With all the extremely negative PR in the public domain about SCN, I figure in a decade or two it’s game over with little more to show for beyond a Holding Company Real Estate empire and and a few billion dollars in offshore slush accounts.

You’re very kind, Peggy, thank you. Back at you with the hug 🙂

It could also be said that St. Hill was the original “ideal org” – an unnecessarily extravagant property purchased with money from rich donors. The Château Élysée, the most elegant of old Hollywood castle-style hotels, now known as The Manor, was bought to impress celebrities and the early generation of “whales.” Then came the Ft. Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, the city’s prime property – bought at a time when Scientology’s stats were already starting to falter due to the collapse of the baby boomer youth movement.

I don’t think Miscavige is doing anything there’s not some precedent for, from when Hubbard was alive. And Hubbard altered or changed his own previous policies when it suited him, he just had the convenience of being the one in control of supposedly immutable “scripture” and could do it blatantly and get away with it, while Miscavage has to be a bit more covert and devious about it given the hand he was dealt.

Love that quote Aquamarine – so so true.

So, basically you are saying that you are only human 🙂 That’s the problem with us humans, we act, well, just like humans.

Hug!

You’ve totally got it, Peggy. Full disclosure: I was love-bombed when I was in the cult. Quite a bit! Love-bombed by the staff fairly continuously for decades and I’m neither a celebrity nor even that known in my own field. I operate a small business; I’m not rich! Socio-economically, I’m a middle-class NOBODY. Yet, I got love-bombed, pretty much non-stop: “What a lovely OUTFIT!…is that a new watch? Where’d you get it? A THRIFT shop? No way, you’re kidding!..This Commendation is for your folder…You helped him/her SO much on that drill last week, it made all the difference, gave him/her SO much validation as a student, could you come in tomorrow and drill again so that he/she can complete Thursday 2PM?…That shade of green IS your color…Stunning!…VERY well done on handling that (work-related) problem! I KNEW you could make it go right!…Love those sandals!…etc., etc.

Look, this sounds phony and gushing when its written down but they’re good at delivering it in a way that’s not phony and gushing. Or maybe I was just addicted to it 🙂

Point being: if they love-bombed ME like this – ME, not famous, not rich, ME, middle class nobody me, then I can only IMAGINE how they love bomb the rich and the famous!

But being human, you get used to this. Habituated to it. The org is your “safe space”. You can be “yourself” and its OK.
Its nice. It feels good, to be genuinely cared about, noticed, like you’re someone important. You begin to believe you’re important to them. You begin to believe that they really like you, the REAL you.

But they don’t. They’re just pretending to like you. They don’t, really.

And the proof of that is that as soon as you step out of line they drop you, turn their backs on you, quietly and without sorrow.

And once you process that all their “affinity” is, and was, a facade, all fake, all put on, for their own purposes, its quite freeing, actually, and lots of other things that puzzled you about the cult fall into place and make sense.

As I believe Kate Millet famously said, “The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.”

And I’ll add that eventually it morphs into being funny!

Money for Nothing, and if you are Tom Cruise … chicks for free.

Thanks Aquamarine. Again, as long as the love bombing cancels out the insecurities then what the heck eh? I do suppose that being a celeb and being admired can be addictive. But how sad. Sort of proves the saying the bigger you are the harder you fall though. They live two lives, one with a script, and the other they have to deal with the real world. I suppose to stay with the cult gives them some feeling of security.

So, basically appealing to the egos in exchange for a cheap plastic trophy or a colorful framed award. No interest in actually seeing where their money goes as long as they get their photo taken. Amazing.

Peggy, good questions. I think the Whales and Celebs know policy. But its easy for them to ignore “outpoints” (that’s Scientology lingo for off-policy, out-tech, out-ethics, etc.) because they are treated so WELL. They are cossetted, admired, love-bombed. The staff know their weaknesses, their worries, their vulnerabilities and with these always in mind, staff manipulate them and make them feel GREAT. And the Whales and Celebs get ADDICTED to this. Their org, the staff there, and Scientology in general become positioned in their thoughts and emotions as their SAFE SPACE. Scientology = the people who understand them and TRULY love them. The org people TRULY know THEM, as BEINGS, as REAL people, and love them for the people they TRULY ARE (as opposed to their fame, fortune and influence). Their org and its people are where they are ALWAYS “safe” to be themselves, to be “who they really are” and STILL loved. Now, when a person is treated like that, in a very natural way – ALWAYS – it becomes VERY hard to believe that these same people are part of a group engaged in selfish, knowing, willing, evil-doing!

These Whales and Celebs are people with fears, hates, worries and vulnerabilities just like us except their public persona may be very different and it can become a kind of trap for them. Scientologists know and use this powerfully. The money pours in, in gratitude.

The Whales and Celebs are victims of “love-bombing”. Scientologists “love-bomb” them VERY purposefully, very deliberately. They may or may not be wholly sincere and in fact they may be wholly INSINCERE in their love-bombing, but they are still VERY good at it! VERY convincing. They say WONDERFUL things to you in a very natural, UNphony way. They’re GOOD at this.

In brief: my theory is that if and/or when the Whales and Celebs are told some inconvenient truths, they find them unbelievable, because they can’t believe that the wonderful people THEY know could be part of ANYTHING even approximating the evil they’re being told is going on. Its just unreal for them, that’s all. And they are totally supported in believing how unreal it is by the people around them who depend upon them for a living, whether these people are Scientologists or not.
And of course the org people assure them that its all lies from SPs.