I’ve seen it pointed out that there are about 140 local orgs, and we almost never see pictures of even 50 people at any of them. So the math on the CofS’ active membership is pretty brutal, even adding in however many are clustered around Saint Hill and especially Flag in Clearwater.

I seem to recall insider numbers pointing to maybe around 35,000 total IAS members at a point not too far in the past. I’d guess that’s down to more the range you suggest, but only around half are really active, with quite a few having long ago been “regged” to buy lifetime memberships but not having stepped foot in an org in a long time.

Trev, Thank you. My estimate was based on taking that small org as a sample and assuming a similar average elsewhere. The figures match up.

When I was in the Sea Org, I made an estimate of the number of first starts compared to those who stayed, and then those who stayed compared to those who actually continued for the next 2 years taking courses related to the bridge. And with each step, the number dwindled enormously. If I remember correctly, out of 30/40 first starts, after 2 years you had maybe 2 or 3 people still there.
Maybe someone more but not more than 5 out of 30/40.

I think that estimate is probably pretty accurate — in the 70’s quite a lot of people did get into scientology.

Though the number of active members today I think is around 20-30k worldwide. Someone just sent me an AI estimation which I will publish soon…

In once tried to guesstimate a total number of all scientologists ever having been in, still in, deceased or whatever else.

https://forum.exscn.net/threads/estimates-for-new-members-and-total-membership.44306/

The result was something between 200,000 and 300,000. By now 3,276 have spoken out, so that’s between 1 in 60 and 1 in 100.

Thank you Val. Everyone has their reasons and it must be dealt with personally IMHO. I applaud your conquering of your tipping point!!

Cults certainly have mastered the use of FEAR. These days my litmus test for an individual, group, government, and so on is ONE, “Are they trying to scare me?”
And TWO, is it being done for MONEY, CONTROL or education.

The last, EDUCATION, is pretty rare but there are those who do that. Mikes Blog and the Aftermath qualify and they fail the test of being a Cult …… IMHO!

Now you’re talking!! Looks like the Clive’s postulate has been reached in spades. ‘10,000 out and publicly saying so is all it will take to turn the tide’.

Yo Clive,
I was looking through yer list of Seven and Oh Tea Ate comps and had a couple questions. The first is why you list them alphabetically by first name? That seems very illiterate to me …. just sayin.
The second is that I didn’t find my name on it. FWIW, I have saved my ATE cert along with all of the emails, notes, comm with ethics officers, family members, etc. that went down in the years between 2009 and 2013 (my declare year) so that my future generations of grandkids can refer to it as desired and make their own conclusions.
I’m thinkin of doing a little time capsule and putting it in a safe deposit box and if they would like to receive what I intend to set aside for them, they will have to read the data and provide a written success story to the executor of the trust.
Hope that helps with yer little “on or through” exercise.
I’m a big fan of the THROUGH part ……….as I’m THROUGH with yer bullshit!!!!!

No, poor grammar. 32,760 leavers…