Loosing, you’re right; to keep “alter-ising” doesn’t solve anything and in fact makes things worse. But it staves off the pain for a while. Sad for all of those heavily invested. But then, WE faced it. Many here and at Tony’s, etc. were VERY heavily invested. I don’t count myself. Though I was in for a long time, I was never staff, never SO and I had no one I really loved in the cult. And its always been rather easy for me to admit having been wrong and a complete fool 🙂 And I’ve had a lot of practice 🙂 So I don’t count myself. But the rest of you, so many of you here – wow! Invested up the wazoo as they say in my area. And yet, YOU faced it. What you did, these Still Ins can do! What you faced, they can face, and what you confronted and handled, they can confront and handle. Frankly, I don’t see why they can’t. All it takes is a decision! Not that its an EASY decision but its certainly SIMPLE one. “Enough! I’m out of here!” YOU decided that. Why not them? What makes them so precious and special and snowflakey and different? I’m not buying it, no. Then again, we can always just write those off who are Still In by saying, “All the GOOD Scientologists left and what’s left now are the ________” (fill in your pejorative). This is tempting but wrong, I think. They CAN do it. They CAN leave. It just takes a decision, and some guts. End of rant.

Bill, laughing. Good dry humor.

Aqua, you remind me that DM is also succeeding at perpetuating the internal illusion of ‘expansion’ among the membership, even though that seems hard to conceive of from the outside. Apparently people really do believe that it is happening other places even when the local situation is the exact opposite, and on top of that we have reports of those who use a figure of 20 million members worldwide, a number that must be circulating on Scientology’s unofficial iternal propaganda grapevine.

I’d say, though, that he’s just exploiting human weaknesses like our vulnerability to pluralistic ignorance, and sunk costs.

And Hubbard set the stage for that, such as with his directive that members not discuss their ‘case’ with others, guaranteeing that no one would compare notes about actual results – with the reinforcement of mandator ‘success stories’ on top of it. He definitely understood enough of human psychology and group dynamics to realize what he was doing with some of that, though I think that at times he also just followed his instinct for whatever worked to create a loyal group of followers.

Some day, perhaps far in the future since the CofS now has such vast reserves to keep the game going, I expect there will be an internal reckoning over the actual state of the organization. My best guess is that either new leadership is going to try to pin things on Miscavige as the “SP” – one reason he would never want to skip out, and leave the CofS to others, as long as he’s alive – or else it will be someone like a court-appointed special master charged with sorting out the legal and financial mess.

Peacemaker,

First of all, thank you reading this whole long thing. I banged it out in a hurry and coming back now I see it could have been edited A LOT without sacrificing pertinent content.

Now, it could be argued that Miscavige’s Morgue Scam is clever in that it CREATED the necessary mindset in Scientology public and staff in order for it to be a successful scam. In other words, after nearly 2 decades of one solution after another being THE solution to Planetary Clearing, FINALLY there’s THIS.

And its the last solution, the final solution (sorry 🙂 ).

And there’s no other solution. If this doesn’t work, nothing will. Therefore it must be embraced, supported, protected, defended, furthered.

Anyway, I still don’t personally find it a “clever” scheme I saw thru it immediately as did MANY other Scientologists apparently, because its so full of holes but then, like you said, IT WORKS. So from that standpoint, that simple standpoint, OK, its clever 🙂 On certain people, it works like magic. It works, therefore its clever 🙂

What I honestly DO think is clever – quite clever – and what you shared made me think of it – is Miscavige’s mental manipulation of the various public and staffs in each org into believing themselves to be “Only Ones” with regard to their non-expansion! This, I think, it quite a trick. Because staff are not permitted to share their statistics on an inter-org basis, because Scientologists as individuals and in their various groups are forced to present themselves always in a positive way no matter how dismal their stats, and because most of them don’t visit other orgs, each org is convinced that it is the ONLY org not doing well. Quite a trick. Quite a con. Makes me wonder what would happen if somehow, someway each org became AWARE that it was NOT alone in it own downstat scene, that it had LOTS of company, that EVERY org’s stats were down and have been down for a LONG time.

Aqua, I think the ideal org scam is brutally clever only insofar as it extracts maximum amounts of cash and assets from its victims. As John P. Capitalist has written, they are destroyers of wealth – besides what they consume, because the buildings are lavishly customized, and mostly likely poorly maintained, by the the CofS does need to sell any of them off, most will be hard to move and bring only pennies on the dollars that were put into them.

I think your point about people’s blind spots is a good one. Plus people want to believe – perhaps, particularly, the dead-enders left in Scientology these days.

And a large-scale version of the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance is at work in Scientology, as is also the classic individual version, in which everyone believes that everyone else is getting the benefits that they are not experiencing (cunningly reinforced at that level with with mandatory ‘wins’ stories); in the CofS, reports confirm that local members believe that only their org is struggling and failing, and that all the others must be ‘expanding’ as the propaganda tells them, and they blame themselves for it to boot, thinking they must the doing something wrong to be the only ones unable to ‘make it go right.’ The people who have woken up to the scam, and not just burned out on the hype and fundraising until they became disaffected, seem to be those who actually traveled to other orgs and realized that which members dare not (and are effectively prohibited from) discussing among themselves, that ‘ideal’ orgs everywhere are empty, dysfunctional and shrinking.

There are other mechanisms at work as well, such as the classic ‘sunk costs,’ or psycho-emotional investment, phenomenon that you allude to, that causes people to literally throw good money after bad in the case of Scientology.

Beth, Battle Creek is sort of the basket case example of a SFO*, tiny yet stuck with a huge derelict old project building that was supposed to be turned into an ‘ideal’ org, as I noted in another comment. I think they have had their white elephant building longer than any other org, 20 years this year. That article claiming that they’re ‘moving forward’ is 2 years old right now, and like a number of other orgs they also made announcements close to a decade ago that they were going to proceed with work – they even had a sensible plan to move into part of the building, which would have been practical and cost effective, but presumably was shot down by DM for being too ‘reasonable’ and not ‘ideal.’

They are the successor to the once-successful Ann Arbor mission, which I suspect thrived due to a classic combination of being in a hip college town during the era of baby boomer ‘seekers,’ and having the local personality of Ruth Minshall, who was a popular author Scientology-related books in the era when org book stores were still allowed to sell non-Hubbard titles. I’m sure they have a central files full of thousands of names of people who once bought a book or did a course, the ‘acceptable truth’ of ‘members’ to claim to the media.

It’s interesting to hear that such a tiny org has been active trying to safepoint. I suspect they also even exist in part due to another member who runs some Narconon-based rehabs, who probably provides funding to help keep the doors open – the org even moved from their old prime downtown location to an outlying street where he has one or more properties.

* Small and Failing Org

The evidence that Scientology is not expanding and is in fact shrinking and as such does not need larger more renovated quarters for its orgs is is right in front of the eyes of anyone capable of just looking.

Yet it works on the Still Ins – a portion of them, anyway. Why? Are they just stupid?

I don’t think so.

Its tempting to write them off this way but I don’t think so.

Here’s my theory – my latest theory 🙂

People have blind spots. They can be astute and perceptive and observing and analytical in any number of ways, while at the same time be seemingly unaware, impervious and irrational in other ways – blind spots.

For some reason, their powers of observation and analysis work well in some areas of their lives and not at all in others.

These blind spot areas can vary. A person’s blind spot can be another person in his or her life- spouse or lover, child, parent, friend, boss, sibling – any person in that person’s life could be existing for him or her in his or her blind spot. Or it could be a political figure who exists in that individual’s blind spot. Or it could involve religion or religious leaders, or it could pertain to race and/or nationalities.

Whatever or whoever falls into this person’s blind spot – whatever or whoever is existing for this person within the blind spot, is not going to be examined by the person because this individual has already made up his or her mind about this person, thing, or organization.

Now, blind spots alone are not serious. We commonly change our minds about things we say are true or untrue when accurate, factual data surfaces in our lives. We change our minds and its not a big deal. Its not necessarily upsetting at all and frequently we are glad that the factual data surfaced so that we are no longer operating on false information.

Many of us believed in Santa Claus once when we were very little kids. I know I did. I think until I was about 6, I think, I believed he came down the chimney (even though we didn’t have a fireplace but never mind, he landed on the roof in his sleigh and got in the house somehow to put the presents under the tree). And then somewhere around 7 I stopped believing and it wasn’t traumatic. Actually my mother helped with this transition because she had always interspersed the presents “from Santa” with presents from “Mommy & Daddy”. Apparently each year after I was 3 or 4 more of the presents were from THEM and less and less from “Santa”. I had no vested interest in believing in Santa Claus. I let the belief go; there was no trauma, it was all in fun, etc. Santa and the elves and the reindeer etc. was all fun and fantasy. My parents may have told me or maybe I figured it out. I don’t remember but finding out was no big deal. I’m sure it was this way for millions children.

That’s an extreme example of a blind spot created by false data and eventually dispelled by true data. I was told, I believed, I didn’t know how it could be true but my parents and other adults had told me so somehow it had to be true and I let it be true until one day I learned somehow that it wasn’t, and I didn’t believe it anymore and it was no big deal.

As I said, that’s an extreme example and we can chuckle about it. I don’t know anyone who was damaged because of having a blind spot about the existence of Santa Claus and then finding out later he doesn’t exist and never did. After all, how many little children are INVESTED in the existence of Santa Claus?

But let’s suppose, just suppose now, that some child WOULD BE, for WHATEVER reason heavily invested, VERY heavily invested in the belief in Santa Claus. Let’s suppose that for some reason, for whatever reason, this child had DECIDED that Santa Claus HAS to exist – MUST exist. Never mind why. There could be any number of reasons why. The reasons are not important right now. The decision the child makes is ALL that matters and that decision is that Santa Claus exists and must exist and cannot NOT exist. Santa brings the presents each year. Never mind there’s no chimney because you have no fireplace. Never mind how reindeer fly. Evidence be damned! Never MIND all the naysayers, all those people who are showing how it can’t be true. Never mind what the child observes for himself that shows him it can’t be true. Never mind! It MUST be true. It CANNOT be untrue. It must be true and it is true and it will ALWAYS be true. That Santa exists is a survival factor for this child and it is the child who has decided this.

This child grows up. Is bright, let’s say. Does well in school. Gets good grades. Seems normal and Well adjusted. But, because of this decision, the child has this blind spot about Santa Claus. Let ANYONE challenge him about Santa not existing, and he shuts off. Won’t discuss it. He can’t discuss it. All he knows is that what he wants and needs to be true HAS to be true. And anyone who challenges what he believes about Santa is dangerous, a dangerous person, to be avoided. And even is own observational powers betray him and give him doubts so that after a while, he turns his ability to observe off. His parents still tell him Santa exists, after all.

We can laugh at the absurdity of my example because while not impossible, the likelihood of its ever occurring is almost nil.

But – but! Speaking of absurdity, when you look at the Still Ins donating to Ideal Orgs – donating and donating and donating – year in, year out – when you look at their AGREEMENT that Scientology NEEDS bigger buildings, newer buildings because of all the EXPANSION of the Scientology religion going on – when all around them is clear and solid observable that Scientology is not only not expanding but indeed drastically shrinking and on life support – then how much farther along are they then children, say, who, for whatever reasons, refuse to relinquish their beliefs in Santa Claus?

I say these Scientologists are invested – financially of course but more importantly, emotionally, in David Miscavige’s Ideal Morgue Scam. I say, “emotionally” because they NEED a solution to Planetary Clearing and there have been so MANY of them that have failed and now there’s THIS one and THIS one HAS TO BE “IT”. This one has to be…IT.

I say, that they’ve decided – they have each DECIDED that the Ideal Org Program IS the solution to Planetary Clearing. I say, they have made this DECISION.

And DAMN the evidence that it isn’t the solution, that it isn’t working, that it could NEVER have worked in the first place! DAMN the evidence that LRH plainly says in PLs that you don’t “have to have so that you can do” and that orgs are NOT buildings and you should concentrate on building organizations and out of prosperous organizations will come the funds to expand and improve the org’s quarters. “Be, Do, Have” is LRH.

Well, too bad! A solution is needed and Ideal Orgs are the solution and if even LRH gets in the way of it then to hell with LRH even!

Now, as to WHY they have made this decision that Ideal M’Orgs ARE the solution and MUST work and MUST be supported, etc., etc., well, name your theory!

Exhaustion? Failed purposes? Just so damned tired of one thing or another coming down the pike that’s touted as THE thing that’s going to DO it? Guilt about not joining staff so let me give money? Guilt about not joining the Sea Org so let me give money? Don’t know the difference between an Organization and a Building? The hunger to believe that Miscavige is their wise, knowing, loving caring replacement for LRH? The craving to shove the burden of thought and analysis off of one’s shoulders onto those of their leader. General overwhelm with life in general? Unwillingness to give up on a long cherished dream? Unwillingness to admit that Miscavige has utterly conned them?

There could be so many reasons for their decision to stick with Ideal M’Orgs as THE solution to Planetary Clearing. But the reasons aren’t that important. Really, only that decision is important. That decision prohibits all conversation about Ideal M’Orgs which are not approving of them. That decision inhibits all thoughts contrary to Ideal M’Orgs in themselves. Ideal M’Orgs is their solution and it doesn’t matter what flimsy lies the cult tells them, they’re not letting go of it.

They don’t really give a flying fuck about finishing the orgs. Dave just wants more money.

I’m only donating if it goes toward Hubbard, and not Dave being carved into Mount Rushmore. Surely any idiot would agree that Hubbard is more deserving than Washington, Lincoln or the other two degraded beings of having his face carved into the side of a mountain.

🙂 Joe.