This article illustrates how insane and destructive this Miscavige ideal org plan is.
Though it is essentially a real estate investment scheme, because of the arbitrary requirements Miscavige made part of his program, some absolutely catastrophic decisions have been made that have not only harmed the orgs concerned, but have also lost tens of millions of dollars.
Following his recent org reduction and eradication ceremony in Paris, this recent news article from Melbourne illustrates another aspect of the crazy perfectly.
Melbourne org owned a beautiful building in the city center — and not just anywhere, but in the very desirable section of the CBD. It was a landmark and quite beautiful — originally the home of the Royal Bank of Australia, as part of the “Ideal” push, it was sold in 2009 for $7.4 million. It was just sold for $75 million!
The org is now located in a larger building in the suburbs of Melbourne, a long way from anything. It would be like owning a building on Fifth Avenue in NY and selling it to move to some unknown town on Long Island. Or more accurately, selling a magnificent historic building on Beacon St in Boston and moving to nowhere after buying another unsuitable building and having to sell that…
The sheeple just sit around and watch the insanity unfold, while clapping and cheering and pouring praise on their Dear Leader who is leading them to front porch of eternity….
The Sheeple…they really are too stupid to live, aren’t they?
And what’s amazing is that the wealthy ones are just as dumb those living hand to mouth.
Dumber, actually.
Well, as PT Barnum said… one every minute.
I’ve always thought that if there was one SP, it was DM.
He has gotten rid of THE Scientology that people used to join for (whether it ever worked or not) while creating the appearance that it still exists and is even better.
You may have noticed ive been a long time participant of your blog and a fan of your work but to be fair Mike the new org isn’t a long way from anything, it is in Essendrugs (AFL FANS will realise the slur) or rather Essendon and very close to the city on Mt Alexander Rd on one of the more exclusive shopping strips. It is still very central, easily accessible as it is a central suburb with a tram stop running right in front of the building. You could literally walk there from the old location (albeit a decent walk and would probably take a little over a hour to get to). In terms of location I don’t think its a little known location, its probably one of the best locations in terms of finding its target demographic as the wealthy, abled and Anglo Australians are there (I mention that as the large Melbourne communities of Greeks, Italians, Slavs and Asian populations are a lot more difficult to recruit as they tend to be more focused on their existing faiths – try telling a Greek to leave Orthodoxy and you’ll be able to hear him shout from Melbourne to Clearwater !!! )
The other thing that overseas and even non Melbournians may not realise is that parking in the cbd is expensive, some services that scientoliegy provides take several hours. It is not unusual for parking lots in melbourne to charge $70 for a days parking, street parking is limited, timed and expensive. At least at their new building (a old school) they have their own parking which is big enough to suit their needs and untimed street parking if the org parking is full. The current larger facility is big enough to suit all of their needs (purif), course rooms, Church for Sunday service etc etc. Like any topic in this great world, opinions vary but if I was part of Scientoliegy I would see the new facility of greater benefit than Russell st.
Thanks for the info. If they needed more space, he should have kept the Russell St building and turned it into a test center like Tottenham Court Rd in London. (Though needing space supposes they had people on services)
Miscavige isn’t very good at investments — remember he lost ten of millions of Hubbard’s money on Oklahoma oil wells…
Good on you for allowing the post even though it doesn’t agree with the article. Common swans!!!
What story is this, the oil wells? can you tell the story? I would like to know more. greetings from Canicattì.
As someone who joined staff as a teenager and finally left in my mid 50s, the stunning thing to me was when I realized how incredibly stupid most Scientologists are. Let me briefly explain . From having to reread KSW and other materials, as well as being told over and over, we were inundated with how special we were , how elite, how MUCH more knowledgeable and aware we were than your workaday wogs. But ultimately , with all of their word clearing, Scientologists are easily propagandized, with all their data series how bad they were at thinking, with all their objectives they are extremely bad at seeing what is right in front of them, with all their TRs their confront stinks, and with all their “PTS data”, they are REALLY bad at spotting folks who are up to no good.
In DMSMH in the part on The Clear, LRH says the most important attribute of the clear is rationality . Talk about a fucking joke! There are very few groups of people who exercise LESS rationality than Scientologists.
@Joe,
I have relatives in the South who are strict and I do mean strict Evangelicals. Nothing but nothing in the Bible can be questioned. If its in the Bible, it is true, and that’s that. Questioning or doubting means lack of faith, and lack of faith equals you is goin’ to the bad place. Lack of faith also has a host of other undesirable consequences but the worst is that without faith you’re doomed…hell fire everlasting, etc. etc.
On the other hand, strong faith, deep, strong, unwavering, unquestioning faith, means after death you have life everlasting in the bosom of Jesus Christ, and peace and happiness and glory etc. etc in heaven.
Now, these relatives of mine are college educated and in their own lives, their own day to day lives, sorting out their own pedestrian, day to day problems they are quite rational. They’re also good people, honest people. If they bought something and the cashier gave them too much money back in change, they would return that money to that cashier. If you were driving in their area and your car broke down they would stop and help you. They would feel that it would be their “Christian duty” to do so. I’m not making fun of them when I say this. They’re decent. They’re honest, they’re kind.
But when it comes to their religion, they’re nuts. They’re not rational. In the area of their religion, they simply are not rational for the simple reason that rational thinking is not permitted to operate on these subjects.
They also believe that God and Jesus Christ sent Donald Trump to be President. Why? Because their Pastor tells them this. And they VOTE as their Pastor tells them to. To do so is also “Christian duty”. by the way.
Its like…how do I explain this…its like there is an area which includes certain subjects and these subjects are walled off in their minds – things are a certain way within this mental area and are not to be questioned or contested – ever – because doing so is dangerous, and tantamount to lack of faith, and we already know where THAT leads…you dig?
I think what’s going on with the Scientologists is the same mental, “thought stopping” mechanism. L Ron Hubbard is not to be questioned, ever David Miscavige / Command Intention must never be questioned. There’s a mental wall around these subjects. And yet, in their day to day lives they may be quite rational.
I know several quite successful Still In Good Standing Scientologists who, if they wanted to expand their businesses would not DREAM of first buying or renting new office spaces, furnishing them expensively, THEN staffing them, and THEN expecting that new clients would come FLOODING IN. I mean, they would consider this all completely NUTS. They woud never do it. Common sense would tell them that business expansion is occurs by increasing one’s client base FIRST and THEN accommodating the expansion of the actual organization by expanding one’s quarters via a larger office or offices. In their business lives they do NOT have “expansion of the organization” confused or conflated with “expansion of square footage of office space”.
And yet, they blandly attend events, and clap enthusiastically while Miscavige touts expansion of square footage as expansion of Sc;ientology.
Stupid, right? Totally dumb, blind, deaf, totally unquestioning – Miscavige says this, that – and they believe it.
And yet in their own businesses, they are not stupid. In their own businesses they apply a good deal of analytical thought and rationality and common sense, which is why their businesses are successful and they make very good money (a lot of which to be sure goes to the cult but still they MAKE it).
So smart and yet so dumb; so dumb and yet so smart. Go figure! And good luck with figuring it out. I’ve never been able to!
When the Idle Morgue madness hit Melbourne and sheeps were being crush-reg’d for $s, a lot were expecting to get reimbursed when this building was sold. To the extent the Yarralinda school took out a second mortgage to cover for some of the “donos” (iirc it was around $70k) which hadn’t been repayed to the school when I bailed out in 2008.
I wonder how this news will go down once it gets around the field down there (or what’s left of it now) – I believe that there’ll be a few asking for their hard-earned back now that the SO Reserves are flush with cash 🙂
You really couldn’t make this sort of shit up and have peeps believe you – $cientology; it’s like an STD that just keeps on giving over and over and over again.
Oh, and the building was in terrible shape internally and externally – when I was outside with anonies at various protests, it was glaringly obvious that the place had been deliberately neglected for a long time. I would point this out to newly-outs who came along to show just how “powerful” the kult actually was. Lol.
All that DM has decided to invent, like ideal orgs, various golden ashes of tech, countless reissues of basic books but this time certified, etc., has only accelerated the end of scn, like watering the garden with weed killer.
If the flock wants to follow him off the cliff, let them. It seems evident they’ve been in the last phase of their cycle for a while now.
Any group that can’t think individually and act differently when needed from its ‘leader’, but only conform, is already doomed.
That means a $60+million dog’s breakfast which is worth a KR to the board members of RTC or – better – “Remimeo: All Scientologists”.
On another matter, nice quote Mike:
“Suri [Cruise] is not a Scientologist and never will be…”
https://pagesix.com/2024/04/13/celebrity-news/suri-cruise-turns-18-estranged-from-tom-not-a-scientologist/