It shows that the internet has killed the mystery of Ron and his processes.

It reveals that society at large, once having found out that advanced OT levels costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, are about auditing endless space aliens ?.

It reveals societies inherent intelligence, wog intelligence, sees through LRon Hubbard’s deception to make money.

Simple.

Terri, church-wise, Scientology is probably closest to the Christian “prosperity gospel” churches – which are very controversial within Christianity. Other Christians will often say that such are not “real” churches, denounce them as not being grounded in traditional Christian theology, and even major evangelical leaders have referred to them as heretical.

Interestingly, one of the major influences of the prosperity gospel movement, was the 19th century New Thought movement that is also one of the significant influences on Scientology, most obviously through Theosophy. The modern prosperity gospel movement is considered to have started in 1947 with Oral Roberts – right before Hubbard decided to work the “religion angle.”

p.s. I’ve known a lot of people who work with the homeless – including some who were once homeless themselves. They suggest giving money to a good charity for the homeless, not directly to people themselves – since that can actually do more harm than good, given how the money gets spent and that it continues to enable their dysfunctional lifestyle.

Wow. What a description

Also handicapped accessible BATHROOMS WITH toilet paper.

Many excellent points my friend! We do know that they have hoards of lawyers and as we both noted, self preservation would be KEY to someone like him to as you noted “save the organization.”.

HIs loyalist still drinking the Kool Aid will support him to the bitter end…of THEIR life, not his, since most of them are probably around his father’s age.

He may not have rationalized some things, but he has hoards of lawyers who will argue to the bitter end with any “government officials” that may intervene on his behalf. Whether he would ever do any prison time, well that’s a toss up.

ok – I just checked and it makes sense, kind of

ding (informal) 1.to cause surface damage to 2.to strike with force;hit
3. to blackball – dictionary.com

still pretty funny

Ms B. Haven – The de-dinging mention brought up a memory of some guy exclaiming on a tape “What SP put me in coach instead of First Class!!!” Laughter! I don’t know if it’s King’s English, but once in awhile I’ll say to my wife “Quit dinging me!” laughter

L Yash, my presumption would be that if Miscavige took to the sea, they would acquire at least one additional ship if only just to have a safeguard against logistics problems. But just as there are safe havens, I’m certain they could always find parties willing to deliver fuel and supplies.

I think that Miscavige moving to a country without an extradition treaty may be one of the less likely possibilities, because a lot of them are not inviting places to live, while some of the most desirable ones would likely be hostile to Scientology – Russia, for instance, where Scientology is under official attack, or the rich oil states where the rulers are Muslims. He might, like Hubbard, move between several of them, trying not to run afoul of the authorities and wear out his welcome.

Money might actually be the problem in the long run. I’m not sure how much there is overseas that Miscavige would have independent access to, after Scientology agreed with the IRS to clean up Hubbard’s profiteering schemes and avoid any future personal inurement. Miscavige might find his access to funds largely or completely cut off after time, and running Scientology in exile would probably be very expensive.

History suggests that totalitarian leaders don’t usually have backup plans, they expect to die in the saddle – and often end up losing their lives because they held on to the bitter end. The last major political dictator to successfully go into a cushy exile was Ferdinand Marcos, three decades ago. I would expect that any backup plans that Miscavige has, are framed around keeping him as the leader in exile of Scientology, rationalized around that being necessary to save the organization – though it would also serve the purpose of his self-preservation. Miscavige’s overall plans are obviously much less rational and completely thought out than might be expected on a number of points, and it’s entirely possible that he has no real plans for what to do in case of criminal charges or organizational collapse, any more that Ponzi schemers seem to.

Harry, as Wynski noted in a comment below, the youth demographic started to decline in the 1970s – the peak year of the Baby Boom was about 1956 and it is considered to have ended in the mid-1960s, and so around 1976 the number of 20 year olds would have been at its highest point, and then gone into steep decline. Some of the newer and more marginal colleges, for instance, started to struggle and eventually closed during that period. The post-boom generation had originally been referred to as a “baby bust” but eventually got the name Generation X, in part because it had a different character that was harder to categorize. They literally grew up in the aftermath of the Baby Boomers and the 1960s, and reacted to or even rejected the values and interests of that earlier generation.

I think that any analysis of Miscavige’s rule has to take into account the complexity that he did not inherit a stable Scientology and change it, but rather came to power when Scientology was both changing internally, such as having the Sea Org and CMO impose the new management style developed by Hubbard on board the ships, and also facing different external conditions. That is particularly important to debunk the misty-eyed Hubbard loyalist notion that everything was wonderful when the old man was running the show (and, presumably, could be again) but somehow the out-of-character figure of Miscavige managed to arise and take things in a completely different direction.