Scientology is COLLAPSING!?

[Enthetan]

ideal orgs were another sort of back door subsidy, get all the orgs into buildings -- for the ones with smaller 'fields', with a lot of money raised from outside -- where they didn't have to pay rent to an outside landlord.

Back before they decided to destroy the missions and field auditors, you had people operating out of their private homes, where the mortgage was paid by the auditor/mission holder from out of his day job.

Then came the insistence that missions had to be operating out of a building in the Church’s name. This made it easier for In Management to seize the assets.

 

[onceuponatime]

i don't they're mutually exclusive, if the org was too much in the hole for what might have been large and overdue bills they could have needed a bailout just to get back on an even keel and have any money left over for staff the following week. that would fit with some orgs needed periodic bailouts -- but then the even worse off ones like Orlando and whatever its WUS equivalents are would be needing even more frequent bailouts. maybe after the pandemic ended it's not quite as regular as it was for a while but it still seems like it's more frequent than it used to be* -- though unfortunately we don't have enough details to confirm just what's going on.

it's also all a reminder that ideal orgs were another sort of back door subsidy, get all the orgs into buildings -- for the ones with smaller 'fields', with a lot of money raised from outside -- where they didn't have to pay rent to an outside landlord. except now the tiny and struggling orgs have big utility bills, that i figure may be as much or more as what some used to have to pay for utilities plus rent at an old building a third to a quarter of the size. and i've heard they're still supposed to be paying the int landlord, in which case that must be another thing that is being forgiven -- though i would expect it's accumulating as 'debt' with interest that's counted as an asset, just the sort of thing that happens in failing businesses and frauds.

* i don't know what people here know, but never-in critics seems to have the impression that bailing out a local org is a red line never to be crossed, while digging around i find accounts going back decades that it has long happened from time to time.



i thought it was they initially relied on an SO contingent -- with orgs that went ideal around when they did like Columbus and KC experiments in almost entirely staffing the org with them for years after opening. but then it sounds like they had been pulled, but afterwards a skeleton crew of SO had to be sent back after staffing crashed to the point of 'non-existence'.

I'm not arguing that orgs have needed bailouts, we all agree on that. The only question is how many and how often. I agree that after the pandemic many orgs might've needed a boost to get past bills caught up, did it continue after that? Hard to say.

If an org is getting regular bailouts no payroll would be the norm, not an every once in a while thing. So when I see a report that says they occasionally had to skip payroll to pay bills I interpret that as the org was at least paying their bills. It doesn't fit with needing bailouts in my experience.

Orlando didn't open with a large SO team, the only orgs that I know of that had that happen were KC and Columbus. Sending SO members to fill a couple posts is different. KC and Columbus opened with 50+ SO teams. Orlando has far fewer SO members (5? 10? 20? Not more than that). It's different, I think we are going to see more and more orgs going the way of Orlando where there is a smaller SO team basically just keeping the lights on.

I think it doesn't point to that at all. Failing to pay salaries doesn't suggest that they're successfully paying other bills. If they're failing to pay one financial obligation, one would expect that this isn't the only financial obligation that isn't being met. If somebody owes you money, and you find out they're stiffing another creditor, you'd worry that you won't be paid either.

Scientology doesn't view staff pay as a financial obligation. If regular bailouts were needed they wouldn't be getting paid at all. The fact that they were for the most part getting some pay leads me to believe bailouts weren't happening, at least for that org.

 

[Teanntás]

In case you haven't seen it

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

Back before they decided to destroy the missions and field auditors, you had people operating out of their private homes, where the mortgage was paid by the auditor/mission holder from out of his day job. Then came the insistence that missions had to be operating out of a building in the Church’s name. This made it easier for In Management to seize the assets.

Thus is the nature of all street gangs, drug cartels, organized crime mafias, cults and ultra-organized crime organizations (i.e. corrupt governmental racketeers).

To wit, once that the head guru or thug-chieftan realizes how much of the truckloads of cash is slipping thru the cracks (being paid to anyone working in or collaboratively participating in the criminal operation—besides themselves) they simultaneously realize that if they can get rid of that person they can pocket that individual's share of the loot.

Such criminal enrichment schemes where thugs whack other thugs was nicely portrayed in the classic gangster movie "GOODFELLAS". Most of you have likely seen that film, which depicts the real-life story of the "Lufthansa Heist" where NYC mafia members plotted and stole (in 2024 dollars) $23m in cash and $3.6m in jewels from the airline in a carefully planned 1-hour overnight robbery at JFK Int'l Airport. They made a clean getaway too! However, over time the participants were murdered by their gang's boss so that he could keep their share of the undistributed cash and diamonds.

Sometimes, however, major "scores" like that are never busted by law enforcement--or even investigated. Such is the case for Hillary/Bill Clinton's "CLINTON FOUNDATON" that raised $2 billion dollars, which sent the "charitable" couple's personal net worth soaring to over $120 million. There are a lot of Clinton operatives and/or whistleblowers who mysteriously died or disappeared over some decades as the Clinton's power amassed--and a multitude of "conspiracy theories" that the cheery duo had them whacked. Such accusations have never been proven. Perhaps because none of the Clinton's nefarious machinations were even investigated. There are hundreds of such stories in the US government, including the legendary political party boss Nancy Pelosi who has worked for her entire life as a very modestly salaried public official; giving rise to the never investigated question of how it was possible in 2024 her personal net worth is estimated to be one-quarter of a billion dollars.

In the cult world both Hubbard and Miscavige lived like billionaire royalty while their employees slaved 100-hour-plus weeks for salary in the $10-$50 range. And as noted in other's posts above this one, anyone making too much money drew the attention of these deeply religious gurus who were anxious to "help" their parishioners to keep their "vows of poverty" by stealing all the "field auditors'" cash cows as well as the missions' duped donors and wacky willing whales.

It should never be said, however, that the COS ("Crimewave of Scientology") did not properly "exchange" with their well-looted believers. Because when the donated sums began to reach saintly and messianic stature, the cult awarded their hyper-humanitarian generosity with multi-tier bowling trophies, jumbo medallions, shiny lapel pins and priceless framed certificates that bestowed stunningly status-ful rankings!

And it should be noted that Scientology's ecosystem can very favorably be compared to any Communist Dictatorship in history where nobody except the courageous billionaire leader(s) own anything. Exaggeration? No. Just consider that Scientologists are ordered to purchase TWO (2) emeters, neither of which they own. Or take a moment to refresh your memory about the many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of real estate that Scientology parishioners bought for their church with their own hard-earned money. But the parishioners don't own even one brick in that vast real estate empire because the senior guru(s) of the cult personally own and/or control those "gifts" 100%. Once the massively oversized buildings are purchased for their church, the hapless parishioners then have to donate hundreds of millions additional dollars to "remodel" them. And after that, the pain never stops. With all of the real estate under the absolute control of the two senior OGs (Operating Gurus, Miscavige/Hubbard) the loyal trusting Scientologists then have to PAY MONTHLY VIG for "borrowing" (i.e. "leasing") the premises to conduct church business. Vig is the outlandish and usurious interest that mafia street "loansharks" charge their borrower-customers (e.g. 10% per week) if they wish to not be brutally beaten, hospitalized and/or murdered by a baseball bat wielding mob "enforcer".

Scientology's "debt collectors" however do not use baseball bats. They use e-meters and terroristic threats that the defaulted borrowers will suffer eternal entrapment and nightmarish suffering, forever enslaved in the "mest trap" and subjected to "implants" and other hideous sadism such as having to listen to and write success stories about Ron's pop-song-sensation "Thank You For LIstening".

Hubbard claimed that "SCIENTOLOGY IS THE ONLY GAME IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE EVERYONE WINS!" That is perfectly true if you clear the word "everyone" in a Scientology dictionary.

everyone: The preferred pronoun that Dr.
Hubbard & Minister Miscavige self-identify with. ​

...

 

[Reyne Mayer]

Back before they decided to destroy the missions and field auditors, you had people operating out of their private homes, where the mortgage was paid by the auditor/mission holder from out of his day job.

Then came the insistence that missions had to be operating out of a building in the Church’s name. This made it easier for In Management to seize the assets.

from what i've seen going through the missions and their history, it was a bit more complex than that....

i think there were more problems with missions and field auditors than may be generally known, from their doing stuff they really shouldn't have been doing (which could even cause cases of mental breakdown and psychosis) to keeping two sets of books and hiding money that was supposed to be set uplines -- though typically that was mixed in with hubbardian scapegoating of things with entirely different causes from wider social changes to problems that began with the old man himself.

and at least now, it looks to me like some of the missions have become really just field auditor (and maybe FSM) operations, renting modest spaces to serve existing clients, or else even having collapsed back into the mission holder's home (some of the addresses are PO boxes) as the franchisees have aged and presumably can no longer carry the costs of a location when traffic and income are decreasing.

also, most missions rented and didn't own their own buildings, though some of the big and successful ones did -- ones often involved in the sort of things that got under the Commodore's skin, as noted above.

 

[SuperstarNeilC]

Deleted

 

[Teanntás]

CoS Los Angeles claims for the last year. 2X clears. 8X internship completions. 3X academy completions. 100 survival rundown completions. "29,000 new people walking through our doors".

 

[I M Dex]

CoS Los Angeles claims for the last year. 2X clears. 8X internship completions. 3X academy completions. 100 survival rundown completions. "29,000 new people walking through our doors".

That's a lot of new people to manufacture. Or maybe it's 29 Scientologists, each saying 1,000 times, "I feel like e new person!".

 

[I M Dex]

Wait a minute, when you do the math, "29,000 new people in a single year"= 80 new people a day. The only way a Scientology org could get that much traffic would be if the org's entrance and exit were located directly within the internal walking path inside an Ikea store. They could never pull it off. After 2-3 days, people would start to notice.

 

[PirateAndBum]

CoS Los Angeles claims for the last year. 2X clears. 8X internship completions. 3X academy completions. 100 survival rundown completions. "29,000 new people walking through our doors".

Translating their stellar stats back to reality, they made 2 clears, 8 interns comps and 3 academy comps. 29,000 people walked past our doors.

 

[Teanntás]

My phone now shows "Spam Risk" on Scientology calls .

"Which, apparently, after some sort of “let’s think outside the box” recruiting brainstorm by marketing geniuses at the cult, evolved into the launch of “Let’s Get the Defectors Back!” This theory of mine has been proven out by the fact that many of my closest friends, also long-ago defectors, have been graced by the same graceless bombardment of mail, phone calls, visits, etc., over years and without abatement despite, as in one friend’s case, frequent and Julia-Sugarbaker-level derogations on the folly of the campaign." Harassing for Hubbard: The Relentless Spammery of Scientology Recruiters

 

[onceuponatime]

CoS Los Angeles claims for the last year. 2X clears. 8X internship completions. 3X academy completions. 100 survival rundown completions. "29,000 new people walking through our doors".

The 2x 8x and 3x are meaningless numbers, they all could be up from 1 last year.

I think we can get a little information from the 100 SRD completions. 100 SRD completions means an average of two per week (a little less, I'm generous), what information does that give us? First of all it tells us they are only "organically" getting at most two people into the HGC per week. Sure, they'll have arrivals from other orgs, recoveries, etc. but those aren't "organic" arrivals. PCs going into the HGC for the first time and continuing up the bridge depends on SRD completions. It's worse than 2 per week, plenty of Clears, OTs and people who are already somewhere else on the Bridge get sent to do SRD and they aren't going into the LA Org HGC. Side note, I can't imagine the pressure on the re-sign line right now, I'm sure they are pushing a line of if the person doesn't immediately re-sign/continue their SRD is out-tech, wouldn't shock me if they weren't even letting them attest until they have the person re-signed.

Ok, so that's how the SRD completions relate to the HGC, what else do we know from 2 per week? If the average time is 150-200 hours for SRD (just guessing from what I've heard, it could be closer to 300 these days) they are probably averaging about 400 SRD WDAHs per week, could be more than that, would be a little surprised if it were significantly less.

Since the minimum time a twinship is supposed to put in is 25 hours per week (got to make sure auditing is done intensively) we can guess they have at least 16 twinships (32 students) to hit the 400 WDAHs number. In reality there's no way they are that efficient and you also have to account for some twinships doing more than 25 hours per week. If they are averaging 400 SRD WDAHs per week I'd guess they have about 25 active twinships.

We don't know if 100 SRD completions is up or down compared to last year, we know it isn't 2x or anything like that, or they would've used that number.

A lot of speculation from me, but I think there's some basis there. Also, this is one of the biggest most productive Class V orgs, I'm sure there are many orgs that get 2 SRD completions per year.

The 29,000 number? total fiction, no idea how they are calculating that. Maybe people who walk by on the street?

 

[I M Dex]

The 2x 8x and 3x are meaningless numbers, they all could be up from 1 last year.
The 29,000 number? total fiction, no idea how they are calculating that. Maybe people who walk by on the street?

The "X" in "2x, 8x and 3x" stands for "unit", as in one. The "100 SRD completions"= 100% of the 11 people who started and completed. The 29,000 number breaks down as follows: 41 (now former) friends of staff members, 63 people looking for a bathroom and 28,896 BT's.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

The 29,000 number? total fiction, no idea how they are calculating that. Maybe people who walk by on the street?

are they claiming just the LA org, or all of the Los Angeles area?

for starters, i wonder if it's possible that includes things like people going into the Industry of Death exhibit.

but i could see them desperately stretching it at this point -- and maybe staff on the front lines fudging what they report -- to include stress tests, and people who body routers got to stop to talk. after all, if something like 'arriving' on the ship can be re-construed as just having made some sort of commitment to go there, who knows what 'walking through our doors' could have been re-defined as?

 

[Bill]

are they claiming just the LA org, or all of the Los Angeles area?

for starters, i wonder if it's possible that includes things like people going into the Industry of Death exhibit.

but i could see them desperately stretching it at this point -- and maybe staff on the front lines fudging what they report -- to include stress tests, and people who body routers got to stop to talk. after all, if something like 'arriving' on the ship can be re-construed as just having made some sort of commitment to go there, who knows what 'walking through our doors' could have been re-defined as?

It's a fine example of the huge flaw in Hubbard's "Management by statistics" insanity. When you do that, numbers quickly become insane and completely bogus. It is inevitable.
"20 million Scientologists!". LOL

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

..

are they claiming just the LA org, or all of the Los Angeles area?

for starters, i wonder if it's possible that includes things like people going into the Industry of Death exhibit.

Something really cool (and funny) happened when I just saw your post. Upon reading the bolded orange line, I
started to laugh. I thought (for a few milliseconds) that it was hilarious exaggerated parody when hit the part
about the "Industry of Death exhibit".

A nano-moment later I realized that this was not wildly overblown mockery of Scientology. . .

Because, they really do have an "INDUSTRY OF DEATH" exhibit! LOL LOL LOL

It's just so absurdly bizarre---the freakishness of a "theta church" having an "industry of death"
mini-theme-park...well it just hit me raw and unfiltered. That is majorly fucked-up! LOL

I am sure everyone knows those moments of stunning clarity when the spell is broken and you
actually directly witness the surreal reality, unfiltered!

Well, to be fair & balanced, I guess I should mention that many organizations create fun
theme parks for the public. DISNEY....UNIVERSAL STUDIOS....MAGIC KINGDOM,
LEGO-LAND, et al. These kind of massive tourist attractions make many hundreds
of billions of dollars for their holding companies---thus Scientology sure wanted to
get in on that action!

Magic Kingdom, for example hosted 17.7 MILLION customers last year (2023).

The Industry of Death museum is not far behind, with 17 people who came
inside in 2023. Most of those were maintenance workers doing HVAC,
plumbing and minor painting re-touches to add more red blood to some
of the torture dioramas, in order to 10X the customer visits.


..

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

.

It's a fine example of the huge flaw in Hubbard's "Management by statistics" insanity. When you do that, numbers quickly become insane and completely bogus. It is inevitable.
"20 million Scientologists!". LOL

.
PRO TIP FOR COB: The reason that the earlier press releases that asserted the "20 MILLION SCIENTOLOGISTS" is not bringing a flood of new people in the churches (and that the number is being widely mocked, rejected & ridiculed) is because it's the wrong orders of magnitude.

Dr. Hubbard discovered back in the early 1950s that beings do not respond favorably to small things because a being in their native state factually measures several hundred galaxies wide in diameter. The problem with the 20M number is that it did not keep soaring.

The solution is simple. COB should call a worldwide event to announce "THE GREATEST NEWS IN SCIENTOLOGY'S 75 YEAR HISTORY!!!"

Then he should take the stage and first run a few Group Auditing commands like "look at that wall" in order to get all the Clears and OTs into present time. After that he should start screaming "THE WAR IS OVER! THE WAR IS OVER" countless times, after which he announces that Scientology now has 100 MILLION MEMBERS! (i.e. Big beings adore big numbers!)

At the precise end of him saying the word "MEMBERS" (think instant read) there should be a massive balloon drop. This is done because Ron's wholetrack research revealed that beings suddenly experiencing feelings of doubt/reservations or even cynicism can immediately be brought back up the tone scale if many colorful balloons are dropped from the ceiling.


..

 

[onceuponatime]

The "X" in "2x, 8x and 3x" stands for "unit", as in one. The "100 SRD completions"= 100% of the 11 people who started and completed. The 29,000 number breaks down as follows: 41 (now former) friends of staff members, 63 people looking for a bathroom and 28,896 BT's.

I forgot about the body thetans, yes that number makes sense once you account for the BTs.

are they claiming just the LA org, or all of the Los Angeles area?

for starters, i wonder if it's possible that includes things like people going into the Industry of Death exhibit.

but i could see them desperately stretching it at this point -- and maybe staff on the front lines fudging what they report -- to include stress tests, and people who body routers got to stop to talk. after all, if something like 'arriving' on the ship can be re-construed as just having made some sort of commitment to go there, who knows what 'walking through our doors' could have been re-defined as?

It was on a card from the LA org making claims specifically about what LA org had accomplished in the past year, that's how I read it. The 29,000 number is ridiculous, I don't know how they are justifying it. I'm sure they are counting flyers handed out as someone through their doors or something like that. Perhaps it's counting all orgs and exhibits in the LA area but even that I think would be a stretch, I'm a bit skeptical they would get that many even if you counted everything. Really the only explanation that makes sense is they are counting body thetans.

I'm sure the front lines staff are fudging the numbers but even then I think 29K would be more than they'd report. I wouldn't be shocked if some high up exec just changed the number. They have to make the number big enough so that scientologists think they are accomplishing something. Maybe it's their visitor log? That gets signed by everybody every time they go into the org so it would have a ton of repeats and definitely wouldn't just be "new" people through their doors. That's maybe believable to me as 29K.

 

[Reyne Mayer]

I'm sure the front lines staff are fudging the numbers but even then I think 29K would be more than they'd report. I wouldn't be shocked if some high up exec just changed the number. They have to make the number big enough so that scientologists think they are accomplishing something. Maybe it's their visitor log? That gets signed by everybody every time they go into the org so it would have a ton of repeats and definitely wouldn't just be "new" people through their doors. That's maybe believable to me as 29K.

my observation is that following the old man, they have a childish need to ensure that their misrepresentations and lies have some basis in the truth, so that they can somehow justify internally that they're

it's a phase in development around truth-telling and deception between ages 2 and 4 -- enshrined comically:

 

[onceuponatime]

my observation is that following the old man, they have a childish need to ensure that their misrepresentations and lies have some basis in the truth, so that they can somehow justify internally that they're

it's a phase in development around truth-telling and deception between ages 2 and 4 -- enshrined comically:

Yes, they like to have something they can point to and say no we weren't lying, even when they are stretching the truth to comical lengths. That's why I think the visitor log is a possible explanation, I could see them getting that many people in over the course of a year. Or the higher up OT executive decided to count body thetans, Scientology executives behave like children (they are trained this way) so that also fits.