Cece, thanks for sharing your experiences. What happened on the Purif that you nearly died, if you can say? It’s always seemed to me like a somewhat risky thing to do. Thanks, T.J.

Thank you.

Old L. Ron Hubbard
Came to discover
An SP had tapped his phone
He hid in his Bluebird
Shouting some bad words
And spent his last years all alone

Great idea,me too.

Seriously funny Mephisto.I enjoy your posts.

Hi again Mike Wynski. So, yes there are many ways to make money by handling things that should be straightforward and on the level, but in fact, are not handled that way. The average person would not normally think of these things; it wouldn’t cross their minds to do such things, however, as someone who has been extensively involved in auditing (the financial kind, not the Scientology kind) and has seen many different types of fraud perpetuated in more ways than one can imagine, I can say that it does happen more often than one would think.

I am sorry that the example I gave did not help to make this more clear, or understandable, and instead was apparently confusing, that was not my intent, but I can certainly see how that could happen. I’ll try to be more clear in future posts.

Right now, I do not have the time, energy, or even the desire to track down instances and proof of what may be going on with the LRH books, it would take more effort than I want to put into discovering something that I would ordinarily be paid for doing, just to show how it is possible, or that I am “right” about this, it isn’t that important to me, and you can feel free to believe or disbelieve whatever you want with regard to Hubbard’s books, and come to any conclusion that you feel comfortable with. If this means you feel I am full of hot air on this, so be it, I have no stake in this, financial or otherwise. I still think it is an worthwhile topic though, and that if you researched it a bit more, you might find something interesting. Then again, maybe not.

I’m pretty much done with this topic now, so I won’t be discussing it any further here… sorry if this discussion annoyed you, or perhaps my posts in general do, and apologies in advance if I fail to respond to any further posts on this matter.

I did get just a few links after a quick 2-minute search in case anyone has interest, (see below). I’m sure there is much more information out there, and more specific to this, but as I mentioned, I just don’t have the time or inclination to gather up more about this at the moment. It might make a fun project if I ever have an afternoon free (sheesh, the things that are considered “fun” in accounting, lol)

There have for many years been stories about selling and re-selling Hubbard books to pad stats and make money. Here are a few links to some older discussions:

In this discussion thread there are quotes from the Los Angeles Times in 1990 regarding B Dalton booksellers receiving previously sold Hubbard books coming into their store as new with their store stickers already on them:

http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=25104

and another board discussion on buying, returning and reselling Hubbard’s books:

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?36624-LRH-lectures-available-for-download/page3

A 2011 discussion: “Miscavige’s cult of falsified stats” at Marty Rathbun’s site about how kids in the Sea Org were given Sea Org money to buy many copies of BattlefieldEarth, taking money from one arm of Scientology to create income for another sector: https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/miscaviges-cult-of-falsified-stats/#comments

Marty Rathbun said LRH always got his royalty checks on the resold books… Michael Fairman said books were shipped from Bridge publications that had already been purchased and then returned and shipped out again as new…

Here’s a 2013 discussion right here at Mike Rinder’s blog about books, while not specifically addressing reselling, it’s still interesting: http://www.mikerindersblog.org/library-campaign-fraud/

Here’s a 1990 article titled “Financial Scam” that quotes Vicki Aznaran formerly of RTC talking about the relationship between them and Bridge Publications, saying “Author Services used to always think of schemes to make more money”:
http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/cosbookf.htm

And I’m sure more info can be found if one cares to look…

T.J. Unless you can even come up with a way of making more money by handling the same book multiple times (over digital where you NEVER handle the book; including printing, shipping, storing, et al), what you are saying makes NO sense. Math is math, even if DM is involved.

For those who want to fight back, there are MANY more ways they could fight back, without breaking any laws.

It all depends on how many enemies Scientology is currently making, and how often scenes like in the comic above really occur (once a year or once a month).

It’s hard to say, since Scientology still has many secrets.
We haven’t even seen photos from the forbidden floors of the Flag building, or the inside of a Mark 8 e-meter.

Great quote from CS Lewis. I feel that is what has happened with Europe, what is happening with America, and perhaps the world.

Hi Mike Wynski, thank you for your reply. I understand that on the surface it appears this way. Yes, if it were straight-up and honest, you are right. (Or I assume you are right, I haven’t run the numbers myself on digital vs. paper books, will give you the benefit of knowledge on this). But I believe that there are financial irregularities surrounding the sale, production, promotions, distribution, returns and redistribution etc., of the L.Ron Hubbard books. My view is that it isn’t strictly above-board, i.e. buy a book, makes xx profit, but that D.M. is profiting personally from the whole process, not just from “book sales” but the entire process from start to end, in ways that are not known to the general public.

Ok, how to illustrate this… recently we had a seismic retrofit done to the S.F. Bay bridge. They were supposed to use best grade materials, strong enough to withstand an earthquake, so the bridge would not fall apart, as it did during our last earthquake. The project was in well into construction, bids made, materials bought, companies vetted and hired, oversight in place, testing had been done all along the process, everything was progressing on schedule, until right before completion, when suddenly the bridge retrofit sections “buckled” and an outside company was hired for a spot-check, who found that the materials used were sub-standard, basically crap, that were not even supposed to be used for ordinary construction, let alone for the bridge earthquake-safe repairs. An investigation was launched outside ordinary channels, as those who had been charged with oversight had reported all was well, and it was discovered that there was fraud riddled throughout the entire process by many persons and agencies on multi levels, who had personally pocketed monies, by various avenues, procurement, distribution, hiring, construction, oversight, private contractors, inspectors, officials of government agencies. Monies were made in illegitimate ways by alternate means. So the way that A.S.I. is set up, it is outside the normal Scientology reporting and income, and funds from LRH books goes directly into separate accounts and along the way disappears into who knows where. There have always been reports of suitcases of cash being carried around. So this is what I meant by that. If it were as simple as sell a book = xx dollars, and sell digital book = xx plus 1 dollars, yes, digital makes more, right? But it isn’t straight-forward.

OK, that said, I am not an insider in Scientology, just a curious outsider whose primary field is in financial/accounting and it sparks my interest enough to be skeptical, but without access to the inner workings can’t say with certainty how this all works. I can only speculate. Based on experience. And hereby a disclaimer: I am making no claim or accusation or specific charges, this is just idle speculation on my part. So, why the huge push for ‘Battlefield Earth’ right now? How does it benefit the Church of Scientology, and David Miscavige? Is it public relations? Generating interest in the CofS? Or monetary? In many things, I’ve found the answer to be “follow the money” and you will find the reason. But of course, I could be wrong. Maybe money isn’t all that important to the CofS or Miscavige.