Interesting info, I hope you contribute more thoughts.

On the tactic of invading the Board of Governors, Scientology wouldn’t let any non Scientologists on their Boards.

Or were you thinking of the other normal Boards?

Scientology won’t try get on them due to being guided to do their own thing and not extend out like normal other groups’ members do.

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Because so many of the young members of the downtown Scientology buildings are staff trainees, that group of staff trainees is so poor, and they aren’t given free time to go outside their bubble to spend the money, except one day off every two weeks which isn’t given to them automatically, they have to earn their one day off every two weeks, if that, so they just cannot percolate money into the downtown or into the walking distance businesses to where they are communally berthed which is a mile or so away.

Staff busing and the staff trainee busing keeps them within their compounds where they live, old motels, and a housing apartment complex.

Getting the lower allowance class of Scientologists who make up the majority of the people in the downtown Scientology buildings, they definitely don’t have the time and money to spend as freely as normal citizens.

Think of them as mainly monk or nun financially spendworthy.

Especially who gets on and off their buses, those are the nun/monk financially spendworthy “class” of Scientologists in downtown Clearwater.

The places they know it is kosher for them to frequent are the businesses who are not “SP” connected, and there are a few of those businesses they can buy things at.

AA, I think DM has been fairly creative in creating “latest, greatest” things to promote to keep the con going. Hubbard left his hands tied as far as the creation of new ‘tech’ that Scientology had always relied on to maintain customers’ interest, but he’s come up with various sorts of releases and rundowns, and errant comma hunts, that have kept the CofS doing relatively better than a lot of the cults of its same vintage.

It’s still crippled and doomed for the sort of reasons you cite, and almost certain not to make the transition from cult to legitimate religion, but rather to eventually go the way of the Jesus Freaks. Rather than dissipating after the death of the founder the way such groups typically do, I think Miscavige has given Scientology a sort of second generation of half-life, but that it will likely crumble almost completely with his demise.

Sir I am delighted to know that you are also Xenu fan.
🤣😂😆😅🤣😂

Back to topic about changing face of Clear water …

If you look at down town of any North American city in general and European city in particular, they have huge portfolio of historic buildings, Churches School, Hospital, and monuments built by churches.

First it created employment for the followers, , second it helped the followers to establish supporting business and third they colonies the surroundings by building houses.

Compare the numbers of Scientologist before super power building its completion.

In economics there is a concept8 known Multiplier Effect , cash changing hands, from landlord to grocery srorev to pub , laundromat, health store , super markets ,gas station etc etc etc .
In developed exnomies it rotate more then 22 times. It could be with in 22 weeks or 22 months or 22 years. After that time fresh funds has to be injustef in the community economy ,to keep existing followers glued to the city. They need new projects , such as LRH Hall.

Old saying , nothing succeed like success
Same token they are following the same footsteps of other religions.
Seems, the strategist might be a retired History professor,

But there is a Catch 22, in case of downfall it may become a huge liability.
Real Estate magnets and enterprising lawyers shall go after the historic building invading the Board of Governors

Jere lol. I believe even those who had to give him the bad news have pooped themselves.

And as someone caught, they’re cherry-picking statistics from back in 2018. 2019 must not have been so good even before they got hit by the pandemic, and I’m sure they don’t want to let on what a disaster 2020 was for them.

Oh, and, yeah, we’d all like to know how many actual, active members there are in the area – not just how many names are on old mailing lists, or haven’t done much of anything in years if not decades. I doubt it would exceed 2 thousand members and a similar number of annual visitors to Flag, in a metro area with a population of over 3 million that gets about 25 million visitors in a normal year, making Scientology statistically insignificant except for the drain and negative impacts on Clearwater itself.

And the Tiny Tyrant pooped hisself when he found out. Priceless.

The problem is that scn doesn’t PAY use taxes in anywhere near the level of their usage because they shield almost all of their property as “religious”, even the staff quarters and the Sandcastle.

It’s a start, but won’t gain traction as it would eliminate too many “mainstream” churches,
AND it starts to define what a religion is, in violation of the 1st Amendment. I also don’t like that it’s a sort of patriotic means test which they can pass by SAYING anything that’ll give them tax exemption.

IMO, what would be better would be anything that leads to a “means test” like they have in England; Demonstrate, with real, verifiable numbers, your value (if any) to society. If the evidence isn’t required, scientology will just repeat those good-sounding ideals Hubbard never paid much heed to and say “LOOK! we WANT to make society get better.” when they’re just grabbing as much as they can for Davey and walking roughshod over everyone else. scientology helps NO one other than Dwarfenführer®. Until he books off to BUlgravia with lots of cash or he runs out of available money, he’ll continue to be insulated from legal problems in the US, including the niggling situation with Shelly. Controlling that much wealth is his armor.

Here! Here! Excellent essay Ammo! This quote sums up $ci in a NUTSHELL…

“ Without Hubbard at the helm, constantly adjusting the “Source” documents and trying to force his square pegs of unworkable solutions into the round holes of evolving life and technology, the end is clearly inevitable.”

Miscavige has not the imagination nor the education to further “Source” or to continue in his “researches”. Scientology will stay stuck in the past as the world moves on and leaves them behind. I do not understand the way that Miscavige has stuck to 50’s-70’s means (re: telex) when we have in the palm of our hands access to almost all of earths knowledge. Something sci-fi writers in Hubbards era dreamed of.

Hubbard himself was moving into the computer realm when he had to jump off to Target 2. He even wrote about computerizing, if I remember correctly, the security systems at one of the compounds. If he had lived he would have embraced technology not left his minions stuck with 50’s era telexes and facsimile machines.

The Sci bookstores are full of tapes and CD’s and DVD’s all in big bulky tacky plastic boxes. Why not put all of that in digital format. Same with his books. Oh I bet they are worried some SP member will just upload all that expensive dreck to the net. It’s already out here DM…give you’re people a break and stop polluting the world with all those tacky plastic boxes. Very few people use CD’s or DVD’s anymore.

Miscavige just isn’t smart enough…if he were when he usurped control way back (which I still can’t understand exactly how that happened) he would have expounded on the ‘research’. He would have fed the minions some lie like “Hubbard trained me personally for years to follow in his steps and continue the research.” The dedicated would have bought it…after all they bought the lie that Miscavige was his hand picked successor. The main problem was that Dave wasn’t smart enough nor imaginative enough to do it. That’s one of the reasons why he had PI’s on Pat Broeker all those years. He thought Broeker had some super ‘sekret’ writings of Hubbards. He thought if he could just make 100% sure he’d swoop in and just gather them up and release little pieces every now and then to the masses after he’d milked them until they bled. Alas it wasn’t to be. Everything Hubs left behind was gobbledygook. There are no super ‘sekret’ Hubbard papers. Miscavige has every bit of dreck the old man left behind. Hubbard was old, sick, mentally unstable and began believing his own lies before he tripped off to Target 2.

Hey maybe Dave IS Hubs reincarnated! After all IF you believe in the ‘whole track’ and that you can come back anywhere on the track ( not just in chronological order) and that different versions of you are living at any given time in the track then technically one person is EVERYONE who ever lived. There are only a finite number of bodies and infinite time so…we’re all the same person. This is why I could never believe in the ‘Whole Track’. By Hubs own definition he should have had several versions of himself in other bodies alive and well and ready to take over when he kicked off. Lies all lies.

TLDR – Miscavige is full of shat and as big a liar as Hubs.

When scientologists come to town, the “church” will do its damnedest to make sure that these tourists spend most of their money on “religious services”, IAS, auditing, trinkets such as overpriced media and running around a pole. All of that is tax-free With what’s left, these pilgrims are coerced to spend their money in-house, away from the community, on lodging, meals and souvenirs. Their time is also monopolized. So the odds of them spending money at the beach or on a night on the town are slim. Tax-wise, the community gets minimal dregs of all this substantial spending.

To make matters worse, the workforce facilitating all of this economic activity is “volunteer.” Their impact on the tax roll is negligible. If anything, they are a drain on it due to tax credits for low-income earners. They may also be eligible for costly social and health services due to their impoverishment, much to the taxpayers’ delight.

Their spending in the community is minimal as they have no money to spend and minimal time to do so. They are in no position to create income for other providers of goods and services who in turn would provide to the tax base.

Not even quantifiable is the impact of being “cult city” on CW’s tax revenues or squandered potential. Or the effect of the recent property acquisition spree by cult members that has resulted in a large number of fiscally unproductive, vacant properties in the city. Or the inevitable depression of property values (and hence, taxes) that comes with these developments.