulted in a drop of income that DM corrected by rehashing the Bridge and getting people to do their Bridge all over again, and of course pay for it all over again. This might have worked if he had done a good job — but he hadn’t. He fucked it all up. So the money wasn’t coming in so he got people to do their Bridge all over again. But that was still not anough money to run the Church so he needed money another way to keep the Church afloat. And that is from straight donations..
The business model for Scientology Orgs and the Sea Org has NEVER been viable, because that model relied on, essentially, free labor. It is self evident why that is unsustainable.
And in its heyday of the 1970s, when all the income of Scientology was derived from training and processing, even with the free labor, it STILL wasn’t solvent, because the Orgs would constantly take in advanced payments, spend all the money they took in that week, and continue to build an ever-increasing backlog of not-yet delivered service.
The IAS, ostensibly, was created to build up a war chest for looming legal battles, but as Mat Pesch, a knowledgable insider points out, another main purpose was to balance out the money Scientology had in the bank with its huge liability of services paid for, but not yet delivered.
DM and others in the Sea Org, in an effort to make the organization “solvent”, have turned it into a defacto criminal enterprise.
Mike already encapsulated the thing, but I would love to add some thoughts to this excellent question. David Miscavige is a high intelligence, high functioning, sociopathic personality. LRH Hubbard was a high intelligence, high functioning, egomanic. LRH believed he had given something incredible to the world around him. He wanted people to pay money for that gift to support him and also to perpetuate his gift and bring it forward for future generations. Thus there was a lot of emphasis on actually working hard to bring this gift to people and thus an effort to create a valuable exchange. Thus the driving concept was “I have something valuable, I will give it to you and in return you will donate to my wealth and to the propogation of this valuable thing”. This mean a certain amount of care to make sure that people felt like they were actually getting something in return for their donations. This is EGOTISM. It’s a bad thing, but can drive people and at least make them strive for positive achievements. Accomplishment is wide open for debate.
David Miscavige is a classic sociopath. His concept is that everything is a con, everyone lies and everyone is out for themselves and only the self-centered and utterly ruthless survive. The egotistical and dictatorial aspects of scientology resonate all the way down to his little black heart. His life is a constant effort to manipulate and contrive. Thus under his rule, there is no effort to try and give anything. There is only an effort to manipulate and take. Thus you see right from the first year that he took control of scientology the initiation of the “take” programs. Since then it had been just one manipulative push after another. There is no striving for positive accomplishment, just a race to the next con, the next sales gimmick.
And that would be my 2 cents.
This is no 2c comment.
I would give it a score of 10 out of 10.
Perfect summary and correct observations. Could not find a thing in here I don’t wholeheartedly agree with.
Best analysis of the similarities and differences between Hubbard and Miscavige I have ever seen.
I would add a few things though.
LRH never delivered what he sold. The actual results never managed to even closely match the hype. The solution was twofold. Prong 1: LRH always came up with the next big thing hyped it up and kept the attraction and hope going. So after “Clear” was not crystal clear as the hype, Clears were now at risk and need to go to OT 3. The next big thing was always created to keep the enthusiasm and hope up. LRH as a prolific writer and a man of a vivid imagination was able to keep it going and growing that way. Prong 2: The second approach was to gain mind control over the attracted masses. KSW, saving the planet, ethics admin and so forth were designed to keep followers in a state hypnotism in which they could easily be controlled. (and abused as it pleased as well as used for free labor).
DM did not have those options the same way. He only could emulate the next big thing, which was of course just a repeat of the old thing. All this GAT nonsense is far, far less effective in keeping the hope going compared to LRH who was able to create whole new levels with whole new promises. DM just could hype up the same old same old and that of course is far less effective. With Prong 1 at a dead end DM only could compensate with Prong 2 using the tools LRH had created for mind control and excising power over the followers.
LRH created the game and DM can only play Prong 2 as hard as he can as he has no ability to compensate for the loss of the biggest factor that lead to the growth: The ability of LRH to invent the next big thing.
Scientology never delivered what it promised even under LRH and so it could not and will not under Miscavige. Like any Ponzi scheme, once the con man cannot create the vision of the next big mountain of gold, it crashes and burns.
If would give DM a pretty good grade for keeping the con going as long as he did,- of course he is a sociopathic asshole and may he burn in hell -, but given the tools he had to work with, he did not do too bad.