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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Scientologists: Vital Financial Data You May Have Missed

Are you deeply in debt? Are your credit cards maxed out? Is your home mortgaged to the hilt? Are you looking for ways to borrow even more money to give to the church?

If so, then you are just an average member of the Church of Scientology. Miscavige's church just keeps hammering at you for more money, doesn't it?

But you may be missing some very important information from L. Ron Hubbard about all this. Something that the church really doesn't want you to know. The church wants you to borrow more and more and more and send everything to them, but that violates Ron's very specific policies about how to handle your finances. You didn't know that, did you?

You see, Ron didn't want you to go into debt. He really didn't want you to go into debt. He was very adamant about it.
The basic principle of financial management is a simple one, income must be greater than outgo.

Amongst the principles of financial management are these: One cannot spend money unless he has it. Never contract bills or debts unless the money is immediately in sight to pay them.
L. Ron Hubbard
From HCOPL 3 JUNE 1959 - FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Oops! Did the Church of Scientology forget to tell you about that one? It's right there in OEC* Volume 3. It's one of the most important financial policies that Ron wrote -- and you should be following it.

I've mentioned this policy to the Registrars* and they do know about it. They hate it. They don't want you to know this policy letter.

To attempt to negate what Ron says, the Registrar will probably say something like, "Oh, just postulate* the money being there -- that makes it 'in sight' doesn't it?"

Factually the answer is "No, it doesn't". "Postulated money" is not "immediately in sight" by any definition. That's just irresponsible! Can you imagine some church executive explaining to Ron why he put the church deeply into debt, "Oh I just postulated that money would come in!" Can you imagine what Ron's response to that idiocy would have been?

No, finances are very important to your survival. You don't operate your finances on "maybe", "if", "soon" or "I hope". With finances, you operate from the way things are, not the way you wish they were. You must not go deeper and deeper into debt. Not only does Ron tell you not to, but simple common sense tells you not to. The basic principle of financial management is "income must be greater than outgo". If you run up any debts, you are violating this vital rule.

But Miscavige's Church of Scientology doesn't want you to know this key policy from Ron. They need you to keep violating this important financial policy so they can get more money. The fact that your survival is severely endangered by their actions doesn't bother them at all.

*OEC: Organization Executive Course. A set of eight volumes containing most of church policy.
*Registrar: Sales person who brings in money for the church.
*Postulate: To say and believe something will happen.

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12 comments:

  1. Oh, financial sanity amidst the sea of liars... you are truly a gust of fresh air.

    BTW: It's eight volumes, not seven. Don't forget volume 0!

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  2. Thanks! And I did forget Volume 0, corrected.

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  3. But, we can always just join the Sea Org and leave all those messy MEST issues behind!!!

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  4. Great stuff! Do you have a suggested handle for the "Purpose is senior to Policy" line? In the past couple of months I've refered 2 people in "Doubt" to this blog and both are now out. Many Thanks!

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  5. "Join the Sea Org". Now that's a solution! I've heard that's their sales patter now!

    LOL!

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  6. @anonymous Thanks for the reference, I am so glad to get feedback like that! Wow!

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  7. @Anonymous
    Regarding "Purpose is senior to policy", I've thought about that over the years. It's usually used as an excuse to violate policy rather than as a way to expedite good results. It's very important to look at why that adage is being invoked. Exactly what is the "purpose"?

    This adage does not mean ANY purpose is senior to ANY policy. That's insane!

    The adage only has validity if it is understood to mean "SOME purposes are important enough to excuse a temporary violation of SOME policy".

    In actual fact, the real purpose here is "getting the Registrar's stats up." They will say that the purpose is to "get people up the Bridge" but someone is going to have to explain how ruining someone financially is doing anything in that direction. Really.

    When you talk to the deeply indebted and financially ruined Scientologist, you will never hear how wonderful it is. You will not hear about their incredible progress. They are stuck and in a lot of trouble.

    No, the purpose of the Registrar is to "increase their stat" and only to "increase their stat". And for that, they want Scientologists to violate Ron's financial policies. This violation does not further the Scientologist's purpose. This policy violation does not benefit the Scientologist. It only benefits the Registrar, so why should the Scientologist ruin themselves financially?

    So, the key questions when presented with "purpose is senior to policy" are whose purpose and what purpose?

    Otherwise, why have policies at all?

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  8. Sounds like the reg used Purpose is senior to policy, out of context like a sound bite. It comes from the Third Dynamic De-Aberration HCOPL.

    Policy is simply below Purpose on that Scale. It is used when working out YOUR Admin Scale. It doesn't state that it cancels or makes violating LRH policy OK.
    Policy in this context is what works for you, your own policies to succeed on your Admin Scale.

    A simple asking for the LRH ref will handle the out of context use next time the reg or anyone that uses quotes to coerce, intimidate, invalidate, bully, etc. ANY QUOTE! It's good hatting for the staff too! Makes a long reg cycle short and puts the reggee at slight gentle cause.

    This way you won't be accused of using policy to stop. just KSWing!

    "Renegade"

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  9. Thank you for this site. We just left scientology 8 months ago, after involvement with the church for 5 years, including being on staff, and making donations to the Ideal Org building. This is my first post on any website since making the break.

    When we came into the church we had zero debt. We left with $200,000 in debt and are currently in bankruptcy.

    Something that should be investigated is the registrars pushing parishoners to open up "easy" to get large credit lines from companies like Pentagon Federal.

    Additionally, the registrars are well versed how to pull the most money out of your American Express card. First they get approval for one large amount, then try another, if that fails they try approval for smaller increments, accruing new approvals until the smallest increment is disapproved.

    I went along with this because...?

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  10. Re: Debt

    Your story is sad, and so very typical of all Scientologists.

    What the CoS and its registrars do is really inexcusable. And they get away with it!

    I believe that it is that Scientology idea of "OT powers" that made us all go along with it. Registrars use that as their primary sales pitch -- "After you do the services, money will be easy!"

    But they must surely see that this never happens. Why, then, do they keep pushing people into massive debt?

    When all that counts for the church is money, more money and even more money, good sense, morality and caring about people all disappear. That's Scientology today.

    Terrible. At least, now you are out and can start rebuilding your life. Good luck!

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  11. I and my wife left the Church two years ago. At the time, we had 25,000 or so in credit card bills, and mortgage on the house my mother left us, which was completely paid off.

    We also left my sister, her husband, and my two nephews behind, as they disconnected from us shortly after we were declared.

    The Church tried to split up my wife and myself, but thank goodness their abusive tactics didn't work, and they had really no leverage to use against my wife; as she is an orphan and has no family in the Church. They did however try to guilt her into leaving me by promising that my other relatives wouldn't disconnect.

    After this, they tried their best to get us back by having us do A-E and pay 45,000 dollars each to get back into their good graces. I was so brainwashed that if I could have taken another mortgage out or found other credit, I would've probably paid it.

    It took a year away from them to start to "decompress" a little bit and realize just how deep in the financial hole we were.

    We've been actively rebuilding our lives and came to an arrangement with our credits. I was born into the Church while my wife was recruited at 16. Our story is basically it's never too late to leave, no matter how deep in the financial hole you are. The longer you stay in, the harder it will be to reclaim your life and pay off your debts when you do decide to leave (or are discarded).

    OTVII, declared 2006, excuse me if I remain anonymous.

    Thanks for reading.

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  12. I have recently joined the ranks of former members of the cos. I would like to say that most comments fail to ack Ron for what he said in the Policy cited. I am a former curch member but never a former Scientologist. For me the tech is valuable if difficult to access.

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