Thanks Erin. Just taking a break. We will be back. There are other things we had to do.

Weighing in, @Mary Kahn and @Cindy observations regarding how the teams at Flag operate. Seeing these realities first-hand contributed to my understanding of the facts of how this group operates. Whereas, before, I bought into ‘the social veneer.’

Ultimately, I saw that Team Flag does not operate generously or kindly to local orgs. For example, I was surprised to learn that when the “Flag World Tour” takes over your org for a few weeks—with tons of promo and putting on events and bringing in their own “Class IX auditors” to do metered interviews—there isn’t anything “in it” for the org financially, unless a person signs up and pays for a Flag service and that person has no FSM (field staff member). The local org can “claim” the person as a “selectee to Flag” and receive an FSM commission.

That is a precarious path to the org gaining revenue from the Flag visit because many experienced Scientologists have “Flag FSM” woven into how they earn money.

I had never been serviced at Flag. One time, during a big “Flag World Tour” I was not around for the major event. I had a family obligation or similar. A week later, an experienced “FSM” took me to lunch and did the drill—she found my “ruin” and pointed out how doing a Flag-only service was the cure. I bit. I signed on, and she skillfully got me to Flag.

Once I was there, the local org also claimed me as a “Selectee,” even though no one at the local org had anything to do with me going to Flag.

Experienced former Scientologists will easily forecast how this spun out: I spent the better part of the next year, along with the FSM, writing reports and talking to various departments at Flag and, no doubt, risking the entire small staff at my local org being furious with me. It was a lot of work to PROVE the org staff was not the FSM. It was such a time and energy consuming “fight”. It was, in a word, INSANE. Including, never did we ever LEARN who exactly among the staff at our local org had made the claim that I was the org’s selectee.

I mean, folks, come on—Where is “Hiding” on the good ol’ C of S Tone Scale? It’s pretty low.

Ugh. This is when I learned, the local org does not naturally get a take of the sales the Flag team does within the local org, despite Flag team using the org’s spaces, heat, light, bathrooms, tables, chairs, phone lists, etc. No, apparently the local org gains financially by opportunities to claim people as an org “Selectee” to Flag. That is what I observed.

“Why do orgs roll out the red carpet for Flag to come in a few times per year and take over the place?” I asked myself. As a business model, cunningly un-fair. I bet if you are a staff member who mentions this you are put into Ethics for failure to be on-board with the bigger picture. Just another way local org staff are expected to cooperate and fall into line.

This set of occurrences were an eye-opener for me, as a public, to better observe the many ways there is steady in-fighting in the group. Sea Org members commonly cursing a blue streak about a fellow Sea Org member in a different location who has given a technical opinion to a public that disagrees with the technical opinion of the Sea Org member standing in front of that public. Etcetera, etcetera. Many of them demonstrate such unabashed competitiveness, accompanied by no trust and strong hostility for one another. Where is the esprit de corps? Where is the ‘We are the most ethical group on the planet”? Where is the “There is only 1 Tech, and that is Standard Tech”? The disagreements on this alone are constant (various competing interpretations of tech and policy).

The politicking and veneer of some of the internal relationships showed me some “alternative facts” of this group. Rare it is to see such instances of disdain and in-fighting among colleagues in the SAME GROUP.

Shame on them for making public think for so long that they are all lovey-dovey and magically in-sync with each other, only serving with the purest of intentions and efforts toward a salvaged mankind and an environment without those things—ironically—which they a-little-too-frequently darkly demonstrate.

I bless and applaud former staff members and former Sea Org members who put these things together for themselves and got out. It is so very hard to see when you are “in it.”

Well said!

Exactly. It’s a sight to behold…watching the demise of the church of scientology before our very eyes. It may not happen as fast as we’d like but at least we can watch it from the cheap seats and if we’re curious enough we can buy popcorn and a couple of hot dogs and relish every second of it. I keep keeping an eye out for my son and hope that one day I see him and so many others’ children walking in our direction and back into our arms and homes. David miscavige and the rest of his crew can go down as slow or as fast as they want.

I will continue to appreciate and celebrate my freedom.

As for the glass lion, what a clear display of the utter lack of value of any of that training he received. Shouldn’t a Class 8 with OEC and other training be absolutely exceptional at handling all areas of their life, particularly Finance?

Separately, what good is $3000 toward paying off debt? Even if they’ve already got thousands on account at Flag for services, they’re going to need to be able to pay for weeks or months of hotel and peripheral expenses. Maybe they’re just paying down the cards so they can try to get balance increases in preparation for running them all to the max again.

Now don’t go spreading that around! Some org might find out about it and decide to celebrate it with an event and a fundraiser.