A total PR front
They are as interested in understanding other faiths as they are in giving money away for charity.
It’s all for show.
They HOPE…
An artist. A VIP. Or an Opinion Leader shows up.
Unlikely, but hope springs eternal in the bubble of scientology.
It begs the question…
Why didn’t he do this in Zimbabwe. They bought TWO ideal org buildings in that country?
The answer is they have two buildings and no orgs…
It’s simple…
The magic is that once you get started you can’t get off it and you have to pay tens of thousands a year for the privilege.
It’s the perfect money-making magic trickcheme.
The Successful Life Center?
Competing with the Belleair Mission in Clearwater?
I don’t think they will be around for long…
Wonder if Innisbrook knows this is scientology?
Innisbrook hosts a PGA tour event.
Scientology is NOT popular in Pinellas County.
They’re still not done?
They had a big “Done Sir” event and everything?
And now from the look of their chart, they are not in fact even close….
The backdrop couldn’t be more appropriate….
Theta expansion?
Maybe it’s time to do something in the real world instead of the “theta” one.
Your “ideal” org is disappearing into “not-isness” as you postulate your expansion…
Inspiring music, inspiring images…
Less than inspiring spelling — and the message, meh…
Look at all those happy people…
And not ONE of them is a person applying “Hubbard tech”. They are all stock photos.
It begs the question: Without the “tech” how they hell are they doing it?
Is this really cool?
Someone with an emeter on a scooter on a rooftop?
Too much smiley
But he has the arms crossed.
Want to let him know though that Ron is no longer working on Clearing the planet
Finish off?
As in “put out of their misery?”
The best they have to offer?
Come and watch a rugby game…
Bet the New Zealanders love the fact they have the shirt backwards.
Hope to 3 million Vietnamese?
How come nobody has ever heard of this?
How come he doesn’t have a Nobel Peace Prize, let alone an IAS Freedom Medal?
Are they desperate at Flag?
It’s an old trick to “get the stats up” — find the stuff that people didn’t count yet.
Yep, really desperate…
It’s sure to be an adventure
Make sure you bring your check book…
Or at least a pen to “pledge”
Bring back KTL
Their grammar is atrocious
Camelback Droppings
Now being served up as a regular dish it seems. It’s nonsense offered as brilliance.
Bring a lawnchair
Don’t expect they will have any more attendees than the ideal org in Nashville for their artists, VIPs and Opinion Leaders get-together.
What happened to the thousand VMs?
Out of the fishbowl…
Into a more crowded fishbowl.
This is prosperity?
More theta movement
Wonder how this works out — giving someone a card on the street to watch TV?
They won’t have close to 40 people
Give us money
We have 40 VM’s (out of a thousand) we have to support in the Bahamas…
The largest group ever…
20???
Monumental event…
Sure to be. They hold them every week. Nothing ever changes.
Perhaps it is appropriate they have adopted a mosquito as their new mascot?
It was unbelievable I tell you…
MIRACLES happened.
Water turned into wine.
The combined might of all the OT’s in California came together.
And we STILL need more money…
Bring back KTL
It’s the BIG tent event
All these activities. And literally HUNDREDS of regges
Interactive workshop?
Meaning what?
They NEED this seminar
The “ideal org” of Pretoria has disappeared from view
That 60’s housewife look is really appealing…
Isn’t it?
Anyone?
Halloween at LA Org
Come and be scared by the Regges.
Trick or treat?
Why didn’t you post my last comment int his thread Mike? It was pretty good I thought. Check this IP address against the comment in this thread you didn’t let through.
There is no earlier comment
Interactive Workshop.
I believe Mike wrote, “Meaning What?” after the words, “Interactive Workshop”.
I think the answer to this puzzle is …
“Interactive means …. We Talk and you give us Money, Money, Money and More Money. Then you give us all the rest of the money you have.”
That is the meaning of “Interactive” as explained to me by some tall man with his arms crossed.
Go figure?
Regarding that “Magic Chart” from Jeff Magee, I wonder why that chart looks so much like a pyramid.
Is it possible? Is it just possible … the reason why it looks so much like a pyramid may be because it represents a pyramid scheme?
All the stories I’ve seen about this scam remind me – in one way or another – of some kind of horrible, predatory, illegal scheme or scam – just like a pyramid scam.
I wonder why they make it so easy to identify their scams as pyramid scams?
Re “Too much smiley anyone?” The pic of the handsome young man in uniform on a recruiting poster for Pasadena Org happens to be my son. He and his sister, my only two kids, both disconnected from me when they found out I was reading the blogs. The only way I get to see a pic of them is if they happen to be on a random promo piece that goes out and finds its way to Mike’s blog. That is a sad state of affairs. It is testament that Disconnection still exists. It never went away in spite of all the protestations otherwise. They were both told to disconnect from me. And they did.
My only confusion is the uniform he is wearing. It looks like he is wearing a SO uniform. Yet he is not SO. He is staff at an Org and not in the SO. Or does Pasadena Org have SO running the place now? Did it go the way of LA Org a few years ago when the SO came in and took over? Or do you think they just told him to put on a SO uniform to look good for the poster? Can anyone shed light on this uniform thing?
I don’t know about the uniforms Cindy – just wanted to send my heartfelt sympathy. What a lousy way to only get to see your kids. Goddam Scientology.
Briget, Thank you for your condolences. I agree. It’s a lousy way to get to see my kids and DM should go to Hell for enforcing the Disconnection policy even after LRH cancelled it in ’68.
I am with you Briget. I may not have any experiences which are close to Cindy’s.
But any human being with a heart can surely have some understanding of the pain and suffering that Cindy must feel.
Cindy plus hundreds of thousands of other people who have been disconnected from their families.
I just wish I had a good way to express my feelings towards this hateful criminal scam.
Oh wait! Here it is: Goddam Scientology!
That pretty much sums it up. Thank you Briget.
I’ve said it many times: KTL was the best thing I ever did in Scientology. I then always hasten to add that it’s a grammar course, and it’s not religious in any way. So, I got a lot of wins from strengthening my grammar—valuable, but not religious.
Not everybody knows this, because it was only part of the confidential KTL Delivery Course, but Hubbard wrote in a bulletin that because the course addressed understanding, if people hadn’t done the course, they wouldn’t realise its importance, and would try to stop it being delivered. Well, this came to pass all over the planet. So much for Miscavige enforcing this Standard Tech. Maybe he didn’t do the course?
I have to admit that I did get some gains from KTL. I don’t know about “superliteracy” and “thinking in concepts not pictures”, and the LOC was a waste of time. While I’m thinking about it, I did get gains out of Method1 Word Clearing. I did not really get much out of the Grades or NED. Oh my gawd, I bet they want to redo my Grades even though I’m a declared SP. Since I’m “clear” does that make me a Cleared SP instead of Cleared Cannibal??
Hi Mike — nice to see you
I had marvelous gains from KTL and I don’t care who knows it. And LOC too. Very helpful courses for me, both of them. There are things I learned on KTL that I use every day in my business, and LOC helped me organize effectively, it was a big help.
Now, does that mean that KTL and LOC are the ONLY courses or ways out there to get what I learned?
NO! I’m not saying that! Because I don’t KNOW. There may well be OTHER, even better courses and ways to learn what I learn.
NOR am I saying that KTL and LOC could be or would be or should be or ARE or HAVE BEEN helpful to anyone and everyone, simply because they were extremely helpful to me?
So, OK , has every objection been pre-covered? Hope so.
Aqua, I did the KTL. I learned nothing on it that I hadn’t learned in English classes in school. Other than the useless CT routines. I’m glad you got to fill in missing English language education from being in the public school system. That CAN be valuable.
Imaberrated, you are still a Hubtard bot. You REALLY think that people who hadn’t read the materials would “realize” that the course was about understanding then act like Hubtaard robots and try to stop it?
Boy are YOU insane.
They’re going to “finish off Kansas City”? Yikes.
The IAss fundraising pitch shows where their head is really at: Instead of asking for contributions for a specific project in the Bahamas they want the sheeples to give to the IAss with ZERO accountability where the money will go to; although it’s safe to say, NOT to the Bahamas!
As if that were not enough, they’re fishing more than anything for MONTHLY contributions. So when the Bahama disaster has long passed and aid is no longer needed (no thanks to the IAss), the sheeples will still paying every month. For what specific project or purpose? No one really knows!
“VMs DISTRIBUTED [emphasis mine] 300 meals…”
With scientology, always read the fine print! They DISTRIBUTED the meals. I wonder who actually BOUGHT them! If it had been an IAS “grant” no doubt they’d be bragging about it.
It’s an ingrained VM pattern I’ve observed more times than I can count that they take charge of goods that OTHERS have paid for and act as the “distributors.” After all, that’s where the photo op is! At no cash layout of your own. That way you spend your funds where it matters: on your camera equipment and–if it absolutely can’t be helped–on the film crew.
Funny, but the USSR did that in Africa, back in the day. True story: A friend of mine and her husband were Americans living in French West Africa back in the 60s. He worked for Pan Am. All the Americans got kicked out. They couldn’t understand it – the US was giving this country plenty of aid. But the Americans spoke only English and sometimes a smattering of French. On the clever Russians in the area not only spoke perfect French but a number of African dialects as well. They convinced the people that THEY were giving the aid – the food, the money, etc. How did my friend know this? One of her friends in that country, a girl originally from EAST Germany (then Communist) was one of these diplomats. Not only did she speak fluent German, Russian, French and English but as part of the requirements to be even a minor Soviet diplomat in that country she had to learn the areas African dialects. She told my friend that the Soviets were intercepting the American aid and distributing it as their own. So they kicked the Americans out and the Russians stayed and were considered friends. I wouldn’t put it past our favorite cult to at least attempt something along this line when they show up in these ravaged areas. Greatest good and all.
My did not do NEW OT VIII success story:
I’ve been riding my stationary recumbent bike several times a week for a few months now. My body is lighter, more agile and I move with less effort. And the bike cost just under $1,000 and works out my arms too! That means my wallet is heavier than it would be had I done OT VIII.
And – it only took a few months. I did not know I could achieve the EP of New OT VIII on a recumbent bike in only a few months.
I highly recommend the recumbent bike method of achieving New OT VIII. No blue asbestos, no sec checking. No stuck on a ship with crush regging. And, you can watch all your favorite TV shows while you work out. All for less than $1,000.
I hope when you’re done you give a huge thanks to NordicTrack for the tech and the current CEO of NordicTrack for… whatever he supposedly did to help you… and then offer them a round of applause :o)
Memo To: Val
From: Nordic Track Dir of Public Relations
Greta Greedgrub
Dear Val,
Nordic Track is going Ideal. Per policy we need a more posh space for our world-wide headquarters including 10X the square footage. Show your gratitude for your life changing wins by moving up in Status to Nordicus Tracticus Valorous Meritorious. Or, if you’re someone who needs to play a really big game there’s the newly minted Status of Nordicus Tracticus Valorous Meritorious with Honors. There is not an infinity of time. This is a deadly serious activity. What you do right here and right now for Nordic Track will determine whether or not we endure another Dark Age. Don’t waste this brief breath in eternity.
Play big and win! The time is now.
Much love,
Greta Greedgrub.
Hee, hee, hee…. 😀
Nicely done. 🙂
Quickie grades, huh? You squirrel 🙂
4/10, needs to be more over the top and utilize Scientology jargon.
Chicago reality: There are 103 squares on the board.
9 people have paid.
That means 8.7% of the squares have been paid for.
Add the 19 that have committed.
27% of the board is filled.
Only 73% of the board left to fill.
Barely 1/4 of the board has any kind of commitment on it at all. So what do you do? Add 30 more squares to the board.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
In the real world, that is we are not even close to there, not we are so close.
When I was in Chicago in 2006, scientology had already bought the building. Previously it had been a library within walking distance of where my daughter lived. I have photos of a homeless guy who had set up camp in one of the doorways of the building.
As far as I know, the building was purchased in 2005. A news story published in the Columbia Chronicle in 2015 says it was going to be completed in 2016.
https://columbiachronicle.com/cad87d32-e013-11e4-a353-d3ed9887d86b
Yep, they’re speeding right along.
Chicago is over $850,000 short, if these figures for status costs are right, multiplied out by the number of empty spots on the chart:
NEW CIVILIZATION BUILDER w/honors 2500000
NEW CIVILIZATION BUILDER 1000000
GOLD HUMANITARIAN — $500,000
SILVER HUMANITARIAN — $250,000
HUMANITARIAN — $100,000 (x 3 = 300k)
PREMIER BENEFACTOR — $50,000 (x 4 = 200k)
(“Legend”? est. 25k x 6 = est. 150k)
VANGUARD WITH HONORS — $20,000
VANGUARD — $10,000 (x 10 = 100k)
ALUMNI — $5,000 5000 (x 20 = 100k)
HALF-ALUMNI 2500
CONTRIBUTOR — $1,000
(“Windy City Warrior?” unk. x 31)
from https://exscn.net/forum/threads/50-discount-on-scientology-religious-status-extended-for-a-limited-time-only.41963/#post-1102211
From what I’ve seen they typically also do separate fundraising for furnishings, so all that stuff they’re now ordering as a “postulate” – or as a strategy of doing things prematurely, like they did in moving out of the Toronto org, in order to try to force urgency on the locals – may mean a separate fundraising campaign later, as well.
I get the impression that at this point in getting these stragglers among the small and failing orgs into new buildings, Miscavige ultimately shoulders the cost of whatever can’t be squeezed and extorted out of the remaining locals. But they seem to keep up the “hard sell” until the very end, constantly pushing to drain any remaining assets and run up any credit the clubbed seals may still have.
And thanks for those stats, Val – you are right that they have owned the building for a long time. I can’t remember about Chicago, but if it’s typical when they bought the building they would have claimed to the press that it was going to be done in a year or two to meet their need for “expansion,” and then again around 2010-2012 there seems to have been a big push for the orgs to maybe do a little bit of preliminary work, and claim again that the project would be complete within about a year.
Cashier. That’s classic.
Battle Creek has been working around the clock, and their big accomplishment is that they placed an ad in a newspaper? Whoa, slow down there gang. You don’t want to overdo things.
They must be so tired of winning!
Look, its like this:
Scientology orgs work on 3 speeds:
Slow
Super Slow
Not Moving.
I think I’ve driven or walked by Chicago fundraising “Chief” Jim Magee’s business hundreds of times, and I never knew it was a Scientology place. That’s right in my neighborhood. When I googled him, I see he has a mortgage business in Chicago and Nashville. It looks like the other employees are also Scientologists. Very interesting. I’ll have to stop and look in the windows next time.
You’re invited to a Potluck! Saturday, September 28, 6pm.
If look at the lady in this add, you’ll realize she’s stoned! Which is not a bad thing.
She probably shouldn’t have sampled so many of her extra special brownies 🙂
Extra special brownies are my favorite treat! Can you ship some to me?
In the 60’s everyone went “running to the shelter of mother’s little helper”.
My question is who the fark does housework in toe shoes???
Oh…right. Altered Reality. Her toes are gonna HURRRT…
You mean to tell me that the Belleair Mission is still active? How many staff, 3?
What did a Scientologue know about Gurdjieff ?
What did LR Hubbard know about Gurdjieff and this homosexual mountain climber Aleister Crowley ?
Soul versus sole
Guten Appetit
Hey, Hubbard knew nothing about any other philosopher. religious leader. academic, or historical figure. Hubbard was basically uneducated and relied on the Encyclopedia Britannica. He would read about something and then put his insane mind to work into changing everything. about the person. He would then claim that he was a genius. Even his Science Fiction was nothing more than a variation of Blavatsky’s Theosophy. People give Hubbard credit for developing auditing questions. But if you follow his logic it always goes to a dead end.
Hubbard didn’t even bother with the encyclopedia. He relied on the “wife he never had” Sara Northrup who was well read, and versed in things like General Semantics that he plagiarized second hand, as well as cocktail parties and whatever shooting-the-shit gatherings he went to with other well read people like Heinlein.
As far as I can tell even things like auditing questions are mostly others’ work. Ave Berner, of Study tech fame – which was actually created because Hubbard was such a lousy teacher that his students struggled to understand the word salad of his lectures – said that he essentially created nothing, it was all the people around him.
He did have a certain gift for tossing it all together to create a lucrative cult, and have control over fawning followers, though.
Soul versus sole. Remind which one I eat.
sole food is a flat fish eaten with lemon juice
soul food is southern African food
Ah! Thanks George!
Well, the convention in Columbus isn’t going to be much. Both venues have only a 200-225 capacity. They really can’t hold a large function at the new Org itself. They might risk attention from the local TV station across the street about a quarter mile away. You’d think a “convention” for the Eastern US would be a little bigger….
Camelback House. Where El Tubbo went when he lost control of the Dianetics I.P. rights and had to come up with a new scam to supplement his gov’t psych disability check… Which incidentally made him a degraded being and illegal PC per His own policies. Something his followers cannot confront.
That LRH quote from Camelback House is hilarious. LRH had no clue what Hamlet’s quote meant.
Hamlet is contemplating life and death and why people bear the trials and sadness that life holds. And he concludes that we decide to stay on this side of death as long as we can for fear of the great unknown that lies on the other side of death.
LRH, of course, would say that there’s nothing to fear from death, you’re an ancient being and you’ve died thousands of times before, so you’ll just go and pick up a new body. But, since he doesn’t know what he’s talking about with respect to the quote, he just makes up his own meaning for the quote and then explains why it supports him.
Ron’s whole philosophy was built around a hope that one could escape death, but it mocks him now that he himself has spent 35 years in death without returning… without returning from that undiscovered country, from whose born no man returns.
Ron would have been better off to read The Tempest… being that his life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Ha ha!
Maybe LRH HAS come back and doesn’t want to identify himself 🙂
“Hmmm. I could tell them I’ve been back for some time now.. I could do that. And I probably should. But for crying out loud, once I tell them they’ll be over me like white on rice! Every last desperate, friggin’ one of them.! What a mess for me to straighten out! A total mess on every dynamic. I don’t deserve that! Ethically though… That little plug-ugly Miscavige is causing acute suffering and Xenu only knows how far afield he’s gone with the tech, so I really should do something… But dang it all! The truth is I’m bored! Bored with it all! And dealing with the mountains of mess that is Scientology today would be the ultimate bore. Got that shit out of my system last lifetime. I have other interests now. Besides, the Dwarf is running the whole operation into the ground anyway. Won’t be around much longer. Why stick my neck out? Let them twist in the wind. Other fish to fry .” – LRH.
Maybe he could set up a rival cult, “reinventing”, “rediscovering” the whole subject?
A politician said “nothing is for free”. Maybe he was a deep-ocean diver looking for scientologists votes?
The purpose in life is to make the whole world to a big smiley. The trip to hell can be happy but it’s a horror to face the truth.
It’s a classic foible of Man the Meat Body: the futile quest to achieve immortality. It appeals to so many of the people suckered into the cult. It appealed to me.
NEW OT VIII:
“I feel that my body is lighter, more agile and I feel that my feet almost don’t touch the floor and I move without effort.”
It is amazing how the idea of OT VIII has devolved in Scientology from power to move objects to “feeling good”. This person probably paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to this point. I remember feeling the same way on OT VIII in 1988. It was a minor, temporary state that did not help very much.
Now Miscavige has made it his “product” and people fall for it.
I felt like that when I fell in love a few times. its a wonderful feeling while it lasts and its a pity this blissful, happy, lighter than air feeling doesn’t last for long, even if the relationship does, because its not reality, its euphoria, some illusory concept of who and what he is, and sooner or later one comes to earth and sees the real person, and one either likes and can stand his worst qualities, or not, as the case may be. So this euphoria from falling in love doesn’t last but its nice while it lasts and while one is at risk for a broken heart at least one’s bank balance is not depleted to the tune of half a million dollars for a few brief periods of euphoria.
Made me chuckle.
It’s also common that there’s a sort of high after cathartic or hypnotic processes – which predictably wears off after a couple of days.
I was checking into the state of research recently, and it’s been shown that hypnosis doesn’t actually cause the release of adrenaline-type compounds as many have long speculated including in relation to auditing, though studies show that somehow it causes the brain to act almost exactly as if such substances were in the bloodstream, nonetheless.
I recall I got over three months of that euphoria…and that was just the early Power processing back in the 60s. None of the OT levels lasted that long and OT3 was a joke. Ah well, it was all a lot more fun than anyone can get in today’s scio world. More emergencies and panics than anything else. And constant scrambling for money, money, money. Truly sad.
What kind of Church has a CASHIER window?!
Ummmmmm…Scientology? Hey! I took a shot!
Absolutely hilarious!
This photo should be promoted everywhere. A Cult Classic!
I’m saving that Cashier photo in case I ever want to shoop up a protest sign to display at a COS org.
To the two people with certificates: you were supposed to receive those certs already nicely framed. You paid for that stuff, you deserve to get the nice frame.
You’ve been cheated.
Again.