http://disq.us/p/1s5zowv

Over at Tony Ortega’s Bunker yesterday, when the feature was Rod Keller’s reporting about the failure of the org to open on schedule, someone posted that they called the org and whoever answered the phone indicated that work was still going on, and they had no new date for an opening.

Also, I noticed that Orlando has a very new and minimal Facebook presence, besides an old “Orlando Ideal Org” page they seemed to have stopped updating and lost control of back in 2012. There were also no other social media accounts that I could readily find – all of which, appear to me to be virtual requirements for orgs – which is another sign of the smallest and weakest orgs least capable of even keeping up appearances.

Dump, Sir!

Aquamarine, you are an awesome person! Love ya!

Hubbard said a “Scientologist is one who looks”. But looking and speaking about what you observed can get you in trouble in Scientology. Many of us found that out the hard way. Many still in have observed their friends getting declared for holding their position and it creates an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. No wonder their orgs are empty, they have scared too many people away by their own conduct. Season 3 is coming! Hip hip…..

Respectfully,
Debra Van Neste
CultsCults.com

Beyond tragic, Doug. Some of them have to be really unhappy, living these lies. I know it would make me physically ill. Pretending for a bit is OK and can even be a game and fun, but actually living this way, lying all the time – I could not. Just the concept makes me feel ill and I am ridiculously healthy pretty much all the time.

But what you said: “The question is, how much more misery and wasted years of peoples lives will it take?”

Great question. I don’t know. But something in the New Testament sprang into my mind. H

Jesus was talking to his disciples and urging them to follow him, but to my mind he could just as well have been talking about the meaning of integrity:

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his soul?”

“…take up his cross…”
Being true to oneself can be very hard.

“…whoever loses his life…will find it.”
Plenty of people on posting here “lost” their lives and have found it.

I think – this is just me, but I think that Jesus was talking about integrity here – knowing what you know and being honest about it.

It is sad that the Still Ins are willing to lie and cheat, and believe that that’s what they MUST do in order to safeguard their eternity! All kinds of ancient wisdom cautions to never do this – never forfeit your soul for anything!

But you thought that Orlando had been down to “a couple part time staff”? I was really curious about that.

When I referred to an average “ideal” org being left with about a dozen staff, I was referring to those who I think are full time; the full complement seems to be more like 24 to 30, which I assume includes a lot of part-timers or even just volunteers regularly helping out in some area. And that’s serving an active membership of 50 to 60, plus about as many more who show up for a couple of major events a year and might do the occasional course. I’d really like to get a handle on what typical org staffing numbers are these days, but have seen surprisingly little about it.

Orlando is probably the smallest and weakest of the orgs to go “ideal” so far, and I don’t see how they can support much staffing at all, plus at that they’d need to moonlight or have another source of income to make ends meet. I’m sure that the “postulate” is that going “ideal” will lead to some big increase in their field, but at this point they would probably be lucky to “recover” a couple of people who used to be active.

yes, I did get that you had visited the Orlando Org. I did too, but not in the last 10 years. I doubt that it’s ever been too much different than what you or I saw. In my day, our local org had about 22 day staff or 32 foundation staff. Once in awhile there would be surges of increase or decrease of 10-12 more or less staff, but that’s it. Also during that time, there was no such thing as part time staff. You were full time day or foundation, no quibbles.

I was quite surprised when I first started to see/hear/tour other orgs in other cities and to find that they had part time staff on differing schedules.

I’m glad to see it. It shows downward progress towards Goodbye Scn. 🙂

…
Back in the day, I’d’ve decried it all and whipped out all the polices that tell you how to do it right. (fully believing they could fix everything)

Aquamarine you nailed it. The staff and every single coward Scientologist is only concerned with themselves their eternity and less concerned with the actual truth. The entire situation creates an enormous integrity test and all of those cowards and criminals fail right from jump street. Every reg that takes another dollar is a damn criminal because they know they are selling a faulty product based on lies on top of lies on top of more lies. There are so many lies held in suspension in every Scientologists operating system/brain it is no wonder they develop a “third dynamic psychosis”. “Gaslighting” (good word) is the order of the day in Scientology. And even worse, it’s gaslighting under extreme duress. No wonder some people have committed suicide in Scientology, they are faced with impossible scenarios. They believe Scientology is the only way out, except for suicide if they can’t somehow obtain enough Scientology. My old band mate and ex-Sea Org member Gordy Gale shot himself through the skull because he couldn’t figure out his present circumstances. No doubt he was convinced he was coming back. The damage assessment continues and the statistics continue to show a degrading scene. The question is, how much more misery and wasted years of peoples lives will it take?

Thanks for your acknowledgement, Rip. Understood on all you’ve said.

I used to break my brains and try to understand these people I knew – all highly trained, long term staff who had trained me. When they told me I had MUs, I knew it wasn’t true. And I was (and am) a word clearing FREAK. I like clearing words. (To each his own, OK?)

And as for overts and witholds making me critical of the Ideal Org Program, I was also a Data Series completion so I’d ask them if they believed that the ability to spot outpoints meant that nothing could get handled because the person spotting them maybe had overts?

Didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. But it all does now.

They were gas-lighting me.

Pretending to not know what they knew very well. Pretending to not see what they clearly saw, and making it somehow MY problem, MY misunderstanding.

They violated their own integrity doing this. Because these were the people who trained ME.

Sorry for them? No. Not me. Not any more.

They climbed into Miscavige’s dirty bed. Let them sleep in it.

They saw, they knew.. They want/need to stay in the cult, they’ve got their reasons, etc. etc. Good. Stay in it. Go broke. Suffer. Whatever.