We keep seeing promotional pieces from Dublin “ideal org” that features people from other countries around Europe and the world. Almost every one of their “public” is NOT Irish.
The absence of Irish completions in the Dublin “ideal” org is hardly surprising.
Dublin only ever had a small, failing mission that was propped up by the Sea Org in order to keep its doors open. It suffered a massive blow from a legal case and the disclosure of its bankrupt condition.
But why invest enormous sums in a country that could not sustain a single mission?
There are a couple of possible answers to this:
Scientology has spent a lot of money over the years purchasing properties once used by L. Ron Hubbard. It is a way to spend some of the avalanche of cash on real property that is retained as an asset. They have bought Hubbard houses in Joburg, Phoenix, Bay Head NJ, the old DC org building, his office in Fitzroy St London and then his former office building in Merrion Square Dublin.
They had no real use for this building, claiming it was a “National Affairs” (PR) office, but that’s pretty silly in a country where there is no scientology.
It was embarrassing to have to admit that the very locale where Hubbard developed his “famous” Personal Efficiency Course — the greatest development reaching “new public” — was such a failure that there was not even a scientology org in the entire country. That sort of obvious question is one that weighs heavily on the mind of David Miscavige.
A second reason might be that scientology has traditionally banked a lot of money in Ireland. I don’t know that this is STILL the case, but in years gone by the Bank of Ireland was a favored institution by the IAS and Sea Org Reserves. Perhaps investment in the local economy was seen as a good “safepointing” action.
Perhaps Tom Cruise had plans to shoot another movie in Ireland? Ideal Orgs in Madrid, New York, Auckland were given high priority due to him needing to have a “good org” for him to bring public into when he was in town…
Who really knows. Only Miscavige.
But what is clear — as with the AO Africa — this new org was NOT based on a need to deliver scientology to anyone. They are having to import people from all over the planet as no locals want any part of it.
Can you imagine spending millions to construct a burger joint in a Hindu city? That would be scientology-style expansion.
SPeaking my Truth says
Google, Facebook, PayPal, Microsoft, LinkedIn and eBay have their European head offices in Ireland for tax reasons. That country is a well known “tax paradise”. I believe this Dublin unneeded church is there for some similar reason connected to money. The other main “tax paradise” in Europe is Luxembourg (Amazon head office for Europe is there); will we see some useless Ideal Org in Luxembourg in the future?
The Total Bridge To Bullshit says
“A smooth and speedy ride up the Lower Bridge” … MY ASS. There is no ride, and there’s is no “bridge”. Just a bunch of dumb as muck huckleberries getting their souls and bank accounts SUCKED DRY — leaving them (the cult’s victims) as little more than a cast of desiccated corpses dangling in the twisted web of Scientology. STOLEN LIVES. Sick!!!!
grisianfarce says
“The country and the people could not be improved upon” — Hubbard once again shooting himself in the foot. If Ireland is so perfect, why bother with a mission/office/org/ideal org there?
Zee Moo says
When your lower levels of a pyramid scheme start to poach from each other, the end in near. We’ve seen this same thing happen in the US, Portland poaches from Sacramento, the Florida orgs poach from each other and Clearwater poaches from everyone on the lower levels of the bridge to nowhere.
In a sales oriented company, a district manager decides who has what sales territories and what services they can sell. There is no one enforcing territorial rules in $cientology any more. That is one important management level to let go.
The Clamcolypse is upon them.
jere lull ( 39 years recovering) says
“That sort of obvious question is one that weighs heavily on the mind of David Miscavige.”
IMO, the question that weighs most heavily on Dz’s mind is:”Where’s my MF DRINK!”
chuckbeattyx75to03 says
If I were a raw public today, because of my nature, to look for myself, I likely would just go to Amazon, buy the Hubbard “basic” books that interested me, which essentially would be the “OT library” books, and just slowly get all the $1.99 Hubbard books, and paw through them.
Then, what of what Hubbard has written in the “basic books” would interest me.
“Scientology: Fundamentals of Though” book, chapter, “Parts of Man” would interest me, and it still today, of all the Hubbard books, it is that chapter where it speaks about the “thetan” (soul of the person, the person himself AS the soul in his body) who can be outside of the body, and that that state of being “naturally” outside the body is one of the goals of Scientology.
The administrative rules, many of the prejudices of Hubbard, didn’t phase me, if this crucial basic principle, that we ARE our own immortal souls, and that we as a soul can self-eject out of our human body, and be at a distance from our bodies.
When I was first in Scientology, just that information alone, kept me thinking the subject and the ultimate practices (the quackery pseudo-therapy called “auditing”) was presumptively “working” to make the highest level “OT 8” Scientologists achieve this status of them as pure souls, who were outside of their human bodies.
The crux to me of Scientology is the fact that Scientologists steadfastly claim this soul status is achievable once one receives all the Scientology quackery pseudo-therapy and the quackery exorcism (the secret OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 “body-thetans” exorcism).
The false promises of the basic most soul status listed in “Scientology: Fundamentals of Thought” and then reiterated in dozens more places in Hubbard’s long runway of training and theory writings, and not taking into consideration any of the downsides horrible things Hubbard lays on the followers in all the other Hubbard attendant writings and lectures, this false promise kind of would still lure me into Scientology.
I don’t believe in the soul today, though, I’m a hard core atheist, so the lure has completely faded for me.
But if I thought the soul was real, I’d just go to a freezone Scientologist “field auditor” (local quack Scientologist fully trained in the quackery and exorcism) and receive the quackery and exorcism from a freezone Scientologist, who presumably does NOT require believing anything more that me “being interested in my own case, and willing to talk to the quack auditor.”
Scientology is a long runway of pseudo-therapy/exorcism quackery, and Hubbard’s prejudices and horrible opinions don’t even need be entertained nor bowed to I don’t believe.
One ought to just do the quackery (not really, since I don’t believe it is mentally healthy to even do the quackery and exorcism), but if a person believes in the soul, then they conceivably could just “co-quack-therapize/exorcise” with another person willing to do this quackery/exorcism on each other, and not do anything further in Hubbard’s quack bureaucracy rules and regulations.
Roger Larsson says
The whole world is a human beings I.
Human beings I is the whole world.
With billions of the same kind
and billions of the same worth.
It’s tricky to get it all right.
Richard says
Not relating this to Chuck in particular, but I wonder if an atheist, someone who has a disbelief in the existence of a universal intelligence or god might still retain some form of belief in a continuing existence of self conscious “I”. I believe in most sects of Buddhism and in Nondualism ” “I” is a timeless observer watching the never-ending Now go by in one form or another, maybe with a few “naps” in between – haha
Aquamarine says
That’s well said. I believe that too, Richard. “…a timeless observer watching the never-ending Now go by…” Thanks for putting my concept into words. I never could!
Richard says
Aqua – I resonate with nondualism. On Marty’s blog a few years ago I was relating a kensho experience I had had and marildi steered to to a couple videos and tapes by a nondualism teacher named Adyashanti who made a lot of sense to me. Another one was “Mooji” who was fun and and there are also female teachers. I watched some videos from one of the female teachers which I enjoyed but I don’t recall her name right now. It’s late and I’ll see if I can find her name tomorrow.
Richard says
Alan Watts, now deceased, is the granddaddy of nondualism in modern times. No one could go wrong listening to him. A true genius in the field,
Aquamarine says
Thanks, Richard. I’ll look up what “non-dualism” means and check out Alan Watts.
David Miscavige Shave his Armpits and Crotch says
A message from the “Director of Clearing” in that first poster (and who is also an “OT V” and “scientologist” for many decades). Clearly *BAT SHIT CRAZY* is what that bespectacled old biddy is. 🤣🤪🤤
Peter Blood says
I shot a movie in Dublin, well actually Bray at Ardmore Studios, and I can tell you the Irish have no use for any LRH blithering idiot nonsense. They are way too smart for fall for that Thetan/Xenu/OT crap and utter waste of time. A beautiful country like that has no time for false gods, fake religions and self-appointed metaphysical prophets stealing from you and who think they are legends in their own minds. Long may $cientology go down in flames.
Karen de la Carriere says
Deceptively as an outright LIE, the cult asserts one can be Christian and a Scientologist.
But Hubbard dished Christianity and said “There was no Christ”
This is possibly not known in mostly Catholic Ireland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGPuBWeaBYY
Wynski says
Maybe Tom’s net movie will be in Eire about an evil leprechaun and Der Midget wants to play the part?
jere lull ( 39 years recovering) says
Well, he’s got the ‘evil part down to a “T”.
The Moose says
I enjoy the quote right at the top about how they’re going to clear a lot of the planet in their lifetimes, the way it’s going… From 1959.
TrevAnon says
Maybe Brexit has something to do with it?
I don’t think that”s logical, but in La la, err, I mean Scientology Land anything is possible
Old Surfer Dude says
Anything is possible? Can I tie up the Dwarf? I always wanted to do that. And then string him up like a piñata and beat him with sticks.
George M. White says
The United States market is totally dead for any form of Scientology. The new generation wants nothing to do with any form of religion. Dublin was an old Viking city and they might get an international flair. It makes perfect sense to me that Miscavige is desperately trying to find any kind of market. When Flag started in the 70’s, there were planeloads of people from other countries. Basic Hubbard marketing policy is first to find a market. Countries such as France, England, Germany and Canada have long since passed on Scientology. Scientology might find a group of ex-criminals to promote the subject for 15% of the take. Hubbard really wanted to create a group of Lucifer followers. He did not want any form of kindness or compassion. South Africa makes perfect sense because there is so much lawlessness. My guess is that Scientology will gravitate to the biggest group of thieves on the planet.
Old Surfer Dude says
Miscavige is probably tearing out his hair trying to find somebody, ANYBODY who will at least look inside. But, that’s probably not going to happen too. They’re doomed.
OmegaPaladin says
It’s actually more common to see people interested in more traditional religions with stricter requirements. SCN is really poorly suited to the modern era, with its 50s aesthetic and horrible excuse for PR, but it also does not give good answers to the big questions of life.
Compare the answers in Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam to the SCN answer on the problem of suffering.
jim says
George.
So THAT”S why they opened in Washington DC! Thieves galore.
PeaceMaker says
George, there is some market for cults and high control groups – but not obviously dated ones like Scientology. They thrive in good part on the illusion of new ideas and new gurus, and an aging group with a long-dead founder who looked like an old-fashioned creepy uncle is not going to capture. America is still surprisingly religious even if that is in decline, and takes on traditional fundamentalist religion still hold their own and pull in younger followers.
Hubbard tuned his approach and pitch to the 1950s, and its 1960s-1970s echoes in the young adult generation whose roots were in that original era. None of it resonates anymore. Scientology first went into decline in the 1970s when the newer generation then coming along explicitly rejected the boomers’ hollow spirituality and thinly veiled self-indulgence – I remember that clearly.
cindy says
“Can you imagine spending millions to construct a burger joint in a Hindu city? That would be scientology-style expansion.” Priceless analogy. So true.
Mary Kahn says
Yea.
I don’t get scientology any more but I REALLY DON’T GET scientologists.
It’s one thing to turn a blind eye to all the obvious “out-points” going on in this church, but die-hards, whales and old-timers have to gauge their eyes out not to see that this church lies and deceives and does NOT deliver what it promises, unless of course they just donate for NOTHING.
Old Surfer Dude says
When you become a Scientologist, you have to give up your brain.
OmegaPaladin says
I wonder if maybe it is like a protection racket? They donate so nothing will happen to them or their family.
Aquamarine says
I struggle with this question all the time. Being right, maybe? Really, REALLY wanting – NEEDING – to be right? I don’t know. I could never make myself that blind.
Aquamarine says
Actually, that’s not true. I DID make myself that blind, once. Really, really blind. There was someone in my life. Someone I made up my mind was going to my “sister”. I was an only child, older partents, they both died early and the rest of the family was very small. I was always appointing people to various family roles – pseudo fathers/uncles/brothers/sisters – all except mother, that I didn’t do .
For instance, if I knew a man and liked him but didn’t want to date him but wanted to keep him in my life, I’d “decide” that he was going to be my brother. I did that a number of times. I had always wanted an older brother. So if we got along really well and I didn’t feel romantically toward him but liked him a lot, presto! he became my brother! Never mind that none of these men wanted to be my brother, anyway, this girl was going to be my sister – my little sister! The scenario was perfect. She was 7 years younger than I was. She kind of followed me around, wanted to be included in my older group. Although we’d never met our families had known one another for a long time. It was perfect. Presto, instant little sister! Except there was one problem: this girl was not little sister material. At least, not the little sister I had in mind. A trusting, close relationship, shared confidences, I would help and support her in her relationships with boys, she would help and support me in my relationships with men.
Sisters. “Meet Me In St. Louis” sisters. That’s what I had in mind. Now as for what she had in mind, I’ll put it this way; she was a predator. Super aggressive and she swung both ways and she even told me that she did, or had. I kind – blocked this out. I heard her, and it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It didn’t fit THE picture – my picture. My little sister big sister picture, so I just blocked it out! She also had had a stint as a prostitute. (Yes, a “nice” middle class girl with plenty of brains who graduated a year ahead in high school, and this is what she did in her late teens. The money was good, she told me.) Needless to say, I blocked this out also. She knew enough to never make an overt pass at me. But boy did she go after ANY guy I liked that I would cluelessly introduce her to! She didn’t even like them. She swung both ways and would be with whoever was around and up for it if you’ll forgive the pun. She went after the guys I liked and who liked me because – I don’t know, they were there, and she could, I guess. It meant nothing to her, the act itself. I knew they weren’t her type and she wouldn’t have picked them on her own. But if I liked them, she would zero in, very aggressively. And then, deny it to me, to my face. And, I didn’t WANT to be angry. I wanted to UNDERSTAND. I never even flirted with her boyfriends, even if they flirted with me. I just wouldn’t. This is not what sisters do to each other! Was my thinking. Somehow, this scenario of her coming on big time to whomever I liked never resembled the sisters in “Meet Me In St. Louis” or The loyalty and trust between Elizabeth and Jane in “Pride And Prejudice.” Stupid isn’t the word for what I was. Well, I wanted something from her, you see. I had made up my mind that she was going to be MY picture and that was that! As my late father would have said, “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up!” I could tell you a bunch of stories connected to this then friend of mine and how blind I was – stuff she did to me and to others and even her own mother – amazing stuff – possibly she was a psychopath because there was a lot of lying and phoniness overlaying the cruelty and dishonesty, and I was willfully, purposefully blind to it. Suffice to say it took me 8 years to realize what everyone who met her figured out in 8 minutes. Today, I can laugh. The evidence was never not there! And how I do run on, btw so thanks for reading this if you’ve managed to!
unelectedfloofgoofer says
WOW sounds like her life must have been a bit empty to do that.
Aquamarine says
REAL LIFE SOAP OPERA ALERT 🙂
Actually, she was tall, blonde and very attractive – looked like a model. She was quite intelligent too. Had what would be called a normal, ordinary middle class upbringing. But she was not normal. After a brief stint working in a massage parlour right out of high school (graduating at 16 because her grades were so good that she was allowed to skip a class!) she got a decent job and made money and became successful in a respectable way. And she was quite personable too and could be very thoughtful and considerate.. But then, out of nowhere, she’d do something…hard to explain, but it would be so…cold. So unaware, in a heartless way. So empty of any awareness of the consequences it would bring, the pain that it would cause. Oblivious of that. She did things to me which I wrote off as female rivalry with men type of things. If a man liked me she would try to get him to like her more and these efforts included having some kind if he was game. And it hurt me because I knew she didn’t really like them. It was just something she would do, and lie about it. I would be hurt, sometimes shocked and bewildered, but she would talk her way around what she’d done and I’d be persuaded! (Because I WANTED to be persuaded. I WANTED to believe her.) Then years later, ONE day she did something to her mother, who at the time was extremely ill in the hospital, recovering from serious surgery. Too long to detail here but it concerned the house her mother owned. What she did devastated her mother once she found out. My “little sister” even gave me the heads up that she was going to do this. Horrified, I begged her not to do it. No go. Again, its hard to explain. Totally unreachable, unemotional, cold, blank. “That’s what we’re doing. Its all planned.” I pleaded with her, used my most persuasive, logical arguments that it was not necessary. No go. And although i knew, I couldn’t TELL her mother because she was going into surgery! After coming out of the anesthesia her daughter and son told her. She went into a kind of low level, permanent shock, and stayed there. She never understood how her daughter could do what she did to her. Never got over it. That stunt, the way she coldly and calculatingly betrayed her mother and did her in, finally convinced me that there was something very wrong with this girl. In my heart, I cut ties with her forever but stayed in touch for her mother’s sake, to kind of keep an eye on the mother. A few years later when the mother died I cut the actual ties.
“We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming” 🙂
Richard says
Many people using strong psychedelics like LSD go into a different frame of reality and start questioning life as it is and start.seeking. I’m the 1960s and 1970s “Get high without drugs” was a good sales pitch and attracted a lot of people. Welcome to the Van Allen Belt.
Richard says
Shit! That was a reply to PeaceMaker above. Reply to Aqua follows.
Richard says
Aqua – Good story and great writing! I bet you could get some magazine to publish it. Likewise with many other stories you’ve posted. Make sure to edit out the “clamspeak” – haha
Richard says
“Mean Girls”
Cindy says
Aqua, she sounds like a sociopath. Martha Stout’s book, “The Sociopath Next Door” is a book I highly recommend to all. The refrain from the song, “Jolene” ran through my mind as I read your post. Good that you did eventually wake up. That’s what’s important, that you finally did spot it and act on it and learned from it.
Aquamarine says
Yes, I do think she was. A sociopath, all along. After what she did to her mother – and she was close to that gentle, sunny-natured, non interfering lady, they had always gotten along, mostly because the mother was so gentle and non – interfering – after the pain she very coolly and calculatingly inflicted on her mother, then I knew.
Richard says
Aqua – Good story and great writing! I bet you could get some magazine to publish it. Likewise with many other stories you’ve posted. Make sure to edit out the “clamspeak” – haha
Aquamarine says
Thanks, Richard. True story, not sure about the great writing part with all my typos, but thanks for saying that.
Komodo Dragon says
She sounds like a great match for Cruelsavage. 2 sociopaths joined in bliss. And now that he is single… Aqua, I think you should play match maker here. The dogs of Hell could use a new master.
Aquamarine says
LOL, except she’s 5’9 and has always worn stilettos however casual her outfit, bringing her up to about 6’2″, at least, when dressed. So she and Miscavige, well… But come to think of it, she did have the hots for a very short guy, once, for a while, back in the day. She focused on him for a while. He was a musician, very short with a tiny, bouncy girlfriend who worked as a waitress in the same club. He had a great voice, she said he was very sexy, etc. Not sure whether or not she ever had her way with him but it was definitely a goal of hers for a while.