How Ideal Orgs Are Causing Current Scientologists To Leave Scientology

[onceuponatime]

Most Ideal Orgs collapse to a shell of themselves within months of their opening. I can think of a couple exceptions to this, but even most of those just take longer to collapse. Of course this makes public and staff start to question things.

This current exec training program might be the last gasp, before it started I personally know a ton of people who were on the way out, or at least had become less active, routed off staff, etc. This training program has revitalized some people and they are now sure again that they are going to boom and expand with all the correct admin. All they needed to do was post the org board correctly and expansion is guaranteed! Of course Ideal Orgs failed, they didn't have the correct org board.

Scientology has always had a "next big thing", there was always something coming that would guarantee expansion. But I think they've started to hit a wall. Ideal Orgs are mostly played out, GAT II has been released (sure they can do GAT III but they'll have to give it a little more time), SMP is done, etc. Where do they go after the exec training (which is just a re-do of the OEC/FEBC program they pushed years ago). I guess if they drag out the exec stuff long enough they can circle back to GAT III but I don't see it. So what do they do after the exec training? OT 9/10? Unlikely.

The Ideal Org program was amazing with how much they've been able to milk it and keep Scientologists engaged. But now it's mostly played out with mostly smaller orgs left like Austin, which apparently has about 150 local Scientologists. And that might be one of the bigger ones left.

Their main problem has and will be their failure to get new people in. They just can't do it, except for Taiwan and maybe Russia.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

This training program has revitalized some people and they are now sure again that they are going to boom and expand with all the correct admin.

interesting to hear that's actually the case. reading that the first thing i thought about was yeah, scn has always been about promises of 'latest, greatest' at least implicitly to fix what didn't work out as promised before. and then i saw the beginning of your next paragraph....

my guess is that the 150 number for Austin is everyone in the area with IAS memberships -- including old lifetime ones -- and and good standing, and thus theoretically eligible to go on staff. but half or more of those people won't have set foot in the org in a year or more, and of course a significant number will be UTR or OTL (what else do you call those who have lifetime memberships but are long gone?). from what i've heard Austin must have an active field on the small side for a city its size (metro area population 2.4m).

i found this from 2019, when they first started work on building renovations -- which were finished within a year. i would not be surprised if the approximately dozen and a half people in the pictures, are about half their staff and active membership:

 

[Mamie Glutz]

interesting to hear that's actually the case. reading that the first thing i thought about was yeah, scn has always been about promises of 'latest, greatest' at least implicitly to fix what didn't work out as promised before. and then i saw the beginning of your next paragraph....

my guess is that the 150 number for Austin is everyone in the area with IAS memberships -- including old lifetime ones -- and and good standing, and thus theoretically eligible to go on staff. but half or more of those people won't have set foot in the org in a year or more, and of course a significant number will be UTR or OTL (what else do you call those who have lifetime memberships but are long gone?). from what i've heard Austin must have a rather small active field for a city its size (metro area population 2.4m) so i would not be surprised if

i found this from 2019, when they first started work on building renovations. i would not be surprised if the approximately dozen and a half people in the pictures, are about half their staff and active membership:

Reyne, any hope is huge! It does not take much to generate hope, a few words sometimes. The rest of it goes on in the mind of the scnist. A couple of tidbits feeds one for months, maybe a year. I know, it sounds sad. There is probably some psych phenomena at work, I would say.

 

[onceuponatime]

interesting to hear that's actually the case. reading that the first thing i thought about was yeah, scn has always been about promises of 'latest, greatest' at least implicitly to fix what didn't work out as promised before. and then i saw the beginning of your next paragraph....

my guess is that the 150 number for Austin is everyone in the area with IAS memberships -- including old lifetime ones -- and and good standing, and thus theoretically eligible to go on staff. but half or more of those people won't have set foot in the org in a year or more, and of course a significant number will be UTR or OTL (what else do you call those who have lifetime memberships but are long gone?). from what i've heard Austin must have an active field on the small side for a city its size (metro area population 2.4m).

i found this from 2019, when they first started work on building renovations -- which were finished within a year. i would not be surprised if the approximately dozen and a half people in the pictures, are about half their staff and active membership:

I think the number was 120, and I would guess that's accurate number of "real" scientologists in the Austin area. Maybe a little optimistic on their part but I would guess it's close to that.

Scientology has been going through cycles of announcing the next big thing, doing it, having it fail, next big thing, etc. for years and years. Scientologists are used to this cycle and it does work on many of them. Of course each time they cycle through they lose some people that they won't ever get back. Some programs are more effective than others, I think Ideal Orgs and GAT II were effective about keeping people engaged and getting them back in. But they can only rely on those for so long and they are mostly played out at this point, hence the current program they're working on.

Reyne, any hope is huge! It does not take much to generate hope, a few words sometimes. The rest of it goes on in the mind of the scnist. A couple of tidbits feeds one for months, maybe a year. I know, it sounds sad. There is probably some psych phenomena at work, I would say.

Exactly

 

[Mamie Glutz]

One important thing to know about this thread title is this:

While they may have left because of the relentless fundraising, they still are scientologists but just aren't participating.

I only know a few scn'ists personally that are really, really out, because they no longer believe. Ideal org fundraising made some people stay away, but they still will not read "entheta." Oddest thing.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

While they may have left because of the relentless fundraising, they still are scientologists but just aren't participating.

but isn't it the last straw from some who were more or less UTR, having already lost faith?

and once out of the prison of belief, don't many end up coming to the realizing that it was all a mistake?

 

[Mamie Glutz]

Some haven't lost the faith, just the funds. Or the willingness to be a part of the fleecing.