Scientology Events

David Miscavige, leader of the Church of Scientology, holds six "big" Scientology events every year. These events are:

• L. Ron Hubbard's Birthday (March 13)
• Initial publication Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health (May 9)
• Freewinds Maiden Voyage "OT Summit" (4 evenings in June)
• Auditor's Day (2nd Sunday in Sept)
• IAS Anniversary (Oct 7)
• New Year's Eve

These events are ostentatious, florid affairs, usually video taped before huge backdrop paintings that look vaguely like some odd byzantine temple. As a rule, Miscavige is front and center, soaking up the carefully orchestrated stand-and-applaud moments.

Sometimes, Miscavige pulls some previous executive off of their punishment detail, like Heber Jentzsch or Guillaume Lesevre and has them carefully drill and then read Miscavige's script off the teleprompter -- I guess this is an attempt to "disprove" the reports that they are permanently on punishment detail -- then, as soon as the event is over, he slams them back into their permanent punishment.

Mostly, these events are Miscavige, telling his grandiose and highly embellished tales and soaking up the adoration of Scientologists.

But is that the purpose of these grand events, to stroke Miscavige's twisted ego? Well, that is certainly part of their purpose. While Miscavige holds all Scientologists in great disdain and speaks of them privately with utmost scorn, he also, apparently, needs their applause and approval.

However, that's only part of their purpose.

You see, David Miscavige is a completely inept manager. He is totally incapable of making the Church of Scientology survive. In fact, his disastrous management has actually resulted in the destruction of the church. Everything he does, all his plans, result in the devastation and ruination of the Church of Scientology. And here is the key point: All these churches, world-wide, are supposed to flow millions up to Miscavige's central management. But, because of Miscavige's destruction of the church, all these churches are barely scraping by or going under! His endless need for more and more money is not going to be satisfied by these piddling flows.

So what is the primary purpose of all these events? Simple: Make Miscavige lots of money.

Instead of establishing local churches, and working with them so that they flourish and prosper, Miscavige decided he'd just get the money directly from public Scientologists -- and use all those local churches as mere collection points for his money.

And that's what he does.

Every event must, must, must drum up more money from the credulous Scientologists. Every event must present something "new" for sale or must, at least, drum up great enthusiasm for huge donations. Often, Miscavige has figured out a way to repackage and remarket the books, lectures or courses to get all Scientologists to buy them all over again. Good Scientologists have bought the same material over and over and over. It makes a lot of money for Miscavige, and allows him to gradually edit these materials to remove Hubbard's imprint from Scientology. While Hubbard's name still appears, more and more of the content contains Miscavige's heavy hand.

With these big events, Miscavige directly sells to and collects from Scientologists. Any benefit to the local churches is very minimal. He doesn't care about the local churches. He doesn't care about Scientologists. He doesn't care about expanding Scientology. He only wants money.

Of course, this isn't why Scientologists need these events. Scientologists need what these events present: "Proof" that Scientology works. Evidence that it is all worthwhile. They've emptied their bank accounts, gone deeply into debt, mortgaged everything to support Miscavige's Church of Scientology. They get nothing for all this sacrifice except for a harder struggle to survive and isolation from the rest of the world. They need some evidence that it's all worth it.

Scientologists are told by Miscavige that the Church of Scientology is the "fastest growing religion in the world". They believe this, but never, ever see any evidence of this. To their vast relief, Miscavige's events "show" that it's happening.

Scientologists believe that Scientology has all the solutions to all of the world's ills. Not only that, but they are told that the world is gladly embracing these Scientology "solutions" and the world's problems are being solved! But they never, ever see any evidence of this. Then, Miscavige "proves" it once again, with another video at his events.

Without the "proof" that Miscavige provides at his events, Scientologists would surely wonder why all those wonderful benefits claimed for Scientology never actually produced any visible results.

But, never fear, Miscavige does everything he can to keep Scientologists happy with all the "proof" he can provide.

And yet, Scientologists still have to wonder: Why is Miscavige keeping all this "proof" and all this "Scientology good news" of his wondrous events away from the general public?

The Miscavige event videos are kept under lock and key. You can go into the local church to see them, but, for the most part, they are carefully kept from being released to the world.

And Scientologists have to wonder at that. All that proof, all that wonderful news about how good and effective Scientology is, why isn't this released to everyone?

Two words: Fact checking.

You see, if these events were available to the general public, people could carefully note down all the wondrous claims for expansion or government commendations or Scientology solutions -- and check those claims for truth.

Imagine what would happen if some Scientology event video that shows some country's "representative" praising Scientology was shown to real representatives of that country.

Imagine what would happen if real disaster relief agencies were shown the video of Scientology's bogus claims about their "help" in various disasters.

Imagine what would happen if, upon hearing about the tremendous success and expansion of the Church of Scientology in their area, people in some city went looking for any real evidence of those claims.

Whenever bits of Miscavige's event videos have been available to the general public, the results have been predictably awful for Miscavige.

As an example: The church's web site hosted a video – In Support of Human Rights – promoting the Church of Scientology's Youth for Human Rights campaign, which included more than 20 unnamed dignitaries from various political, cultural and educational occupations. This video was undoubtedly produced for one of Miscavige's big events. What happened when the claims were checked by non-Scientologists? Many of the unnamed officials didn't exist or were quoted entirely out of context. Oops!

Another of Miscavige's events claimed that his Volunteer Ministers had been awarded the Medal of Valor by FDNY "for their work at 9/11". Scientologists were very proud of that achievement, until non-Scientologists fact-checked the claim and found it totally bogus!

And so it goes. Scientologists need evidence that "Scientology works" and evidence that "Miscavige is doing a good job". The events show Scientologists that -- as long as nobody fact-checks those claims.

The visible face of Miscavige's Church of Scientology is facade, fake, bogus. He can show that face to Scientologists, because they will never look behind the curtain. He used to be able to show that face to the world, because the world didn't care enough to look.

With Anonymous and the world-wide attention they have engendered, that is no longer true. While most Scientologists still believe the facade, the rest of the world has looked behind the curtain. Now, most of the world knows that Miscavige does nothing but lie.

And, slowly but steadily, Scientologists are waking up too. Miscavige's claims are just too easily disproved.

All the bogus events in the world are not going to save Miscavige.
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