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Friday, April 17, 2009

LRH Birthday Event

Scientologists, I am sure, are all atwitter about David Miscavige's recent big, bloated "LRH Birthday Event".

Miscavige did what he calls a "rolling thunder" presentation of impressive statistics, one right after another, big numbers, delivered with much emphasis.

And meaningless. Statistics are meaningless unless you have something to compare them with. Over what period of time? Exactly what was done? And what were the results?

It has been pointed out elsewhere, Miscavige's boast that over one billion people received "invitations" to come into the Church of Scientology is, in fact, a huge admission of failure. That many "invitations" and nobody showed up? Not only that but it looks like the Church of Scientology actually lost half their membership in recent years! Just between you and me, that's really lousy dissemination!

But I was more impressed with Miscavige's admission of failure of his whole "Ideal Org" program. His whole program has failed and he had to admit it. Oh, not in so many words, but what he "announced" said exactly that.

The whole idea of his "Ideal Org" program was that the "local Scientologists" would cough up the millions to buy these huge buildings, would somehow come up with millions more for the gaudy and expensive renovations, volunteer their time -- to create this "wonderful" building, which they would then, humbly, give to Miscavige.

That failed. Oh, did that fail. Don't say I didn't warn him!

So, in his crafty way, Miscavige turned the failure into a "success". He announced that he is going to open his purse strings and help create 70 "Ideal Orgs".

Oh, really?

We can deduce quite a number of things from that announcement.

First, like I said, it means his "Ideal Org" program failed. It didn't happen and it was never going to happen.

Next, although it isn't, technically, Miscavige's money, he won't give it up without strings attached. Those new "Ideal Orgs" will owe him, big time -- and they will pay. Miscavige has a trusted staff member in every single church who takes all the money in and sends just about all of it up to "International Management". Oh, they will pay. Staff pay will really suck.

Next, we can be very sure that Miscavige has redefined what an "Ideal Org" is supposed to be. You just know that "Ideal Org" has been redefined to be much cheaper.

We know this because, when Miscavige totally failed to expand all churches to the "size of old Saint Hill" as ordered by L. Ron Hubbard, Miscavige cleverly redefined those goals to be much, much smaller. Then, when he failed at that, he gave up.

So it will be with his "Ideal Org" program. With this step, he will have defined that an "Ideal Org" is to be much, much smaller. Of course, when this fails, he will, inevitably, give up.

So what will happen? Will Miscavige actually create 70 new "Ideal Orgs"?

Well, given that he does have money to throw at it, and given that only he can define what the goal is and when it has been reached -- well sure.

Then what?

There may be a temporary boost in "traffic in" based on curiosity about the "new buildings" fuss. But it will be very, very temporary.

After that, all those 70 churches will be in much worse shape than they are today.

You see, the difficulties of the Church of Scientology aren't caused by "not enough new buildings", so, buying new buildings won't solve them! That's very simple logic.

The problem with the Church of Scientology is that they lie. The problem with the Church of Scientology is that they never, ever produce the vast and wonderful results they explicitly promise. The problem with the Church of Scientology is that it is all fake -- a very expensive fake.

As long as all that was secret, they could survive. But it is no longer secret.

The reason that the Church of Scientology is failing so miserably is that the truth about the church is now out there and known.

And all the new buildings in the world won't erase the truth.

That is why Miscavige's "Ideal Org" program was doomed to failure from the very start.
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8 comments:

  1. Great article. While Miscavige is boasting about expansion, they closed 3 Celebrity Centers. CC Las Vegas, CC Portland and CC Dallas no longer exist. I'm sure "consolidating orgs" (in other words contracting) is part of their "expansion" strategy. Makes a lot of sense.

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  2. Nicely done. Thank you.

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  3. Saw this article on WWP and found your blog. Great resource!

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  4. Wait, a CC in Portland? Where are the celebrities there?

    Anyways, looks like the only place where Scientology still thrives (barely) is Southern California. All over the country, and all over the world, orgs are shutting down or pretty close to shutting down. Keep up the good work Anonymous. I used to be one of you.

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  5. I know what you mean, but "thriving" isn't the right word. The Church of Scientology is failing everywhere, but, because it was so big Los Angeles at one time, it still has a big presence there at "Big Blue".

    But, it isn't thriving there either.

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  6. What was it Hubbard said about be-do-have? I think the idea that an org needs to have an "ideal space" before it can be an "ideal org" is contrary to actual Scientology principles, but it's been awhile since I actually spent any time reading any.

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  7. Re: Be-Do-Have

    Hubbard said the correct sequence for accomplishing things was just that: Be, then Do, then Have. Figure out what you have to be to accomplish something, then what to do and after that, you'd have what you were trying to get.

    If you got the sequence out of order, you'd fail. So, Miscavige wants expansion, so he starts with have -- buy buildings.

    But if someone doesn't go along with this whole Be-Do-Have business, you can still see the whole thing is cock-eyed. Orgs are empty and failing, so the first step is to buy big, expensive and expensive-to-maintain buildings.

    And then what? Logically, this just speeds up the struggling org's demise. But, using Miscavige-logic, "a miracle occurs and expansion happens". Yeah, sure!

    The really odd thing about it all is that all the Scientologists just go along with it! Did they forget Be-Do-Have? Did they forget logical thinking? Did they forget cause and effect? Why do they go along with such insanity?

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  8. And the god of the Abraham said, "The mighty shall be humbled and the meek shall be exalted." We're looking at the crumbling of a system. And you're right: building new churches won't do the trick. Improving old ones wouldn't help either. As you said, a church based on lies will never thrive. I'm sure Hubbard wouldn't have done things this way. Churches, after all, are but empty shells.

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