The 2016 edition of the International Scientology News Maiden Voyage edition has hit the mailboxes of thousands of disinterested recipients.
I will do a series of posts covering the events of each night, starting with this overview of the ISN and the Maiden Voyage itself.
In a word, the whole thing was underwhelming. Monumental, epic underwhelm.
The MV (and thus the magazine) was mostly rehash. As always, the ISN is printed on oversize high-gloss (expensive) paper with what has become the norm, a DVD attached to the back page. This is EXPENSIVE “promo” that is really just hype to try to keep the sheeple convinced that all is well in Dave’s Kingdom. The DVD once again shows the grand opening of the SuMP – which as far as anyone can see has changed absolutely NOTHING – there are no new TV or radio shows flooding the airwaves, not even any new ads. The golden age of dissemination seems to constructed of fool’s gold.
What is amazing is that out of 86 glossy pages, there is only a single page description of each of the “nights” – I supposed they have finally learned that if they reprint their outrageous speeches they leave themselves open to being fact checked. But without the hype, why print and distribute the events in printed form?
Between the glossy cover and the DVD there are 16 pages (19%) devoted to rehashing the SuMP ribbon yanking to supplement the DVD. There are 4 pages of rehash of the BPI printing plant and “international dissemination center” that makes signs and posters – thing that were announced years ago as the dawn of the Golden Age of Dissemination (until SuMP became that). The Atlanta ribbon yanking gets 11 pages. The Golden Shower Age gets 18 pages (21%) of rehashing how marvelous everything is in the world of scientology now that all is “fully on Source.” Lots of smiling, good looking women scattered across these pages, subtly implying that the Golden Shower is perfect for the “beautiful people.” Flag gets a special promotional section of 4 pages, so too the Freewinds. There is a single page LRH article. So, with an overview and then a page a piece for each “night” accompanied by a full page photo of the featured speaker (more on that in future post), that is about all there is in this gilded turd.
But even a one page summary of each event contains some serious hype.
Here is the “overview” – they got things off to a roaring start with some vintage Shermanspeak. This is truly one of his finest accomplishments. Complete nonsense masquerading as brilliant prose spouting forth from a great man. Oy vey.
Fascinating they actually publish a grand total of 1800 OT Ambassadors in the world. As non-OT’s are expected to participate in their local OT Committee, this is a pretty accurate reflection of the real hard core of scientology parishioners that remain active in any way. If only one in ten parishioners are members of the OT Committee (probably a conservative estimate because if you cannot be counted as part of an OT Committee it pretty much means you have disconnected from your org) this makes a massive total of 18,000 parishioners worldwide. Add 7,000 staff and you end up with 25,000. Which in my estimation is a pretty good guess as to the active membership of scientology internationally.
In the middle of the SuMP coverage there is this photo. Doesn’t really fit with any of the individual “night” postings so am including it here.
These are the “VIPs” at the SuMP ribbon yanking. No idea who the first guy on the left is, but then in black is Kelly Preston (without John Travolta), Bob Duggan (without his wife), Nancy Cartwright, her son Jackson, Victoria and Tom Cummins.
No Tom Cruise. Kirstie Alley. Anne Archer. Jenna Elfman. Laura Prepon. Erika Christensen. Danny Masterson. What’s up with that? Even a rare appearance of the Dear Leader himself couldn’t coax the LA “celebrities” out to applaud him? He is losing his touch.
And then there is this as the “wrap up” and again Shermanspeak runs riot.
He actually managed to say we “are fast approaching power on this planet, and our influence is already vast” with a straight face?
For that piece of stagecraft alone, Miscavige should receive an Oscar.
In reading these responses to this posting I realized how happy I am I don’t give a shit about who’s a Scientology celebrity. Nor do I actually care about who are the real McCoy Scientologists of today. Hubbard died over 30 years ago and those that praise or continue to make him the cause of the present scene are just as whacko as he was to create the SO and the founding dictatorship mode. Miscavige and RTC operatives run the show now.
My mother is 93 and still hates the Japanese with a vengeance because they killed two of her brothers in the Pacific, one in battle and the other murdered as a POW. She like a lot of others others traumatized by evil and bad acts don’t seem able to control the length of time from a bad incident to whatever they do or think now.
Call auditing a sham if you like, well so is life to some. imo if one needs to repeat the same thing over and over for years & years they truly are short of friends and things to do for they really don’t want solutions, only their own misery matters to them. And those that go out of their way to enforce that misery on others are nothing more than a new problem created from an old one.
Sherman is so far in the closet he’s almost in Narnia.
These people – they can’t actually believe that the cult is “approaching power on this planet”. They can’t actually, really believe this. Can they?
I did see an aerial view photo of the Sump ribbon yanking on Tony O back when it opened. Jenna and Bodhi were there, looking manic as ever. Don’t know why they weren’t included in the MV mag. There must have been a close up of them available for use since celebs are so prized for dissemination.
Mike wrote:
I think you’re a little high there, buddy. 🙂
Alanzo
Along with my magazine I also received a letter thanking me for my donation to the SUMP. I didn’t donate but still got the letter. It says every SCio needs to buy a leather-bound set of the basics to pay for phase 2–for broadcasting expenses.
I’m seriously asking if you’re joking. Please show us this.
I’m roflmao over the “gilded terd” and can’t get beyond that. 😀
Sorry, I don’t understand what Sherman tries to say. Am I tired or is this absolutely nuts?
Miscavige should have realized that the jig was up when the Tidy Bowl man started attending his ribbon yankings…
This actually fits in well with the last few days here. Do they really wonder why more people don’t FSM to fresh meat when the leader of this whole shit show actually talks like that in public? Let’s say that someone uses this magazine to FSM to someone new. The fresh meat reads the Shermanspeak. There are only two logical conclusions that the fresh meat can draw:
1) The Toxic Dwarf is fucking nuts.
2) You, the disseminator, are fucking nuts for listening to this and buying it.
The Toxic Dwarf’s speeches are Lesson One in How To Lose Friends And Influence People (Against You). I’d recommend that he shut up once and for all and send Dan Sherman to the middle of the Amazon to write speeches for tribes that have had no contact with modern man, except we all know that he’d ignore that advice. Davey needs his Ego Dildo more than food and water, and he’ll destroy anyone that gets in his way of using them.
Well said.Toxic dwarf and Ego Dildo.
If I was looking to grade a religion on the “coolness” scale (a la, “coolest religion on Earth”), one measure would be modes of communication and social outreach. Sending out DVDs in 2016 is a demerit. Has anyone in charge at the coolest religion noticed that almost all video content is delivered streaming online? Has anyone noticed that most computer and all tablet purchases do not include DVD players? It’s OK for Scientology because their membership’s median age is somewhere in the Methuselah range. But seriously, they should have some of their more hip members, like the dentist’s daughter in NYC or the Grammy-considered whats-her-name in the orange plastic dress, tell Mr. Miscavige what’s up with the cool kidz these daze — what’s going on IRL.
(Disclaimer: I am >50, and cannot be held responsible for lame-o misfires in the above. I still have an old fashioned stereo and a CD player with a platter changer. I’m looking to sell a Marantz cassette deck. I’ll take $30 if anyone is offering, which I doubt.)
If the cassette deck is a Nakamichi Dragon, I’ll take it.
When they sell off the hardware at the Int Base you can bid on the Nakamichi Dragons they have there. Only a couple of those, but lots of the self-calibrating Nakamichi 1000ZXLs. And quite a few 582s.
I wonder if they have sold the Gauss cassette duplication line? 16 slaves at 32x duplication rate each, you can make a lot of antiques in a short time with that. Or the reel-to-reel Ampex line, that is something that should really be in a museum.
They also have the capability to manufacture 16 and 35 mm films in quantity. About the time they got that fully working they switched over to digital projection. Oh well. What’s a few million dollars here or there when the ego of the Dave is on the line?
At least the magazines don’t have a roll of paper tape on the back and a Telex address for more information. At 30 characters per second. Coolest religion ever.
But if you let any of the punters go online to access material, they might stumble across the truth. Better to quarantine them in the isolation of a DVD, where they have no navigational control.
Phil & Willie Jones’ daughter, Emily, made a call to them in an obvious OSA extortion attempt to get them to back off the Clearwater “Call Me” billboard, among other things. She made demands; the Jones’ refused. See details at:
http://tonyortega.org/2016/07/19/call-me-says-their-billboard
Eat shit, Miscavige, you miserable son of a bitch.
Well, see now, she tried to call and talk to them but they’ve gone against her religion and refused to allow Emily her own religious beliefs.
Great snark. Yeah, I’m sure that’s how they see it. Too bad they’re totally disconnected from reality.
Are you sure?
I read the piece. She transmitted the demands of the CoS and they refused.
Get your facts straight.
It was snark
The cult will tell another story. Emily tried to call them and their parents hung up.
It will be more along the lines of “their daughter attempted to reconcile, all she asked is that they stop dragging her name through the mud in the media — they refused.”
Katherine, Corn of the COB is a miserable SOB. And, in fact, I’ll bet he does eat shit for breakfast! Like the Ghost Busters movies, if you get to close to that sociopath, you’ll get slimmed….
“This is also the moment to realize that we, as Scientologists, are approaching power on this planet.”
Oh hell no. They might be coming close to a POWER PLANT, that’s about it.
Tommy J, that’s an insult to all power plants everywhere…..
Great. Now I’m in a lower condition with power plants!
Once and for all, they need to decide if it’s the “[Church of Scientology International] [Dissemination Center]” or the “[Church of Scientology] [International Dissemination Center]”.
Mike, if I am not totally off. From the left those are Doug and then Laurie Dohring in the black dress. No Kellie Preston as far as I can see.
There are no celebrities, just whales.
Gerhard – If that is Doug Dohring (and it is) then perhaps it is Laurie. Hard to tell. Maybe we could take votes and resolve this democratically. 🙂
I don’t think that is Kelly Preston as her nose looks different.
It looks like his daughter possibly if you refer to the trophy awards.
OK, it’s a pretty sad day when it is hard to tell the difference between Kelly Preston and Laurie Doehring…
seriously!
my vote is no – not Kelly Preston. Not one of Doug’s twin daughters either as that is a mature woman much older than his girls.
You are half right Gerhard , it is Doug Dohring next to Kelly Preston LOL
Correct
at Flag AO they often have film and picture crews running around dressed smartly in black carrying equipment around. Once I was in the elevator and a couple of them came in and didn’t notice me… as the girl came in to the elevator she said cheerfully,
“Right! Off to find some Pretty People!” …
I gave them a long pointed look that failed to abash her.
“this is not farewell. This is fare-forward.” sounds like one of Carrie Poppy’s so-bad-they’re-awesome puns. where are she and her slide-whistle when you need her!
Or, more aptly put for the occasion: “This not farewell, this is not even fare-forward…this is Fer-engi!”
DM was heard muttering to himself as he left the stage: “Rule #1 is rule number one for a very good fucking reason! ” (see here for further explanation http://projectsanctuary.com/the_complete_ferengi_rules_of_acquisition.htm )
LOL – that’s perfect!!
On a side note, thanks for the link, it’s hard to find the complete set online if you’re not willing to buy the book(yes, someone wrote a whole book) from Amazon(dot)com.
As a never-in who is also a branding and graphics professional, I pore over my ISN and Advance! issues when they arrive with a mixture of awe and disdain (thanks to my long suffering neighbor who gets all the Scilon Mail in spite of the fact that the former owner hasn’t lived there for ten years and hands it over to me). The awe is reserved for the really fine work that a small army of designers, photographers, production artists and printers do to make this dwindling cult look absolutely amaze balls in print. The disdain for the fact that they do it at all. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that most of the people who work on this magazine are proud of what they do. The indoctrination has already done its work, so the long hours and screaming seem like some kind of perverted reward for a job well done. I imagine the publications would be less grandiose and more tasteful if Mindscavenge would keep his tiny hands off of them, but kudos are in order for making them professional looking.
One thing Mike didn’t mention is that for all the glossy four-color plus metallic pages, most of their available space is occupied either by lavish, heavily retouched photos, or whitespace. I think there might be enough copy to cover maybe two fifths of the book. Like the church itself, glitzy, hollow gloss triumphing over substance.
1. The graphics can compete or even surpass Baptist, Mormon and Amway promo. Cult -Critics 1-0
2. Keep at least some of them geezers. Cult -Critics 2-0
3. Lil Dave is still jumping on the wrong targets in the wrong way. But he is still jumping. Cult -Critics 3-0
4. The ideal morgues are empty. But the buildings are pretty. Cult-Critic’s 4-0
5. Xenu at $100.000 is what it is. But the communication course is at least 50% as good as a Dale Carnegie course at 80% discount.
6. I am sitting in the bathroom. I am working on it.
Artoo45,
Please write some more of Your “all MEST up” series.
For those of you who don’t know, it’s Artoo’s fictional story of what happens to L Ronnie after he croaks.
“are fast approaching power on this planet, and our influence is already vast”
Proof that delusion starts at the top.
“are fast approaching clown power on this planet….” Opps! My bad! They’ve already achieved clown power…
It also proves emphatically you become what you resist. Miscavige made masturbation a sec-checkable offense within the church and here he is… a complete whack job mocking up pure fantasy to get his jolly’s off. Only the purely self indulgent follow his lead to never never land. Talk about make a postulate stick, or should I say sticky. He, like the rest of his supporters live in total delusion and the only grandeur they have is what they tell themselves. They are also the total effect of money, and in Miscavige’s case it has to money completely sourced by coercion otherwise his his glitter would fall off. He is one man who has never done a day’s work in his adult life that wasn’t chock-a-block full of lies and deceit.
I drove by SuMP this past Saturday around 6pm before heading over by Big Blue to catch a glimpse of Maiden IV. The front gates were wide open, no security around, and absolutely nothing happening that I could see. I didn’t actually notice even one person inside the lot, but I also didn’t bother going around to the back, so maybe that’s were all the action was. *crickets*
Then directly over to Blue where, while walking down Fountain Ave, I heard some nice soothing Caribbean steel drums, followed by Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run (not joking here, folks) and then what sounded like a cover band playing Shout It Out Loud by Kiss. As the event was starting, I swear I heard a pin drop.
Leading up to the kick-off, there was some bustle but not a whole lot of hustle. There were the (un)usual SO suspects milling around, and my best estimate of how many Scn-public I personally witnessed walk up to the event between approx 7-8pm while I was around … maybe 100. Maybe.
But….but….Succulent Duck! The greater L.A. area has the largest concentration of Scientologists on Teegeeak! Maybe the rest of the thousands of Scientologists were home with the flu. Yeah, that’s it! Dat’s da ticket….
Maybe they were busy dancing around a volcano throwing bundles of $100 notes into it. I heard they threw Throgmagog in last week as his credit expired and his 25th mortgage was refused.
Today’s post is very illustrative of the full weight of the immense delusion that Scientologists live, and suffer under.
They reside within the bubble of Scientology, overwhelmed into accepting such nonsense.
The alternative is difficult, almost unthinkable, yet vastly preferable:
REALIZE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN BAMBOOZLED!
Len, imagine all the old timers who have stuck it out waiting to sit on their front porch of eternity. Knowing in their minds they might pass before it happens. The cult’s brainwashing IS quite effective….
Mike, what post in Scientology would know how big the mailing list is that the ISN magazine is mailed to?
That mailing list is not indicative of reg paying clams. A better way to count the minions would be to get a list of all who have taken any GAT 2 ‘courses’ in the last 3 years.
Correct. But a mailing list is a tangible thing. The ISN magazine would go out to everyone that the church legitimately feels it caan say is a Scientologist, and then some. Staff members and SO members are included on that list. It would give a high-water mark media could use to challenge the church on its membership claims.
There’s a figure in the photo of the SuMP event, in the back where the faces are blurry, anyway I think it’s Tom Cruise.
You mean most SciCons are so short that Cruise can be seen? /s
Yeah….ya see, that’s what I was thinking too. Cruise boy would never been seen “where the faces are blurry….” Well…unless he had a peach box to stand on.
My favorite line was about how LRH opened new realms of human possibility in a way that will forever touch the lives of every being on this planet. How does he say this and keep a straight face?
Especially if he was hungover at the time….
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
There will be so few Kool aid drinkers left
to get attention Dave will send ROLEX watches
in Promo. SERIOUSLY.
I agree Jose.
Watch for ‘helicopter auditing’ to be offered as free A ARE CEE break sessions ……. until you feel like you can continue with your life. That of course will be followed with sec checks to remove the suppression from your lines and free up your hidden cash flow potential.
This will be offered by Cee Oh Bee in all His graciousness to parishioners having ‘rail’ problems, as the new GAG II tech to get the dedicated ‘back on track’.
Yo Dave,
You da man dude. Ten deep bows and five hail Mary’s. We are counting on you to lead the way out of all the suppression the world is throwing at you. Remember Dave, all the counter intention out here just proves how well You are doing in saving the planet. I trust You do believe that don’t you? Carry on …………. mail a dildo to a friend today Dave …… or at the very least, throw someone in the Hole.
Thankyou
I have been through everything to save the planet.
It’s a long list.
David Miscavige has systematically gotten rid of all of that
and put in “New stuff” that completly ruins scientology on a Planetary level.
It’s pretty odd; that guy on the far left of the “front row” picture looks like a slightly chubbier version of you.
Maiden Voyage Overkill, if you ask me.
Thank you Mike for the very good summary of these bombastic words printed on ISN.
I honestly hope Miscavige does not really believe they have a vast influence because, as far as word or mouth and media, hardly any decent human being will dare to approach scientology. Its bad reputation is vast indeed.
That’s their power. It’s the power to cause people to burst out laughing when someone says “I am a Scientologist!” It’s power to influence people to cross the street from one side to the other and back to avoid a “free Stress Test Table.” There influence is strong with people look for easy MARKS, MLMs, Corrupt Sheriffs, etc.
Hilarious! OaTy supper powers at work! And don’t forget: Cause over matter, energy, space and time to such a degree that everyone within twenty feet of an OaTy reflexively reaches for their wallet or purse, just to make sure it’s still there!
Shermanspeak is sometimes referred to as “word salad”. From the above, “word vomit” is more appropriate.
???
Much, much more appropriate! visitor, we shall now call it, forever more, “word vomit.”
I’ll never forget the first time I heard the phrase “diarrhea of the mouth.” And while the phrase means talking too much, it’s what comes to mind when I read Shermanspeak.
“Where else can you watch the material universe slipping from view behind us?”
Um, I’d say that could be seen as one is heading INTO a black hole! Which is where scamologogists & El Con apologists (of every stripe) are rapidly heading.
Another good one?
We are cirking circling circling.We are fast approaching power where we will hit the target of infinity:
The drain. This is not farewell.It is fare-forward.We will conquer the sewer system with the donations you make here and now and forever.
If we can afford toilet paper.
Not sure that’s in the budget….
“Wherever we go, that’s where we are…” Did he really paraphrase *Buckaroo Banzai*? smh
My father used to say this as a joke when I was a lad: “Son, let me share a bit of wisdom from the Orient: Today is not tomorrow and wherever you go, there you are”, said with a straight face and a deep, meaningful stare. He should sue the cherch for plagiarizing his epic and monumental words..
Remember “Your future is ahead of you” OT10
I always thought my future was in the past! Well, I guess it’s Back to the Future for me….
“Hey, hey, hey, hey-now. Don’t be mean; we don’t have to be mean, cuz, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
Great movie!!!!! Think I’ll watch it again tonight. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dynamics”
No wait…. Across The Eighth Dimension.
I think.
Watch for this ‘tech’ to be offered in the upcoming GAG III release RB. Dave will ‘git er done’ to be sure.
It’s the EP of OT IX – “I now realize that wherever I go, there I am”.
So…….realizing this makes us all OT 9s? Woo Hoo! However, I still don’t feel any different.
“But lest anyone entertain even a whisper of regret as we go our separate ways….” What a complete and utter delusional fool david miscavige is. Most of the people there were so happy to be going home – I guarantee you.
I’m confused by the last paragraph. Per Sherman and DM, LRH wrote that SCNist came from beings lately arrived on Earth? So, Scientologists missed out on the Xenu, volcano, OT III implant of 75 million years ago? If this is the case, they shouldn’t have to do OT III and above – I guess anyway. Why was LRH still having Sarge chase them out of the front gate then when he was nearing his death?
Something doesn’t add up here.
What a load of BS.
Also begs the question: What if you’re a Cleared BT?
One of my BTs is, in fact, Clear, Mary. He goes surfing with me and we hang out in my backyard. When I’m drinking wine, he constantly asks me how the wine tastes. Being a BT, he can’t taste it. That pisses him off sometimes.
?
True story A window washer had a BT that would completely freak out
when the window washer worked on high rise windows.
Seems perfectly normal to me….
?
Having done OT levels for a few years and getting absolutely no wins from them, I can tell you the only thing that kept me going was the hope that I was clearing BTs. This, to me, explained the whole concept of clearing the planet. Mike is fond of ridiculing the idea of clearing this planet based on the number of ‘clears’ being made compared to the number of births – but I always understood that when I was auditing BTs I was clearing them and they would come back as cleared human beings and logically as scientologists who would line up to sign up at their local org a few years after taking a new body.
I actually literally counted every BT I’d cleared while on OT3 to decide when I’d EP’d.
So imagine my confusion a few years later when I’m now on 7, and I see no change in the orgs – for Christ’s sake even Ron himself hadn’t come back. Where were all these thousands BTs I thought I’d cleared, on the clear understanding they’d return. With everyone else on OT7 there should literally have been tens of millions of new scientologists. I wouldn’t have bothered with all that shit otherwise. I then realised it was all a con. I was doing nothing in session – no BTs were cleared or released and none were coming back. I asked these questions at Flag, only to be told, who knows where the fuck they go. Blow ’em off and they can go shag sheep in Australia for all we know. Dinkum!
dr mac, congrats. You graduated from Scamology. The E.P.: Realize that you have been scammed by El Wrong.
A freed BT has a limited agenda , they are cruising around.
Do they realize that they are the first people in history to plagiarize Buckeroo Banzai?
They should rename this thing ‘Tragic Voyage’.
…or “The iron maiden voyage” (meaning the instrument of torture not the heavy metal band).
I think Someone has a big fat M/U on the word “maiden”. Or maybe they are stuck in an incident and can’t get loose.
You only get one “maiden” voyage. Sounds irritatingly stupid to keep calling it “maiden”.
I guess it’s just more Psyci-insanity-whoopla.
Can’t argue with you there Tommy. 😀
To keep calling a week on that rust-bucket “Maiden Voyage” is just stupid. But…I guess Dave needs his fancy words and flourishes to feel like he’s someone important and to keep his circus sideshow going.