Diary of a Scientologist

Diary Of A Scientologist

Lawrence Toomajan kindly sent me this link - a summary of his understanding on Scientology and of his experience within the group.

What follows is only my opinion after a first look, because I did not read all the site in details.

At first sight, it looks quite impressive. I like the presentation, very clear, illustrated, and running in sequence, making the whole site to read like a book. The content is detailed, yet accessible to a large public. I found the detailed summary of the upper levels particularly interesting, fascinating in fact. The site does make some effort to try to focus on facts and to present what Scientology is in a relatively objective manner.

For a while I thought that this may be a presentation I could recommend. Spot-reading certain key points, however, tempered my enthusiasm, as Lawrence's personal outlook taints the facts too much. It is still very interesting and easy to read, but, at the end, the presentation is just far more negative than, in my opinion, it deserves, so critical reading through the whole work is a necessity.

Let me take some of the key points that bothered me.

The Rehabilitation Project Force

Again, this is a series of factual information, apart for the Erlich anecdotal evidence, and the fact that people are allowed to get 2 1/2 study and training time is properly reported.

However, the whole thing is written in such a way as to give people the impression the RPF is a prison (it says that much even) to which they are put in by force and from which they can only escape by force as well. Lawrence could say that he properly reported that "a Sea Org member accepts this fate instead of being expelled from Scientology", pointing to the fact that time in the RPF is not against the person's will, but this statement is drowned in the whole that gives an impression that contradicts it, including the highly suspicious statement of Erlich that he was "locked in a cage next to a woman that was chained to a wall for several days". Such a statement, correctly reported as the testimony of Erlich rather than as a fact, is not there by chance and only serves to give people a dreadful impression of the RPF that, IMO, is way off-base.

Now obviously the RPF is not the Club Med. I am not saying that it is a pleasant place to be and that, in such a context, abuses may not or did not occur, but it just does not correspond to the impression given in these three paragraphs. I can only encourage people to compare these with the pages I webbed at http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/rpf.htm, to get a more fair idea. You can't, of course, go into much details in just three paragraphs, but I personally think that such a sensible point should not be treated in such a unilateral way and with such a negative slant. As for me, it rang an alarm bell, that lead me to take a more critical look on the whole site-book. Surely, the negative aspects of the RPF could be emphasised while also taking care not to over-do it.

Reading further

I don't think, however, that Lawrence could restrain his overall negative view of Scientology through his writing, even though he may try to focus on facts and be relatively objective, because that's just how he personally seems to genuinely feel. This transpires in so many aspects, too numerous to pick, and sometimes also does distort facts.

For example, Lawrence writes that Lisa McPherson "died of a stroke brought on by dehydration". This is very far from having been established. Quite on the contrary, arguments and facts prepared by the CoS for the then upcoming criminal case, showed that Lisa died as a result of a blood clot dating back to the road accident she was victim. This lead the prosecutor to drop the case, feeling that their argument of her having died from dehydration just could not be sustained in court. See my Lisa McPherson page. The least you could say is that it is a controversial matter and certainly not a clear-cut case. Lawrence, however, present it as such, ignoring all the elements that makes such a straight-out statement doubtful, to say the least.

All in All

I still plan to read some day Lawrence's page in details, because it does look interesting, but, although I personally know enough about various aspects of the Scientology controversy to read through the lines and part facts from fictions, I am afraid it is not the case for the lay person, and I urge the reader the be very cautious when it comes to aspects that may seem too far-fetched to be true. It usually is. Far-fetched, that is.

The Between Lives Area

I read with some interest these two paragraphs, because I often sought to make for myself an idea of what is the exact belief of Scientology on this question.

Again, while an interesting read, I just wonder where did Lawrence get his information. It would be interesting to get a link to the various references used, but this is, at this stage at least, impossible, simply because there are no such links. I do recognize bits and pieces of what I read myself (implant stations, order to forget, etc) but never read anything that depicts it in such a clear-cut way.

Again, based on what I read on the site about subjects where at least I do have some knowledge, I suspect that such a summary may be an over-simplified and somewhat biased depiction of Scientology beliefs on that matter. It may be correct, though, but certainly we would need the exact references to check it out.

Now that Lawrence laid out his own basic belief/understanding of Scientology, he could spend time injecting links and references, and possibly review some of his more drastic statements.

An easy and potentially interesting read nevertheless.

Xenu.net Traffic Comparison with Scientology.org

Rave - The Day Scientology broke 20,000: "As they say in Hollywood, any publicity is good publicity. The Church’s exposure has been enhanced by websites who are dedicated to exposing the organization, and newpapers running articles in series about the Church. This has helped produce a public awareness of the Church and the existence of its philosophy. While the recent advertising campaign doesn’t mention critic’s efforts, it builds on earlier exposure."


Indeed, go to http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/scientology.org. There you will see the stats, and can compare them to xenu.net.

This is a comparison over a month:


Over six months:


This is the effect of the new advertising campaign ran by the CoS, combined with the hard work by dedicated Scientology critics who helped make the name of Scientology familiar to the public while at the same time discrediting themselves by their own ridiculous accusations.

This is the graph over the maximum period:


We can see here the effect of the work accomplished by Anonymous in February 2008. However, after Anonymous wasted their potential and became irrelevant by failing to moved beyond the level of the "old guard", Scientology's stats were down and they had to find new ways to advertise themselves, which they found and which seems to be working incredibly well.

As I said so many times, "criticizing" Scientology through outlandish accusations is only going to accomplish two things: discredit yourself and raise interest for what you are unfairly attacking.

In this way, critics are truly a great ally for Scientology and the CoS should thank them.

Scientology Expansion

This is a copy and paste of the article linked below.

The building statistics are certainly plausible, as can be seen through the Buildings category of this blog, and the Guinness Book one as well (it's official). The other stats, I am not sure, but if true, it would certainly be a major fail for Scientology critics and Anonymous. I have already posted critics' and Anonymous own statistics: that in spite of their claims, they have not managed to close down a single organization or mission, while in fact these doubled in five years to now reach, if we have to believe that article, 8,071 Scientology Churches, Missions and groups - almost one for each protester in the peak of Anonymous protests of Feb 2008.

Scientology certainly has many cultish aspects and there's certainly much to criticize about it, but the bigoted way Scientology critics and Anonymous go about it only helps Scientology expansion. Just take a look at the comment section of that article - instead of addressing the facts of the article, it's just cries of "cult shill" and "ban Louanelee".

The whole Scientology criticism thing has become so pathetic it hardly is worth spending much time one it anymore. It's over, and the CoS will just quietly continue to expand, ignoring the discredited cries of wolf from critics - until at last some sort of intelligent and credible criticism appears.

All critics manage to do eventually with their cruel and unfounded accusations is to draw a lot of sympathy for Scientologists and a fair amount of interest for Scientology - at least enough to keep on "feeding the beast".

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Scientology has its expansion statistics out

by louannelee

Share this on Twitter - Scientology has its expansion statistics out

Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 06:20:29 PM PDT

The Church of Scientology International published its 2009 statistics. Notably everything is compared to a five-year-range which might be an odd way of counting, but impressive nevertheless. What do you have to say about it?

• louannelee's diary :: ::
• 
  

(Source: Scientology Today)

- The Church’s property holdings internationally have more than doubled in the last 5 years. The combined size of Church premises increased from 5.6 million square feet in 2004 to 11 million square feet in 2009.

- The Church has acquired 66 buildings since 2004 in major population centers around the world. For example: Berlin, New York, Greater Los Angeles area.




- The Church has completed 401,003 square feet of construction of new premises in the last 5 months. It currently has under construction another 475,887 square feet, including Churches in Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Quebec, Mexico City, Brussels, Rome and Tel Aviv.

- There are 8,071 Scientology Churches, Missions and groups in 165 nations, double the number five years ago.

- 80 million L. Ron Hubbard books and lectures on Dianetics and Scientology have been sold in the last decade, compared to 5.6 million in the prior decade, and 60 of that 80 million have been sold in the last two years-more than during the first 50 years of Dianetics and Scientology combined.

- The number of individuals completing auditing and training has doubled since 2007.

- Since the Church undertook to publish and reproduce its scriptural materials in-house in 2007, the average price of Mr. Hubbard’s books and lectures sold has decreased dramatically.

- There were 12.4 million visitors to the Scientology website in the last year alone coming from 234 countries, with 23 million video views.

- 4.5 million pages of L. Ron Hubbard’s writings have been translated in the last 10 years alone compared to a total of 359,459 for the prior 50 years, making him the most translated author in history-according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

- Today there are 196,000 Scientology Volunteer Ministers worldwide-there were 45,000 in 2004. Volunteer Ministers helped over 1.4 million people in the last year alone, a 300% increase over the 2004 figure of 550,000 people helped.

Scientology Public Affairs Director Receives International Award

American Chronicle | Scientology Public Affairs Director Receives International Award: "Scientology Public Affairs Director for the Church of Scientology of Catania, Italy, Ms. Itria Leone, was awarded the 2009 Silver Chimera Award for the impact she has made on the community through her work as coordinator of the Church’s social reform programs.

The 8th annual International Silver Chimera Awards ceremony was organized by dell’Arte Etrusca to raise awareness of social issues and recognize those who have distinguished themselves through contribution that improves the quality of life. With the theme, “Peace in the World,” the ceremony was held this year at the Museo Castello Ursino in Catania, in Sicily.

Ms. Leone, a native of Sicily, has been coordinating the social reform activities of the Church of Scientology of Catania since 2005. At a grassroots level, she has been working to educate children and teenagers on the effects of drugs, to help them make educated choices and avoid the tragedy of addiction. She also coordinates a chapter of Youth for Human Rights International, through which young people learn their rights and help educate their friends and community on the basic rights to which every individual is entitled."

Bad Memories

There has been news recently of a drug allegedly erasing traumatic memories. Grahame makes a good point that Scientology processing does not erase the memory itself but only the trauma attached to it.

My Scientology Blog: Bad Memories:

"[...] Scientology Auditing does not erase memories as the article implies that the drugs do.

Auditing erases the trauma associated with the memories. The memories themselves are still there, it's the pain and suffering associated with them that is gone.

If you had an accident and the memory was completely removed then you could easily make the same mistakes again and repeat the accident. If you have the trauma removed then you can remember exactly what happened and thereby learn from your mistakes.

I think that's a much better solution."

Xenus Is for Real

"ANONYMOUS" IS A GANG OF CYBER-BULLIES AND ANTI-RELIGION EXTREMISTS: JOHN DUIGAN ADMITS THAT "XENU" IS NOT A SCIENTOLOGY TEACHING

In his latest article, he admits that the "Xenu" story, which anti-Scientologists claim is a "hidden teaching" of Scientology, is actually just an unpublished science fiction manuscript which has been taken out of context in order to ridicule the Church of Scientology.

That's not what he says. He says that the manuscript was used by Hubbard to make up the level, which does not mean that the content of that level is not taught as part of OT III. It is, and it does contain Xenu.

Actually , nobody knows exactly what Excalibur contains, if such a manuscript exists at all. To claim without proof that it was used to create the OT III level reflects very badly on Duigan and brings a suspicion towards anything else he may be writing.

So when Anonymous members tell me that Scientologists "actually believe" this stuff, I have to ask myself, who is it here that is really inclined to believe strange things without evidence?

Scientologists don't necessarily believe in the story itself, and much less "in Xenu", but they do believe in the supposed consequences of it, the body thetans - at least those who reached that level, of course.

Here are a couple more facts to consider:

1) No Scientologist has yet gone on record admitting to a belief in the "Xenu" the galactic space overlord.

Scientologists are not allowed to speak about that level. Even if they would, see above, believing in Xenu is not the point. The point is to run the process that goes with the story.

2) Every Anonymous member unquestioningly believes that "Xenu" is a teaching of Scientology.

Who do you believe? Is it more likely that there is a "hidden teaching" known only to a handful of Scientologists or that this is just a hoax, analogous to the "Taxil Hoax" which is used to smear Freemasons--or even along the same vein as "blood libel", which is used to defame Jews?

All three of these instances involve "hidden teachings" which are notoriously undisprovable, yet extremely convenient for enemy propagandists.

Unlike most of the other stupid claims promoted by Shallonymous, this one is actually fairly well documented and attested. Not that "Scientologists believe in Xenu". That's non sense to say. But that the story of Xenu is indeed taught at the OT III confidential level in Scientology, whether Scientologists believe in the story or not.

A Journey into Scientology

Inside view on Scientology, followed by hundreds of anons/critics attacks

New Statesman - A journey into Scientology:

[...] In 1950 I read the book: DIANETICS: The Modern Science of Mental Health, and was fascinated by the way in which that research related to the world around me, and how I could directly put it into practice in my life, to help myself and others. [...]

Miracle-like experiences brought by Scientology to my brother and my wife I shall describe in a later post, but for myself the main results of my study of Hubbard’s works have been twofold

Firstly, I now have an unassailable good natured and cheerful certainty in myself. A quiet confidence that nothing can really trouble me for more than a short time because I know that I will quickly find a solution. I find that that certainty and self-confidence play themselves out in my life.

Secondly, because I personally feel at peace with myself, I am able to observe and give attention to the plight of our communities and the individuals within those communities, and this has resulted in a daily desire to help others in a wide variety of ways.

Sometimes the help is financial, but mainly it is hands on: making full use of the various skills I have learnt in Scientology. Helping addicts recover from drugs or alcohol. Helping the recently bereaved recover from their loss. Helping those in physical pain understand and overcome it. Helping those in fear or other painful emotion deal with it and recover. [...]"

Is the London CoS Still There?

More than 10 years ago a poster in ARS called Roland claimed that after some TV footage on Scientology, the CoS in London will soon vanish. I used to regularly post the question in ARS "Is the London CoS still there?"

I guess it still is...

And for all their boasting about "destroying the CoS", and more than one year of protests, Shallonymous did not manage to close down even a single mission. Quite on the contrary, new ones open, and the CoS is busy buying expensive historical buildings around the world.

Scientology has seen more formidable enemies than Shallonyous. As for the Internet influence, critics would have to do way better than promoting myths if they want to have any kind of long-term impact as well. Stopping their hypocretical bans on dissenters and stopping their attack against them as "cult apologists" would be a good start.

bts2free on Marty Rathbun - alt.religion.scientology | Google Groups:

"R. Hill

chuckbeatty77 @aol.com wrote:
>> ....snip...

>> It's nearly over

> I doubt it.

> Let's see who's right on that one.

> Remember this exchange, in 2020, let's see who was right.

Yeah. That was more than 20 years ago, 1984:

'Scientology: A collapsing empire?'
http://www.xenu-directory.net/news/images/thecompiler-newspaper_jan-jun-84-4.pdf#page=8

After Snow White, at a time of landscape trials (Latey, Armstrong/Breckenridge, and shortly thereafter, Wollersheim, then a few years after, TIME in 1991, etc.)

However, nowadays, information travels in a very low-viscosity medium, unforeseen by Hubbard: teh internet. Bad time for scams, but I wouldn't dare saying 'it's over.' I wish to be proven wrong any time though.

--
Ray."

A Trip Down Scientology Lane

Light article about someone taking the opportunity of an open house to visit a Church of Scientology. My notes:

The Daily Texan - A trip down Scientology lane

Again, the CoS capitalizes on the curiosity generated by protests to invite people to know more about Scientology:

When I saw that the Church of Scientology, a religion started by a best-selling science fiction author, was having an open house, I seized the chance to hear their message.

My partner in crime, Katie, and I were greeted by a pair of Scientologists who asked us if we would like to take a free personality or IQ test. My first test of the semester administered by Scientologists? Why not?[...]

The pair had a good test, so the line is not "Scientology can help you with that", the line is "You are top and Scientology can help you make best use of your potential":

The Scientologist tallied up our scores and told us we fell into the “top 10 percent” — whatever that meant. [...]

She went on to say doctors, executives and other high-paid professionals made up the top 10 percent. [...]

Being in the elite bracket meant we had the potential to do anything we wanted in life — we just had to learn how to fulfill that potential.

Introductory courses are fairly cheap, which allows the CoS to get their line accross better, and of course start their indoctrination in parallel too:

Just our luck, Scientology just happened to offer the answers, and they just happened to come in the form of classes the church offers for a nominal fee, starting at $35.

Again, the CoS capitalizes on the curiosity generated by critics: the e-meter! An opportunity to try it out:

She asked if we wanted to try it, and I eagerly volunteered

Strangely the auditor could not get a needle reaction from the two:

“You’ve got a very stress-free life,” she told me, finally giving up.

Of course, the reaction by the CoS was not what was expected by people who would read all kinds of strange allegations on the net and the media:

There was no talk of Xenu, thetans or soul catchers during our visit.

And this open-minded and bright couple eventually came up with the right conclusion:

In the end, the Church of Scientology was a lot like any other church, and Scientologists were just like everyone else — looking for some meaning in life.

Really, that really is all what it is. Yes, Scientology is cultish, but so are many other religions and philosophies. I would not recommend Scientology because of its cultic aspect, but it just isn't the monster critics make it out to be. Critics in fact do a great service to Scientology by making it a monster. When people get the other side of the story and see that it just is not what was depicted to them, they may start listening...

Scientology Counter-Attacks at Cal Poly Campus

The CoS seems to be currently using the wave of interest raised by protests to promote Scientology.

The motto is "what people criticize is not Scientology. People should know more about it in order to criticize. We want to dispel rumors and misconceptions".

I call this Scientology "counter-attack".

An example is below, and a video excerpt, with a good sample of feedback is on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AJXNczfQBg

Speaker comes ready to explain, defend Scientology - News

Scientology, the religion that has grabbed mainstream attention thanks to its celebrity followers, sparked curiosity on the Cal Poly campus last night as a church leader came to clear up what he calls misconceptions surrounding the religion.

More than 100 students attended the speech, which was sponsored by Cal Poly Theisms. As seats filled up, many attendants stood while others watched a broadcast in an adjacent room. [...]

He also cued up clips from a DVD aimed to help clarify some Scientology concepts. [...]

"I have heard every strange thing and misconception there is about the Church of Scientology, so it's hard to shock me," he said.

Holzinger said he is aware of the rumors and controversy Scientology breeds and he wants to dispel some of the negativity by discussing what Scientologists actually believe and practice.

Imaginary Friends

It's true, I believe. Sometimes children have "imaginary" friends that in fact are real but they stop seeing them after adults put them down for it.

SoMa Scientology Mission: Scientology 8-8008:

"I started crying (in a good way) when he said that our imaginations as a child are real, it's our own universe. And how we sink into agreement with the physical universe due to people invalidating our views and imagination. I remember sitting on the swings when I was five and having a conversation with two people that my older babysitter couldn't see. She invalidated me and got mad because I was giving them more attention then her. I had a really magical life up until that point."

Seeing the Whole Field at Once

Sandy's Good News: Scientology increases reaction time and intelligence, says winning quarterback:

[...] "For several weeks running, he was listed as the number one top scoring high school quarterback in the NATION, on the popular web site, Max Preps.

Jesse says that Scientology and L.Ron Hubbard technology have given him an "unfair" advantage in life. When he was 13, he had an opportunity to take some basic Scientology courses that are designed to increase one's perceptions in present time. He says that the exercises he completed on his course have resulted in increased reaction time and ability to make decisions on a dime. Fast thinking and intelligence, he feels are key to being a successful quarterback. He can see the whole field at once: the guy who is trying to tackle him, the next guy after that, the receivers, the guys who are about to tackle them, and the guys that are coming in after that. All in a flash. Pressure is his friend. When he's being rushed at, he says, he has all the time in the world. "

Real Self Help Web Site

Real Self Help

This is a web site done by a Scientologist going by the name of "Fred Hare". Here is his bio. I found it through a page claiming miracle helping to heal a broken leg.The practical self help orientation of the web site, using Scientology, of course, could be interesting for people to have a practical idea of what Scientology is. However, most pages just refers to books. Did not read it in detail, though, so there may be a thing or two of interest there.

Christian Pastors Embrace Scientology

Some Christian pastors embrace Scientology - CNN.com: "Two pastors who spoke recently with CNN explained that when it comes to religion, they still preach the core beliefs of Christianity. But when it comes to practicing what they preach in a modern world, borrowing from Scientology helps."

Tl;dr for now but potentially interesting.

The Modus Operandi of Mystery

L. Ron Hubbard. Philadelphia Doctorate Course 24 What's Wrong With This Universe - A Working Package For The Auditor.

You will notice the modus operandi of mystery in this universe. You see, it doesn’t happen to be a pattern for all universes, fortunately, but the modus operandi of mystery is simply to hide nothing.

Lord Dunseny tells one of the most wonderful stories about a monastery which was scheduled to fall one day, and this monastery was up on a high hill and there was a rumor and a legend had gone forward for many centuries that on a certain day the monastery would fall. And uh… the day came, and one of the peasants in the valley walked up to the monastery and walked in the front gate. He was quite astonished to find no guards on duty because the guards were back in a corner of a courtyard weeping because that day the monastery was scheduled to fall.

And so he walked on through to an inner chamber and he was not stopped because all of the guards there were weeping ‘cause the monastery was scheduled to fall that day, and he walked on into an inner sanctum and an inner sanctum sanctorum sanctorum plus, and uh… finally came down unguarded corridors to the largest central room of this entire place where the mystery of all mysteries of all mysteries was kept, and here behind, at the far side of the room… obviously, the mystery was behind these huge black curtains, and he walked over and he looked at the curtains and he thought, „Well, it’s a very adventurous thing to do,“ but the monastery was scheduled to fall that day, so he adventured to do it. And he reached up and he pulled the curtains down and there was nothing there. And the monastery fell that day.

Comment by Check Xenu:

What happens when Pre-Clears pull down the curtain? Dianetic Clear
- You mocked up your own reactive mind.
What happens when Pre-OTs pull down the curtain? Operating Thetan VIII
- You mocked up your own past lives.

Hubbard went to a lot of effort to hide nothing, convince people it was really something, and get them to pay to discover it was nothing to begin with. The weird thing is how he confuses them so badly that by the time they pull down the curtain, they are ready to accept the nothing they find as if it were something valuable... well... at least until their "psychosomatic ills" return.

You know, the definition of a Static is ... nothing!

And the aim of Scientology is to bring you back to this Native State...

So there... You are warned right from the very first axiom of Scientology ;-).

David Miscavige Missing in Action

Mark Bunker reports that David Miscavige was all but totally absent from the New Year’s Event this year:

"my guess is he is either sick, incapacitated or handling a huge monstrous flap that only he can deal with. It would take something HUGE for him to miss an event like this!"

I agree!

Odd...

Update: Just Bill reports that in fact none of the top management were present. No Marc Yager, no Mark Rathbun in view. The event was run by Tommy Davis, a second-string PR flack. Unconfirmed reports about Guillaume Lesevre and Heber Jentzsch being speaker at the event, but neither are part of International Management anymore.

Another Christmas

I posted yesterday about a Scientology Christmas message that was quite typical of Scientology 2, with L. Ron Hubbard setting off on a tangent about Scientology being "the only hope" for Humanity...

The following message is much better, and I would tend to agree with it.

It's about the meaning of Christmas for Scientologists, and the fact that Scientology is a sort of non-denominational religion, a bit like Buddhism, something hitherto unknown to the West.

The poster is obviously more moderate in his approach than the Founder himself.

Quite ironically... but maybe not that surprisingly. I have seen, for example, some Muslims who managed the remarkable feat of interpreting the Koran in a moderate way and live a more gentle life than many people who call themselves Christians.

Jerry Seinfeld on Scientology

"It's extremely intellectual and clinical in its approach to problem-solving, which really appealed to me."

That's the initial post that prompted me to write about Scientology 1 and Scientology 2.

This is pure Scientology 1, and is one of the things that people find attractive in Scientology i.e. a new, quasi-technological, way to approach old concepts, with some new and original ones injected in the process. It's not faith-based...

More here:

“You would just understand that there’s this kind of voice, and then there’s this kind of voice, and then there’s this kind of voice. I wasn’t a natural performer at all, so I learned. I was always a pretty good writer in the beginning, but I really had to learn how to perform. Just a little thing like that, understanding that really helped me on stage to understand how you have to invade the space of the audience a little bit. I learned that early on. It was a very helpful thing to learn. You have to invade them just a little bit. Not too much, because then it’s obnoxious. But you can’t be short of them either, or you won’t control them."

"They have a lot of very good technology. That’s what really appealed to me about it. It’s not faith-based."

Ten Million Members

Daniele Gounord, the spokeswoman for the CoS in France, has now made a blog entry about the result of Google's most researched terms for the "What is..." topic, about which I commented back in Dec 10. It's in French. Among others, she claims that :

La religion de Scientologie a été fondée par Ron Hubbard. La première église a été établie aux États-Unis en 1954. Depuis lors, le Scientologie s’est développée et compte plus de 7500 églises, missions et groupes et plus de 10 millions de membres dans 164 pays.

(More than 7,500 churches, missions, and groups, and more than 10 million members in 164 countries.)

Now the 10 million figure (growing from 8 million a while ago) is most probably an inflated one, but the 7,500 figure for the various type of Scientology organizations around the world should be something that could objectively be verified.

If true and if you count an average of 10 members by organization, that would make the total figure to 75,000. Let's be generous and say there really are 20 per organization on average, that would bring us to 150,000, which I think is a relatively fair representation. Make that 300,000 and you probably won't be far off from the truth.

Back in the 1970's, when I believe the number of people attending courses was higher than it is now, we indeed had maybe 20 to 40 persons regularly attending courses in the average-sized organization where I was staff. However, we did have a "central file" of more than 2,000 persons to whom we would mail promotional material from time to time. If now you multiply 7,500 by 2,000, of course you get a figure of 15 million.

The CoS probably takes its 10 million figure from something like the central file, but it really is not very representative. The central file is made of every person who ever gave their address to the CoS, either buying a book or even just taking the personality test. Their address would probably be pulled out from the file if they write back asking for it, but if they just throw the promotional literature they receive in the garbage, their address would still be there and counted among the 10 million.

Silly...

Give More than You Receive

One of the useful things I learned from Scientology was the notion of service. The most important thing you need to know for a business to succeed is to provide a service which people find useful. The way LRH develops this notion goes further than what may seems obvious.

I am traveling a lot and it always surprises me how people in developing countries try to make a profit by over-pricing their services. Well, it's human, but hardly the best approach. If they were pricing reasonably but concentrated on delivering a perfect service instead, they would ultimately reap considerably more than the petty gain they seek to make. They may even get rich. They don't know that, and that's of course one of the reasons why they struggle through life in the first place.

Bottom line, give rather than expect receiving. You may lose a little here and there, but ultimately you will find that things just come your way.

Of course, Scientology does not have a copyright on that notion, but I found a particular aspect of it quite nicely developed in an article rightly entitled "Why Give More than You Receive".


PS - when I was working in Saint Hill, U.K., I used some of my free time to hop on a motorbike and go to Brockwood Park nearby to hear Krishnamurti speak. When he was not speaking, he would sometimes mingle with the crowd in a humble way. For example, he would line-up for food just like everyone else. When someone would come to him to shake his hand and thank him, he would shake back and thank a hundred times more enthusiastically. This sometimes was funny because he was a small Indian type, and some of the Caucasians where strongly built types, but it remained in my memory as a perfect application of this principle, even onto small things.