By Mike Rinder
The continued descent of the Church of Scientology from theta into MEST is well illustrated by the Great Ideal Orgs Scam.
You may recall earlier posts describing the beginning of the incident of this 3rd dynamic engram – Buffalo org the subject of an eminent domain action and Tampa org in a strip mall and an embarrassment to Dear Leader who was in Clearwater to ensure his role as executive C/S of Lisa McPherson didn’t surface in the legal proceedings following her death.
With a continued campaign of propaganda by redefinition of terms, Miscavige’s “bright idea” has now morphed into the “LRH Ideal Org strategy.” Of course, it is nothing of the sort. It is in fact the David Miscavige ideal money making strategy. Anyone who has ever read the Ideal Org PL knows it does NOT call for buying large, unfillable buildings and spending a fortune to turn them into over-the-top demonstrations of wasteful extravagance. In fact, this and other policies warn against just such a thing. But the clubbed seals have swallowed his rotten fish and continue to pay for the privilege to boot. This “strategy” has now taken on the mantle of “Command Intention” (once a term that referred exclusively to the plans, programs and orders of L. Ron Hubbard, now exclusively the whim of Miscavige) and to question/disagree/fail to instantly salute, bow and scrape “on command” is a thought crime of magnitude. Likely to get you declared and subsequently feel the effects of the non-existant disconnection policy enforced by the Hitler Youth (who seem to occupy all MAA/EO positions these days).
So, where does he stand with his “only guarantee of planetary clearing”? Well, truth be told it is just one of several “only guarantees” including turning over all your worldly possessions to the IAS, 10,000 on OT7 (and it seems no matter how many decades they keep people grinding away they still can’t even get halfway there), handing over more cash to “complete” the Superpower “bridge to nowhere” pork barrel project, or getting books into every library (at least sending them, few libraries put the books on their shelves – that’s known before they are shipped).
The church, through its puppet spokesperson Karin Pouw (Charlie McCarthy to Miscavige’s Edgar Bergen) constantly refers to the “new churches” opened around the world – “10 in just the last 12 months”, “30 in the last 5 years” etc etc as “proof” of the huge expansion of the church under the brilliant leadership of the Dear Leader. Miscavige hammers this home at every event. In fact it is the ONLY thing there is to show to “prove” the “massive, straight up and vertical expansion.” It has become his obsession and along with the IAS, THE most important activity of the RCS.
But there is a gaping hole in his theory that even the media has started to comment on.
There are no NEW orgs, there are only new BUILDINGS. And they are empty.
In spite of the astonishing, mind boggling international expansion, there isn’t a new org to be seen ANYWHERE on planet earth. Not one since Moscow, St Petersburg and Athens in the 90’s. Not a single one of the “more missions than ever in history and opening at a rate beyond anything ever experienced” has turned into an org. Not even Kaoishuing which has had an empty “Ideal Org Building” for a decade.
So, now it seems a new strategy has emerged. Take an existing small and failing non-org, move it to a different town nearby, and herald it as “new.” Thus Kitchener “org” (many had never heard of it) becomes “Cambridge” org as it moved 5 miles from its old location to the adjoining town. Maybe he thinks this will fool people into thinking this is a NEW org? My god….
And what of the latest “Ideal Org” to open?
Pretoria in South Africa (another non-org most outside of church management have never even heard of).
It is the first “Ideal Org” in South Africa since Joburg – one of the few orgs that really was expanded by the “Ideal Org” program when they moved out of crime ridden downtown Joburg to a campus in a more upscale neighborhood. In fact, it may be the only “ideal org” where the move resulted in a bettered scene (at least temporarily). Miscavige made a big deal about it, “South Africa will be the first clear country” and he is “personally going to see to it” hype. That was 8 years ago now. Capetown, Port Elizabeth, Bulawayo and Harare (the last two where there are no full time staff) have had “Ideal Org” buildings purchased for many years and they sit empty — let alone the “AO” at the Kyalami Castle where the church has to pay to hold events as it is being rented out to others.
Joburg today has about 40 staff and backlogged utilities bills of a million rand — all the attention is on collecting money for more “ideal orgs” and IAS and book packages and no attention is on expanding the org. So, even this “model” that started out as a bright spot has faded in the face of the church of MEST.
Now, here’s the rub on Pretoria.
The South African public have dedicated themselves to making “Command Intention” a reality. So, in spite of all odds, they pushed forward and managed to get Pretoria “done.” Pretoria, another non-org like Kitchener and Canberra and St Etienne and Long Island and Lausanne and, and, and….
The opening was held last weekend. But that is when things went oh so wrong. The wheels are coming off the emperor’s command intention wagon train.
First, despite 10 years of “massive expansion” there were less than HALF the number of people at the opening as for the Joburg opening nearly a decade ago (and it was primarily Joburg staff and public that made Pretoria happen – they are about 30 miles apart).
Second, the org reportedly has a grand total of 80 staff – many of whom are part time. No longer a standard Day and Foundation (that idea was scrapped some time ago it seems).
Third, they have not completed funding the interior furnishings.
Fourth, in the ultimate slap in the face, “COB” sent a “representative” in his place (he has attended every grand opening, even “re-openings” except where he fears things may not be safe — he didnt go to Moscow for example, though he did go to Melbourne). So, who was his personal emissary? Not ED Int (not on post), nor President CSI (not on post) nor even anyone from RTC (there isn’t anyone left to send as they have all been busted too). No, he sent the CO CMO IXU, Kerrie Ibert. A nobody. And they don’t have anyone apparently capable of being the local MC, so he also dispatched Erin Banks as the event “MC” — another nobody.
Of course, it’s a Catch 22 for Dear Leader. He didn’t want to go himself (and this HAD to be done so he would have something to show at the upcoming March 13 event) but he doesn’t have anyone of stature to send. The Scientology public have never been told that Guillaume Lesevre, Heber Jentzsch, Ray Mithoff, Marc Yager etc etc are “declared SPs” long since removed from post. So, the South African staff and public took this as a direct, personal insult. Miscavige thinks so little of them and their efforts, he sends some flunky nobodies to conduct their “grand opening.” And he even went to “Cambridge” in the middle of a blizzard just a few weeks ago. Major field opinion leaders didn’t even attend the event….
As a result of his disdain for the “little people”, South Africa may become the first country to secede from the RCS. There are a lot of very unhappy people with a bad taste in their mouth. And like Australians, they tend to have a rebellious, independence-minded attitude…
So, don’t be surprised if there is some big news coming out of South Africa in the near future.
But what has happened in Pretoria “ideal org” since the “grand opening” a week ago? Someone who toured the org in the middle of primary production time (one of the “87 new people who came in since we opened” hype they have been sending around to show how great things are going) reported that in the SIX courserooms there was a grand total of ONE public student (and one staff member). And in the TWENTY NINE auditing rooms there was a grand total of ZERO people in session.
Not only that, there are still piles of construction rubble and incomplete painting and other “punch list” items outstanding throughout the “ideal org.”
This is what happens when MEST becomes the priority, and even more so, when Miscavige’s events and showing phony videos takes precedence over delivery of Scientology (the March 13 Pretoria video will make it sound like the place is “taking off like a rocket with unprecedented expansion as part of the IDeal Org strategy of planetary clearing.”
Here is a shot of THE lone public in the “new” Pretoria “ideal org”:
Meanwhile, anyone have a clue what happened to the “Ideal Org” buildings that were purchased and have never opened in Battle Creek, New Haven, St Louis, Chicago, San Diego, Kansas City, Auckland, Portland and other cities?
Or any reports on the current scene in the “Ideal Orgs” in Rome, Nashville, Phoenix, Denver, Cincinnati, St Paul, Malmo, DC, Moscow, Berlin, Seattle, Brussels, Madrid, London, Buffalo (since it was “reopened”) or any of the other “ideal” orgs? I would like to get current reports from any with first hand knowledge.
If Scientologists actually got the facts about what is REALLY going on in the “Ideal Orgs” it might help save some of them from financial ruin supporting a false cause.
Captain Miscavige is sailing his listing ship in ever smaller circles, soon to disappear into its own vortex. It is inevitable. But the sooner it happens, the sooner the passengers are going to jump overboard and can be saved from drowning in a sea of out tech and red ink.
If you have information about the current scene in the orgs, or can pay a visit to your local org for some eyewitness accounts (photos would be a wonderful addition), I would love to hear from you at idealorg@hushmail.com.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Reblogged this on 31 Factors.
Thankyou for the update. I am speechless but not surprised.
Ray Charles could see this coming.
I suggest that today, we all cut and and paste this excellent article and email it to all our friends – who like we “were”, are today trapped, scared, confused and bankrupt, watching their lives disintegrate all the while clinging on to the hope that this mind numbing, Hitler Youth type crusade they seem to be swept up in beyond their own control, that they have sunk all their entire life’s savings and dignity into, has not all been in vain and that despite what they feel in their heart of hearts – that it is gone horribly wrong – that there is maybe a slight feint chance that they might be part of the group that perhaps could perhaps, maybe, might be saving mankind – a little teeny bit, just a dot, just a tiny little chance….. and that they are not actually in fact clinging to the bow of the Titanic and about to wake up and find they are penniless, and all their opinion leader friends who seemed to be so valiant and Gung Ho before them, are also robots, duped by a giant PONZI scheme scam like they are!!
And maybe instead of continuing down that road, they, without any Command Intention or Orders or “OTC Program Compliance Targets”, could just go off and audit somebody they know who needs help and feel all the real joy, thrill and excitement of being valuable to society.
It’s just an idea!!
I love how the tone of this post satirically follows that of the events. A very fun read!
Thanks for the update , Mike.
Great article, Mike.
I posted a write up I did last summer on Cinncinati Org at http://www.idleorgs.com which inludes a couple of photos and a comparison with the old location they moved out of which shows what a sham and scam it all is.
A few words come to mind Mike.
Shocking
Nauseating
Suppressive
Disturbing (are those course room tables made out of granite?)
Funny how DL was in Canada and I never heard peep from anywhere. Must have been top secret reveal with no fanfare. Usually the “big cheese” would have made news coming all the way Up North to visit lowly old cold Canada.
Surely he did not dine on Beavertails or fries and gravy but had his personal chef whip him up a 5 course meal as he ran back on his private jet.
DL — please give us a head’s up next time.
And here, pick up the cans — we have a few questions for you. As—–le.
Marty I just got a notice on my email of a post called the reformation act. It is however not on your blog sight, nor can I access any comments. What is going on? Great post Mike.
There’s one of us who recognized Pretoria Org 🙂
Most of my Scientology career was in that org and it has always been small and struggling. Occasionally it would grow somewhat and be able to fudge stats to show 40 staff, but it was seldom more than about 5 core people, the rest would be hangers on of one form or another putting in a few hours a week. All too often you’d find some of those new staff were kids of on-lines public who would pop in after school. It never lasted.
Mike, any idea who the current ED is? I myself have no idea and don’t care enough to pop in and see. There are many people in Pretoria I consider friends and I’ve never shied away from posting with my real name. Me suddenly showing up would create problems for them with up-lines and I don’t want to subject my friends to that.
If the current ED is still Willem Jacobsz, well then management is going to have a problem. Willem has staying power you would not believe, he can dig his heels in like a mule and when he gets pissed off you don’t want to be in the room. Expecting Miscavige and getting Jeanie and Mike’s kid – that would seriously piss Willem off.
Alan
Very much appreciate your post, but I take an exception to calling those staff “nobodies”.
Yes, I can see why the Pretoria staff and public might take offense and with some justice. But it just brought back the whole pecking order experience of being a staff member and dealing with management.
As a 30-plus year veteran of Scientology staffs and Sea Org service orgs, I witnessed many Int Management execs visiting the churches I was working in. Lots of times they were very nice guys, but much too often I understood in their gestures, expressions and attitude that my team mates and I were being regarded by these visitors as nobodies.
Sometimes this was silently communicated; other times these thoughts were confirmed in a muster during the execs’ visits: we were not thought well of.
As a staff member I was fully convinced that we were a movement more than an organization and that no one was to be thought of as a “nobody”; I thought that we were all to grow bigger and brighter and that was an understood fact for all of us. It seemed “right” to me that no one should be more aware of that then our execs.
No one cared for the smug arrogance of the visiting SO Exec no matter how many ribbons he or she had on his or her coat or how bright the lanyard. We were all silently amused when we would find out that our visiting management guru had, much more often than not, put in very little or no time in a service org and couldn’t sell or deliver a comm course let alone lead an organization.
I don’t know Erin Banks or Kerrie Ibert; I guess the likelihood is that they are the grown-up kids of SO members, probably born in the early 80’s, before we were told we could not have kids anymore. If so, the likelihood is that they grew up virtually without parents, at either the PAC or Int ranch and they had a half dozen adults marching them around and treating them like nobodies.
I am imagining that DM chose these people as they could sort of “be” him to a large extent. From there, I am imagining that they are likely very unhappy people who probably in general make life miserable for others.
But neither of them are “nobodies”. That’s part of the molding process that seems to happen in SO management: generally treat people like dogs until they do something you want and then validate them. What’s validated grows stronger; it’s a conditioning. Generations of this and you’ve got a culture of management being jerks.
Since I was routed out of the SO, I’ve met a few of these arrogant people out here in our “real world”. And, what do you know? They’re good people: smile at kids, don’t kick dogs, say “thank you” and tip the service people. I’ve been surprised and impressed!
From what I understand, Marty, you were once amongst those who used to consider much of the rest of us to be nobodies, but the buckets of water thrown in your face since you’ve left have brought you back to the consciousness that you are a real person — and that we are, too. I’m happy for that.
I appreciate your post and the good intention that it was written with, but it brought back too many sad reminders of my past. There’s been just a few times where I have read here from you and others talking about lower execs as being people without influence, who didn’t really count.
And you’re probably right in many cases: that we had little influence. But that’s not what we dreamed of when we joined and it didn’t really have to be that way. We were all willing people who wanted to make a difference and make our presence count. The attitude of our “superiors” often did not encourage that.
I know that this is not the point of your post, but I’ve seen this before in your posts and also in other previous execs’ comments, I think, and it’s just too reminiscent of “back in the day”.
If we as Scientologists had been experiencing in our day to day lives a managing of Scientology more in accordance with the fundamental basics of Scientology, there would be no slight experienced if lower execs were to officiate at landmark events; Banks and Iberts would have been oohed and aahed when they took the podium as they should be: they would have been viewed as proud and competent dedicated Scientologists and applauded sincerely.
But that sort of a vision of an ideal management as expressed in “An Essay on Management” may have been warped well out of shape many, many Flag Orders ago.
All bubbles burst. LRH’s Finance policies are spot-on – because they are based on economic reality. The “Ideal Org” strategy of DM’s is proof that Ron is out circling a star somewhere, because if he were around here, it would be Mr. David Miscavige’s head circling the star, not Ron.
This just shows that Mike does not understand what is going on. Come on man. Its Us….. and Them! Us…Them! Us…Them. See, we are way up here, and They are way down there – Us ……Them! When you understand that you’ve got it man- Pow! It’s there. You understand we have to look like we are us. It’s not about filling up buildings with the “them” people, it’s about us, looking like we are up here! not down there with Them! Are you getting it? you have to look good. You have l o o k gooood! After all we are the only ones that can help so we have to look like we can help ourselves. Are we are helping ourselves. Big time! So there. Be Us, not Them and you will get it right away.
“In speaking regularly with spiritual seekers, it dawned on me one day how addicted so many of them are to the power of charisma. They swap stories about how powerful this or that teacher is and compare experiences. They get a charge from it… many mistaking charisma for enlightenment. Charisma attracts at all levels: political, sexual, spiritual, etc., and it feeds the ego’s desire to feel special. The ego loves getting hits of power—it’s like a form of spiritual candy. The candy may be sweet but can you live on it? Does it make you free?” Adyashanti
This is DM’s addiction and until he steps down nothing is going to change…Take away all his slaves who support his insanity and he will fall like a Flan in cubbard.
DM is theKing and Queen of spin!!!! It actually is very comical and he is the laughing stock of many media communities and for sure every religious community. But does he really care for one nano second, NO! He will just keep the sheep flocking his way bc they are stupid and blind as he said in one of his speeches. I guess the flock really is stupid and blind. DM had that stat correct for sure bc all of the other stats are FALSE!!!
If you squint closely enough you will see a second student materialize to the right behind the pillar. That’s 2X expansion in 5 seconds flat! Maybe if you stare hard enough at the photo more students appear, like those 3D illustrations from which spaceships and dragons appear. Maybe even some clay tables, tech or admin dictionaries, or even a word clearer, which all seem to be absent from it at first glance. I’ll keep staring and see what happens…
Fascinating report. Zimbabwe was under the auspices of the UK CLO for a long time – I think management of that country was eventually passed over to South Africa a while back. When Harare Org was on the 1st Floor of the State Lottery Building – yes really – in the early 90s there was mission after mission just to keep the doors open. It was a desperate scene – I know as I was on one of them – despite having been out of the SO for several years. The desperately poor local population by and large had more urgent priorities than “becoming flag bearers for standard tech” or whatever nonsense. Clean water and putting food on the table to keep their kids from starving kind of seemed more important than studying esoteric organisational theory. (What dilettantes). The majority of the staff and public, not surprisingly, had rather criminal tendencies and if you didn’t literally nail things down in the Org, or take them home every night then for sure they would be gone by morning.
True story: One day the DSA Harare – drunk as a skunk on local whiskey – called a muster at an unscheduled time. Since the two Sea Org missionaires had been recalled to the UK for having an adulterous relationship, I was left holding the fort alone – no money, no help. I went in to the muster to find the staff had been whipped up into a frenzy of mutinous fervor, and as the only white guy, and a foreigner to boot, I was the subject of their ire. They were loudly demanding a minimum wage, and workers rights and I was a “South African Agent”. A violent confrontation was only averted when a quick thinking passer by got a policeman inside.
Areas such as these could use some help for sure – Ideal Orgs doesn’t come close.
Come on now, you exaggerate. There are twice as many publics in the photo. Look to the far right…Yep. Two public. :o)
Sorry for not making it clear. That is a staff member.
Martin, the other guy is a staff member. Sorry to disappoint….
It is the public in South Africa that consider them “nobodies” and an insult, not me or Marty. You didnt understand the significance of this. It is a problem for Miscavige that he maintains the pretense that there are people on post in International Management and that Heber is still “President CSI” and Guillaume is still “ED Int” etc etc. It’s just more of his witholds and because of this, a “no name” shows up representing him rather than any of the people they know and they consider it an insult…. Thus, they are “nobodies” because they are unknown, not because they are truly “nobodies.” Kerrie Ibert is a Hitler Youth, but I don’t know Erin Banks (from what I have seen of her dealing with softball media on org openings, she seems to be quite nice).
yes, I thought I saw some epaulets on that “student”.
Geez…they can’t even find one public person for a photo op. That speaks volumes in addition to everything stated in the article.
This subject is of high interest to me. The Ideal Org building scam and fundraising is one of the great issues that helped awaken me to the rest of the lies. I knew from day one of the program, that this was not LRH policy or program or anything having to do with standard anything. Hard to believe there are some that still buy into David Miscavige’s BS.
So Mike, we may call them:
The Lone Public Orgs.
I guess that’s more appropriate as it looks like. Hahaha. I will more extensively comment on your excellent write up.
God… Martin, you must be kidding! Are these the conditions in the org down there? Wow…
The dude in the gold vest is a freakin’ Staff Member, people. That’s a Staff uniform. This means that ONE public is in the course room.
I want to imagine that Kerrie is the child of long time mid management exec Mike Ibert and that he’s still one of the good guys, doing his best to make things a little better and get some auditing delivered in spite of it all. If that’s the case, it’s my hope theirs a little bit of his good influence still evident in her.
I’ve read enough from you and seen enough of your videos before and after your departure to know what came out of your mouth and what lived in your heart back when you were the spokesman was not the same thing. Let’s hope that Kerrie and Erin find their hearts too before they become completely calcified.
I don’t think I misunderstood you in your writing and tried my best to say what I said without creating offense. I did not want to make it personal against you or Marty.
I used to be Pta org, 28 years. Left in 2000. I knew Willem well. He is on Facebook
He used to be a friend but as I have a golden rod, I am persona non grata.
If you are near an Ideal Org I guess you could go in and say your name is Harry Sack and would like a tour. If you don’t want to do that you could just observe and maybe film the org from a distance.
Saturday or Sunday right before roll call or on a week night if there aren’t cars in the parking lot and people headed into the building with materials in hand you have a pretty good indicator right there.
It’s been over a year now, but when I went to Nashville before I “came out”, and took a tour it was pretty dead. My posting of the details here was part of my SP declare. I’ve thought of setting up a camera across the street or something next time I’m in Nashville.
I think observing parking lot and building entry activity would be a good indicator to go by. Obviously if there are three cars in the lot at 7pm on Friday night at an Ideal Org you have a big “BIS” problem.
I’ve never been into protesting or getting into anything in that area, but I don’t see a problem with quietly setting up a camera and documenting the actual scene for a few minutes.
I have a tripod and a video camera with a decent optical zoom (30x). If anybody has a problem with it I’ll just say I’m filming a documentary (like the Squirrel Busters).
Hey, its not my post.
Hi Alan – as a recent ex Joburg Northerner, I can say that Willem and Marina are still around, and yes, I think Willem is still the ED. What is very telling about all this is that there is an expectation that Miscavige should attend – and it is because the whole “Ideal Org” project is because of a “who” and not really because there is a “why”. A lot of people I know seem to go on this “do or die” crusade because they think Miscavige must be OT 15 or something and knows something the rest of us mere mortals don’t. He has really done a great job on creating the “myth-tery” that keeps the koolaiders swallowing it wholesale, without realising that this could very well be a “do AND die” crusade.
I also think Kerrie Ibert could be Mike and Jeanie’s daughter-in-law. I know they have a son who married one of the Murray girls (I could be wrong – its 20 years since I saw the Iberts. I was very fond of Mike Ibert – a really good guy.) If that is correct then Kerrie would have grown up here. Perhaps all the bad press we have been getting about the high crime rates here put Miscavige off. (Every cloud has a silver lining!)
I know that a bunch of people have sweated blood to get that Org financed and put in place – because of an arbitrary deadline imposed upon them to open the building – I feel for them, but can’t help but wonder why there has not been a full scale mutiny. Maybe that’s coming.
Eish! You and I have dodged a bullet here in crime capital.
Hey Wendy,
Great idea. I think I’ll just do a little bit of that auditing somebody without anyone telling me I HAVE to.
Les
Mike, I fully understood the point of your post re: the “nobodies”. Miscavige could have at least sent the infamous Jenny Linson there. She could have slapped some people around and given everyone a real memorable experience.
Yeah I know (figured that out after Mike answered me). I did not read his byline when I first wrote. It’s OK with me if you delete this as it’s a little off subject. Might be best. It just smarted a little when I read the “nobody” thing and heard stuff like that before. I’ll put a little band-aid on my oww-ie and give myself a kiss and I’ll be ok.
Wow Martin! I grew up in Harare (when it was Salisbury) – and I can just picture the scene you describe. Yes things went really crazy there. The economy collapsed so monumentally badly and inflation hit so high that the government was printing trillion dollar notes. Dead serious!! I have seen such a note. And then at one stage, printing money on only one side of the note because they ran out of ink (I heard). The Zim dollar collapsed and now the currency used is the US dollar. I know many people have resorted to the barter system. Imagine…. you could get a dozen eggs and a week’s supply of milk for comm course! Its going to be a gargantuan challenge in the foreseeable future.
Martin – I have long read your posts and had the highest regard for you . That just 5x’ed right now with this post of yours. Respect!
Dave, Dave, Dave, you’ve been betrayed again by the DBs in Sweden. When you opened up the Idle org in Malmö a few years ago the SPs in the org probably purposely did not tell you that the org had moved to an industrial suburb called Arlöv. You could have played the “new org” card heavily for all of 2010. But those bastards screwed you over once again. And after everything you did for them in the first place by issuing the order to Angie on the way to your tanning bed! Their betrayal can never be made good. But that’s the price that the Big Beings have to pay.
No Bela this photo was not a photo op. This is what the orgs actually look like when Gold’s famous photo ops aren’t staged! Kudos to the photog who got this shot off too. Thank YOU to whoever you are who got the poop on the poop!
🙂 yeah, or gone “parking lot” on them cursing in their faces with spittle flying…. She made an everlasting impression on a lot of people with that performance, including John Sweeney on the other end of the phone!
OK Dan. I hope they come to their senses too. The purpose of this is to try to get people to do exactly that….
Mike, this series of articles about the Ideal Orgs is really eye opening and stunning. It seems like under DM’s leadership they just keep going down the havingness scale. This program of replace public getting lots of auditing and training with big empty buildings is clearly “Substitute” and now their at “Waste Substitute” on the way to “Had.”
ahh…yes, of course. Thanks Gayle.
With all the “people-less” photos and videos they do of the Orgs, showing how great the MEST all is, I was confused to actually see a few real people. 🙂
And I still think that one “public” person may be staff…wearing epaulets?
Martin!!!!!!!!!! I was wondering where you got to.
How are you doing these days? It’s Alan McKinnon here.
Dan, Erin Banks is a wealthy girl with all of hmmmm 3-4 years of ANY staff experience. Her and her wealthy Aussie husband were recruited from public lines to groom her and immediately put her on the front lines because she’s pretty and can string sentences together rather well. The family she married into – one of the wealthiest down under according to her step-mother. She was not raised by SO parents. Her parents did put in time as mission staff but mostly worked in the field. Her dad became a dear friend of mine when he married an even dearer friend who baths in kool-aid. (Jesus do I sound bitter) Irving Peiwansky is her dad. He is one of the loveliest men you’d ever want to meet. A Class VIII from the old days who continued to produce through the decades of shitstorm including the Mission unmock. So Erin, being the less than stellar example of TWTH, has little to NO street cred in the world of staff members. I found her to be a bit lacking in manners, respect and wisdom. In other words, a good CMO type.
But I digress, Philadelphia MIke, don’t forget my org! Philly bought an 80K sq ft building in the heart of the city. Thanks to myself and one other staff member we torpedoed the effort to buy a campus in Villanova countryside! A location inaccessible by train, subway or foot. My role in torpedoing that was one of the items in my “comm ev”. I was found to be “CI to the Ideal Org project”. I was in error to stand up and loudly write my reports on the violations of policy of such a purchase and demanded that the mission recognize that my tech team would NOT be able to get back and forth from home and post without cars. Cars that many of them didn’t own so they could reduce their overhead to such a low amount that they could be FULLTIME staff!!! However I again digress. That big beautiful building that did represent the hopes for the St Hill Sized org I’d spent 17 years working toward at the time has sat empty since early 2007. The current scene in Philadelphia is that the tech resources from when I was there have been cut by 2/3rds. Staff who were there for years as part of a dedicated group have dispersed and gone off to do other things. The new ED was an unreplaced auditor from the HGC.
So what I’d like to say to the management who let this happen “How’s that all working out for you?”
If Willem is still ED, then he must the longest running ED of any org on the planet ever, beating even Debbie Cook. Willem took over after Robyn and Hendrik in about 89 or so.
I can only imagine the amount of blood that went into that org. I remember Joburg Day and that was a nightmare. Do Wilmien and Peach still run the Idle Morgue program?
Jenny Linson? In Pretoria?!?
Good Lord, that would not have gone down well in Pretoria, and they already have Peach to deal with. Kerrie would be well received most likely – many many old timers remember Jeannie and Mike fondly (Mike recruited me), a daughter or daughter-in-law would receive respect. If Kerrie is a Murray girl who married Mike’s son as Wendy suggests, then doubly so. The Murray’s have been around for FOREVER.
Alan
I’m not convinced Ideal Orgs was even a Miscavige original thought. You may remember Mt View’s grand opening with the Mayor on their Org Board. I don’t have all the details, but I do know that Jan Silber ED MT VIEW told me at lunch one day, back in ’06 as we were catching up, she called Dear Leader about creating an Ideal Org in Mountain View, and date coincident has it he started the campaign shortly after, she was pissed not getting acknowledged nor any support from CoS.
I copied Mike’s report and sent to an old friend insider (still? we shall see) OTV in SA.
Some added time: our lunch was 06′, we hadn’t seen each other for many years. MtV became an Ideal Org I believe around 2002, someone can fact check that.
By report the Dallas Ideal Org has just over a dozen staff that show up routinely for work. Four of those work in the Public Divisions. They are out in the middle of an industrial ghost town miles from any body traffic, and they are in constant financial trouble often lacking enough money to buy light bulbs. Staff pay runs about $15 a week, almost enough for a pizza! Meanwhile these same staff have a target to raise $2.5 million for the IAS this year.
Troubleshooter Gayle… thanks for that update. I’ve met Irving and liked him and I know he’s seen a lot. I wonder if your involvement with Philly coincides at all with mine. I would tour there representing ASHO in the early to late 80’s. Many good and colorful people. Sad to consider, but I imagine that it’s rare that the Race St. Academy is ever full, let alone anything approaching Old SH size.
Miscavige could have squeezed one last thriving Mission (Costa Rica) into an Ideal Org, but his Basics release took all of Management off post, and our submission to RTC sat on the shelf collecting dust. Of course, the hard work was wasted and the 50 or so staff soon dwindled back down to less than 25.
The report in Dallas is that the “150 staff” (at 2009 ribbon-cutting) which dwindled to less than 75 (the majority imported from California and elsewhere) last year when I went on course as the sole public Academy student, has recently been holding muster with as little as 15 staff reporting. And they were “fundraising” for light bulbs. Miscavige will have to choose between closing it down, or paying the $20,000+ electric bill during the upcoming air-conditioner season.
Mr. PTS-to-the-Middle-Class himself should realize that his choice of locating the new Org in prime-real-estate golf country, also means thousands of dollars required just to water the lawn and avoid huge city fines for letting the grass lose its required deep green (not to mention that there is no foot traffic anywhere around – no way to hand out film tickets and even get a new person started).
Scott Gordon
former DSA Costa Rica; DSA CCDallas
Active Professional Auditor-Counselor Class 0+
Thanks for the info Scott. All valuable data. I am putting together a pack of real facts about Ideal Orgs to send out to the media. The church has sent out hundreds if not thousands of pages of “D/A” material about me and others, I figure it is about time to reverse the flow….
🙂
🙂 Oh yeah Mike, she is the parking lot queen, or perhaps more appropriately the parking lot dominatrix wannabe.
Thanks Steve. Info separately confirmed by Scott. As I said to him, I plan to compile a pack of material to send out to the media — the RCS is always complaining that the media ignores the astonishing expansion demonstrated by the Ideal Orgs. I figure they should know just how astonishing it REALLY is…..
The Emperor has no clothes!!!
Scientologists are not going to know the facts about the ideal org scam or much of anything else about the CoS. Churchies are made up primarily of two groups 1) the young and the ignorant second and third generation folks, who are almost completely ignorant about practically everything on the planet including Scientology and 2) the fossilized old timers who are in complete “accept and believe” mode and have very little self determinism left to do anything else. Though I will admit that the few old timers who still are willing to comm to me say that they are winning in the CoS.
So the whole ideal org scam is just accepted by these folks as they would accept the sun coming up every morning, it just IS. I have absolutely no “sympathy” or really even any attention units for them at all. Tough shit. You agree, so you give up your mest to mest. You make your bed, you lie in it. I know of former friends who gave up their inheritances, their savings, etc to this scam. I gave a few hundred bucks and REFUSED to give away ANY of my savings at all, thus I still have my money.
The only way to break away from the above postulate cycle is the way we all have on this blog: 1) individual has experienced an amount of abuse and/or insanity that “crosses the line” for him/her. 2) individual realizes now that SOMETHING IS TERRIBLY WRONG. 3) individual decides to FIND OUT MORE. 4) individual now begins to become enlightened about the CoS. 5) individual STARTS TO THINK FOR HIMSELF/HERSELF. and cycle continues from there
Hi Gayle – you’re from Philly? I know a few people there who came out of SDV in Cherry Hill. Good folks – I know some of them are still shoveling the coal.
The “EXCHANGE” Policy Letter comes to mind.
BTW. Miscavige never was to a “Grand Opening” in Germany.
Great essay.
I wish there were an end terminal to receive your essay though. (I’m still so disappointed that the list of the “Hole” category people which was listed out either hear on this blog or on another chat site, that the long list of who is in the “Hole” are such sadly leftorver group of Sea Org “top leaders” who are very sorely deficient at being admin trained people, bar a scant few amongst them (Yager, Ingber, and a few others) , which means your thoughts above fall sadly on very deaf and admin-deficiently trained ears, if your thoughts above were ever allowed to even reach the ears of the people at the Int Base who should take some steps to plot a new course for the movement away from all of Miscavige’s bad directions.
.LRH iway more is still alive, via his admin writings, via the staff hatting 2 and 1/2 hours a day that staff, the ones who get staff study time, to read and re-read what LRH said for them to do.
In all honestly, I think you and Marty might just not have appreciated staff study time, and getting those minutes to re-study the admin policies, even if you did re-study the basic policies over and over and over, over the years.
Times over equals certainty, and my thoughts are that study of the admin policies that LRH laid out for the whole upper echelons, of the movement, will ALWAYS strike whomever reads those writings, as THE most important, even over top of anything Miscavige is warpingly telling them!
Scientology’s whole hierarchical movement (Class 5, Sea Org, Int Base) staffs are STILL doing their study times, 5 days a week, and doing their hat packs for their posts, and they are re-reading for the umteenth time the LRH bottom line orders.
In the context of all of their future lives, I’m sure that plenty of them truly believe, even if silently, privately, to themselves, they are DOING THEIR JOBS FOR LRH!
I was, and I’m a long gone ex Scientologist, atheist. But I didn’t give a goddamn for Miscavige. I was there, in the Sea Org for LRH and for the LONG future of this whole fricking universe! (Not now, but then, for god’s sake, I was there for LRH’s vision of helping!)
How Miscavige pushed himself into this position of “filling LRH’s position” what a total crock of shit. LRH never wanted anyone to fill his boots. Pat Broeker had that point correct, at LRH’s funeral event, where Pat said there is only one “Source.”
I’m sure, that there are others, still in, who are there, for the LONG TERM vision of LRH, for the long TERM tuture. I’ll bet that even people like Wendell Reynolds and Mark Ingber are NOT there for Miscavige. They are there for LRH!!!
As much as I love and respect your and Marty’s great thoughts, I was there for LRH’s vision which just pushed so very far into the future, way beyond our current scene.
To me, Miscavige is a bad fad, a really bad asshole fad era of the movement. Miscavige is a weird little piece of shit!!!
So many smarter and long term wiser Sea Org members ought to have been put into the Exec Strata and WDC, and really make those top councils work, which never was allowed to happen, in my opinion.
Thanks MIke, and Marty!
Now that’s an awesome idea!
Lol, yeah, that’s astonishing all right. Hey another person was on a cruise recently and ran into the Freewinds in Aruba. Her ship had 2,000 people on board. The Freewinds had about 20 people on board. Something tells me 20 people are not enough to keep an entire ship fueled up and running.
This really opens an earlier door — we all think of the Ideal Org fiasco as beginning in modern times, but there is a predecessor: The Slavewinds. There is DM’s first pre-planned org, built to order and from the moment this poorly-conceived floating mega-org opened it has never been able to support itself. Thus it relies on rent from the IASA, and bozo “seminars,” “OT Debugs” (that don’t work) and “OT Courses” — all services dreamed up by Mary Ziff in CMU in 1988 on the third floor of the main building in LA — to keep some money trickling in.
Hi Alan. Yes, even I remember the Murrays, and that was a loooong time ago. I also remember Stan and Sion – wonder if they are still around. And I am betting the largest public donor here was Louis Peens…..
Astonishing for sure. That’s perfect Mike! I was thinking while reading your main post how important this ideal org scam should be to the media. You are saving some life’s I’m sure by getting the truth revealed.
Hello Chuck.
Nice comment.
“In the context of all of their future lives, I’m sure that plenty of them truly believe, even if silently, privately, to themselves, they are DOING THEIR JOBS FOR LRH!”
I am sure the majority of Church Scientologists still are convinced they are doing it for LRH.
That’s the only reason Miscavige implants them with “his own love to LRH”.
He uses the “correct” button (“we” do it for LRH).
Too sad, but actually they are beaten down to the condition of treason and confusion. They can’t tell the difference between LRHs vision and the “new order”
Blogposts like this one from Mike are very appreciated, as this work helps those behind the walls of the church to get the R-Factor on the current scene. I first thought, oh no Mike, not again Ideal Orgs, but when I started to read I very soon changed my mind. This one was different.
Mike: If you pack centers around the picture above the wanderings left to the imagination are limitless. Looking at this photograph one can conclude that a single person Academy indicates:
A. Totally personalized service tailored to each students particular needs (as if the person in this photo told the Ideal Org staff “Leave me the hell alone!” and so they did with a smile and let him study his NED all by himself! 🙂
B. The Org this photo is from is not doing too well.
C. The person in the Academy is a vagrant and is trespassing and the supervisor has just about reached his limits of ARC with the guy!
Scientology, it really cracks people up, but Mike, when you really think about, it is kind pathetic, FOR THEM! 🙂
Dan,
Your face looks familiar Dan. I first joined staff in ’85. I went to Flag to train up as cramming officer in ’86. Linda Stanton was Snr C/S and when she was spirited off in the night (literally) to join the SO Don Cramer became our Snr C/S. I had twin boys who were in the org nursery, do you remember that nursery??? We had more than a dozen kids in the org nursery at that time period.
When I was Snr C/S which was the last 8 years of my 18 on staff the Academy was full on the weekends. Much like all Class V orgs the week days were another story but I did have a TTC and 5 supervisors at the peak of my career which was 5X what it was when you were there. Sandy (Alexander) Lattimore was the only supe our org had for years and years and years and was the case during the years you came to the org. EDs over that time period were Doug Daniloff then Jeff Battershall. You MUST remember Jeff and Sandy!
It is sad to realize that the building that was bought by our field and staff that held the hopes for a space big enough to become the size of Old St Hill has sat empty for 7 years SEVEN! and they’re no closer today to renovating it that we were in Jun of ’07.
Mike,
The lunacy noise level emanating from the bunker in Hemet, California is deafening. Pope Moe, aka COB, couldn’t even show up at his own showcase runway event?
The end is near because POB fears being slapped both legally and publicly.
Regards the tone scale, here’s an ultimate example of ‘Hiding Bodies’. Then again it’s probably much lower.
#1 through #5 looks very correct, Joe. That was the sequence for me.
Local information here is that in Sydney, the fundraising has run into a brick wall. The org moved into a temporary space while the funds were raised to renovate the Elizabeth Street building. Then the building they were leasing was sold — so they had to move again to another temporary space. They found another and moved in a year ago, but there is only a 2 year lease on the space, it is larger than they need, and very expensive. So now they are moving for a third time – into another temporary space.
Each move has been funded out of the Ideal Org fundraising kitty and they are going backwards — not forwards. Meanwhile, the pillars of the Ideal Org fundraisers (those that are giving the actual cash) are starting to get pretty fed up with the ever rising target of money needed to get into the Ideal Org — and concurrently the delivery and income in Sydney org is drying up as all auditors have been ordered to be sent to Flag for Golden Age of Tech II training.
Sydney does not have the money to pay its own rent and bills, let alone get the new Ideal Org building renovations done. It is a total disaster in the making.
Canberra org — is still a hole in the wall. Adelaide and Brisbane are the same. Reports from Melbourne show an empty Ideal Org.
So… even down-under there is no “straight up and vertical” expansion. And you would think that from way down here that would be the easiest thing to achieve.
Well Hello Grasshopper! Yes, this is where I got my first OCA and “harsh, evaluative DofP” from none other than Bill Scordato. Is he by any chance one of those good folk you knew? Steve Oleck was there too I believe or maybe he was in Ardmore first. I LOVED Philadelphia. Good folks indeed. I know sooner or later we’ll see them wake up and smell the coffee. I just hope the tragedies that seem to precede the wake up aren’t too painful I really do.
Why are you calling your fellow scientologists who have had their spiritual vulnerabilities exploited – just as you have , and just as we all have – “CLUBBED SEALS”?
Is that what you called them when you were lying to them from INT Base, too?
Alanzo
Yes, Mike, this is a great post you did – well written and it’s nice to have the truth. An important page in history.
Presumably a rhetorical question, but I will answer you anyway. They are like seals that applaud when they are thrown fish (ie the “good news” of international “expansion” tossed out at the Miscavige events) but they are also clubbed into submission, so they are worse off than regular stimulus response trained seals. I too was a clubbed seal and did my share of clubbing. And I am trying to prevent the clubbing of more of them.
What are you doing about it? Havent seen you trying to get any media coverage of what is going on? Or have I missed your appearances? Have you filed complaints with any law enforcement agencies?
Mike Rinder, YES YES YES Reverse the flow! Why not get the truth about the Ideal Orgs out to the press? The church can’t Black PR you any more than they already have, to let the truth fly! I love your idea and this was an awesome article you posted today. Thanks!
Seems they will be receptive to your flow. 🙂
Dear Thoughtful, You said that on the Freewinds that time your friend was on her own cruise in the Carribean, that there were “only 20 on the Freewinds”, how can this be? There must be at least 20 staff there alone? Did she mean 20 public? Or a total of staff and public that totalled 20? Just wondering.
Alonzo,
WTF?
Eat a sardine MRE. Bonn Appetite!
Thanks for this news, which should be shouted from the rooftops. Your mention of Miscavige’s personal appearance at the Melbourne opening reminds me how the local media at the time had said he was a no-show.
Some months later I had a chance to speak with one of the real heroes of Scientology in Australia, a lady who with her late husband had re-established a mission in Melbourne in 1968. In those days Scientologists were subject to police surveillance and the threat of raids, and I’ll always remember the way she faced down two Victorian Special Branch detectives who thought they could stroll through a meeting ‘just to have a look around’.
She explained that “MISTER” Miscavige really had been there, but they had to keep his appearance secret until the last moment because there were so many bad people who wanted to hurt him. It’s outrageous that this truly great lady should have to defend a snotty brat, particularly in view of his cruel treatment of her two daughters at Int.
I’m not sure if Adelaide’s plans for a ideal org are still proceeding; the stream of invitations to little fundraising events stopped some months ago but perhaps that’s just because they cognited that I’m a worse prospect than Ebeneezer Scrooge. The ED of Adelaide is another lady whom I can only admire in wonderment: a pillar of the local community for decades, put through OT7 twice, OT8 on the Freewinds, but still humbly and patiently doing what she believes will help.
I believe the beautiful, posh Ideal Orgs and the million plus mailings each week (under Gov’t permit numbers that any member of Congress can research and see the tons of mailers sent out to parishioners of the Church of Scientology) are “props” used by the National Affairs Office as ammo to lobby Congress to change Psych Drug laws, Education laws etc etc.
I believe LRH said that the public knows us by our MEST. Come on loyal officers, do not be stupid.
One more quip:
Alonzo, thanks for your SOS. That’s also known as a “Stuck on stupid.”
GAT II training for auditors and C/Ses???? Oh I get it- you mean brutal ethics pentalties of no sleep, no food, constant invalidation until they accept the new, David Miscarrige Approved Quickie Grades. Yes folks, its finally almost here- flag has been delivering the quicky grades pilot for years now!! And it’s going great! Look at Katie Holmes! She was the first person to get the new Quickie Grades Pilot Program! She loved it! So Quick! Grades 0-4 in just 6 minutes! And now the same awesome results are going to be available in an Cof$ near you- All your grades in just 6-10 minutes!!!! Wow, I am so impressed. Excuse me, I don’t know why but I have to go barf.
Get A Grip Alonzo. Most Scientologists have simply bowed out. They are just giving a tiny, tiny lip service and ignoring Cof$. Those who are left have the mentality of seals, sheep, lemmings or perhaps a few retain goat level intellect. They are being constantly clubbing by the “ethics officers” of the Cof$/ Clubbed Seals describes them perfectly. Perhaps Mike made a mistake and some of them are in Ostrich Mode. Would you feel better if he said “clubbed seal, goats and ostriches”. Yes! I am so glad you feel better now.
OK I got inspired and I walked into the Pasadena org. I got as far as the Div 6 before they figured out that they should politely eject me. Not a single sole in sight. It WAS like the perfect morgue. It was like the whole place was being run by a receptionist and a security guard. I wish I had one of those pen cameras man. Next time I will.
Hey Dan, that was a very impactful post by Mike Rinder, eh? I hope that those that can still get in the org (without being tackled by the MAA or DSA), do get an update to Mike. The last report I heard from someone who had been on course in the new Seattle “Ideal” org, was that one of the course rooms was being used as a daycare; another was being used to store those horrid staff uniforms. BTW, since you mentioned Angie, is there any word if the former Ms. Blankenship has had her baby yet? And does anyone know if she, and the never-been-in-S.O. father, are still living with FSM Pat Mooney in L.A.?
It is always good to get the objective scoop form a true professional.
“Captain Miscavige is sailing his listing ship in ever smaller circles, soon to disappear into its own vortex. It is inevitable…… .”
……..OMG Mike, this sounds like he is trapped in some kind of giant cosmic karmic toilet. :-O
This may be of interest. From idleorgs.com, 25 Jan 2013, and republished from the Toronto Star:
‘The inside is being completely remodelled, said Erin Banks, spokesperson for Church of Scientology International, in an email to the Star.
‘“We have very specific space plan requirements that we follow for all of our Churches,” including a chapel, a café and “dozens of rooms for Scientology spiritual counseling called auditing.”’
So: is Erin Banks the new Karen Puow? Or maybe the new Tommy Davis — an actual living being who can be trotted out in public as the face and voice of Scientology Inc?
Bravo Mike!
Putting Dear Leader’s head in the same orbit, but in the opposite direction, might be all it takes to change LRH’s mind or EP the star circling process.
Mike,
Great post.
To me, Miscavige’s story has a “Lord Of The Flies” stink about it. “Captain Jack” Miscavige has been marooned on a desert island and is still busy building his delusional empire while leading his band of savages against an ever diminishing tribe…
Unfortunately for him, there’s no ship smoke on the horizon this time.
Im sure its rather intresting to the locals why the Freewinds is always sailing around with 20 ojr 30 public on board and 200 or more staff members…….no out-points there, nothing to see, move along…….
Correction: These guys staked out the Freewinds all day and never saw more than 10 people in and around the Slavewinds. And they were mainly young kids cleaning or touching up paint (staff). A few joggers got off, ran around and did some laps near the ship. The only confirmed public were a small handful who had coffee and chit-chatted for a few minutes in the morning. That makes the Freewinds as upside down as any Idle Morgue on land considering they have to run generators and burn fuel 24/7 just to stay afloat, so are considerably more expensive to run and maintain.
To steal a well known “annonymous” phrase…
This is why…
…I stopped posting on ESMB, etc…
Hate begets hate my friend… It is a long and dark road you are travelling upon.
Turn around… Before you get lost completely.
Yea… I think he’s trying to re-write “fictional” history… Lord of the Flies, 1984, etc… To bad he can’t read… Well not actual words anyway… All he sees is a small army of 26 SP’s trying to attack him from the book in his hand.
me, too
At least the staff would get to eat for a change.
Thanks for the update Scott! I always enjoy your comm.
I got monies on account there and at another org which I would like to get back, but how do you get blood out of a turnip? …especially when standard policy no longer applies.
I remember the nursery, you and the twin boys very well. The twins that I am recalling were always chasing each other around the org and then climbing all over each other. It was hard to imagine how much these kids fought — good naturedly — seemed that they were playing games.
I remember remarking on it to the mother (was that you? I remembered Robin) and hearing “you think it’s bad now? It was horrible when I was pregnant! They’d really hit each other then!”. I laughed and have told the story often since.
Yes and it’s easy and fun to remember Don Cramer and Jeff and Sandy and Doug. There were lots of staff and public there that just would never quit that ship and everyone very much wanted a big booming org.
I chatted with Scordato less than a week ago over facebook chat and decided not to bring up Scientology in the chat. Remember Oleck too. Yes good people indeed.
Its good to hear from my guy Rinder. He doesn’t speak always have something to say, but when he does – you would do good to W T F O !!
Get em Mikey !
BMO
Mutiny on The Bounty…
I am loving it!!
Great Essay Mike.
The Magic show religion of empty baroque structures with money
fleeced out of the locals again and again again. Cannibalizing its own
flock.
It really is magic, your money vanishes into this air.
No accounting, no audits, no taxes…….pooooooooof
It’s Scientology Inc ~~ ride a a white horse and play bagpipe music.
Ideal Orgs are the breath of sanity ~~ saving the world !
It is the age old story. Someone or some organization “will save the world.” End crime ! End the Abuse ! Make things better for all the population ! Just give us your undying support and in this case, “Don’t read the Internet !”
The story and image is seductive. Who does not want a better world ? But the eye is on how much $$$$$$ will you give for a so called “better world?” Pay for your better world (Ideal org) today ! Pay for your better world before Thursday 2pm.
Will that be Cash, VISA/MC or AMEX ?
Pingback: The Pretoria Ideal Org Booming! | OTVIIIisGrrr8!
“Something tells me 20 people are not enough to keep an entire ship fueled up and running.”
No problem Steve! They have little Teddy Braggen upstairs who can bitch slap the piss out of the public nobodies and easily extract 20 or 30 k per week to cover ports of call.
Fascinating read. Church of MEST nails it. DM is a damaged narcissistic personality. His acquisition of celebrity sidekicks, physically immaculate emphasis on his appearance, New Age cathedrals, esoteric icons in the desert, and self-image so high that even his dog has to be saluted all point toward a damaged personality that is overcompensating on all dynamics.
If that is his character, it is a disaster that he has power and authority.
Lawrence,
Another advantage of a low student count is that even with only two staff members you can still double team the student on breaks to crush reg him for a Patron Meritorious IAS donation and keep your stats up!
And the young kid Adam Daniells (OT5 and Class IX) who helped pilot those quicky grades at the Oak Cove at least figured out how to get out of the disasterous Sea Org by getting his wife Mira pregnant.
Now he is in Hollywood inventing I-phone apps for plastic surgeons to market boob jobs for the rich and famous. Movin right on up. Get a new set of tits and and a tummy tuck for $150,000 while you get your car washed.
Let’s hope so! One that has that now infamous GIANT SUCKING NOISE emanating!
Mike, thanks for the great post. This is such a slap in the face to the local people, I am hoping it will wake them up finally so they go onto the INTERNET and LOOK. You are right, they have NO idea of what is going on “uplines”, that all the execs have been removed, the stories of the Hole, etc. The problem over here has been getting them to look on the Internet, they will NOT look at links that are given to them (Truth Rundown, etc etc). Well, some have, but the ones i know of will NOT.
What a contrast to the “grand opening” in 2003, when DM did come here, and there was lots of coverage and local officials involved. (Ref: http://www.scientology.org.za/inside-our-church/grand-opening.html )
And since then, Ryan Hogarth was removed as President of the Co$ in South Africa, in about 2009 or so, and not that long after he had secured tax exempt status for the Co$ here. He was just removed, no reason given, and he was definitely an asset to them, did good PR work. I know others have experienced the nasty side to him, but the point is, he was a good PR asset to the Co$, even managed to secure a positive article with a newspaper that had previously published a really hostile article. So that in itself shows how the more able people are systematically removed.
I really hope this wakes up those few that I still know, who are still in. – meaning, apart from the lone staff and public in the picture here 😀
Thank you for this, very much.
If you think this is wild you should read John Duignan’s excellent book “The Complex” – only quick thinking and luck meant he escaped with his life – as a Sea Org missionaire. http://www.amazon.com/The-Complex-Insider-Exposes-Scientology/dp/1903582849/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1362645256&sr=8-4&keywords=the+complex
Great idea Mike. And great info and write up. The re-definition of words as you mention is one of the strategies that all authoritarian regimes have been using.
On those Lone Public Orgs, I think one that must be next, though I don’t think in the near future, is the last mission to become an org (11 or so years ago), the Athens Org.
A year ago, after a money grab campaign from the public, they moved to a bigger building down in the center of Athens which is much larger. Unfortunately I don’t have any data on how they are doing. The only thing I know is that a lot of the relatively few publics they have (Athens has more than 5.000.000 people), have gone bankrupt like a well known OT, Bogdanos, who run a constructions company has donated thousands and now with the crisis on top of it he went bankrupt. Long ago another patron of the IAS, ex wife of a well known pastry shop owner who was not a Scientologist, also went bankrupt and finally ended up working in a cleaning clothes business. They squeezed them out of money and then just drop them.
Now, that they got the money and got the new building downtown I bet the next money grab campaign is to make it an Idle Org in Athens. Let’s see who are gonna be the victims now.
Both Bill and Steve came through our mission. Bill was on staff there, and Steve was like a big brother to me-they both were. We played monopoly or Risk on Saturday nights – the girlfriends hated it. Yes – they are good guys. They saved me when I was a kid. Bill did the “Mighty SDV Art Players” and I saw in a promo a year back that he’s still doing it at Philly.
Zerilda Dudly was also on Staff, and Pat Dinella married Steve (this was before Cindy – I never met Cindy). I think both Pat and Z came out to LA to do the SO. Susie Klocek was also a great friend and life saver, and went down to DC.
Thanks, Mike…for the update. Ok, I can only tell you about a few “Ideal” ((Quack!)) Orgs: Pasadena Ideal Org: Dead since their “Grand Opening. I’ve gone by there almost 1/week if not more ….usually 3 peeps in there, all staff, zero public. Santa Ana “Ideal” (Quack!) Org…same thing, although I’ve only been there a few times. Here’s a bit of a twist on Scio/updates: the “church” of $cientology now has a “Community Center” in Inglewood “The Church of Scientology Community Center”. This is an upscale black area. I went there w/ Lynn Cambell for a “Town Meeting” we found out about on the FB site “Scientology Invasion of the Black Community” due to Louis Farrakhan joining Scientology and fleecing the N.O.I. This was my original video made 2 years ago re this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKWOb4Gjg8Y
Since there was a bunch of peeps outside I said to Lynn, “Let’s go over, maybe we have to get in line”. We walked up and a man said: “Are you here for the Town Meeting?” We said “yes”. He said: “They cancelled it”. Bascially ….a Doctor from our State Dept flew down to discuss how to help mental illness on Skid row, with some others. Scientology Locked them out!
My theory is they THOUGHT these people were going to pitch “Dianetics” as a solution, as LF is now. BUT____when the Doctor said: “THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DIANETICS”. BOOM! Door shut, locked out. “Community Center”? REALLY?
The “church” of $cientology Valley “Ideal” Org—-D E A D. Never opened.
And to end….the Complex is D E A D every time we go there, and we go many different times so we’ll get a real view of it. Hope that helps. PEACE!
Perfect description, Chris! Lord of the Flies, 1984…yes! And LOL>>>”Too bad he can’t read”. Arrrrgh. I think all he sees is the army of SPs he has in his HEAD. Great chatting w/ya tonight 🙂 Thank GAWD we are ALL OUT!
The course room photo is impressive.
Obviously, the golden age of course room tech has arrived now !
Listen to LRH tapes from 1952 / 1953 and it will become obvious to you what concept is being been applied to that lucky student :
The principle of large space … :-O
LOL
I dont think I saw boston mentioned anywhere. It was booming in the 70’s and they bought a building to rehab for an ideal org. I recal seeing them get some press out of the “plan” , year ago. Probably another dead zone. But curious if anyone has an update.
Isn’t the real hoax that the top of the bridge is missing. Whether by misleading/outright lying or by withholding the release of new levels.
Either way the result is the same. Qualified prospects are:
– recycled in absurdum along any line imagined,
– feed up and blown or
– harshly worded, “dying off”.
ML/A
Alonzo, I have read a number of your posts over time and I am sincerely asking this question to get your viewpoint, not asking it rhetorically.
All of us who have been involved in Scientology for a long time know and remember Mike Rinder as the spokesman for the CoS for many years. Mike has elected himself cause and taken responsibility many times for his tenure as CoS spokesman. Currently he is doing the best he can to be a positive force and improve conditions.
My question is – and again, I sincerely would like your response – why do you keep mentioning what he did in the past, when most of us here have already heard that from you before?
I guess a second question would be – do you, like most of us here, think that a being can take responsibility for his past and make a better present and future?
Just wondering.
Good grief Mike — you need to travel now with an armored car, 4 body guards and possible use some sort of stealth shield. dm is going to FLIP FREAKING OUT when this hits the media.
In an blitz that will act as a tsunami when it hits …
Taking out the roofs, trees, hillside, guard house etc at Int.
(hopefully those inside will be able to swim out the front door fairly unscathed. For a visual see “The Impossible”)
‘Nobody’ is an official designation for the contextual political or PR profile, title, rank, etc., not the individual.
LOL. TC, a couple of hairs are out of place … let me touch that up for you.
No, no … the guy behind the pillar is a hired guard in case the student tries to make a break for it. There’s also an uncover Ninja PI in the photo, but I bet nobody can spot him. Where are the people who donated money? Why aren’t they on course? Do they get declared right after the ink is dry, these days?
The first Ideal Org was Tampa. Tampa went “Ideal” the same year M’View finally won the International Birthday Game. Jan had obsessed (an understatement) over winning the B’Day game for years. So Jan finally wins, comes to Clearwater to receive her award at Ruth Eckerd Hall and low and behold DM didn’t even announce M’View as the Birthday Game winner at the event. It was all about Tampa going “Ideal”. As you can imagine Jan was crushed and it took a good long while for her to get over it. DM later “made up the damage” by buying M’View a a ten million dollar building five years ago which still sits empty. Her ex, Jerry, who is the ED at San Fran was not too pleased that he had to spend years raising the money for his building while Jan was gifted hers. And this is the dysfunctional family that is Scientology today. Now about Bear’s flap with the Travolata family. Oh well, a story for another day. 😛
Dan and Mark,
Steve, wonderful, sane and calming Steve…I’m so glad to hear this stuff from both of you. Steve came back on staff after years of not doing so. I had him back in the HGC auditing. He’s now taken the ED post as of last year. I was IN some of the Mighty Scordato Art Players events!! Pat left the SO in the late 80s. She’s married for 19 years now to Frank DiMartino who had been the DofT back in those days Dan of you touring Philly. He’s also my ex. Both great friends and dear to my heart. They’ve of course had to disconnect or put their jobs in jeopardy but I still love them both anyway.
Don Cramer is OUT! Contact him on fb Dan, he’s there! We talk a lot. The more people he connects back up with the better as he’s a bit on his own in his neck of the woods.
I did a doubt formula through Dallas org last year and reviewed their stats.
Dallas org decended from the old Southwest mission lead by Dean Stokes in the 1970’s and the early ’80’s.
Dean Stokes was destroyed by DM at the famous mission holders conference of 1982.
Before becoming an ideal org in 2009, Dallas org had declined down to 15 staff.
When they became an ideal org, stats shot up and remained level for 3 years. The staff I talked to said this was solely because of the staff imported from Calif. GI for this 3 year period averaged 16,000 per week, paid comps around 110, new names to cf 13-15 (this would be an indicator of new people purchasing a book or course for the first time).
In the last Dallas ideal org mag, 1 person had finished level one auditor training and 1 person had finished a Student Hat. I only got one mag from the Dallas org last year.
12 people had finished some type of major auditing, like grade 0, happiness rundown or purif.
There are 47 Basics books or lectures completions. This includes some staff and people who have been around a long time.
67 people have completed “Life Improvement” courses. Have you seen these? These are very short courses!
Also, they should be really fast courses for people with much Scientology experience.
I see on the list one OT 8 who did a course called “How To Get Motivated”.
She didn’t learn this on OT8? Another OT8 did a course called “Setting And Achieving Goals”.
Dallas org gross book sales ran about $1000 per week in 2012. Back in the days of the old Southwest mission gross book sales ran $5,000 to $6,000 per week. I know this because I was the Dissem Sec in Austin and they did the restocking of their books through Austin. Southwest misssion could have saved 5% by ordering books directly from Bridge Publications. But Austin org div 2 serviced the hell out them (getting them what they needed fast),so we earned our 5%.
They also sent many public to Austin org, as well to Flag. It was a complete lie that missions were not sending their public to their local orgs.
I love your posts Mike.
The courseroom photo. Thats Faux Marble tables, its very excellent material
for a table top. Can be shaped and molded into just about any form, used for wet bars,dessert bars, goes great with stainless steel appliances and glass door refrigerators. Six course rooms all like that ? One public ? All of this excess WOW ! Put it into a saiboat and at least the public gets a boat ride.
It all comes down to a systematic genocide of
Church Scientologists. Very sad especially for
us rebellious old-timers with the intentions of
truly helping this planet. BUT we still have the
Tech!
The Church died a lonnnnng time ago!!!! No CPR or resuscitation will revive it. Its gone, just a bunch of MEST left with a bunch of blind knuckleheads inside and a big NUT at the top!
I very much enjoyed reading this post. What’s interesting to me is why this whole “Ideal Org” undertaking wasn’t initially set up as a pilot project. After all, that’s how one would begin such huge activity which relied so heavily on public-donated funds and quick-silvered staff. After the public funds and staff were secured and the building was opened, one would review the production statistics and cancel the project if it wasn’t viable. Instead it goes on and on and on …
I’m going to go “parking lot” on your ass!! Lol.. Right up there with going “medievel”, or going “postal”. A true form of insanity.
Joe,
Excellent questions for Alonzo. I too am interested in his answer. If none are forthwith, perhaps you are simply communicating with Dave the dickhead.
A still active friend in Portland told me that they had failed to raise enough money for their second ideal org building, the first of which was purchased at the top of the market and sits empty after paying off all the tenants to leave. After purchase, the landlord office changes their mind and said the renovations were going to be too expensive and to get another building. So my friend was ecstatic to tell me that COB had decided to loan the rest of the $ for the new ideal org against the collateral of the earlier building so that they could open by 13 March. Lots of SO working on the building per them. Also, suddenly, loads of comps are coming off the 7 lineup. Everything he does is for PR. So expect to see Portland and unsurpassed OT7 comps as major bullets for the next event! Unprecedented expansion, I tell you!
Hello Rachel.
You raise an interesting question, and there is an interesting answer.
In fact, this WAS piloted.
In Buffalo and Tampa. The problem is Miscavige was bound and determined to prove his bright idea would succeed, so in Buffalo he poured resources into the org from all over the US, including the management terminals from CLO EUS that he posted in the org! And it was primarily funded by ONE very wealthy public (Joe Sgroi) over and above the settlement from the City of Buffalo. And of course Tampa was entirely done by FLAG public. They were told this was “COB’s project” and that he was holding them (the Flag OT Ambassadors) responsible.
Miscavige considered these pilots to be a wonderful success — he got to preside over ribbon cutting ceremonies and meet the Mayor of Buffalo, AND he had orgs he could take Tom Cruise into (not that he would ever go to Buffalo….)
But the “pilots” are the pattern that has continued ever since:
OT Ambassadors are made responsible for fundraising and the “whales” (Alonzo — look this up, its a term used for the heavy hitters in Vegas) not only pour money into their “local” org but in surrounding ones etc etc.
The “new orgs” are filled with staff gotten from all over the country — even interns from other orgs training at the FSO.
No attention is paid to actually building the org.
Voila — failing, empty “ideal orgs” all over the world. Just like he piloted them!
Alanzo is a one trick ponie.
Miscavigie brainie is havin a sploaden
His idiot deeds on shoulders are loaden
His ego relyin on he a “BIG THEATAN”
And OT 1,000,000 that slaves are awaitin
Poor little pauper with gold paper crownie
Violin smile you looka lika clownie
Your debit ledger is comin a callin
Castles of sand they always come fallin
Lest we not forget the “Business Expansion Clubs’ also piloted at Buffalo. That was going to drive untold new public into the orgs. The PES at our org told me that within one month there would be an attendance of 1000 raw public at each BEC meeting…he, in delusion, believed it as Buffalo proved it. I never saw more than 5-10 people at a meeting and most were dead public and staff only…no new public. Piloted, yes, all to a failure.
Yes Elmien and Peach are still around, but I don’t know to what degree they are still running the fund raising.
True that!
I think Alanzo has the world’s most unflat injustice button. This guy is almost always really, really fired up.
Hi Alan, I’m doing fine – just much older – My email is msfoster@mweb.co.za – I’m not much interested in the decline of the CoS. I got all my family out in 2000. Write and tell me what you’re doing. We had good times when it was still Scientology.
The best resource to find out about the failing Idle Morgs is the Why We Protest site. They have forum sections dedicated to the current states of orgs around the world. Anonymous have become the SMERSH organization that Scientology always feared.
I pass by the tawdry-looking NY Idle Org several times a month and I can tell you that it is a ghost town. I see mostly children of staff members manning posts there. ‘Body routers’ hand out flyers that no one accepts. It’s a miracle if one of the body routers actually convince someone to step into the org for a personality test. They set up stress test tables on Broadway sometimes and most people ignore them and worst the poor staff members get heckled at. The Anons protest in front of NY org every month. The org rents a Uhaul truck to block them from site. It’s a joke.
I once got into a starring contest with a Scientologist public. I was outside waiting on line to see a Broadway show and this young lady was walking out of the org and towards my direction. We locked eyes(hey I did the TR course too). She was totally hostile, like if I were beneath her or she was hiding something. I was a ‘wog’ to her. Little did she know I was involved with Scientology years ago and had left the cult. I truly felt sorry for her.
Mike – This is funny:
“Miscavige considered these pilots to be a wonderful success — he got to preside over ribbon cutting ceremonies and meet the Mayor of Buffalo, AND he had orgs he could take Tom Cruise into (not that he would ever go to Buffalo….)”
I would gauge success of such a pilot — or pilots as you have exampled above — against the LRH policy “The Ideal Org.”
Mike, thanx for all the info and cool pic. A pic is worth a thousand words right? Will you be able to possibly include info about the STUPOR Power Building within your fact pack on Ideal Orgs?
Mike; you and Marty are heroes of this reformation. Upstat to the max!!
Peace&ARC
I love your idea, Wendy. These people need help.
What they have to confront is huge, and the longer they refuse to confront the truth is the more devastating it will be for them. They see it. They just don’t want to see it, so they twist and turn, explain and dub in. Evil is so hard to confront.
And, I should add, “deny” to the twisting and turning, explaining and dubbing in.
Carcha
One of the things that astonished me is that here really aren’t any staff in the courseroom. Surely if they are not handling ay public they could begetting trained.
But no…. I’ll bet that any staff being trained have been sent to one of the training orgs, at great expense, and they may not see them back for years.
No… I should be more fair… they are probably out on the streets begging for a handful of change so they can buy some toilet paper.
Eric S
Hi Mike,
Love the idea of the press packets. Maybe throw some stuff out there on PRWeb too. Every time CoS posts a blather, blather back.
While you are at it – make sure the press wants to talk to Heber, Shelly, et al. All these ideal orgs opening and the President isn’t there. The “First Lady” hasn’t been seen in years. Point out they didn’t attend the grand opening…. they haven’t attended one in years…. is this a silent protest against Ideal Orgs? I would think. Eh?
Obviously this program is not supported by the top executives of the organization whose absence speaks volumes. They have effectively distanced themselves.
Mike Rinder,
Thank you very much for this your most recent informative article. Have to say, your clear, well-communicated posts are always a key-out!
I am thinking of a lecture I listened to many years ago where LRH is talking about truth and mystery. How some people are stuck searching for “truth” as a mystery. The Church has turned into a “mystery cult”, I think you call it. Like the Masons where you are beholden and controlled by them your entire life by your button on “mystery”.
With a risk of blanket evaluation I am going to assume that many people still in the Church are enslaved by this button. A lot of the things that keep one there and “in line” are mystery- OT levels, Miscavige is a Super OT with secret inside data (hidden LRH data line).
I don’t think LRH intended this. It seems he wanted people to get through their auditing and to the other side, attaining the results. In the Church it has been made so that it takes a lifetime- if you are lucky and can manage to jump through all the hoops.
Even OT8s are held by more “mystery” yet to be released (Superpower, OT 9 and up).
So everybody in the Church has this situation of a mystery which is accepted as ultimate truth, which they cannot have now, but maybe later if they obey and jump through all the correct hoops.
The Church is a mystery cult. A secret knowledge cult. I don’t get that LRH intended that.
I think true Scientology guides you to the realization that truth is simple and that one can know. That one can be truth and that it is already within you. This mystery business is not scientology in my opinion.
“Man has been invalidated to such an extent that he starts to do himself in — that’s the secret of aberration. He denies himself, then mocks up pictures to do himself in with.
If you continue to invalidate and chop people they will start to do themselves in even harder – so if you continue to use heavy ethics on someone you play right into the hands of his bank.
Self – invalidation is merely the accumulation of invalidation of oneself by others. “ LRH
HCO PL Ethics Presence – 4 Oct 1968 – (can be found in OEC Volume 0 )
I read this ref and DM came to mind. Maybe the heavy ethics and suppressive “justice” he has his Nazi Youth deal out to us is actually a cunning and calculated way to have us all cave ourselves in with our own banks per the reference above. Or maybe he isn’t that smart to plan it all out and he is just stuck in a suppressive valence and dramatizing. Either way the result is the same. I’d like to get more people out of the church. Mike going public on the Idle Morgues is a brilliant way to try to wake these people up and get more truth explosions out there. VVVVVWD to you Mike and to Marty and Karen and Haydn, Luis, Steve, Dan, Tory and many many other trail blazers. Thank you for what you do and have done!
Laughter!!!
More on the Nazi Youth. At Flag all the veteran public MAA’s at the Sandcastle are gone. Not one familiar face left there anywhere in that department. Even the receptionist there is gone. In their places are very young, green new SO members. My friend had an ethics cycle with a girl from a foreign country who had been in the SO a total of 9 months, had joined SO as a way to immigrate to the US, and is so green on post that she had an earpiece in her ear, and the ethics cycle was watched and listened to by higher ups with hidden cameras and they told her in her ear what to say to this public person. Talk about a Charlie McCarthy and dummy routine! But as has been said here by Marty and others, you get them young and malleable and you can mold them into whatever you want and make them parrot whatever you want and thus “command intention” thrives! And they’re too new and green to even know that the tech has been altered, that LRH’s writings have been omitted and changed drastically and that in fact Reverse Dianetics or Black Dianetics is the rule of the day.
In the early years (after the most of the eligible publics had done their OT8) the Freewinds was over a longer time so much in debt that the management had to bail her out with paying the bills.
Also I was not on finance lines, I remember this so well because all the staff had to fill out a survey after, about how we felt about that (what I thought was strange).
When the Ship had little passengers, the crew was ordered to go ashore, acting as passengers. We got told that we should buy some things and talk to the local people and tell them that we are from the Ship. This was done to pretend that the Ship had more passengers aboard.
Oh and how we loved to “be normal passengers”, also we were only acting for the show (PR). This was also long before the meter-checks got implemented. Later, if you didn’t pass the meter-check, you were not allowed to go shore, no matter what (it felt like being trapped).
Checkout this new Chaplain Survey – A new ploy to bring back the strayed sheep back to the herd or fill up a few of those ideal org course rooms.
From: Chaplain Volunteer Ministers International [mailto:chaplain@volunteerministersint.org]
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 12:22 AM
Subject: Chaplain Survey
To: All Scientologists From: Volunteer Ministers Network
Info: We are launching an international Volunteer Ministers Program to work with Chaplains around the world to help all Scientologists with any matters that have caused hardship or injustice. “Something Can Be Done About It” applies equally to our Third Dynamic as it does to the Fourth. Any time invested in making us a stronger group is time well spent.
First we need to gather information of any situations so they can be addressed in a timely fashion.
Questionnaire for all Scientologists
1. Have you or someone close to you experienced any injustices that you feel need to be rectified?
2. Have you or someone close to you experienced any hardship that we could help with?
3. Have you or someone close to you experienced any financial hardship as a result of regging or pressure to over-extend yourself?
4. Do you have debts beyond what you can comfortably handle?
5. Have you experienced any unpleasant Reg meetings? If so, please give specifics.
6. Have you or someone close to you experienced any hardship as a result of being pressured to disconnect from family members, friends or business associates?
7. Have you had any upset with a Scientology Organization?
8. Have you had any upset with a Management organization or RTC?
9. Have you had a less than optimum experience with a WISE arbitration?
10. Is there anything else you would like help on from the Chaplains Office?
Thank you for your time and consideration. We will do all we can to help every Scientologists to flourish and prosper and move up The Bridge.
That makes a lot of sense. It might be calculated or just instinctual.
In the name of justice let’s not jump to conclusions about how dismal things are at this empty Org. Perhaps the one public on lines is a multi millionaire or government leader, who is funneling 250K a week to the I.A.S.. Perhaps the staff members near him in the photo are actually I.A.S. regges waiting for a check to be written or a suitcase of money. This may be a reg cycle we are looking at.
Laughter!
Yes all great guys. Frank DiMartino! Long time since I have heard of him. Smart and funny. Lots of great memories.
I have read on the Internet that the N.O.I. is running their own Dianetics Foundation. They made more auditors last year than the C of S. They are not on the basics. They are not being run by any F.O.L.O.. They do not have M.A.A.’s sec checking people at the front door. No regges or staff from the Church of Scientology ordering them on what to do.
These people have their own Church. They do not want to be part of the Church of Scientology. They have “auditing coordinators” in their own Church.
They did permit a guest speaker from the Church to their annual event this year to speak.
The good news is, we can now send people into the Nation of Islam to go clear.
For those of us wanting to open a mission or an Org, we can become a franchise of the Nation of Islam.
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_9651.shtml
Do you honestly think DM is going to run into this place with his finance police and smack around the E.D.?
Do you think Jenny Linson is going to show up there and scream at underlings?
This is what it actually takes to get the tech and keep it and keep DM and the Sea Org off your back. It takes a group like the Nation of Islam.
For real. They are doing it for themselves and owning it and using it. You don’t see Freedom Magazine hassling those people. You don’t see the squirrel busters up in Louis’ face because he isn’t running a “standard academy”. You don’t see the squirrel busters up on his front porch demanding to look at P.C. folders. You don’t see anonymous protesters on the front yard of the Nation of Islam hassling Church goers.
The Nation of Islam isn’t “pulling in” the suppression.
Either they are so squeaky clean they just fly above it all.
Or nobody is fucking with them because they know they can’t get away with it.
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_9651.shtml
Alanzo, When you make “the past” a convenience, you get stuck in it.
Purpose newer dies.
ML/A
I took your meaning that way also Mike. It wasn’t that YOU were calling them nobodies. You were pointing out that to the public they would not be anybody they knew or heard of. I got the point you were making.
So true. If the mainstream media could really somehow get the enormity of the import of the Ideal Morgue Scam they would salivate. It has every component necessary for broad-scale impact. They would not need to exaggerate anything because the bare facts are just so beyond the beyond. Looking from a mass media viewpoint I would say their main concern in telling this story would be that the actual facts are too incredible and might be rejected as media exaggeration and sensationalism.
I somewhat curious about Phoenix. It scraped by for many years and I don’t think they had the public to even begin to need a bigger building. The building they were in was fairly nice three floor building in an ideal location close walking distance from Arizona State University, the central bus terminal, central library, major league hockey, basketball and baseball stadiums and the “downtown” area. Twice a month the city would close off the streets in front of the org and it would be flooded with people and vendors and artists. The Ideal Org is in a much quieter residential area with near zip foot traffic. I thought there was a policy, checklist for locating an org? An Org has to be by the bus and have foot traffic etc…
Here is the “old” building. They were leasing, but the building was for sale. It had three floors and had much unused space, even though it was almost entirely built in and remodeled with a purif and everything, it was pretty empty. It seems like an org would give it a go in their existing space if it was already too big.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Hubbard+Dianetics+Foundation,+North+3rd+Street,+Phoenix,+AZ&hl=en&ll=33.459079,-112.069866&spn=0.000845,0.001206&sll=33.458954,-112.069614&sspn=0.000851,0.001206&oq=hubbard+dianetics+foundation+phoenix+az&t=h&gl=us&hq=Hubbard+Dianetics+Foundation,&hnear=N+3rd+St,+Phoenix,+Arizona&z=20
I’m going to help Mike by mailing this to my local media – newspapers, radio, cable, etc.
The street-view shows an average day when the org was there. Mostly staff and 2-3 public on their Basics. One of the street views has Jurgen Brock parking the VM van. He was always moving the van. I think he parked it under the covered parking and later moved it by the building and back and forth or something. I think he just liked to drive it or something.
Remember this:
You don’t see her over at the Nation of Islam do you?
“When it’s not done standardly the results are not the same”.
Does this mean the auditors at N.O.I. and the auditing hours are all overt products?
No! Not at the Nation Of Islam! Only at Marty’s house!
Marty is “pulling it in” but not the N.O.I.!
Laughter! People that won’t put up with this bullshit are not “pulling it in”.
It was always that simple!
That’s a good differentiation too. Thanks for that. Bizarre that there should be such posts in any Scientology organization, but, unfortunately, not surprising.
True that but blunted makes one tired.
Of course M & M did and is doing very well
in the rehab area.
Off thread sorry, but I haven’t heard any more on the Luis Garcia lawsuit against the church re donations to Super Power and more. Any word on that?
Alonzo,
People can cognite, change sides, and take responsibility. I did, mostly by doing 2 doubt formulas – one on the COS (3rd dynamic) and one on ME (1st dynamic)
..
The one I did on the COS clarified what I had long suspected, but the D/F I did on myself was a life-changer and charge-blower.
I did what I did, to myself and others and that can never be denied or changed. .
But, I’m still alive, and that was then, and this is now, and better late than never, and don’t forget, after Doubt comes Liability and that is the condition I am still in.
Perhaps if you knew all my data, and I came to you with my completed Liability Formula, you would say, “No way”. – or maybe you would say, “OK”, and sign off on it to let me back – whatever.
Mike Rinder and Marty Rathbun were VERY high profile guys in the COS so their data is very visible and they’ve made it even more visible, but Alanzo there are many of us out here who did things and saw things done to others and allowed things to be done to ourselves and OUR data is NOT visible. But that doesn’t mean our overts and witholds on our dynamics don’t exist or that they’re not every bit as important as Marty Rathbun’s or Mike Rinder’s. We all did things to ourselves and to others..
But that was then, and this is now, and RIGHT NOW we are each of us creating the future by our thoughts, our emotions and our efforts.
What future do you want?
“…giant karmic toilet”…I just choked on my tunafish.
Dear O.M.
I love your posts.Maybe, maybe a reg cycle.
Could be 3AM and hes working a word chain.
Even at Custers Last stand there were Indians.
This is the Church that imploded with nobody left except
Pope on a Box raving about straight up verticle statistics.
Good work O.M.
I think the purpose of the Freewinds is to be able to maintain offshore accounts. Therefore it matters little if anyone is actually using it to go up the bridge. Doing the math, if you figure out how many OTVll’s were ready to go do OTVlll, and they went on the maiden voyage and finished in two weeks, there has been little other use for the Freewinds except to cover the IAS offshore accounts. Although the public were forced to pay for it in exchange for the OT8, which turned out to be an overt product before they were all put back onto OTVll, the IAS pays for the Freewinds and uses the ship for it’s Org to maintain those offshore accounts.
In the mainstream of things, the Church of Scientology is continually seeking to control people, and I don’t mean control freaks, that is much too mild of a term, I mean they are looking to control people. The church declares a member an SP and immediately the church’s attitude becomes “What guarantee do we, the church have, that you won’t committ any suppressive acts any more?” Reading from the internet is a suppressive act? 🙂
Excuse me Church of Scientology but “What guarantee do we the people have that YOU won’t write fake bomb threats to yourself any more and try to pin the blame on an innocent neighbor and get away with it?” or “What guarantee do we the people have that you won’t sneak out and break into the offices of the Justice Department at midnight for the good of all concerned?”. It is a two way street it seems and everyone has the right of way. 🙂
Tony O has the latest info. The COS just responded and he has their legal papers posted online. Also the narconon is taking a beating they had their Certificates revoked. It seems like their going down.
Yes actually Jane…on Tony Ortegas site (3/6/13) he has the dox from CoS. Pretty interesting. I would provide a short cut to it if I knew how.
There’s no need to have a ship to have offshore accounts. In fact, IAS Administrations moved from the Freewinds to Delaware. The IAS only pays rent for the space on the Freewinds they occupy. The IAS accounts are not maintained in the ports they visit (they probably have some administrative accounts in Curacao — but certainly not the bulk of their billion plus). They have money in the usual sort of places — Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Channel Islands (used to be in IReland during the boom years when Irish banks offered high interest rates before they all collapsed). You don’t need any location to open “offshore” accounts, all you need is money. The IAS, even before the advent of the Freewinds, had accounts in Europe. From the very first days of the IAS it was firm policy that NO money collected outside the US was EVER brought into the US to be subjected to the jurisdiction of the IRS.
Farrakhan was paid off by the Co$. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqD5YlXnq84
About 10 years ago, Sydney Finkelstein, Professor of Management at Dartmouth University, studied what 50 formerly very successful companies had done to become complete failures. He found that the CEO’s of those companies ALL had the following traits, which he published as “The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives.”
Habit #1: They suffered from the illusion of personal pre-eminence and an emotional need to personally dominate their environments.
Habit #2: They thouight they had all the answers, and shut out other points of view.
Habit #3: They had a must-have on being right in every important decision they made, resulting in their plunging full-steam into the abyss when obstacles turned out to be more troublesome than they had anticipated.
Habit #4: They stubbornly relied on what had personally worked for them in their previous rise to power in their careers, instead of considering a range of intelligent options that actually fit current circumstances.
Habit #5: They ruthlessly eliminated anyone who wasn’t completely in agreement with them, resulting in their having no one in the end to warn them when they were headed toward disaster.
Habit #6: They were obsessed with the image of their company and themselves as its spokesperson. Instead of actually accomplishing things, they often settled for the appearance of accomplishing things, including falsifying numbers in annual reports.
Habit #7: There was no clear boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interests. They tended to use corporate funds for personal reasons.
Sound like any chief executive we know?
Yes, agreed.
Blog posts by Mike and Marty ought be summarized, and sent to official Scientologists in Exec Strata and WDC.
Too bad the rules are such that there is no conversation between the ex members and existing members struggling within official Scientology.
Such a massive block to the old triangle of ARC.
Wow Mike. Great feedback.
Popped into London Ideal Org, Thursday 130 pm, 2 students on course.
Paid my respects to you by going past Fritroy building.
DM has a set of policies that could be called “black-on-white”. He does not really understand red-on-white or green-on-white. (He eventually admitted in court that he had not done the OEC course. He is a falied auditor. He does not allow himself auditing). All LRH policy and tech in is in a box that he reaches into and selectively chooses what suits his game.
Policy to him is like selective program targets he uses to support his latest scheme. He says “Ideal Org policy”. He hoodwinks many. But, as you can see, this policy is used to support his latest scheme. The purchasing of buildings, by the field, to house a mythical ideal org, is forbidden by LRH.
OMG! (He cognites) Ideal Org policy! Zip it over to black-on-white and you have the debacle we have today.
He does not apply LRH. Period. He adds a little green or red to HIS policy to make it appear what it is not.
We need more Scientologists out. You article adds to those who move out.
To those like me who have not yet come all the way out, this Ideal Org article by Mike should get you really thinking. You do not need to know anything else to see that Miscavige has lost his marbles completely.
There is NOT ONE SINGLE reference that justifies this strategy. Nada. Zip. (I checked every one of them to be sure I could say that).
The Ideal Org strategy is a complete invention by DM. It is wholey destructive and does not create expansion.
It seems there are very many more looking than posting comments on this blog. I ask you, please, to keep looking and become very well informed. If the polcy is completely trashed, what about tech and what about ethics. They are all trashed.
Make your moves. Withdraw your support. Formulate your own strategy to be out and active in an independent field. Connect locally and on these forums to like-minded others. Grow that group bit by bit.
This contsant attrition of members, like you and I, will move the church to a point of reckoning.
Holy smokes, he did not even attend the grand opening and sent unknowns, what a slap in the face! Of course he is probably ranting and raving about whose fault it is rather than his own sorry ass off policy actions. Glad you are exposing this sham. Unfortunately our faces are known in the WUS orgs due to our positions in CLOWUS, but if I ever get out there in the east coast I’d gladly go in and scope out the scene and report back.
Eric – There really is a pathos in this. You captured it well. But the world belongs ever to the free.That’s all we’re doing, making the work free again. – Carcha.
… freeing ourselves.
Steve, For a cruise ship there are more expenses that Napier told me. Parking on the dock was pretty high, and just mooring in a harbor cost $1500 per day. Dumping garbage and taking on water costs them as well! Not to mention food airlifted in containers from the States.
Whatever that is, I hate it. I wonder what she would say if she watched herself here.
So according to you Mr. Know Best, they are failing. How many Orgs have you created? Mr. Natter. I’ll bet those failing orgs really get you off!
“Father” is Farrakhan? It’s kind of creepy how they call him that.
It would be a lot more damning is “Mark” was in the recording. I wouldnt be surprised if it were true though.
“He does not apply LRH. Period. He adds a little green or red to HIS policy to make it appear what it is not”.
Exactly what the covert creep does. Sickening.
This does not strike me as the gospel. It wouldn’t cause me to believe Farrakhan was paid anything by the CofS.
Yawn.
Positive confirmation how much of a button it is focusing on Dave’s Folly! 🙂 Thanks for pulling your head out of the sand long enough to get approval to post here, even if its only one line….
And finally, an admission that they ARE failing orgs!
So “Jay” why is the insane “Ideal Org Program” continuing if its failing?
Me! ME! Target me next!
Mike, good point to put “Jay” the Osabot in his place! One other thing which should be in the report, which I’m sure you’ve already thought of, is:
The donations pay for the Ideal Org buildings, yet the name on the deed is David Miscavage’s, or whatever corporate name he chooses to hide behind. And so if it all comes tumbling down, Davie is a multi multi billionaire by owning all this real estate that he can liquidate and keep all profits from. There are no checks and balances, no audits, no paper trails to his off shore accounts, no accountability financially, which is a free pass to his massive scam and criminality and the stealing of money from his parishoners. Fleecing his flock is only the tip of the iceberg. Go Mike Go! Write the articles and stick it to him!
WN, Mike, Marty…
“Mr. PTS-to-the-Middle-Class himself…”
Nail + Head!
If there was one thing Captain Assh*le never, ever, ever stopped going on about it was how “you are all PTS to the middle classes, frying other fish, yadda, yadda…”
Remember the big “Vons” invest… how everyone was assigned treason because they would prefer to live “off-base” simply because they would be able to shop at Vons every now and then (well… I think about 3 out of 1000 actually wrote that down in DM’s “survey”… but of course that is the only thing he picked out when he shat on everyone in MCI that fateful saturday night).
He is the ultimate example of someone seeing life through a very dirty, cracked and hideously warped mirror. i.e. he only ever sees the worst of himself in everyone else and acts accordingly.
I’m not sure if his mother didn’t love him or his dad didn’t teach him about boundaries… or both… but he has taken it all to a level even Hitler would be impressed with.
Hey Jay. If you really want to KNOW what is going on here, go to the Green Vols, find the HCOPL about Ideal Orgs. It will tell you how to build an ideal org for real. Mike mentioned it at the beginning of his post and how not many corporate Scientologists seem to be familiar with it. It is written by this guy named L. Ron Hubbard. Maybe you have heard of him.
Jay… I think McCann (http://mccann.com/) is looking to revamp the MasterCard “priceless” campaign.
You should get in tough with them.
No really… give them a call.
Why you ask?
‘Cuz what you just posted is… well…
Priceless.
Oracle
Who knew?
Just for the halibut. It Eels good. Because they really need Kelp. And they otter know better. Ah but they’re just a bunch of squids, names like clubbed seals won’t krill them.
Mike… Sorry… Mr. Know Best (did your parents really give you that name… Seems kinda weird to me…:-)… You don’t get it dude… You haven’t built anything… You are nattering because you are jealous… I mean I suppose the next thing you’ll be saying is that all those Jews were pissed off because they were subjected to the horror of one man’s unrivalled evil… Jesus man… Get a grip… We all know they were just jealous because they didn’t build their own Aushwitz… Losers… Genocide my arse.
Okay… Twilight zone episode over… Resume normal broadcasting.
This gal will be back, once she cognites that standard tech is not to be had at the C of M. She’s already up to Enforce on the CDEINR scale.
Spot-on! DM scores 7 out of 7! Good post.
I do love the way you can turn a phrase, Mr. RInder.
Mike, the New Haven Org recently settled the foreclosure action that had been filed by the city for unpaid taxes. The building was eligible for tax exemption but no one filed the necessary documents. The action dragged on for several years. From what I heard, the city caved on one year and the church paid the taxes on the other. The building is still empty but has ample parking space for the current org a block away. (They need at least one or two spaces to accommodate staff and public.) I have heard that the current org has reduced both its space and staff. The last update on the status of the bank mortgage is almost five years old. http://newhavenidealorg.org/OTCWebSite/LatestNews.aspx
While the foreclosure action was pending, I stopped by one afternoon to look around. It was obvious that there is video surveillance as within minutes I was confronted by someone from the org asking me what I was doing. I told him I represented a group of investors that were interested in purchasing the building at the foreclosure sale. The WTF look on his face was priceless as he was apparently unaware of the pending legal action. I told him he could check it himself if he didn’t believe me.
The product of an Org isn’t more Orgs, or bigger buildings, it’s well trained auditors and thoroughly audited PCs. You’re asking the wrong question – the right question might be “how many beings are now getting good auditing and training free of enforced out-tech and off-policy actions thanks to the effort of others like Mike and Marty?”
Well said, Greenonwhite. Not only is it patently off-policy, it is utterly destructive Reverse Scientology. The Orgs were doing way better before when they were housed in “shit holes” (which is how DM referred to them in his OT Ambassador briefing at FSO). And the Machiavellian machinations that go into creating one of these Idle Morgues has caused veterans to vote with their feet in droves and kept new public away or immediately blown off the lines. Now there isn’t even enough GI to pay the utility bills.
These buildings will stand as monuments to utter sociopathic management incompetence and application of Black on White Reverse Scientology.
To my stressed-out friends still in this house of mirrors: “All I’m trying to do is to get you to LOOK!” – LRH
You raise a good point Lawrence. Historically, the church as never, in my opinion, demonstrated that it is capable of self-reform. I would even say that they really don’t care what the individual parishonier thinks about the church’s actions.
It may be too simplistic to say “they can control you only if you allow them”, but I do think that is true. The first step in loosening any type of control they may have, is to simply stop listening to them. MAA says “you’re a bad boy…blah,blah,blah”. My response “so what? You are not my moral authority, nor do you dictate how I live my life.” Only if you grant them importance do they hold sway. Personally, my own life got much much easier to manage once I took that first step. I recognized that many staff I had on my lines were meddlers and proved to the source of enturbulation and upset. Cmon, who needs it?
Think about it, if you are essentially a good person, ethical, hard working, etc. And some snot-nosed, pimple-faced MAA gets a bee in their bonnet and targets you as the “who” – just ignore them. Yes, they may “increase the ethics gradient” and even go as far as to issue goldenrod, but 9 times out of 10 nothing will happen. They will just move on to a more submissive target.
So when they phone you up and order you to come in for an Ethics Interview (covert reg cycle), just say “no, I’m not going to do that”. You would be surprised how quickly the whole thing falls apart.
Exactly, Mike. So, Jay, where is your report on all those Orgs that are “going straight up and vertical” (and I’m not referring to the Backbills Stat), Mr. Name-caller guy.
Uh, yes. It reminds me of you, Diogenes.
the link in the post The Reformation in Action leads to “Page not found” from my computer in Germany.
Here is my comment on that one:
I received this mail too and I wrote it off (still do) as this is just another attempt to get people, who voted with their feet, back on lines for further cashstripping.
My Ideal Org:
12 people, all friends and acquaintances, family too of course, a happy gathering of individuals who are willing and able to stand being in the room together, communicating. My Ideal Org produces OT’s, Clears, Auditors, Hats Worn, and it has real Statistics on the wall for everyone to see.
A full LRH library. Anything published by LRH, on the subject. All secret levels, all SO orders, all Advices, all Books, etc. “The work was free, keep it so.” He said that, I am only quoting it. The secret levels are done in-order, per-Checksheet, and per standard Routing procedures, once the PC Hat is being worn. If there is an understanding of the materials and levels pre-Session, without full Prep and the standard line, the Auditor and the PC will sort it out. If not, Qual. If not Qual, Ethics. If not Ethics, the individuals themselves.
All books in the “LRH’s Personal Bookshelf” list, as in, as much of the research materials and other matter, available as well. LRH read with a ferocious intensity unmatched by many, in my opinion, and his personal Bookshelf today would bring a lot of light to the subject, as a whole. Thus it should be in our personal Library, too.
This includes Checksheets. It includes all OEC/FEBC materials. Our ‘ideal’ Library would have all of this available at ease, with no interference. There wouldn’t “just be Scientology-approved materials”, but rather in fact, the ideal Library would include an unfettered Internet access for all, in the Org, to use .. to clear words, gain further understanding of the subjects being studied, etc.
The 12 of us would decide what Hats we were wearing. The Students would go on course, the Auditors in session, and those who wish to engage in the Spiritual enhancement side of things .. also In Session.
In this Org, In Session means what it means: an Auditor, a PC, running a tech program. Sacrosanct.
There’d be Certification happening per the books, by those wearing the published Hats (with proven Stats). Heavy Ethics? In my personal “Ideal” org, there’d be a long road to travel before Ethics had to get heavy, and instead of rapaciously bad mis-application of the Basics, there would instead be a damn pleasant and easy Org to stay in, and be in communication with the actuality of the place, rather than the mythos (i.e. those wearing Hats, actually Communicating).
OT States, confirmed. With 12 such souls working on the goal, without interference, and with Standard Tech, it will happen.
MEST-wise, There’d be a hell-great Kitchen, for everyones Ruds. Great dwelling, maintained by those using it. Lots of sunshine, other active things to do, maybe a farm .. maybe a few mountains or two, some flying things, maybe a boat, going somewhere nice on the planet mean-while, maybe just an island somewhere, tucked away, with not just 12 like-minded Souls, perhaps 40, perhaps a hundred .. and after a while, perhaps many more.
The Golden Age of Manufactured Phoney Statistics is here…
I noticed something new – not WHAT is done but HOW it is done. Fake stats have been around ever since the Miscavige dog and pony shows (“International Events”) started, but now he is taking it to a whole new level. Check out these “stats” from March 13:
Number of Ideal Org Staff: 10X
Ideal Org Services: 56X
So the mere renovation of a building with no increase in any measurable result adds a multiplier to a stat, just because now that staff is “Ideal Org Staff”, or the service is now an “Ideal Org Service”.
The latter doesn’t even say “delivered” – just “services”. So if one org COULD deliver 35 services, you renovate two more, and voila! you have 105 “services” which is “3X the stat”!
Way to go, Dave! If LRH would be around, you would be banned even from the RPF.
Now the question is, just HOW blind are your faithful followers? Who *doesn’t* notice so obvious outpoints? Not to mention there is NEVER a time frame given for ANY stat – 10X in what? a minute? a decade? since DM last farted?
If the people who still believe the words of Dear Leader are just as blind as he hopes, they will continue to cheer as the number of phoney stats enters a phase of unlimited expansion likes of which this universe, or any other for that matter, has never seen before. And there you have it – another highest ever!
If they are not as blind, they will probably wake up one day thinking that maybe stats like “Increase in cubic feet of air in libraries that we shipped LRH books to” and other similarly laughable attempts at justifying one’s existence are not the way LRH meant to measure “progress”. And saying that a sinking ship is “taking off like a rocket” can’t fool anyone forever. Especially if you are ON the ship that is supposedly taking off like a rocket, but then you start wondering why you are standing in knee high water.
I think that these misdirection attempts by Miscavige will prove another HUGE foot bullet. People isolated in small and failing “orgs” (which is most of them) used to be worried seeing the “unstoppable expansion” everywhere else BUT in their own org were thinking (and being told) that they were just or of step with the rest of the world. Now if all the orgs will be “Ideal” and the few lonely staff members sitting in each of them start talking to their counterparts and they start to realize that ALL that’s left is small and failing orgs in nice, but empty buildings, well, that may just be the moment when the house of cards collapses in a domino effect and DM will be left with NO staff, NO parishioners, NO more orgs to renovate and fundraise for…
What do you think those lonely staff are thinking, reading the IAS mag and comparing the pictures of their own full course rooms with the reality of the empty ones actually there? For anyone with some judgement left, this will probably lead to some thoughts that “maybe we are not the only ones where the day-to-day reality is SO different from what’s in these shiny magazines?” Maybe I should ask someone… hey, how about my old friend who lives near this other “ideal” org? Hm, so you guys are emtpy too. Hm. I wonder…
And that would start the end of the Ideal org scam.
As the “stats” get more and more bizarre and outright ridiculous, there should be more and more people pulling back the curtain and seeing the big OZ for who he really is.
Well said.
Thanks for this info, Mr Rinder. This is vital.
Incredible! Beautiful! Hadn’t ever seen anything like it. I especially like the ~2:38-2:42 mark. And it’s just perfect in context, bull-baiting. Great song, too. Perfect. (I kept think what the bull must have been thinking … “Darn, these guys are quick ….”)
I think that both times that Miscavige opened the Buffalo Ideal Org, there were rumors spread to the press that Tom Cruise was going to be there.
Ah well, maybe by the third time he’ll make it.
Miscavige seems to be up to something in Ontario Canada. Between the shift of the Toronto Org, the Canadian Advanced Org property and the Cambridge Org, there’s far more money being spent than can be accounted for by local members.
Somehow Jay’s sentences don’t flow together and make sense from beginning to end.
I was just starting to feel just a little stupid until thankfully I realized, “oh, that’s just Dave.”
Though to be fair, by now probably all his proteges talk like that too.
woops sorry. Meant that comment to be a reply to Jay’s way up there.
“And the only thing I am trying to teach you is to look.”
From the dust jacket of an original Scn O-8: The Book of Basics:
“Scientology is defined as ‘knowing how to know’ and could be better defined as ‘summated and organized information about you.’ It’s everything that has been known about you for 2500 years at least. But it is summated so it is communicable, applicable, and gets some definite results. It can create changes for the better.
“Scientology data stands on the firm foundation of having looked, and your ability to know the subject is your ability to look.
“Man discovers he is blind. Then he says, “Hey, wait a minute’, and takes the veil off his eyes and takes a look. But he has a tendency to keep diving into complexities. By going in the direction of greater complexity Man gets a mystery created, sinking him into a priesthood, an Establishment cult, and he goes out of communication.
“So there is one continuing stress in Scientology and that is to greater simplicity, and that means greater communication.
“The simplicity of observation, the simplicity of communication itself, is functional and will take man from the bottom to the top. And the only thing I am trying to teach you is to look.”
Its a hoax designed to get those inside to look, apparently.
http://tonyortega.org/2013/03/06/scientology-response-to-federal-lawsuit-force-the-garcias-to-use-church-arbitration/#more-4662
Beautiful. I’m there.
Thanks, Carcha. Spot-on.
Reguarding the DC ORG
Wrong video
Actually, Seeker, I agree with you. But, then, these traits remind me of all of us to one degree or another, because they’re simply the result of case.
DM is, of course, far worse than any of us in this regard. But while he has destroyed a once successful organization, our progress in building up any sizable alternative has been painfully slow. We’ve allowed ourselves to dramatize these 7 bad habits ourselves as individuals, and as a result we haven’t been able to come together in teams large enough to get our production up to where it truly needs to be.
I don’t mean to invalidate the progress that we HAVE made, or the sometimes heroic effort of the individuals who’ve driven that progress. But we’ve been hitting up against a wall when we’ve tried to get organized above the level of one-or-two-man bands. I think that wall has consisted of our accumulated charge on the 3rd dynamic, leading to compulsive self-determinism, in turn driving to one degree or another the 7 bad habits described above. I’ve been guilty of this myself, and so have others I’ve attempted to work with.
I posted about this wog professor’s research because it’s one thing for a tech-trained Scientologist to recognize the traits he found, and understand their source and consequences in theory, but quite another to see documented physical universe proof of what happens to organizations whose leaders dramatize those traits too strongly.
DM is way too far gone to recover from being a “Spectacularly Ineffective Executive” in this lifetime. Hopefully we aren’t. If anyone has anything positive and constructive to say along the lines of what we can do speed up our recovery from this situation as individuals and a community, I’d love to know their ideas.
Jay,
Is that you, the dude with that name who was HAS PTA around 2000?
Come on, you can talk to me, it’s Alan and we were buddies once.
His survey tech is out. The android is really ahead of the I-Phone.
Detroit also has an unused building, sitting empty for years since Scientology bought it.
Mike, the fact that recruitment is happening in Taiwan is another indicator locals just aren’t interested . Why should Australia need to recruit out of Taiwan if Scientology is booking there?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-25/church-of-scientology-denies-holding-woman-in-isolation/4539658
Laughter. That’s a great idea, Chrismann9. Nothing illegal about doing a documentary. Imagine if every org had people filming outside from 9AM-9PM. Nothing over-the-top, like with cameras on their heads or bull-baiting tee shirts, just ordinary clothes, no comm outflowed, just there always filming during org hours. How they would freak!
Has there actually been any confirmation that DM was actually at Cambridge Org, Canada, for the opening?
The only write-ups and pictures I’ve seen do not show him.
Alan,
I doubt very much its that Jay . Last time i spoke to Jay and his wife they were done with Scn. In fact its Jays fault i got my rude awakening and left to join the squirrels about 3 years ago !
Spot on, Martin.
Your mouth to God’s ears, Globetrotter. I am constantly chomping at the bit for this to finally happen, and amazed at the outpoints being apparently missed or ignored by very trained upper level, long-term Scientologists.
The young ones not looking I can understand because they’re kind of ignorant of the world and steeped in the cult since babyhood, but the older, trained ones, no, I don’t get it, I really don’t.. All that comes to mind is, “There are none so blind, as those who will not see”. For whatever various reasons, they refuse to look, because, if they would look, then they would see. So they dare not, I guess.
Then there’s my other theory, which is that they DO know but choose to pretend that they don’t, so that one day when it all blows up (figuratively speaking) they can say, “Oh, dear – who knew?” And then MisManage will be gone and someone else will take over for him and it will all be explained away from On High with acceptable truths and other bullshit and everybody will be “handled” on this and they will accept everything they are told and just go on…actually, the thought of this blows my mind too.
People who consider themselves Scientologists who are yet unready, unwilling and/or unable to look – this blows my mind.
Excellent thread!! I think I smell a new book coming….The Church of Scientology’s Ideal Org’s gone Idle? David Miscavige’s new IRA – tax free, real estate investments to fund his future….
Jay,
Your boss calls his new buildings, his churches, largely empty of staff and public “Ideal Orgs” , but LRH had his own term for places where Scientology was being scantily delivered – “limping orgs”.
I have been asked to come in to the church on more than one occasion to:
A. Be routed off lines
B. Be routed back on lines
B1. Be routed back off lines.
B2, Be routed back on lines. (all of these routings done with crazy alterations of LRH’s policies that don’t even apply to my situation)
C. Be declared a Freeloader (before signing a contract)
D. Be sold an e-meter (before finishing the Student Hat course [I am not yet a trained auditor of any level]).
E. Be given amnesty.
F. Be declared an illegal PC (which I am not).
G. Be declared PTS Type III (while I was working and trying to pay for my Bridge).
H. Be asked about my account and then jumped by two OSA goons.
And the list can go on, but in my opinion, before the church does these things, which they will do, whether anyone tells them to or not, shouldn’t they first know WHO they are really doing these things with possibly, first, before hand, in advance of any such major RCS action? I think so! 🙂 I think so! 🙂
My hat is off to you, Dan.
And let me tell you, I very much doubt that you influenced little in your life!
Marcel Wenger
STAT PUSH,
You are right in what you say. As a public, you have alot of power to just say NO! I know folks who have either made up excuses for not doing something like going to an event or donated when they couldn’t afford it instead of just saying NO, thanks. It works well. I had people standing over me on the Flag Ship while I was on the phone handling something back home and they kept telling me I had to go to the nightly event. I kept saying no, I’m not going…’oh, well as soon as you get off the phone, I’ll wait”…finally, I just said, you are welcome to stand as long as you like but when I do get off the phone I’m not going. It also helps to know your policy in other situations. As long as you have intention to do your course or get auditing, and pay for it, they may not like your attitude, but as long as you paying public they will back off.
Staff have power too, at all levels, so it really is just their agreement and or fear that keep them in place when they are not winning.
Thoughtful,
I have contrary data re Dallas. I was there last year and I know they have a bunch of folks who recently got hired on for the TTC and one has been at flag for auditor training so they can deliver the Clear Certainty. I personally met about twenty staffers. What I don’t know is how many are Foundation and DAy. I also know someone who got a 1000.00 bonus at Xmas. How long ago did you get your data and from whom?
Nice one, Skydog.
Diogenes, I have been giving this issue of “organization” some thought. At the top of the scales is “Associated Terminals”. In his day and age, a monolithic brick and mortar operation is no longer necessary. In fact, the Internet enables us to speed up communication by taking the MEST out of the comm lines. Accordingly, in theory the delivery organizations of the future could be located in the main in cyberspace as networked associated terminals of smaller units.
Now, I cannot vouch for the efficacy, desirability or security of auditing OVER the Internet, so – putting that aside – the “associated terminals” could consist of smaller but remote specialized units. Those specialized units could, theoretically, consist of every specialty represented by a 7 division org board – Executive, HR, Marketing, Accounts, Tech, Quality Assurance, New Public – which could have their own sub-networks. Technical units could consist of a minimum of 3 individuals in the same location – an Auditor, a C/S and a Admin, or a Course Supervisor, a Word Clearer and a Admin, etc. Exactly WHO would fulfill those functions would be a matter of the free market system, although I believe there should be some type of central professional association to validate qualifications and do peer review when necessary. Nearly all other functions could be fulfilled by specialists and/or practitioners. There are already established patterns/models for such among other professional associations.
Anyway, those are my thoughts and I think this is a vital and necessary issue for discussion. Thanks for raising it.
Funny thing about it was that it was emailed to a friend of mine that took one VM course at Flag about 15 years ago and never did anything else. They sure didn’t email me the survey. Guess they don’t want to hear what I think. Guess they don’t want me back either!!! Yeh!!!!!!
Not bad.
It has a high potential to backfire on management if they ARCx the people after they honestly answered the survey.
And since the church is “always” right, it is very likely to happen.
Reblogged this on My LRH.
What you’re suggesting sounds like an updated version of how 1960’s SHSBC grads came back home and started field auditing practices that then evolved into missions and from there into orgs. Admin and central control from Worldwide were feather light in those days.
As you propose, we could have a professional association. I’d vote for something similar to APIS but owned and controlled by the member mission holders. Quantity of marketing outflow could be accomplished by that association through the internet.
But unless there were physical orgs with the mass of courserooms to go to per some agreed-upon schedule, I think most students would end up too distracted by other matters in their lives to succeed in putting in the time necessary to become competent, producing auditors.
Also, the existence of a physical org gives Scientologists a place to meet and interact with other Scientologists, which builds our community, and in turn leads to more dissemination per person. As a Distrib Sec in missions and orgs I found that while we had to do our volume outflow to get much inflow, the vast majority of new people came in through existing students, and the students sending in the most new people were the ones most connected to other Scientologists in their daily lives.
Today, we aren’t seeing large numbers of Indies gathering together in physical locations. Part of the reason for that is probably just that most of us are much older now, and necessarily much less oriented towards school-type activities of any sort than we were when we were in our early 20’s. But I believe that the other major reason is our individual, personal charge on being part of an organization that promised to make our most important dreams come true but then went bad. That charge is unfortunate to put it mildly, but must be overcome in some way.
Any ideas on how to speed that up?
“Dear leader” – brilliant, Mike! David Miscavige is probably an honorary North Korean. He shares the same leadership style and propaganda methods as North Korean leaders, starting with Kim Il Sung.
Don’t need to reinvent the wheel here. The answers to the problem are in applying the OEC, DSEC, FEBS ESTO SERIES AND THE THE TECH VOLS and the levc
tures. Just put it in by starting with The LRH ED ORGANIZTION PROGRAM NUMBER ONE AND YOU’LL DO JUST FINE.
Diogenes, your points are well taken and they are things that I’ve considered at length as well.
Getting someone intensively through a course is the most logistically demanding aspect of the production line and akin to herding cats. Getting adult students to consistent show up on time for course, what with all the things going on in their lives these days as well as traffic and parking hassles, provides for one of the major Achilles Heels in the production line and has historically been a major headache. And although I agree that course rooms are needed, at least to do many live practical drills where a twin is required, I don’t believe they necessarily have to be housed in the same location.
Standard course rooms are separated into theory and practical, Div 4 and Div 6. And with the advancements in eLearning subscription software, most of the theory could be done in cyberspace with live theory twins and a live Supervisor immediately accessible by chat window. This certainly provides for taking the MEST out of the theory line up AND makes theory training far more scalable and Fabian.
Assuming for the moment that theory training could be done remotely in this manner, that leaves the necessity for physical practical course rooms. However, independent practitioners could provide course rooms in relatively small, inexpensive locations (e.g. at home) for one or more practical courses. For example, one practitioner could offer a Communications Course; another, an HQS Course; another, a Metering Course; and Field Auditors could offer internships at their locations, etc. Additionally, students would have choice as to which practitioner they went to for each, thus enabling the free market system to do the vetting rather than some centralized authority. (I believe that was LRH’s viewpoint toward the Mission Network – those that were good would prosper and those that weren’t would be allowed to fail. See HCO PL Field Ethics)
With respect to needing an established location for Scientologists to meet and interact with each other and build community, I have to disagree. Even in the early days, having an established physical location did not necessary serve to build community amongst Scientologists. Although they did interact with each other to some degree before, during and after course, with respect to community building the org primarily served as only a meeting place from which to then go off and do community-type activities together – car rallies, float trips, softball games, picnics, etc. Today, community building is done according to interests in the form of Meetup Groups which anyone can join (and thus providing an easier gradient for new public to interact with Scientologists rather than having to first step into an Org or Mission).
Moreover, another weakness of our own culture, perhaps due to the fact that our social interactions WERE limited to that which was put on by the Org, is rites of passage. When I grew up, my church provided Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, baseball and soccer teams, CYC dances, etc. As Scientologists, unless our kids attended one of the more affluent LRH-based schools (e.g. Delphi), they were denied such rights of passage – their social skills being the worse off for it. Is it any wonder, therefore that such could provide a breeding ground for errant rug rats or Hitler Youth-type “empty uniforms”?
I also believe that this cultural lack of rites of passage and community sociability speaks to the issue of why we don’t see large numbers of Indies gathering together just to socialize and have fun. I believe it has more to do with such events in past turning out to be window dressing for some other hidden agenda than the old 20th Century model going bad. In any event, one need only revitalize purpose in order to blow the stops. As LRH mentioned, revitalized purposes could revive the dead. And we survivors are certainly more alive than before and are by no means inhibited by anything other than our own fatuous individuation.
At any rate, I believe that if we could get over ourselves and thoroughly join the 21st Century (something our counterparts are utterly unable to do due to robotic adherence to certain outmoded methodologies), we could avoid being left behind by the march of progress and could readily return to being that grassroots movement which represented the fastest-growing applied religious philosophy on Earth.
I think that might speed things up. Don’t you?
Their PR photo shows him there:
BTW, the photo is a skilled deception. Using a very wide-angle lens and standing just short of falling into a creek, it gives the impression of a vast space and a huge crowd. Measuring it from Google Maps, the parking lot just isn’t that big.
Just sent some pix of the Detroit Idle Org. taken today.
Still a rotting empty hulk.
Graduated,
Yes, we do need to find a way to use 21st century electronics. I think some theory study could be done online, as long as major checkouts and practical were done in a physical courseroom.
But I don’t like your idea of having different courses delivered in different locations, with each location specializing in a particular course. That would require students to change locations repeatedly, and would minimize exposure of lower level students to higher level students. It also would deprive any one of the locations of its continuing income base as it graduated students. That would penalize up statistics and limit the economies of scale that could be achieved by keeping students in one location as long as possible.
Back in the 1970’s Missions could deliver HQS and HSDC (the forerunner of the NED course when Dianetics came before Lower Grades), but they couldn’t deliver Academy Levels. The best Missions had 200 students on course, but would routinely lose income to Orgs that were allowed to parasitically harvest students as soon as they graduated from HSDC or even before. The Orgs’ terribly ineffective Div 6’s thereby became a huge camouflaged hole. Meanwhile Missions, unable to train auditors to co-audit their Grades and Solo Preps, instead sold too much professional auditing. A competitive conflict developed between Missions and Orgs over this, which eventually led to the Sea Org’s effective destruction of the Mission Network in the early 1980’s.
This was followed by the Ron’s Orgs in Europe delivering the entire Bridge at each of their loctions, with successive cadres of students moving up the line together, all the way from the Comm Course to OT Levels in the same location over a period of years. This preserved their esprit de corps, kept people involved and moving along, and enhanced local dissemination. Those Orgs survived for decades.
You also said that having a physical location didn’t build community, but I disagree. While it’s true that the vast majority of new people first visited Missions and Orgs because they knew someone who was already going there, once new people did get on course they met many other Scientologists, and THAT’S what confirmed their interest and really got them into our community.
Re providing rites of passage for Scientology children, I have mixed considerations about that. Theoretically it would seem to be a good idea. But the fact that a parent is spiritually aware enough to seek out Scientology doesn’t mean that his children will be of similar awareness. I’ve seen many children of high-level Scientologists turn out to be dead-in-the-head mest beings, who end up going one of two ways — they either leave Scientology altogether once they are old enough to defy their parents, or they join the Sea Org as teenagers and become robot cultists in order to resolve their “adolescent identity crises.” The Scientology schools like Delphi, that do have rites of passage, are prime robot recruitment pools. For that reason alone I’d send my kids to public school (given that I lived in a good school district and first put my kids through at least the Basic Study Manual).
While I haven’t thought this issue through all the way to certainty, I see a lot of value in a person becoming a competent wog first, by way of the standard route of “get a good education so you can get a good job, then pay your dues and get some experience in the real world.” A person going through this would then be in a position to realistically pursue the quest for something that transcended what he’d already achieved. This approach wouldn’t eliminate giving one’s kids some lower level auditing and education in basic principles, especially study tech, but it would mean keeping them away from the save-the-world 3rd dynamic until they developed some 1st dynamic strength.
Took pix today, wish I could post them. Sent to address indicated above.
Deserted and in disrepair.
+1 – Wish there were more, rational productive discussion like this, available on the net and not just horror stories. There are legal aspects, organizational aspects, Bridge reconstruction aspects. We need rational thought to lead (imo).
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Thanks, Carcha. I hear you. Although this blog serves a tremendous purpose of auditing out the 3rd Dynamic engrams and implants and enabling people to recover their itsa lines and exercise their basic human rights of freedom of thought and expression as guaranteed by common law, the U.S. Constitution, the U. N. Declaration on Human Rights and the Creed of Scientology, I for one am ready to “move on up a little higher” by mocking up the future with some workable solutions.
The old model is dead. Stick a fork in it and give it a Tone 40 ACK. Time to get the show back on the road, eh?
Diogenes, I’m glad we agree that much theory training can be migrated to the cloud. And to be clear, I was not suggesting that each course HAD to be delivered in different locations. I was simply suggesting that if a practitioner wanted to specialize in a certain course, they’d have free reign to do so without first having to be assimilated into the collective. Of course, if a practitioner’s operation grew to where it could over more or even all services, so much the better. But such growth would be organic and grounded in merit, rather than top-down imposition (which in practice actually kills growth).
As far as exposure to higher level students, that would be accomplished through attendance at community social activities stemming from self-determined personal interests – voluntary attendance any variety of Indie Meetups and conventions, rather than by group imposition, thereby restoring freedom of choice as to with whom one associates. Moreover, as public moved up the line to higher specialist operations, their field of choice as to whom to associate with would broaden commensurately.
With respect to penalizing upstats by limiting their economies of scale, the concept of keeping students in one location as long as possible leads to cannibalization of one’s CF. It can easily become a stuck-flow treadmill of recycling public in a misguided attempt at maintaining viability. One need only look at who’s on Div 6 courses at Idle Morgues to see this is real time. The Div 6 course rooms, originally intended for new public who did not yet consider themselves to actually be Scientologists, contain in fact largely veteran Scientologists being recycled through new public courses while Div 4 course rooms remain vacant awaiting GAT II. This glaring scene, and the objections you raise, trace back to an omitted scene – MARKETING! You stated as much in fingering Orgs’ terribly ineffective Div 6 (and especially Div 2, I might add). The Orgs that did well back in the day did their own excellent marketing by the book and didn’t need to predate upon their Missions. Knowing this, the Mission filled the Orgs’ Academies with Mission staff trainees, and the Orgs treated the Mission like extensions of themselves, with great care.
If truly effective, state-of-the-art Public Relations and Marketing was an Association cooperative effort with a kick-ass referral network based on proximity to new reaches, broad-scale marketing on behalf of association members would create a continuous flow of new public to all members, thus eliminating the tendency toward cannibalization and predation by “higher” operations. With over 7 billion people on the planet, the tendency to run shortages on each other is just the silly symptom of omitted effective PR and Marketing.
I was one of those who did not first visit an Org or Mission because I knew someone who was already there. I read DMSMH and wanted to find out more. I went there for the tech only and not to join any group. Although meeting Scientologists did make me at last feel amongst peers, it was the power of the tech that kept me coming back for more and moving along, even despite certain other Scientologists. And I always looked upon esprit de corps with a jaundiced eye as it leads to the ills that have so metastasized into the current scene – the judgmental holier-than-thou cliques, preferential seating, ribbon bedecked uniforms, ranks, priesthoods and popes, insularity, synthetic group valences, etc. Accordingly, I bonded only with those who shared a respect for workable methodology on a professional level and had a healthy distain for groupthink. Such bonds have remained strong in cyberspace regardless of our respective locations. So, I think mutual certainty and respect provide stronger community adhesion than location and the need for belongingness.
With respect to rites of passage, you articulated well what I was referring to by errant rug rats and Hitler Youth-type “empty uniforms”. I was not suggesting that any rites of passage necessarily lead to any indoctrination into Scientology – merely into adulthood. In fact, if the Indie community merely institutionalized the conventional, generic rites of passage extant in society, that would more than suffice. My point was that even THOSE are largely absent within our own culture. And I concur that “Scientology schools” like Delphi (I put that in quotes as they will maintain that they are secular despite management by ABLE) did have rites of passage. However, they were nonetheless entrenched within the Scientology cultural, ensuring insularity and thus making them prime Sea Org recruitment pools.
I think perhaps the answer to ensuring a firewall between Church and School are Charter Schools that provide secularized Study Tech but also a curriculum that exposes them to the full range of thought and skills, and a socialization program consisting of conventional, generic rites of passage afforded any other kid. I believe that would provide the groundwork for the benefits you delineated of first becoming well-rounded adults with some experience under their belt to then self-determinedly pursue something that transcended their accomplishments. I agree. With a good education, worldly experience, a developed sense of self and strength of character, they’d be better equipped to call bullshit and do something effective about it.
Brother, I look back with nostalgic fondness to the good ole days of the ‘70s as well. But a candid review will reveal that even then the seeds of our cultural demise had already been sown. And like the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous of 1825–1840, they were wonder products of their times and impossible to relive. Let us move forward with something that better suits our current times.
Graduated, due to my lack of time today and this week I won’t be able to continue our discussion after the comments below. But I’d be interested in having more comm with you at some point in the future.
I firmly believe in the Ron’s Org model of delivering the whole Bridge in one location, on a co-audit basis, with such organizations first servicing only new people, and then adding higher and higher levels only as they produce students ready for them.
Outside of COS, there’s no way there could be top-down imposition of this or any model. There would certainly be all manner of models at different locations. I just think growing the full Bridge in one location would be the most workable approach, given what we can observe from our history.
I agree that Idle Morgues cannibalize their own CFs, but that’s because they didn’t previously establish effective Div 6’s. In my model each location would start with Div 6 only, and not have higher services until it had succeeded at that level and had students ready to do higher levels. Div 6 thus firmly established would be the foundation of their ongoing success.
I don’t believe in advertising as a stand-alone marketing activity. I know from my experience that volume outflow to the public is necessary, but 80% of the inflow occurs through existing students, providing they are winning and in good ARC with the Org, and at least somewhat involved with other Scientologists out in daily life. None of those 3 components works by itself, but all 3 together comprise the magic formula.
That’s a vote for having the whole Bridge at one location, because students are thereby kept in close contact with their pre-Scientology networks of friends and associates, rather than moving hundreds or thousands of miles away to do upper level services where they don’t know anyone not already in Scientology.
As for the dark side of esprit de corps, I found it to exist basically in proportion to the level of the delivery unit. The higher the org, the more the dark side was manifest. The “good” esprit de corps I mentioned in my last post is the natural ARC one experiences in co-action with common-interest peers. The “bad” esprit de corps we’ve both experienced is the Nazi cult dramatization so prevalent in the Sea Org.
That dramatization is not the inevitable result of being part of a group, but rather the result of a number of specific restimulators, which I believe can be minimized by (a) eliminating the post-1968, collectivist, para-military nature of the Sea Org, (b) making sure that tech personnel rule over admin personnel, and (c) making sure that any central or global organization is owned and controlled by the tech people at the top of the local orgs it services.
I believe we have not yet found the WHY. An LRH datum, that opens a solution and handling. Is there a Third Party missing in the equation? Who?
Divide and Conquer is an ancient MO for Surpressives. We know who the true SPs are.
Show me where to find the Data Series; are they online plse?
Ya, anyway, lets all train and look.
thanks.
ps. no, I’m not posting at the bottom to be polite. sorry for that
The new Portland org was supposed to have the grand opening a couple weeks ago, on the 2nd of March, but they missed it because the renos are not yet done. To this date I have not heard if they are done. I had not heard about the money from Int. All I heard is they raised around $23 mil from donations, and spent about $12 mil on the 2 buildings. Does that mean they will have spent $11 mil on the renos?
Kerry Ibert may indeed be a nobody, but she’s not a PR personality, moreover. Maybe she’s been the beneficiary of some auditing since I last had any truck with her—well over a decade ago, admittedly—but at the time she was one of those kids who you could tell seriously lacks their own subjective reality as to what Scientology is all, apart from something to do so as justifiably drop out of school. Not to impugn Ms. Ibert’s educational background. She could have been a Rhodes Scholar for all I know. She was just not a Scientologist at that time. That was evident.
With regards to hollowed-out gourds of org buildings, I pass by the Tampa org in its lovely, historic Ybor City setting one or two nights a week en route to class. The dearth of people is profound. Maybe the public and staff stay inside. There’s a campus of the county community college in proximity to it—one of the college system’s best-attended campuses. Rarely does one see persons affiliated with the church attempt to mingle with or body route the droves of young people walking from the campus’s parking structure directly past the Tampa org as they make their way down East 9th Ave to campus buildings. Of the scores of times I have walked by there, no one has ever stopped me to even so much as do a tone scale drill. I see the odd exec-type every now and again: white uniform shirts of some kind, rumbled and unkempt, and possessing an air of hubris and a carriage of swagger. If they’re down from the FOLO, must be like having George Bush parked in your org. Sorry, George.
In a reverse kind of way, the college thing hearkens back to the days when I got in. In the 1970s, college campuses were fertile dissemination grounds. Many who got in at that time, at least here in the U.S., did so by because they were body routed from a college campus. Guess not so much anymore.
And sorry to be so late posting this. This is my busiest time of year thus get out to the site too infrequently. But love a blog post from Mike Rinder.