Karen#1
Well-known member
[It’s been more than four years since the last time Dave released balloons]
The situation has been shifting and changing, but it’s now looking more realistic that Scientology leader David Miscavige will open the new “Ideal Orgs” he promised in Austin (Feb 24), Mexico City (March 1), and Chicago (March 3), with another opening in Paris also imminent.
The word has started getting out to the public in general, and we’ve been seeing some pretty quizzical responses on social media.
Scientology is opening new churches? Where? Why? And what’s an “Ideal Org” anyway?
The Ideal Org project is a story we’ve been covering for many years, and so we’re hoping we can provide some answers for the people and media in those towns.
Scientology is a very hierarchical organization, with one man, David Miscavige, perched on the very top. At the local level, however, Scientology for decades has operated what it calls “Class V orgs” — the word “org” is short for “organization” — that are intended to be mainstays in major cities around the world. Each big city is supposed to have one.
People new to Scientology might first be introduced to its ideas in something even more local, like a “mission” or by a “field staff member,” but eventually they are expected to go to the big local org on their way later to even higher-level places like the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida.
Back in around 2002, however, and about 15 years into Miscavige’s tenure, after he had taken over following the 1986 death of founder L. Ron Hubbard, the church had a problem in Buffalo, New York.
The city there was using eminent domain to take away the land under the city’s Scientology org for a new parking garage. Scientology would be paid for the trouble, but Miscavige and Scientology needed to find a new place for its org there.
Meanwhile, Mike Rinder has told us he heard at the time, Tom Cruise was supposedly disappointed when he took someone down to the org in Tampa, Florida, which was something of a dump.
And third, the org in Johannesburg was in such a bad neighborhood, a staffer had been killed in random violence.
At least, those were the stories that Scientologists were told when Miscavige then revealed that he intended to replace all three of these orgs — in Buffalo, Tampa, and Johannesburg — with new, larger, and more updated facilities he called “Ideal Orgs.”
Many former Scientologists have pointed out to us that this was not something that L. Ron Hubbard had ever called for. In fact, Hubbard was against an obsession with what is called “MEST” in Scientology, “matter, energy, space, and time” — in other words, things. What was more important than property or things to Hubbard was people doing Scientology. So Miscavige’s sudden emphasis on more expensive and more attractive buildings seemed like it went against the spirit of Hubbard’s teachings.
But Miscavige and Scientology went all-in on the idea, and in the 20 years since then they have pursued the goal of replacing every run-of-the-mill org with an “Ideal Org,” whether the city it inhabited needs it or not.
Each project costs something like $25 million, according to a former top executive named Paul Burkhart who worked on the projects and told this to Leah Remini and Mike Rinder on Scientology and the Aftermath.
Since the start in 2003, this has been the building schedule…
2003: Johannesburg, San Francisco
2004: Madrid, New York
2006: London
2007: Berlin
2009: Dallas, Malmö, Nashville, Rome, Washington DC
2010: Brussels, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Pasadena, Québec, Seattle
2011: Inglewood (California), Melbourne, Moscow, Tampa, Twin Cities
2012: Buffalo (a do-over), Cincinnati, Denver, Hamburg, Los Gatos, Padua, Phoenix, Sacramento, Santa Ana, Stevens Creek, Tel Aviv
2013: Cambridge (Ontario), Kaohsiung, Portland, Pretoria
2014: Sydney
2015: Basel, Bogotá, Milan, Tokyo
2016: Atlanta, Budapest, Harlem, San Diego
2017: Amsterdam, Auckland, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Dublin, Johannesburg North, Miami, San Fernando Valley
2018: Detroit, Orlando, Perth, Salt Lake City, Silicon Valley, Stuttgart
2019: Columbus, Kansas City
2020: Ventura
Read more:
Austin, Chicago & Mexico City: Here’s why you’re getting new Scientology churches now
The situation has been shifting and changing, but it’s now looking more realistic that Scientology leader David Miscavige will open the new “Ideal Orgs” he promised in Austin (Feb 24), Mexico City (March 1), and Chicago (March 3), with another opening in Paris also imminent.
tonyortega.substack.com
That’s a total of 64 Ideal Orgs around the world. (Scientology boasts a larger number, but it also counts some Ideal Advanced Orgs, which is something different.)
Miscavige has attended every grand opening ceremony except the one in Berlin. Tom Cruise has only attended the 2004 grand opening in Madrid (and gave a speech in Spanish).
Read More:
Austin, Chicago & Mexico City: Here’s why you’re getting new Scientology churches now
The situation has been shifting and changing, but it’s now looking more realistic that Scientology leader David Miscavige will open the new “Ideal Orgs” he promised in Austin (Feb 24), Mexico City (March 1), and Chicago (March 3), with another opening in Paris also imminent.
tonyortega.substack.com
