There is a lot that could be covered on the topic of WISE — including how it was created by Hubbard to “get scientology businesses off the backs of orgs” on the basis of his conclusion that orgs were not expanding because staff were moonlighting in scientology businesses and were thus “off purpose” (in fact it was only to be able to earn enough money to live, but Hubbard’s answer to that was “make the org make more money and you will get more pay.”)
WISE today pretends to be something separate from the “Church of Scientology”, in fact they state the on the “What Is Scientology?” website:
By functioning as an autonomous corporation separate and apart from churches of Scientology, WISE insulates them from activities that do not belong in a church and would distract staff from their real purpose – the ministry of Scientology.
It’s a very touchy subject, mixing religion and the workplace.
WISE has “secularized” Hubbard’s scientology writings in order to try to insulate businesses that use the technology from claims they are inserting religion into the workplace and requiring employees to practice scientology (they have generally been successful in this charade, though a number of business have been sued over this issue).
The truth is that WISE has ALWAYS been treated as a “feeder line” into scientology. HUGE sources of business for scientology have traditionally been WISE “Consulting Companies” like Sterling Management Systems that implemented Hubbard “tech” into dental practices. This could be the topic of many posts.
What brought this to the fore recently was two documents forwarded to me.
These are commendations to two of these “management consulting” firms for selling Hubbard books. As every scientologist knows from the outset, Hubbard hammered hard on the idea that “books make booms.” It is an article of faith in scientology that if you sell Hubbard books you make new scientologists. Hubbard said it, over and over, so it must be true. (Never question what he says, even when there is a more plausible explanation – in this case that he derived his income from book royalties on overpriced books sold by scientology). Thus there is enormous importance placed on selling Hubbard books because this is the first step to “clearing the planet.”
This is all about EXPANDING scientology. This is REALLY what WISE is about. No matter the PR spin they try to put on it.
And of course, let’s not forget, the hierarchy of WISE consists entirely of Sea Org members who have a singular purpose in life to achieve the Aims of Scientology.
Hubbard was a liar… google it, all of you beloved and awesome UTRs out there.
Of course, I need not ask that of all the UTRs out there.
Oh, yeah, hey David Miscavige, did you notice there are thousands of UTR scientologists out there?
And that they may be coming for you?
Sleep well in your kid-sized silk monogrammed pajamas, ya little shit.
One thing I have never understood about how Americans think and their overall culture. Does it not say or stress in their constitution of the absolute division BETWEEN Church and State.
It does not seem to work in the manner for which it was intended: Namely, I should think, to protect their own citizens.
If there’s any American cousins out there that can explain this to and why it is not use more vociferously in legal attacks and defenses for and from the CoS.
It does not seem to work in the manner for which it was intended: Namely, I should think, to protect their own citizens.
Very simplistic reason for this.
The US justice system is weighted to favor those with the most money.
When issues have arisen where the rights of the individual have clashed with the rights of the churches, the churches have usually prevailed. They have the money so they can hire the best lawyers. This has established a long history of legal precedent in the US that basically protects churches and ignores the rights of individuals. Religions are outside the purview of many laws, laws designed to protect the rights of individuals.
In this, the constitution, designed to protect the individual against oppression from the powerful has been turned on its head to protect the powerful in abusing individuals.
Many would argue that a lack of government oversight of religion is a good thing — it prevents oppressing belief. But it seems that in the US the pendulum has swung too far.
Elizabeth, there is NO “absolute division” between church and state, just that the state can’t say what is a church or establish one religion as the official church of the US. Churches have always commented on state actions they disagreed with. That’s their god-given right (literally).
Specifically, our first Amendment states:” Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
[Separation of church & state is a different issue that probably popped up in the UK before America seceded from the British Empire, which, AFAICT, was when the British Empire started to disintegrate. Most Americans believe in keeping church and state separate, bu I don’t believe there’s any legal prohibition.
Follow the money to the bank of Luxembourg
Side bar: watching the show!
Wow… crazy sales/ closing technique s!
If the world s populations would use, this much tenacious, unrelenting technique s on positive purpose! The world would change overnight. Isn’t it amazing that all of us can picture in our minds…. failures… much more difficult to picture success, fulfillment, etc.?
Fascinating episode! Still digesting
FYI, off the subject here, this info is for “whatever it’s worth,” but I thought it was interesting.
Just ran into an old friend down at Nature Food Patch in Clearwater FL. Says he’s on course at Flag, re-treading the basic books. He’s been a Scientologist for more than 30 years, still stuck on OT5.
He said the Church is “doing really well and expanding.” I then asked
“Is that expansion the number of size of the buildings or the number of parishioners?”
I didn’t really get an answerer to that question as…
he then originated that “many of the folks at Flag do not speaking English.” He went on to say that “in the United States, Scientology is not thought of very well.”
He then visited me back to the Church. I told him, “when I left the Church, they had be sign a document that I could never come back.”
It’s called intimidation. It’s not a good way to win friends.
Hasta la vista, baby!
For those graduating from the Hubbard College of Masturbation, one becomes a certified member of WISE – an acronym which stands for Wooden Inanimate Scientology Eunuch.
Lol
Interesting, if WISE was supposed to solve the problem of moonlighting staff, how did that work out for the orgs? Not, apparently, though after several decades they seem to have belatedly figured out that they should have made staff pay a larger percentage of org gross income (according to recent reports), even if that means sending less money “uplines” to Scientology’s massive, bloated international management structure.
From what I can figure, WISE also played an important role in the 1980s and into the early 1990s, in keeping up Scientology’s stats by bringing in a significant number of fairly well-off members, and the revenue share from their businesses, including those from healthcare and pseudo-medical professions like dentists and chiropractors – and quite a few of those people, like the dentist Minkoff, remain and are crucial supporters of the group and among the remaining mission/franchise holders. The crucial baby boom demographic of young “seekers” had dried up in the 1970s, as I frequently note, and WISE allowed Scientology to capture some of the same group as they became more focused on establishing their adult and professional lives and even shifting to being “yuppies.” Missions had boomed for a while by introducing practices (such as unorthodox “de-dinging” and illegal loan fraud) that probably weren’t sustainable even if Hubbard hadn’t had Miscavige crack down on them, so WISE was the next thing that staved off collapse into the early 1990s, when stats went into irrecoverable decline.
Most of the groups of Scientology’s ilk and era withered away after the flood of young baby boom recruits dried up in the 1970s. Those that remained, and a new generation that succeeded them, have tended to have (or have adopted) more of of a personal and business success focus, that Scientology’s ideological inflexibility prevents it from really adopting. WISE was a sort of work-around, but as typically happens with such gambits, Scientology’s underlying intent to recruit people as hardcore adherents, and its exploitative and abusive nature, eventually caused the effort to go bust, leaving them with such a bad reputation that they can never again make headway with the target demographic.
Almost every time I read a Hubbard quote today, it makes me laugh. What a freakin’ loon.
And what exactly did LRH know about running a business? Running a cult, sure. Fleecing people for all they were worth with empty promises of enlightenment, sure. Plenty of people have done that.
He was flat broke and failed as a student, failed as a sailor, failed in grifting people out of money for his ludicrous sea exploration expeditions, and often didn’t make a steady living writing his campy science fiction nonsense.
Why would anybody think they should take business advice from LRH?
I know! Right?
“What did Hubbard know about running a business? Absolutely NOTHING. He had a little Navy experience, but didn’t really understand how that worked; hence his being passed over for promotion EVERY time (but one). The couple of “businesses” he tried to set up: (the “yacht brokerage” with Parsons was simply his scaming of Parsons’ life savings, and the early Dianetics centers uniformly went belly-up from financial mismanagement, Scientology seemed to have worked because it wasn’t under his control at first, then after they were established in California, scientology made more money than he could waste. Once he hit on the idea of Saint Hill, then the Sea Org, he didn’t have much use for money to live his lifestyle, though he refused to pay the staff or the government or the suppliers (which is a capsule view of his Finance policy”: Make money, make more money, make others produce so you can make more money. THEN pay no one you don’t absolutely have to pay, even if there’s no TP in the bathrooms and the power’s been cut off AND the fleet’ has been kicked out of the 3rd port in a row. I DO believe he considered some bribes a valid expense (though HE couldn’t be seen as connected to any illegal activity.)
Hey Mike, O/T But did you know that today (Jan. 7th) is National Bobblehead Day??
Ah… Sterling Mgt. I remember way back when that a friend of mine, Sherry Murphy, was working there. She was a public scientologist at the time. She always seemed to me to be not fully on board with everything that Hubbard wrote. Sterling must have been a very “fun” place to work because she said at the time that she really got why ‘knowledge reports’ were so important even though she previously found them distasteful. It wasn’t long after that that she joined the ‘sea org’. The last I heard was that she was working at ‘int base’ in some sort of mid-management position. I’m pretty sure that I saw her in that gawd-awful ‘We Stand Tall’ video standing right behind Mark Yager circa 1990. Mike, you were in there too (within easy range of your slap-happy ex-boss), and I imagine you cringe big-time just thinking about it, so sorry for bringing that up. Sherry was always a great person, kind and thoughtful and easy to be around but I wonder how much she changed and what became of her. If she is still there at ‘int base’ or in the ‘sea org’ she must have bought into the Hubbard think hook, line and sinker. Regardless, I hope she is doing well.
On a lighter note, here is the We Stand Tall video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyNh1j3dsp8
And here’s a very palatable version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOpapeX6Vzs
Interesting that the WISE commendations are both for selling the most “LRH Secular books”. And isn’t it sweet that each commendation has its’ own indecipherable LRH quote.
The entire commendation is based on the old “Books make booms.” Yeah. I bought that hook, line and sinker. That’s why so many scientologists have garages full of unopened palllets full of books. Unread books are unread books. The only boom they would make is if they were stored in an upper floor of the house and the floor collapsed due to their weight.
Although it no longer makes a difference, I believe that LRH meant that books in the hands of raw public would boom traffic into the missions and orgs. those people who should be seeing those books per LRH policy are feared by the bubble dweller. That’s a good thing.
It would be interesting to me to see the percentage of the 330K of the “LRH Secular book” purchases in Fortis which were forced purchases by WISE staff members who had to buy them in order to keep their jobs. My guess is close to 100%
I find the fractured English (apparently by yet another foreign recruit) of “producing over 330K in LRH secular materials though the [sic] 2018” to be hard to parse, even by Scientology standards. I’m not sure if that refers to just books or to other “materials” as well, and whether it is a total just for 2018 or a cumulative total including an unknown number of previous years – I’ve noticed lately that the deceptive trick of using impressive-looking cumulative totals without clearly stating so, is becoming increasingly common, as is now seen most prominently with donation statuses.
I’d bet, though, that a lot of the materials are books, and perhaps also pamphlets and mailings, that either just sit around gathering dust, or that go to people who don’t want them, and are put in the trash.
Sterling Mgmt Systems wasn’t the only company married to the tech and used as a feeder to the orgs. Executive Software, which changed its name later, under the helm of Craig Jensen, had whole posts whose job it was to carry out the orders of the org. The Staff Section Officer at ES had to make sure all workers there had purchased their Basic Book Pkg from the church. Stats were kept on this and people, Non Scn’s included were hounded. Then the next push was to get people on course or on correspondence course actually DOING the reading and courses connected with the Basics books. I know of two SSO’s who were fired because they weren’t on board with hounding staff on their production time, to buy the books and do the courses. That is an illegal firing. But back then you couldn’t sue them for it because you’d be declared SP and lose your family. Later some Non Scns (called “wogs” by Scns) banded together and sued Executive Software and Craig Jensen sold the co and moved to Clearwater. ES was also a feeder to the orgs, as was Sterling Management Systems. AT SMS they believed their whole purpose in life was to get “wogs” onto lines at the orgs and make them into Scns.
Even when I was in, I could never understand how “Books made Booms” when nobody I knew read books and even most Scientologists could never make it through “Dianetics.”
WISE –
Withholding Information $camming Everybody
That is WISE and what it stands for.
Dear Mike,
Do you think Scientology lawyers, or the OSA Legal person(s), or AVC(s) at Int, ILO and Flag CW, have the authority to oversee these types of in house possible conflicts?
It’s a sign of their decline when they cease getting lawyer “okay” on all their promo going out, or getting OSA Int “Legal” branch okay, or getting AVC “okay” on their stuff going out.
And also, I wonder what Scientology lawyers, who do similar work for other religions, think about these letters and of the other Scientology conflict of interest promo.
And, then Scientology is still so damned insignificant, they can rack up law violations that simply aren’t worth anyone’s times to prosecute or penalize them for their conflicts.
Scientology is such an incredulous and brash insignificant operation, until it hits home and one’s lost family or money or waste of time to them.
Would letters to congress persons be of help pointing out all these ongoing conflicts?
Would a paper in the cult or “academic” journals be worthy to lead up to getting a congressional study of these “religous” conflicts?
Aftermath Foundation legal work, me, I’m game to donate money to Aftermath Foundation legal research into these Scientology conflicts of activity, which would lead to some sort of stopping of Scientology’s illegal practices if these actions are illegal.
If these Scientology strategic/Hubbard goals are just unethical, and need popular exposure, then a nice authoritative paper, comparing Scientology’s tactics to other religions’ similar tactics I’d like to see.
Chuck
Thanks Chuck. For a lot of their faux pas they do damage control after the fact.
Letters to Congress are ALWAYS something anyone can do. Do they help? Eventually they all add up.
As for Aftermath Fdn, legal research is not its purpose. It is there to help people escaping the Sea Org who have nowhere to turn.
I remember way back, when a WISE reg wanted to enroll me as a member. He insisted I was legally obligated to be “certified” as a Scn business. He reasoned that since I used a 6 division org board, used management by statistics, and applied ethics conditions, that I was improperly using copyrighted material. A clever sales pitch, to be sure, but that’s all it was, so I didn’t bite. I told him that he made an interesting point, and I would have to look further into the legalities of applying management tech based on LRH books I owned. I said I’d get back to him. Never heard from that reg again.
Likewise, once when I was working for a WISE business as an independent contractor, I was told I would need to pony up for my own WISE membership. Ignored that foolishness completely. Nothing happened.
There was a guy at Flag a while back who owned a business – He was on VII and they decided he was done.
So, when you finish VII these days, they body route your Amex into their card reader and your ass to the Failwinds. Stats are in the shitter on the boat, and when they’re really desperate I guess they comp a few OT VIIs and rush their asses down there. There’s no going home between VII and VIII.
Anyway, during the “Eligibility” crap they charge you $800/hour for, they found out his company wasn’t a dues-paying member of WISE.
Well guess what had to happen before he got his “invitation” to start OT VIII? Yep. So that’s how they force the self-employed into handing over yet another tax, to WISE.
The Turd from Tilden created WISE to get businesses off the backs of the orgs; now something needs to be done to get WISE off the backs of businesses. It’s just like a mafia protection racket.
WISE is also used to control Scientologists who might otherwise go to court in lawsuits that many times are justified. The ripoffs I encountered in my 43 years in business were with Scientologists. The last WISE mediation I had was a total joke. The scam artist I filed against walked away with a big chunk of my money that he did not deserve. Criminal.
YEs, that is correct, their internal “arbitration” is a method of control. As I said, WISE is a big topic.
He with the most IAS status usually prevails in WISE arbitrations — it’s like a protection racket. It’s why so many crim businesspeople are so prominent as IAS status whores.
“He with the most IAS status usually prevails in WISE arbitrations — it’s like a protection racket. It’s why so many crim businesspeople are so prominent as IAS status whores.” I know this to be true from personal experience.
Yes, in this case it was connection to execs in high places. Absolutely criminal.
Mike, absolutely correct. In this case it was friends in high OSA places.
Criminal and fraudulent.
RE The :”IAS status whores” comment by yourself, I laughed out loud and I have NEVER encountered Scientology (what a neologism). There must be a presence in Canada,, where I live. Perhaps the increasing effects of unabated climate change ie very hot weather climates in Florida, California and Australia had made them initially more heavily targeted.
You look like your genetic background is as Irish as mine. The sun and heat actually can make me very ill, disorientated and can even trigger a seizure. I also become severely burnt in a short period of time.
When I went to Israel several years ago and even at home since, I have to have a hat, long sleeve shirt over whatever I am wearing and NOT wear denim, which traps heat and hurts the skin underneath (really).
One other thought or suggestion, which could be far more effective if explained by (non-Scientology) parents rather than schools, is the SURVIVAL skill of CRITICAL thinking. It would be a metaphorical innoculation, non?
Mike, just curious: in the 2nd commendation, there is a quote from an LRH HCO PL dated “10 July 1986”. Didn’t he die in January 1986?!
There were things Hubbard had directed be issued as policies and HCOB’s before his demise that were not completed (or had been sent to him for final approval but he was in no state to deal with any “traffic”). They were issued posthumously.
Bullshit, Inc. Somehow Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon are doing just fine without the “management technology.” I could never buy their pitch as I’m too much of a wise guy.
Revenue from WISE businesses alone will keep the third dynamic commending itself ad infinitum. Good old pats on the back. Even with the abuses, the mismanagement, the violent rageaholic at the helm. It’s this false idea of separation of business and religious intention that keeps it from being questioned. Thanks for questioning it Mike.
The only metric book sales handle are how truly nefarious WISE hides Scientology (materials) in business. It intertwines money, belief, and career (status) into one ball of wax.
What happens when a member of the “secular” WISE doesn’t want to be a member anymore? Can he still be a Scientologist and go up The Bridge or does he get SP-declared by the ‘Ethics and Justice’ department of the CoS?
That is a big no-no. It would be considered an “out-ethics indicator” which would warrant searching investigation and sec checking to get to the bottom of the “disaffection”…
Just another example of how they “duck and weave” instead of just being straight forward with the truth. WISE is a feeder line to the church, they sell for the church and they want all staff of all involved businesses to get onto services in the church. That’s the truth. It was true in the 70’s and it still is. However it’s no longer possible to operate in the shade like this due to the internet putting out the truth now everywhere. One can no longer say don’t believe “everything” you read online because there are too many supportive sources. But they can’t change because it’s written in policy to operate in the shade, ducking and weaving…ducking and weaving… while the rest of the world watches their dance. sheeesh!! Just tell the truth.
Hubbard may have thought that “books make booms,” but when I see one of his books, I shout “Booooo!” So my slogan is, “Hubbard books make boos.”