St Hill Manor — Christie in foreground during SP visit in 2010*
There is a lot of mention of “St Hill Size” in scientology. It is one of the great catchphrases that motivates the sheeple “We are going St Hill Size,” heard almost as often as “We are Clearing the planet” (but not as often as “will that be cash or check?”).
But what exactly does St Hill Size mean and why is it important?
St Hill is the name of the estate in Sussex, England that L. Ron Hubbard bought in 1959 and converted into the international headquarters of scientology. There were “difficulties” in the US and he decided the UK was a safer operating climate. That lasted for a few years until he was refused a visa extension. He abandoned the UK and tried to set up in Rhodesia as the reincarnation of Cecil Rhodes which didn’t go well. He then took to sea to be “fabian” in international waters away from the “control” of any “wog” government. That was the birth of the Sea Organization.
During the early 60’s, St Hill was the place to be for scientologists. Hubbard delivered frequent lectures to the adoring audiences who traveled from around the world to study at the feet of the master. You could learn to be a scientology auditor there — supervised in person by Ron and his wife Mary Sue (who at that time was often publicly lauded by him — she would later be erased from scientology history after she took the fall for her husband and went to federal prison).
In scientology terms, St Hill in the 60’s was the bustling center of the universe.
In 1982, Hubbard announced a “Birthday Game” to encourage scientology organizations to get more people into scientology, move them up the Bridge and make money — this is what he wanted from “his staff” around the world as a Birthday present.
His birthday wishes were issued to all scientology staff in LRH ED 339R (The full issue is at the end of this post, the key points are extracted below).
This was the first mention of “achieving the size of old St Hill.”
This new game also promised something else: the “Universe Corps.” This was a special incentive for those orgs that DID expand to St Hill size. The staff would be able to “go OT” in their local org rather than having to travel to one of the 5 “Advanced Orgs” around the world. 
Hubbard told management this was the answer to all their prayers. Orgs would now magically expand and all would be well. Ron had solved it once again.
Much to Hubbard’s horror, his new Birthday Game and offering easy OT levels all over the world did NOT result in rising stats.
So 8 months later he issued an addition (339R-1) informing staff that if they were NOT achieving St Hill size the problem was they were OFF PURPOSE. And that achieving St Hill size was the way to get paid enough to live on.
He made a big deal about Boston having achieved the size of “Old St Hill” due to a Sea Org “Command Team.”
In fact this was a group of SO Execs who had been responsible for the infamous “postulate check era” who had been brought to the Apollo and called before a Committee of Evidence issued by Hubbard to “determine if they were Suppressive Persons”… Of course, the Comm Ev found that they WERE (nobody in their right mind would dare find otherwise when the clearcut message of the issue was that Hubbard already KNEW they were SPs). Hubbard “commuted” their sentence and gave them a choice. Be declared or be to sent to a failing org where they were to get 1% of the city’s population names in Central Files and send more money to support the “Flagship” than the Advanced Orgs were doing.
These guys knew how to stat push. Boston Org DID grow.
Of course, as soon as they left it began its long decline into oblivion.
But this didn’t deter Hubbard from making the point to the staff around the world that they should be able to go St Hill size in “just a few weeks” like the SP’s in Boston had done (he didn’t let on that they were SP’s of course)…
He made it clear, any org NOT going St Hill size in a few weeks was simply “off-purpose.”
There is much more to what happened during this time — 1982 and 1983 were watershed years in the history of scientology management. It was also, not uncoincidentally, the beginning of the “False Purpose Rundown” that Hubbard developed to find the hidden evil purposes preventing staff from expanding their orgs. I was one of the people Hubbard proclaimed was overwhelmed with “Ev Purps” because I was WDC Sea Org and AOLA had falsely reported their stats… I was sent to the RPF (no reprieve to a small and failing org for me).
But back to St Hill Size.
Hubbard did not explain what the requirements were for St Hill Size other than “5.4X your stats.” That was of course completely arbitrary — one org might be delivering 10 hours of auditing and another 100 — obviously 54 hours of auditing per week was NOT St. Hill Size and who knew if 540 was? He also claimed there were “250 staff” (including “wogs”) at St Hill so even if the org did 5.4X their stats and they didnt have 250 staff, was that good enough? Nobody knew.
Hubbard sent instructions to Guillaume Lesevre, the subsequently vanished and unreplaced “Executive Director Int”, to put together a project to dig out the information on how big was old St Hill. Jean-Michel Wargniez, the “Int Mgmnt PR” was put in charge. They dug up all the old files from St Hill and determined there were 200 students at St Hill at its peak. From that other figures were extrapolated. How many hours of auditing were delivered a week. How much income. And how many staff.
This was all compiled into a booklet “How Big Was Old St Hill” that laid out these “quotas.” The booklet was sent out to all staff so they knew what they were trying to achieve to get their OT levels that Ron had promised them.
These numbers were adjusted over time, but as I recall the basic statistics were 200 staff, 200 full time students in the Academy, $100,000 income per week and $100,000 VSD (Value of Services Delivered).
It took until 1988, but the first two orgs to achieve St Hill size were announced at the March 13 event — AOLA and Orange County Org. This was recorded in What is Scientology?
Subsequently there were a couple of orgs announced as St Hill size each year during the 90’s – Milano, Stuttgart, Munich, AOSHUK, Hamburg, SFO and a few others.
Of course, none of them were ever really St Hill Size. They pushed their stats up to the quotas with all sorts of unusual systems, got their award, and promptly collapsed back to their “non-viable” status. Some of them were even sent “Universe Corps” but they invariably were discovered to be “out tech” and were soon disbanded. The entire program was a horrible failure.
But in those halcyon years of St Hill Size Orgs came the release of OT VIII and the launch of the Freewinds. Miscavige told those who had completed OT VIII that in order for it to be “safe enough” to release OT IX and X ALL orgs had to be “St Hill Size.” Like Hubbard, he thought this would motivate staff and OT VIII’s alike to grow their organizations and make more money. Like Hubbard’s original “Birthday Game” it failed.
Those who had completed OT VIII became increasingly disenchanted about growing old and dying before the release of OT IX and X as by the late 90’s no orgs were being declared “SH Size” (not even fake ones…)
In 2003 (15 years on from the release of OT VIII) Miscavige came up with a new “thing.” He told scientologists the reason orgs were NOT going St Hill Size was that they were not “ideal” — he announced this as a huge “why” that he had discovered. All orgs being Ideal then became a stepping stone to all orgs becoming the size of Old St Hill (which in turn is the stepping stone to being able to start clearing their zones and opening more new orgs). Ideal was defined BT Miscavige as having a building larger than 40,000 sq ft that was renovated to his standards that could “perform all the functions of an org”, as if the problem was lack of space. The absurdity of this was lost on the sheeple. They bought into the idea that the problem of empty, failing 6,000 sq ft orgs would magically disappear if they got larger, more empty space. At least they would look more impressive. I have covered the Ideal Org scam in detail in earlier posts.
Despite the Miscavige “Why” for no St Hill size orgs, in spite of numerous “ideal orgs”, there are no orgs above the “Make-Break” point. Most cannot pay their staff anything close to a living wage. All the orgs that have been declared “ideal” are NOT St Hill Size after 15 years. Hubbard said it should take weeks. The lie Miscavige foisted off on the sheeple about “Ideal Orgs” has been disproven time and time again, and yet they go on hoping, continuing to hand over money for the pie-in-the-sky promise that getting a new building will make “St Hill size orgs,” which in turn will be able to actually expand and be viable and eventually will be able to make a dent in clearing their community.
And it will result in the release of the non-existent OT IX and X. Thirty years later that very moldy carrot is still being dangled in front of the OT VIIIs and some of them keep plodding on ever hopeful they will finally get a bite at it despite all evidence to the contrary.
The deception is deep.
But the delusion is boundless.
* I took Christie to England in 2010. We visited St Hill, she roamed around with Sam Domingo while I sat in front of the castle. Security eventually figured out who I was and ordered me to leave. See other photos on Marty Rathbun’s blog.
FULL TEXT OF LRH ED 339R
FULL TEXT OF LRH ED 339R-1
Hubbard was a windbag. Miscavige is clueless when it comes to expansion.
Hey Mike
Try reading those LRH EDs on your phone. lol Kinda tiny. Anyway, Christie looks great even if she is really far away from St. Hill!
If you go to the link you will see a shot of her on the back patio of the St Hill manor.
Mike I know you’re on a mission but don’t you get tired of remaining immersed in all things Scientology? Immersion is a classic though counterintuitive condition of PTSD, which I would not at all be surprised to learn you are suffering from having escaped from the trauma inflicted on you by this sick fucking cult.
It’s his occupation and there’s nothing wrong with that. Any number of people earn a living writing a column on the internet. I think fewer topics would allow more back and forth conversation but that’s just my opinion.
Two months ago I accidentally hit the “Welcome Message” button above which was published in 2013. Here are the first three paragraphs.
[For 4 years, Marty Rathbun’s Blog – Moving On Up A Little Higher – has provided an invaluable service. It has been the best source of news on the current goings-on in the world of Scientology, exposed truths about what has happened in the past, provided a venue for those newly emerging from the bubble of the Church to announce themselves to the world, given insight into squirreling of the tech, offered helpful advice on sources of wisdom and became a place to find new friends or reconnect with old ones.
Marty has always said that it was his desire to help raise spiritual awareness, to move on up a little higher. If you are a regular reader you have probably noticed his blog evolving away from the daily news into higher concepts and discussions. This is something that is important. And it is a message directed to those who have well and truly left the church behind and are moving onward and upward.
But I feel there is still a need for coverage of day to day news and activities. And a place where those who may just be emerging from the bubble that is corporate Scientology can find information to help them to break free once and for all. And perhaps a place where even the seasoned veterans of Moving On Up can keep up with current news.]
Mike,
Thanks for revealing the 40,000 SF standard.
Decades ago I was on line at an org which was “ordered” to buy a new and much larger building. I was asked to review the 4 buildings they were considering. They ranged from 20k to 40k SF and I was shocked when I reviewed the latter one. The org had about 30 full time staff and the building they currently operated from was 12k SF and very roomy. But they were interested in buying a place and quit renting the one they were in. So I recommended they look for one the size they actually needed. Stupidly they went for the 40k one and then began hitting up members for purchase money. I could never understand why they over bought that place but now I understand. Int management or the landlord’s office demanded 40k sf and the stupid org staff had to toe the line. Dumb as sticks and totally deserving of any and all financial woes that will fall upon them.
Glenn
I believe that got increased to about 50,000 SF in what I’ve seen referred to as “ideal org 2.0.” Supposedly one of the reasons that Boston gave up on the Hotel Alexandra property that they bought in 2008, was that it was “only” 42,000 SF, and that didn’t meet Miscavige’s new standards by the time they got around to serious planning for renovations. Of the recently completed or purchased buildings whose specs I’ve looked at, the smallest I’ve seen were listed at 48K or 49K SF – and it’s possible those were actually going to finish out to over 50K SF.
It could be that the 50,000 SF standard was picked in part because it’s 10X an old minimum of 5,000 SF for org premises. I’m just guessing about that figure, but the other thing I’ve noticed when looking up older org locations, is that at lot of them are right around 5K SF – or at least those of the small and failing orgs that are only finally getting their “ideal” facilities.
The overbuying is indeed insane and unsustainable. The orgs won’t even be able to properly maintain the enormous properties, and some day it will all come crashing down.
Plus the strategy of building up palatial orgs rather than spreading out locations, actually hampers their ability to draw people. There are reasons that Home Depot and Costco don’t have just one massive location in a metro area, principally that studies show that most people don’t want to drive more than 15 to 20 minutes to get goods and services.
Totally agree Peacemaker. Insane and unsustainable. The org I saw couldn’t even afford a landscape contractor. They constantly pleaded with members to come help mow the lawns, trim the bushes, weed the gardens, etc. Wonder what they’ll do when serious maintenance and repair issues arise.
From personal observation I know Miscavidge is a completely uncaring, unthinking and useless idiot. He’s taking the cult down a path to oblivion. And when it all ends I believe the little dork will take the same “out” as Hitler did. Well, my fingers are crossed anyway.
Glenn, the inevitable end for all criminal scams is oblivion. That ending was baked into scamology by Hubtard.
Miscabbage won’t off himself. Hitler only killed himself because he KNEW the death penalty awaited him. Miscabbage has no such ending to worry about.
I’ve seen accounts that members are now being hit up for money to help out orgs with utility bills – and I suspect that “ideal” campaign funds have probably been diverted for those sorts of expenses. The orgs with “ideal” facilities have at least bought themselves a reprieve from having to deal with outside landlords who might evict them for not paying rent, another point of financial crises quite a few have also reportedly run in to.
I suspect that the “ideal” facilities will be terribly neglected – there are reports of a leaky roof doing damage at the DC org, for instance – which is another reason that when they finally have to start being sold off, they probably won’t bring much money. But I think it’s a tossup whether it will all end with a bang, or a whimper.
Oddly enough, large and lavishly decorated buildings “prove” Scn is expanding in the minds of some scientologists. They do exist as a factual reality in the real world alongside whatever Utopian dreams or dreams of personal Total Freedom someone has.
In the mid 1970’s myself and a bunch of other scientologists rented rooms at the Celebrity Center in LA when it was undergoing renovations and still called The Manor Hotel. It was a massive building and all the work which needed to be done reinforced the idea to me that Scn was expanding and prospering in order for such a project to be undertaken.
Hubbards ‘tell’ was the word “fact”. This man seems to use that word every time he told a lie or obfuscated the truth. He used this when he had absolutely no proof, research or information to support whatever it was he was saying. He also made up conversations to ‘sell’ his ideas. Like the one he used above (I sincerely believe the conversation never took place anywhere except for in his mind). This man was a consummate con artist who was able ‘sell’ people whatever self-serving idea he came up with in order to gain more money, adulation, support and acolytes.
Unfortunately, he is still doing it from the grave, aided by the desperation of Miscavige. By recycling and slightly altering Hubbards policies, he’s found a new way to bamboozle people into giving up money and time to a useless cult.
Just my take on it.
Im going to try to go to DC again this weekend for another swipe at the Org there- I will take my bobble head with me to see if I can get some good pictures of “Mike” in the capital.
Kat
GREAT post, Mike
This one’s a keeper, hope to see it pinned to a sidebar.
The info from the WIS book is a great little side tidbit – and what do we bet that one of the reasons for pulling and destroying all “non-GAT editions” of books has to do with these damning “lists”!
Here we have names of Freedom Medal winners… but some of those are declared, right? 🙂
I’d bet these older editions of WIS contain all kinds of evidence.
Thanks again. This is great. Also love that Karen’s pinned the list of declared to the post via comment.
What a good day this is.
ML,
Ex-Birthday Game I/C
Ex-Scio
now just a happy human
Mike,
Could you do a blog post about all the services that are no longer being delivered like Key To LIfe, SHSBC, FEBC, etc.
You probably have far more recent information than the rumors that have circulated for quite a few years.
Oh, these are no linger delivered???? Wow! How do they excuse that?
Another thing – you can’t get either the Tech or Policy volumes, they are simply not available anymore at least from Bridge Publications. This is not something new, it has been this way for some time. I believe this is by design. The more difficult it is for the Sheeple to access those materials, the easier it is for Miscavige to squirrel things the way he does. I believe that if those volumes are ever made available again, the materials will have undergone a considerable culling out of things Miscavige would not want people to see in the future.
It’s really amazing considering the numerous LRH orders about all those services and materials.
Since it’s a deliberate action from Miscavige, it can only mean that COB really wants the subject to disappear. Maybe he’s the biggest ‘ex’ of them all.
Been there, done that, felt sick, got worse, woke up and put as distance from that crap as I could. If I was to summarize the birthday game, only one word comes to mind – vomit!
Are we talking projection vomit?
Yeah, like competing in a long jump competition
And let us not forget that 95% of the staff that made Saint Hill grow to “SAINT HILL SIZE” were all subsequently declared SUPPRESSIVE PERSON !
Here it is ~
https://androvillans.wordpress.com/category/st-hill-tech-staff-declared-sps/
Wow!!! All those declares and they passed me up! I’m pissed! Who can I insult?
Christy’s smile is bigger than anything scientology has on offer.
The biggest lie is that huge square footage of buildings and pretty facades will make up for lack of delivery of auditing and courses. The sheeple refuse to see that. Re the reward of having the Universe Corp come: for decades the Universe Corp was a no show even for the few orgs that did make it to St Hill by whatever sleight of hand. However, recently, like in the last 5 years, the Universe Corp really did come and operate at LA Org. This was after the SO came and took over LA Org. I personally know of one person who made it up the Bridge as a staff member at LA Org by receiving the auditing from the Universe Corps. Then she got onto OT VII even though she and everyone she knew didn’t have the money to pay for OT VII. And Flag will not audit outer org staff for free. What? How did this happen that an org staff member could get onto OT VII with no money? Well,
It was revealed to me by recent SO escapee, Bree Mood, that LA Org had a rich whale who donated a bunch of money for the express purpose of using it to get staff members on their OT Levels and up to and through OT VII. So that explained how this person I knew got onto OT VII with no money! But it should be noted here that it was NOT done by the org’s up statistics and St Hill Size etc. It was done by a whale donating money with strict instructions as to how it would be used. So again, it seems the Universe Corps doesn’t deliver OT Levels to deserving staff.
She does have a beautiful smile. And it radiates! I wish I could radiate.
The ‘Birthday Games’ is just a sales contest. Watch Tin Men and Used Cars for a much nicer take on ‘sales’. And keep away from anything Cardone-ish.
In addition to adoring audiences there are verifiable reports that scholars from several fields also participated at Saint Hill, being intrigued with the possibility of applying Western science to Eastern philosophy. In spite of all the crazy, enough Scientology “processes” were developed in the 1960’s to keep people interested, apparently even to this day in DM’s cherch.
There were indeed all sorts of people who checked out Scientology. Most then checked out….
I don’t believe than any scholars who might have participated in that era, wrote anything about it that Scientology would want to tout. Where are such “reports,” or at least the names of any supposed scholars? Hubbard’s knowledge of Eastern traditions was so superficial and even faulty, and his applications so flawed, that I have trouble imagining that any scholar would have taken it seriously once
Evans’ early 1970s book Cults of Unreason has a chapter on Scientology that is hardly flattering. I can’t remember whether he did any courses or not.
Sociologist Roy Wallis attempted to take courses at Saint Hill in the early 1970s, but quickly ran into “sec checks” and had to leave. He wrote a paper describing how Scientology used various means to recruit people into what was ultimately an authoritarian cult, and then followed it up with a book, The Road to Total Freedom, published in the mid-70s.
William Sims Bainbridge did take some Scientology courses in the process of investigating it, though I think that would have been in the US, in the 1970s. He followed it up by publishing a paper at the beginning of the 1980s – when Hubbard was still in charge – in which he deconstructed Scientology as a “cult” from a sociological perspective, and pointed out how seemingly objective claims such as “clear,” having failed, had been transformed into “social statuses” (the specific term he used at the time) instead.
I do remember such scuttlebutt about supposed prominent people involved and serious attention being given the subject, functioning as a sort of informal internal propaganda. It was overblown then, and continues to be given too much credence; just because people who were interested in checking out what was going on during the era, did some Scientology, doesn’t either discredit them or mean that anything they did afterwards was necessarily influenced by Scientology, much less some sort of offshoot of it.
Peacemaker,
I recently got into the spin cycle on Twitter with one of the front groups, asking them to supply any verifiable outside evidence that Scientology was a religion and was recognized by others in the interfaith community. They had several very interesting quotes from a few religious leaders. However, on inspection, all of them had died many years ago. I pointed this out and was promptly blocked from the site ( it was interesting just how quickly they took exception to anyone actually having the audacity to fact check their propaganda). I think that many of them probably made the comments during the hey day and, like you pointed out, promptly left after realizing the futility of the ‘tech’.
the sad fact is that the information is easily found, but the members never bother to look, or are so brainwashed that they don’t even try to discover the truth.
Kat
PM – I think the Briefing Course was over before 1970. A list of the supposed notables who participated is in one of the writings from Alan Walters which I read a few years ago. The most commonly referenced people are the two educators who developed the study materials which Elron claimed was his own discovery.
Why such people participated who knows. They probably had different reasons and maybe thought Hubbard was onto something in the human potential movement regardless of any bad publicity he had. These days just about every year of Hubbard’s life is documented and easily accessed but back then they would have to go looking.
I never read any books about cults until AFTER I left scientology – laughter
Richard, the two “educators” referred to must be H. Charles and Ava Berner – neither of whom were really trained educators so far as I can tell, though Ava may have had some experience working with kids (hence her suggestion of clay demoing – for children). They were both rather interesting people, who established their own program after leaving Scientology, and then Charles went on to become a well-known yogi.
There is a long interview with Ava that I think I’ve mentioned before. One of the things she said of her time in the inner circle during the early days of Saint Hill, was that Hubbard didn’t come up with anything – all the ideas were given to him by those around him.
Hubbard was good at creating the illusion that his teachings were getting more notice than the were. I had a quick look at Paul’s collection of Walters’ posts to ESMB and couldn’t find any reference to scholars:
http://www.paulsrabbit.com/The-ESMB-Posts.pdf
This ESMB post suggests that he probably did just make general claims, and didn’t back them up with actual names:
http://www.forum.exscn.net/threads/keeping-alan-c-walter-in-view.17164/page-39#post-686436
Scientology almost always seems to turn out to be based on misrepresentations and lies.
PeaceMaker – That’s the material I looked over. It’s extensive and I had previously just browsed over it and found some parts interesting. Skipping quotation marks, rather than scholars, Walter generalizes that some of the people participating were masters and giants. Since he spun off from Scn into his own subject of Knowledgism, maybe he wanted to suggest that Knowledgism was based on credible research done by credible people other than Hubbard. I stand corrected.
LOL, all those machinations to get staff to expand their org when the real why was staring everyone in the face the entire time.
The “tech ” NEVER has and never will work.
And by the 1980s people were much more wary of groups or cults, with their deceptive recruiting methods and false promises. The same phenomenon doomed traveling medicine shows with their snake oil cures.
Hitchhiking, widespread in the 1960s and into the 70s, also died out as the trusting hippie youth movement waned, and people learned about “stranger danger.”
There had also been a lot of negative media about Scientology specifically by that time, even if it wasn’t as pervasive as it later became. There was quite a bit of local coverage in California in particular, over various incidents and cases such as the law enforcement raid on the Riverside mission for financial fraud.
Totally agree Wynski. Totally! Glad to know someone else saw this too.
The so called tech is nothing more than MAKE BELIEVE.
The few remaining clams are either young and ignorant of Hubbard’s older policy’s or old and willfully ignorant of Hubbard’s older policy’s because their cognitive dissonance is so high. Either way they are on the road to destruction.
It should be called the “Saint DownHill Birthday Game”. At least they will know what they are in for.
I’ve seen accounts that Saint Hill was only that size because a bunch of Australians had to move there after Scientology was banned in several states due to a typical “flap.” Plus of course there was the attraction of Hubbard himself speaking and the lure of new “tech” constantly being introduced – supposedly to finally fulfill promises like “clear” that previous tech had failed to – creating unique conditions that no other org could hope to ever match.
By 1982 Scientology had been in decline for years because the big generation of young baby boom “seekers” were settling down and turning into yuppies, and the smaller youth cohort following it rejected hippy-era values and were more interested in being preppies. Even a lot of US colleges closed in that era due to a lack of students, and some of the savvy mission holders were aware of the demographic challenges, but Hubbard always wanted to scapegoat a “who” in Scientology rather than face up to reality – including mission holders who’d found ways to adapt, at least temporarily, though a lot of them were resorting to “stat pushes” and even fraud.
I can’t remember the details I’ve seen about what was done in Boston, but I think that one of the one of the stat push tricks is to get everyone to use up any money they have on account – sometimes even taking money out to pay for books and materials that members hadn’t agreed to – and essentially spend any money they had budgeted for services for the whole year, right then. After bust typically followed boom, “some evaluation was done years later and determined they actually messed up”:
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/the-hype-for-saint-hill-size/#comment-167734
Anyway, Mike, great accounting of the whole thing through the OTIX and X scam, thanks. And that’s got to be the most attractive picture of Saint Hill….
Thanks for the info, Peace Maker, and of course, thanks for the detailed article and history, Mike.
Thank you for explaining. If I understand correctly, then, they can get away with calling the African advanced org “Saint Hill Size” because the criteria in the “How Big Was Old St Hill” booklet are no longer promoted and most Scientologists aren’t familiar with the definition. I don’t suppose it would do any good to send all of them a copy of the booklet or a list of the quotas from it:
200 staff
200 full time students
$100,000 income per week
$100,000 VSD (Value of Services Delivered)
By those criteria, which orgs are actually Saint Hill Size? Seems the second and last quotas rule out just counting IAS donations, so I’m wondering if any of them are. Flag?
An AO such as in Africa could also be “stat pushed” to hit that size temporarily, such as for an “ideal” opening, by getting people to travel for courses that they can’t do locally. None of the shrinking local orgs has enough of a “field” left to get anywhere near that many people on course no matter what they did – they are lucky if they are at 10% of those numbers.
Late 70’s, early 80’s I was hanging out on the steps of ASHO LA having lunch with 100’s of Briefing Course students. It seemed hussle/bussle and a lot of fun. The fact that I could barely get through an LRH tape without thinking, “He’s embellishing/making this up” or “Get to the point” was irrelevant. I was having a good time, I belonged to a good group of fun-loving, “ethical” people.
This is what I harken to when I read the above. What an idiot. I was laying the groundwork for a shit ton of heartbreak. From the mid 90’s, more and more of this nonsense crept in, like the “Super Power Project,” the “Ideal Org” scam, The Basics scam, the onerous IAS donation scam, the ravenous hours-eating, soul crushing padded programs and sec checks….
Well, lesson learned.
So glad you’re out, Mary. I remember you from the Aftermath. I hope your son is getting seeds of truth planted some how, some way…
Thank you. I think he, as well as most that are still in, see (and ignore) seeds of truth but eventually the psychological dam breaks and they leave – if they can.
One day Mary your son will get his own personal wake up call as you did. Sometimes it takes longer for the truth to reveal itself. The truth doesn’t stay hidden forever, eventually it reveals itself or someone reveals it for you.
Your son is still a young man, young enough to begin life anew as have you & his dad. The hardest thing to realize is that you were sucked in & taken advantage of due to your kind & loving heart. One day your son will return to the loving arms of you & his dad.
Every day MY OWN personal hope is that at least ONE person leaves. Maybe that ONE person leaving will be the wake up call your son needs. I wish you well.
???
I was a young kid living in the Fountain Building from ’78-’81. My parents were both in the sea org. My brother and I of course were in the cadet org. I still don’t remember how they left. I believe they routed out and had a freeloaders debt. But we moved up here to Ventura in Oct. of 1981 and we all immediately got on-lines at the San Buenaventura mission run by the Steiners.
Interesting you should mention Buenaventura and the Steiners, that pointed me in the direction of the history of the mission. Reading between the lines in an ESMB thread, in a somewhat typical story, they apparently learned at the Riverside mission how to put on a good front for the public, while abusing and cheating staff to make big money, but ultimately got in trouble themselves:
http://www.forum.exscn.net/threads/catherine-stiener.8236/
The mission has been reported to be getting some Sea Org attention of late, and according to their incomplete corporate record history may have gotten new mission holders in 2016. They are almost inevitably doomed to extinction by the time what is currently the Santa Barbara org moves down to their area.
The Make Break Point, where there is so much income that staff gets well paid and the Org can cover many other expenses is another lie. By the way, I have lost count of the in numerous lies written and voiced by both ‘leaders’ of this cult.
Anyway, FSO was making over a million dollars a week around mid ’90s. Staff was not well paid, in fact we missed a couple of weeks here and there. To get money approved for you to go to a Doctor took forever, unless you were an auditor, a higher Exec or a key personnel, like a Registrar.
But we have many other examples of this. The point is the greed of LRH and Miscavige to “HAVE” money.
Having money provides characters like this with a sense of security or safety, it gives them the idea that they are admired by others and gives them a sense of power.
The question here is, what these characters will be if they had NO money? Just a common garden variety narcissists, not productive to society or anyone around him, insecure and feeling lost and, worse for them, not having admiration from others. This is for sure the Ideal Hell.
“moldy carrot”… lolol.. says it all huh!