Proof of Life: Looking for a family member stuck in Scientology? Tony Ortega Jan 11, 2026

[Karen#1]

Previously, we focused on the celebrities who showed up at Scientology’s New Year’s Event in Los Angeles, at least those we could see in photos of the event that the church posted at its website on Friday.

Also included in that slide show was plenty of boasting from leader David Miscavige about all of the amazing expansion Scientology experienced in 2025, including the teams of staff members who had received “FEBC” training.

The Flag Executive Briefing Course is given at Scientology’s spiritual mecca, the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida, and for now it’s Dave’s latest excuse for why the public isn’t rushing to the gleaming new cathedrals — called “Ideal Orgs” — that he has opened in several dozen cities around the world.

Once staffs from those orgs go to Clearwater, complete their FEBC training, and then return to their Ideal Orgs, then finally the public will rush in to bolster Scientology’s dormant recruiting efforts.

Of course it’s a ludicrous notion, that giving staffs extra training in Florida will somehow ignite a new worldwide interest in this dwindling relic of past-life therapy that hasn’t had a heyday in 50 years.

But we thought that the photos of these newly-retrained staffs might serve another purpose, at least for families who may not have seen a loved one in a while.

So here are the staffs that Miscavige highlighted, and if you click on the photos they should expand and you’ll get a better look at these folks. We’d love to hear about any people you recognize and what you know about them.

It’s one thing to fork over cash so you can learn who you were on another planet 5 million years ago, it’s another to actually sign a contract and work for less than minimum wage at more than full time jobs which require total dedication on org staffs or in Scientology’s Sea Org. These are people who have actually bought into the idea that a middling midcentury pulp fiction author stumbled on the secrets of the universe, and they’re convinced their efforts will take over the planet.

New York City



Washington DC



Twin Cities



Milan



Stuttgart



Kaohsiung, Taiwan



Eastern Cape (Gqeberha, South Africa)

Proof of Life: Looking for a family member stuck in Scientology?

Previously, we focused on the celebrities who showed up at Scientology’s New Year’s Event in Los Angeles, at least those we could see in photos of the event that the church posted at its website on Friday.

tonyortega.substack.com

 

[I M Dex]

Wow, I'm looking at the 2nd image, NYC, and there's my old fellow staff member, Jerry Indursky, front and center, still on staff since the 1970's. We were both in "Div 6 public divisions" before I moved on to lead HGC auditor and Jerry moved up to ED. Its a bit scary to me to think that he's right where he was when I tapped out over 40 years ago. He seemed to me to be halfway between maintaining a fairly engaging way of being and being immersed in the "command intention" attitude. Now and then he'd share some friendly wit or humor. Still makes me laugh to think of the time we were in a back room at West 74th St before the org moved to W 46th St. We were there to clear out file cabinets to repurpose the room for films and lectures, and that included lifting and moving some pretty heavy file-filled drawers. I pulled out a drawer, it was heavy, but I managed it. Jerry asked if I needed a hand, I said "I got it", and took care of it. Jerry was bigger, and a bit beefier than in the current photo, but when he pulled out the next drawer, his knees started to buckle, and when I offered to help, he felt obliged to be macho and echo my "I got it", but he didn't got it, his body wavered, and he reacted by heaving it over his shoulder, files all over the floor. He calmly lit up a cigarette and softly muttered, "I figured I might as well be cause over it".
A few years later, as ED, he was party to screwing me over when a "senior C/S" who maintained an old vendetta with me accused me of a variety of outrageously bad auditor behavior, none of which was remotely factual. There's that element of being a Scientology staff member, a culture in which trust, loyalty and familiarity are subsumed by an indoctrination in dissociation, de-personalization and a hunger to seize on any opportunity to throw people under the bus.
But I still enjoy a good chuckle over the file room project

 

[Karen#1]

@I M Dex
Jerry Indursky was declared SP in the early 1970s. He had some earlier version of the Ls as a pc, and we had to case study his folders.
Why did a pc who received Ls then get declared ?

Jerry took the SP declare hard and was avowed to do anything and everything to get back in good standing.....

 

[Karen#1]

FEBC TRAINING ~~ a complete failure.

This is a complete failed endeavor.

Tried by L Ron Hubbard himself on the Apollo in the 1970s.

The students not only studied FEBC (Flag Executive Briefing Course)

But received all 3 Ls !

This was to supposedly result in *booming* the orgs.

Not one org BOOMED>

Some FEBC graduates fled (blew)

I am sure these poor dupes have likely had to sign something

saying they owed the Org "freeloader" bill of $45,000 if they flee

after the FEBC studies.

The likes of Amazon, Google, Apple, IBM, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet did not use

FEBC tech and thrived 100,000 x better than any SCN unit.

 

[I M Dex]

I can’t imagine Jerry behaving in some way that would invite being declared. I wonder what occurred and what the reasoning was. Of course, in Scientology, people can be declared because that’s what somebody wants to do. Must be an interesting story there.

 

[I M Dex]

FEBC TRAINING ~~ a complete failure.

This is a complete failed endeavor.

Tried by L Ron Hubbard himself on the Apollo in the 1970s.

The students not only studied FEBC (Flag Executive Briefing Course)

But received all 3 Ls !

This was to supposedly result in *booming* the orgs.

Not one org BOOMED>

Some FEBC graduates fled (blew)

I am sure these poor dupes have likely had to sign something

saying they owed the Org "freeloader" bill of $45,000 if they flee

after the FEBC studies.

The likes of Amazon, Google, Apple, IBM, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet did not use

FEBC tech and thrived 100,000 x better than any SCN unit.

This reminds me of when somebody I know, an Ex-SO member, who told me that his unit conducted an investigation, which showed that every time a SO mission implemented a program to Implement putting KSW fully in to an org, it crashed.
FEBC consisted of studying and training to apply every administrative policy Hubbard concocted. But just like Hubbard spoke out of both sides of his mouth so many times about so many things, so many of these policies were in conflict with each other, that often the practical result was that executives and other staff members, when in conflict about a course of action, could and would both produce Scientology policies that backed up their argument. In practice, whether in tech or admin, what was enforced was whatever somebody who got in serious trouble was said to have violated, and whatever policy they were violating was put under the rug for the time being. It seems to me that most policies that were most commonly applied tended to violate the policy that was titled “senior policy, we always deliver what we promise”. Anytime, and anyway that that was applied that included diminishing income, or stats, or made life difficult for somebody in charge, it was likely to be not only overruled, but punished.

 

[Hatshepsut]

@I M Dex
Jerry Indursky was declared SP in the early 1970s. He had some earlier version of the Ls as a pc, and we had to case study his folders.
Why did a pc who received Ls then get declared ?

Jerry took the SP declare hard and was avowed to do anything and everything to get back in good standing.....

I wondered that about Teddy Cormier who was trained and audited on them at Flag back in 81. Ls can't fix being a screw up? Although I never knew Ted, his sister Cathy Cormier was a totally fantastic and intuitive, repair auditor. You're either adept or inept, I guess. I wondered what had happened to Ted. Could've been ordered to retrain everything by Dennis Elrich and just tossed it in. Parents were rich.

 

[Karen#1]

Ted Cormier trained up to Class XII and then dropped dead shortly after.

No funeral, celebration of life or even a general announcement.

Get on and Produce Stats ! STATS STATS !

 

[Karen#1]

FEBC was the solution to boom Orgs. LOL.
It was announced with great fanfare.

One by one these EDs not only fell on their heads but were a huge embarrassment.

Sample : Kent Stryker (ED Hawaii Org)

Kent Stryker, FEBC graduate, was hunted down by no less than 3 various Attorney Generals of various states for multi million dollar FRAUD.

He had a bunch of telemarketers in a boiler room rip off donations of the big charities by impersonating them.

Example:

American Cancer Society

Ken's outfit called it National Cancer Society

March of Dimes

Ken's outfit called it March of Dimes Association.

Because the names were almost identical, Ken's team raked in big bucks. Ken was towed away for the penitentiary for YEARS after being found guilty

3 Ls and FEBC on APOLLO. Other graduates had similar fates.

Re: ABC's 20/20 Features Scientology Crook Kent Stryker

https://lermanet.org › cos › kentstryker

Title: Re: ABC's 20/20 Features Scientology Crook Kent Stryker Author: Anonymous Date: 28 Sep 1998

The convictions stemmed from Stryker's scheme in which he convinced victims to give his fake charities donations of cash and vehicles. Stryker obtained numerous fictitious business names (FBNs) that sounded like legitimate charities.

USAO/CDCA Press Release

 

[Hatshepsut]

Wow.

There were a couple top tech guys I knew too, who were sought after criminals. I never believed the worst but thought others were triggered by big presence.

I'm sad about Ted. His two sisters in Coral Gables, led me to believe he just went out ethics or something, and got punished.

For a while it did seem the original gangstas, highly trained, made up their own rules. They'd little respect for regulations once they saw how money was shuffled.

In 1987, I thought of accompanying one fellow, mentored by David Mayo, to Costa Rica. He was special, a sort of Ace when auditing NOTS....his own way. This was John Kramer or 'Father John, and he had the FBI looking for him, suspected of a mafia type murder back East. John took to growing teakwood back in the rain forest. I'd read that Harvey Haber moved out there also. The story at the AAC was that some rich dude passed way, leaving Harvey millions. He came from money anyway. Maybe he was named in the copyright lawsuits same time David and Julie moved to the Dominican Republic.