Is Captain David Miscavige’s Claim of 6601 Sea Org Members Real? Or Are There Far Fewer?

[Reyne Mayer]

Are you counting D & F as separate in your 12-18 count? Or 12-18 on Day and 12-18 on Foundation? I think it really depends on the org. Some will have 10ish staff D & F combined, some will still have 50 or more. There are also orgs that are lopsided, i.e. they'll have D or F with a bunch of staff and then the opposite will have like 5. It's just hard to get an accurate count because population, etc. doesn't really have much impact on it.

I agree that orgs probably won't close, I'd guess we're going to see more and more SO members manning Class V orgs. A lot of missions have been closing though.

i'm figuring total staff count, whether D & F have been combined formally or not.

i doubt any local orgs other than maybe Tampa and LA have more than 50 staff, or they'd have more staff than active members. again, i've almost never seen more than 50 public in one of those impromptu event photos.

and i'd say almost all of the missions have effectively closed, with about 2/3 vanishing in just the last decade. most of the rest don't seem to be more than just an address buried in an office or commercial complex.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

But as far as the birthday game goes, everything gets reported as one org. I.e. you don't have Tampa Day and Tampa Foundation, it's just Tampa. What they do is still report everything separately but then add up the points and put them together. Tampa Day will make 30 points and then Tampa Foundation will make 35, it gets reported as Tampa made 65.

thanks, that makes a point i was trying to find an example of, that even inside the CoS itself orgs get referred to as a single entity, for the sake of expedience. perhaps that's particularly when management is looking at them for purposes such as gauging stats like that, and thus it makes sense that outsiders also see it that way.

i get that inside the orgs the difference between D and F matters -- and is treated as important. interestingly, looking at a list of orgs from the late '70s in the back of one of the books, separate D & F are listed in many but not all cases, meaning some orgs may have been too small to be broken down like that -- which could well be the precedent cited for combining the two in local orgs shrunk back down to the size of the early days. and of course nowadays the CoS' published lists (like their website) don't making that distinction, because it is sort of a technicality that doesn't make much sense outside the organizational bubble.

 

[onceuponatime]

i'm figuring total staff count, whether D & F have been combined formally or not.

i doubt any local orgs other than maybe Tampa and LA have more than 50 staff, or they'd have more staff than active members. again, i've almost never seen more than 50 public in one of those impromptu event photos.

and i'd say almost all of the missions have effectively closed, with about 2/3 vanishing in just the last decade. most of the rest don't seem to be more than just an address buried in an office or commercial complex.

To me 12-18 seems a bit on the low side. I'm not going to say how many exactly, but I'm sure there are at least a few orgs in the 50+ staff range when you count D & F (not counting SFO and Tampa, I think their numbers are closer to 100+). You have to remember, Scientology varies greatly from area to area and you can't use any normal metrics to gauge how big or small Scientology is in an area. Also, for a long time LA and the west coast has had the highest concentration of Scientologists. Yes, recently more and more have been moving to CW but that's highly concentrated in CW and Tampa. WUS has always been a bigger cont. than EUS and I'm sure overall there are still more Scientologists spread out in the LA area (and the rest of the west coast) than anywhere else.

The greater LA area probably has a few orgs that are 50+ staff, wouldn't be surprised if San Diego still had 50+ (again, counting combined here). I seem to recall Sacramento and Portland also being on the larger size, they are probably still 50+ staff. Interestingly, and demonstrating what I was saying about size of local areas being hard to gauge, Seattle has always been small and I would guess they are under 50 staff.

Outside of the SO Class V orgs and Cincinnati I think all of the orgs more towards the center of the US are on the smaller size.

Make no mistake, Scientology is shrinking and the last few years have been hard on orgs with stats crashing everywhere. But there was a boom for a little bit (brought about by all the financial fraud) so some of these orgs are crashing from pretty high peaks. The Class V sector has shrunk a ton, but I don't think we're at the point where there's an average of 15 staff per org (counting D & F). I'm going to stick with my estimate of 30-40 staff on average per org.

thanks, that makes a point i was trying to find an example of, that even inside the CoS itself orgs get referred to as a single entity, for the sake of expedience. perhaps that's particularly when management is looking at them for purposes such as gauging stats like that, and thus it makes sense that outsiders also see it that way.

i get that inside the orgs the difference between D and F matters -- and is treated as important. interestingly, looking at a list of orgs from the late '70s in the back of one of the books, separate D & F are listed in many but not all cases, meaning some orgs may have been too small to be broken down like that -- which could well be the precedent cited for combining the two in local orgs shrunk back down to the size of the early days. and of course nowadays the CoS' published lists (like their website) don't making that distinction, because it is sort of a technicality that doesn't make much sense outside the organizational bubble.

Inside the orgs D & F matters, and probably for some levels of management. They are separate entities, separate finances, etc. But once it gets to a certain level of management I think they just look at the whole picture, they don't care what the breakdown is between D & F, they want the total numbers.

On your second point, orgs being broken down into D & F or not had nothing to do with size. It was just random with no logic attached to it. For example, Cincinnati was not broken down into D & F, they were a "full-time" org, and they were one of the largest orgs in the US (at least that's what I recall). In many cases the more successful orgs were the ones that were "full-time" and didn't have D & F. This actually makes sense, when you have a D & F org they spend a lot of time fighting each other, going after the same public, etc. and there are a ton of wasted posts. Orgs usually have a bunch of posts that do nothing, with a D & F you get to have two people filling that one post and both of them do nothing.

Part of the Ideal org program was separating these "full-time" orgs into separate D & F orgs.

A bit counter-intuitive, but that's Scientology. You'd expect the org with a D & F to be bigger than one without them, but that wasn't the case most of the time.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

I guess somehow they don't realize what a "total tech degrade" it is to promote
"THE science" by dressing up in superhero costumes or as circus clowns.

or are they just following the lead of 'source'?!

 

[Enthetan]

The more I think about it the more I wonder if it's 1:1 as far as staff/S.O. and public. We might have already passed the point where there are more public than staff.

This points out the total dysfunction of Scientology. How many businesses could operate needing as many staff as customers?

 

[onceuponatime]

This points out the total dysfunction of Scientology. How many businesses could operate needing as many staff as customers?

Yeah, it doesn't work for any business, and it isn't working for Scientology either.

 

[cakemaker]

Yes, separate staff, separate org boards, everything. You can look at the recent leak from NY org for confirmation.

But as far as the birthday game goes, everything gets reported as one org. I.e. you don't have Tampa Day and Tampa Foundation, it's just Tampa. What they do is still report everything separately but then add up the points and put them together. Tampa Day will make 30 points and then Tampa Foundation will make 35, it gets reported as Tampa made 65.

They really are separate orgs though. Different staff members, different FPs, etc.

Interesting.
I wonder when that changed. It didn't used to be like that in my day.
Even for the Birthday Game, D and F orgs were reported separately and treated separately for winners and losers.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

This points out the total dysfunction of Scientology. How many businesses could operate needing as many staff as customers?

it also points to part of the reason why the CoS has to squeeze so much money out of the active 'public' members it does have -- they have bizarrely high overhead. there are still costs to employing staff even if they're hardly paid, of course the sea org get room and board as well, and both need buildings to operate out of even if not the extravagant 'ideal' orgs. that is still be pretty significant, never mind all the international management expenses on top of it like lawyers and PIs....

 

[Riddick]

it also points to part of the reason why the CoS has to squeeze so much money out of the active 'public' members it does have -- they have bizarrely high overhead. there are still costs to employing staff even if they're hardly paid, of course the sea org get room and board as well, and both need buildings to operate out of even if not the extravagant 'ideal' orgs. that is still be pretty significant, never mind all the international management expenses on top of it like lawyers and PIs....

you only need one or two public who have fall'in for Hubbard's rhetoric that a org or mission can service, that one or two is a successful person. Staff don;t get paid, they are supported by parents or spouses or business.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

you only need one or two public who have fall'in for Hubbard's rhetoric that a org or mission can service, that one or two is a successful person. Staff don;t get paid, they are supported by parents or spouses or business.

but they need a building, power and heat, desk, phone, internet, office supplies, materials, and so on. and a certain amount of training expense, including sending people to courses and seminars, is legitimate in any organization, if typically distorted bizarrely in scientology. it adds up to significant amounts pretty quickly, even if people aren't paid.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

The greater LA area probably has a few orgs that are 50+ staff, wouldn't be surprised if San Diego still had 50+ (again, counting combined here). I seem to recall Sacramento and Portland also being on the larger size, they are probably still 50+ staff. Interestingly, and demonstrating what I was saying about size of local areas being hard to gauge, Seattle has always been small and I would guess they are under 50 staff.

there's some evidence for SF recently having about 50 staff, below, but i can find nothing comparable for any of those other orgs (though i've seen a big staff photo for Tampa, one other that could plausibly be large), and from what someone over at The Bunker who posts information about checking out the San Diego org from time to time it sounds like only a few people come and go there. and the photos with public, like from SF at bottom, are all rather pitiful.

given the CoS' penchant for touting numbers and photographing to impress, if not even distort, when it comes to official photographs of openings and special events, why are there no other photographs used on orgs' promo pieces or to be found on social media, showing more than a dozen or so staff or more than 3 to 4 dozen public, if they have numbers greater than that at other than a couple of orgs?

 

[onceuponatime]

Interesting.
I wonder when that changed. It didn't used to be like that in my day.
Even for the Birthday Game, D and F orgs were reported separately and treated separately for winners and losers.

This was one of the things that changed sometime during the Ideal org program. I want to say 10ish years ago.

there's some evidence for SF recently having about 50 staff, below, but i can find nothing comparable for any of those other orgs (though i've seen a big staff photo for Tampa, one other that could plausibly be large), and from what someone over at The Bunker who posts information about checking out the San Diego org from time to time it sounds like only a few people come and go there. and the photos with public, like from SF at bottom, are all rather pitiful.

given the CoS' penchant for touting numbers and photographing to impress, if not even distort, when it comes to official photographs of openings and special events, why are there no other photographs used on orgs' promo pieces or to be found on social media, showing more than a dozen or so staff or more than 3 to 4 dozen public, if they have numbers greater than that at other than a couple of orgs?

View attachment 17062

View attachment 17063

Maybe SFO has fallen harder than I think, but I'd still be surprised if between D & F they weren't at least close to 100 staff.

I counted 29 staff in the top photo, that's either the D or F crew, I'd guess Day but it's hard for me to tell. If this is from right when they were re-opening they probably had at least a few staff not in the photo. People with medical issues, recently sick, etc. weren't allowed to come back right away. Wouldn't shock me if they had another 10+ staff not pictured (medical issues, at Flag/LA, just couldn't make it, whatever).

The second photo is more impromptu so I don't really draw anything from it, and are you sure these aren't all staff? I think everyone in that photo is staff.

In terms of people coming and going, well if we're talking 40-50 staff total that's only 20ish per D/F. You're only going to see a few coming and going. These buildings are massive and usually have a couple entrances/exits. The buildings probably feel and seem empty even with 40-50 people in them, much less only 20 or so.

Yes, you can't really trust photos/videos. But most of the deception is being done at the cont/int level where they have a Gold team and they enlist as many public/staff as they can to get the shots they want. Stuff posted by an org or on their social media probably won't have those levels of deception.

Scientology doesn't really lend itself to photo opportunities, the best opportunities would be events. And while there are photos of those they don't usually get posted, they're used internally. Scientology is paranoid and secretive, it's how they operate, so posting photos/info on social media is frowned upon. The exception to that seems to be Ideal Org events, but the orgs still working on that are on the smaller size.

It's fun to speculate about this stuff, but we won't know unless we actually got access to the crew list/muster sheets. I'd love for orgs to be at the size of less than 20, and many are, but I think there are some still in the process of dying. Remember, when I'm saying they have 40-50 staff between D/F, some of these orgs had 100+ just a few years ago. It's still a massive crash and they will continue to shrink.

 

[Type4_PTS]

This was one of the things that changed sometime during the Ideal org program. I want to say 10ish years ago.



Maybe SFO has fallen harder than I think, but I'd still be surprised if between D & F they weren't at least close to 100 staff.

I counted 29 staff in the top photo, that's either the D or F crew, I'd guess Day but it's hard for me to tell. If this is from right when they were re-opening they probably had at least a few staff not in the photo. People with medical issues, recently sick, etc. weren't allowed to come back right away. Wouldn't shock me if they had another 10+ staff not pictured (medical issues, at Flag/LA, just couldn't make it, whatever).

The second photo is more impromptu so I don't really draw anything from it, and are you sure these aren't all staff? I think everyone in that photo is staff.

In terms of people coming and going, well if we're talking 40-50 staff total that's only 20ish per D/F. You're only going to see a few coming and going. These buildings are massive and usually have a couple entrances/exits. The buildings probably feel and seem empty even with 40-50 people in them, much less only 20 or so.

Yes, you can't really trust photos/videos. But most of the deception is being done at the cont/int level where they have a Gold team and they enlist as many public/staff as they can to get the shots they want. Stuff posted by an org or on their social media probably won't have those levels of deception.

Scientology doesn't really lend itself to photo opportunities, the best opportunities would be events. And while there are photos of those they don't usually get posted, they're used internally. Scientology is paranoid and secretive, it's how they operate, so posting photos/info on social media is frowned upon. The exception to that seems to be Ideal Org events, but the orgs still working on that are on the smaller size.

It's fun to speculate about this stuff, but we won't know unless we actually got access to the crew list/muster sheets. I'd love for orgs to be at the size of less than 20, and many are, but I think there are some still in the process of dying. Remember, when I'm saying they have 40-50 staff between D/F, some of these orgs had 100+ just a few years ago. It's still a massive crash and they will continue to shrink.

For the big events Scientology does have a history of making them appear more well attended then they actually are. Here's an example where they used Photoshop to accomplish that objective.

Scientology Photoshops Audience for Miscavige Event

Scientology Photoshops Audience for Miscavige Event

When you try to claim that a crowd of 400-500 is actually a crowd of 2,500, Photoshop is your best friend.

www.mikerindersblog.org

When you try to claim that a crowd of 400-500 is actually a crowd of 2,500, Photoshop is your best friend. The Radical Church of Scientology is no stranger to photoshopping audiences and their “man with no head” audience member went viral after the 1999 New Years Event. Scientology Audience Doctored.

However with all the attention on the Portland (“Scientology City”) opening and the months of pressure to have Scientologists from all over the world fly in to puff up the crowd at the event, apparently the disappointment of unused chairs and low attendance was too much.

So when the obligatory PR WEB paid press release was put together they doctored the main crowd shot. And not very well either. If you look closely under the confetti you will the the entire crowd there is on a slightly different perspective than the rest of the photo. Photoshopping in an audience and then covering them in confetti to hide the low quality work – what is vulture culture coming to?

Or perhaps this is a brilliant strategy to get media coverage — the headless man went viral. Is it a sneaky guerilla marketing campaign?

You can see the actual image live on PR WEB with this link: doctored scientology audience photo published on PR WEB

The massive, straight up and vertical international expansion of Scientology, greater than at any point in history, also seems to be passing Portland by…. In fact, it seems to have circumvented the entire United States if Dear Leader could only pull 500 people to his biggest Grand Opening with heavy pressure from every OT Committee, Idle Org, management and even WISE to attend.

<snip> See Photos at Link Above

 

[onceuponatime]

For the big events Scientology does have a history of making them appear more well attended then they actually are. Here's an example where they used Photoshop to accomplish that objective.

Scientology Photoshops Audience for Miscavige Event

Scientology Photoshops Audience for Miscavige Event

When you try to claim that a crowd of 400-500 is actually a crowd of 2,500, Photoshop is your best friend.

www.mikerindersblog.org

When you try to claim that a crowd of 400-500 is actually a crowd of 2,500, Photoshop is your best friend. The Radical Church of Scientology is no stranger to photoshopping audiences and their “man with no head” audience member went viral after the 1999 New Years Event. Scientology Audience Doctored.

However with all the attention on the Portland (“Scientology City”) opening and the months of pressure to have Scientologists from all over the world fly in to puff up the crowd at the event, apparently the disappointment of unused chairs and low attendance was too much.

So when the obligatory PR WEB paid press release was put together they doctored the main crowd shot. And not very well either. If you look closely under the confetti you will the the entire crowd there is on a slightly different perspective than the rest of the photo. Photoshopping in an audience and then covering them in confetti to hide the low quality work – what is vulture culture coming to?

Or perhaps this is a brilliant strategy to get media coverage — the headless man went viral. Is it a sneaky guerilla marketing campaign?

You can see the actual image live on PR WEB with this link: doctored scientology audience photo published on PR WEB

The massive, straight up and vertical international expansion of Scientology, greater than at any point in history, also seems to be passing Portland by…. In fact, it seems to have circumvented the entire United States if Dear Leader could only pull 500 people to his biggest Grand Opening with heavy pressure from every OT Committee, Idle Org, management and even WISE to attend.

<snip> See Photos at Link Above

Oh absolutely, scientology definitely does that. I'm saying that's being done by gold when they have a team there specifically covering that event (or whatever it is they're covering). It isn't being done by the local orgs. Local orgs probably won't have people dress up as public/staff to make things look better than they are, gold will. Local orgs probably don't have Photoshop experts, gold does. All I'm saying is the stuff directly released by orgs probably doesn't have too much deceptive stuff in them.

In that top sfo photo gold would make sure they had three people in every window whether they were staff or not.

 

[Riddick]

there's some evidence for SF recently having about 50 staff, below, but i can find nothing comparable for any of those other orgs (though i've seen a big staff photo for Tampa, one other that could plausibly be large), and from what someone over at The Bunker who posts information about checking out the San Diego org from time to time it sounds like only a few people come and go there. and the photos with public, like from SF at bottom, are all rather pitiful.

given the CoS' penchant for touting numbers and photographing to impress, if not even distort, when it comes to official photographs of openings and special events, why are there no other photographs used on orgs' promo pieces or to be found on social media, showing more than a dozen or so staff or more than 3 to 4 dozen public, if they have numbers greater than that at other than a couple of orgs?

View attachment 17062

View attachment 17063

number 21 is Jim Fitzgerald, the ED of SF Foundation, or night time, the guy holding up SF is ED Day, I forget his name. Both are successful people. Jim is a successful Dentist, I forget what SF does. They support the org with money when needed. Most of the people shown in the photo are supported by spouses or are kids living at home supported by scientology parents to be on staff so they don't need to worry about making a wage. Like I said earlier, you only need one or two paying public who buy packages of auditing to support the org with operating expenses. .

They have all been bamboozled by hubbard's rhetoric to go clear, to go OT, to clear a Planet, Hubbard's My Philsophy:

https://scjentologiapolska.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/my-philosophy-by-l-ron-hubbard.pdf

.

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[Riddick]

This points out the total dysfunction of Scientology. How many businesses could operate needing as many staff as customers?

yah, LOL, we just need more staff to fill up the org board. LOL

 

[Reyne Mayer]

Maybe SFO has fallen harder than I think, but I'd still be surprised if between D & F they weren't at least close to 100 staff.

other photos i've seen from SF like the one below show about half the number of staff in the big picture, so i think it's reasonable to assume they are just one shift, and the picture that they went to some real effort to stage and shoot (it looks like they got a photographer into the second story of the building across the street) is everyone they can muster. again, given the CoS' penchant for going to lengths to get propaganda shots to make their numbers appear bigger than they are, why would the org be consistently taking photos that don't include all the bodies they could gather at the moment?

it is frustrating that we don't really have much better, updated information on org sizes. i keep trying to ask, but it seems even people who were in fairly recently have trouble saying how many staff there really were -- i would expect it wouldn't be too hard to come up with a reasonably accurate estimate from memory, even without formal documentation.

one thing i will say about these photos, is it looks like they might be excluding older staff in an attempt to appear young and hip (the football game photo seems to include a couple):

 

[Zertel]

there's some evidence for SF recently having about 50 staff, below, but i can find nothing comparable for any of those other orgs (though i've seen a big staff photo for Tampa, one other that could plausibly be large), and from what someone over at The Bunker who posts information about checking out the San Diego org from time to time it sounds like only a few people come and go there. and the photos with public, like from SF at bottom, are all rather pitiful.

given the CoS' penchant for touting numbers and photographing to impress, if not even distort, when it comes to official photographs of openings and special events, why are there no other photographs used on orgs' promo pieces or to be found on social media, showing more than a dozen or so staff or more than 3 to 4 dozen public, if they have numbers greater than that at other than a couple of orgs?

View attachment 17062

View attachment 17063

The guy under the "n" in Transamerica is standing on the fire escape ladder. There's always a show-off in the group.

(I have nothing useful to add to the conversation but I did review all the posts. )

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

.

This is a very provocative subject matter, but interestingly--whenever the subject of Scientology's wildly inflated membership numbers comes up on ESMB (or other Scieno-centric venues) most of the discussion revolves around just how badly Scientology's leaders lie.

That's a very entertaining subject!

However, a far more fascinating topic is why Scientology's leaders lie in the first place!

It's entirely bizarre that the world's greatest experts in the "modern science of mental health" feel the compulsion to lie to the media and to each other about their glorious 16M strong membership ranks!

How pathetically and desperately insecure about their own organization and its products would someone have to be to fraudulently claim 16 MILLION parishioners instead of 16 THOUSAND?

Why are they trying to sell Scientology by alluding to millions of unknown strangers around the world who believe in L. Ron Hubbard—instead the one (1) Scientologist simply demonstrating to the one (1) wog just one (1) of the magical powers they attained?

Alas, all of Scientology is generated from the same seed planted (and implanted) by Hubbard. Let's call it the "original sin". Lying to steal admiration. It's in the DNA of every living minute of Scientology's existence since 1950. Fantastic lies, outrageous lies, obvious lies. Book one (DMSMH) was claimed to be a "science". Written by "Dr." Hubbard. He was also a "nuclear physicist". And a "war hero". And it shall come as no new news to readers here that the states of "Clear" and "OT" were just more lies designed to impress prospective Scientology customers with the sheer supernatual status and miracles supposedly happening to all of those "16 million" Scientologists.

When you boil it all down, Scientology is really nothing more than CARNIVAL SIDESHOWS & FREAK-SHOWS with a 50 year gauntlet of hawkers and barkers and pitchmen all lined up outside the tent trying to sell tickets.

Here it is. The COS!
CARNIVAL OF SCIENTOLOGY

​

definition:
"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" An exhortation—the Scientology equivalent of "Thursday at 2pm!"


.
.

 

[onceuponatime]

other photos i've seen from SF like the one below show about half the number of staff in the big picture, so i think it's reasonable to assume they are just one shift, and the picture that they went to some real effort to stage and shoot (it looks like they got a photographer into the second story of the building across the street) is everyone they can muster. again, given the CoS' penchant for going to lengths to get propaganda shots to make their numbers appear bigger than they are, why would the org be consistently taking photos that don't include all the bodies they could gather at the moment?

it is frustrating that we don't really have much better, updated information on org sizes. i keep trying to ask, but it seems even people who were in fairly recently have trouble saying how many staff there really were -- i would expect it wouldn't be too hard to come up with a reasonably accurate estimate from memory, even without formal documentation.

one thing i will say about these photos, is it looks like they might be excluding older staff in an attempt to appear young and hip (the football game photo seems to include a couple):


View attachment 17079

View attachment 17080

Just because they post a photo doesn't mean they put all of their staff in it, you can't keep assuming that. These just look like promo photos, one is a holiday photo and the others a generic recruitment/come into the org type thing. They also seem to only take pictures with younger staff.

It's a shame that first photo you posted isn't higher quality, I can't make out any faces, so I can't tell if it's D or F or both.

I always assumed SFO had done much better about retaining their staff, and that they were still closer to 100 staff. I'll say this much, I know there are a few orgs that still have 50ish staff between D & F, that's for sure. Maybe SFO is one of those orgs but I thought they had done better and were more in the 75-100 range.