In March 1982, with great fanfare, L. Ron Hubbard issued a "game" to all scientology orgs. They were to 5.4X their stats and "achieve the size of old St Hill." When this was accomplished, Hubbard promised the staff would not only be well paid, "International Management" would send them a "Universe Corps" team so all staff could "go OT" in their local org. This was a really big deal -- these were the "buttons" of staff. It was impossible to live as a staff member without additional income and it was even more impossible to save enough money to travel to an AO and partake in OT levels. Life as a … [Read more...]
Scientology’s Freedom of Speech: Out of Both Sides of its Mouth
"Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Scientology is fast to claim protection under the First Amendment to the US Constitution -- when it serves their purpose. Either to avoid responsibility for their actions or to try and claim some PR points as "champions of human rights." (See Freedom magazine as Exhibit 1) Yet they are not so quick to a … [Read more...]
Thursday Funnies
Still crazy after all these years SO #1 letters as inspiration? Even in this day and age? Wow... Tampa Org is "out of PT" Can you imagine the model ideal SH size org is not in PT and needs to do the SRD? Says a lot for the state of the non-model, non-ideal, non-SH sized orgs everywhere else. Our birthday gift: Planetary Dissemination a reality! Yessirreee... Does this person REALLY think that everyone hasn't yet figured out that this whole set up is being paid for by Miscavige as a pet-project boondoggle to use up some of that cash he has been … [Read more...]
Real Humanitarians
I attended a Sunday Service and Naming Ceremony at the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Clearwater last weekend. It was an interesting experience. At the door, they give you a little program of what the service will contain. Below you will see the front and back page. I include it here because it gives some idea about the beliefs and practices of the "UU's" (which is how they refer to themselves). Here is what struck me: It was their normal Sunday Service. About 250 people were there. Their church was built from scratch, funded by donations from members. It is functional. … [Read more...]
Fundraising Forever
What you see below are 4 letters asking someone in Clearwater for money for Orlando "ideal" org. All 4 of them were put into one envelope. Apparently the Orlando org does not have enough money to mail 4 separate letters. Nor do they have money for letterhead. Or anything but the cheapest paper and envelopes. Yet, after years of begging for money and failing, they were just given a new building. A building they don't need. A building they cannot afford. A building they couldn't even fill if they took everyone who has EVER been on staff and everyone who has EVER taken any scientology … [Read more...]
Regraded Being
Narconon and Google Trends
Why Bother really got the ball rolling... Here is some further evidence of the complete fail of scientology's programs. Though there has been a decline in interest in "Drug Rehabilitation" and "Drug abuse", the in interest in Narconon is virtually non-existent. There were a couple of hiccups back in 2005 and 2007, but otherwise it looks like a snake on the freeway. Even the negative publicity brought about by the lawsuits against Narconon has had no effect. You could substitute Narconon for "parrot" in the famous Monty Python dead parrot sketch and be entirely accurate. Once again, … [Read more...]
More on Google Trends
An interested reader sent this in after the recent posting on the subject of Alexa and Google trends. I found it interesting to see the correlation between "interest" in scientology and interest in Tom Cruise. And I thank Why Bother for bringing the Google Trends data to my attention. The graph shows the US trends and the following one shows the worldwide trends: And this one is Worldwide trends: The first spike in the infamous Oprah Couch jumping followed by the "glib" Matt Lauer commentary. April 2006 Suri is born. August 2006 Paramount terminates t … [Read more...]
Scientology: Human Rights Champions or Abusers?
Scientology takes great pains to present itself to the world as a champion of human rights. Their tag line is "Making Human Rights A Global Reality." Look at their website - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is prominently featured. And their efforts to "ensure the human rights of everyone" are mentioned extensively. Same in Freedom magazine (when it is published -- seems to have dried up of late). Videos showing their wondrous human rights programs are routinely shown at Miscavige's Nuremberg Rally events. Here is the Freedom magazine home p … [Read more...]
It’s Super Bowl Sunday — What A Perfect Fundraising Opportunity!!
"Fixed donations," "mandatory donations," "required donations" are scientology oxymorons. Once the exclusive provence of church services, the "bright idea" spread to IAS donations (you must be a Patron to be on OT VII) and ideal orgs (you must qualify for OT VIII by contributing to your ideal org) and now have reached out into the "social betterment" programs and even the scientology public. And everyone is so conditioned to this that they don't even notice any more. And BTW, an "open bar" at a scientology event? I guess there are a LOT of people that are NOT "on lines" despite what the … [Read more...]