How the devil would GAG II apply to children's futures, except to perpetuate evil? Any future with Shortarse in it would be a nightmare (P.S. And what's with the 'Godfather' font in the New York org's logo? I didn't think you could do typographical Freudian slips; refresh):

Mark says
How the devil would GAG II apply to children's futures, except to perpetuate evil?
The *Church* of Scientology believes in getting them when they are young...

Get those parents coughing up high statuses $$$$ in the name of their kids and paying six figures for their Children"s :::::ahem:::::*BRIDGE*

It's not about spiritual liberation and advanced spirituality.
6 and 7 year olds do not attain spiritual enlightenment, no matter what the doctrine.
This is about maximum extortion of $$$ from deluded parents.

Karen.

So fifty-one cretins "like" the fact that two children who have barely started out in life needed it "repairing"? Yet again, Scientology scrapes through the bottom of the barrel and keeps on going.

Well to be fair..them being $cientologists would call for some life repair.

The picture of those two sweet smiling boys

Appalling.

I have the brightest Idea's:

"Once asked what inspired him to form the CMO (Commodore's Messenger
Organization):

He said it was an idea he had picked up from Nazi Germany. He said
Hitler was a madman, but nevertheless a genius in his own right and the
Nazi Youth was one of the smartest ideas he ever had. With young people
you had a blank slate and you could write anything you wanted on it and
it would be your writing. That was his idea, to take young people and
mold them into little Hubbards. He said he had girls because women were
more loyal than men."

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst...

RUN BABY RUN!

Look out little girl, it's the Cobrachupra!

Gives a whole new meaning to "I'm all ears!"

Fits wee Davey perfectly cause he's all money grubbing filthy hands !!!!

That saying used to give James Thurber bad dreams, as did "he wears his heart on his sleeve". Yuk!

Ha ha ! It sure does.

Love it !! I'm having nightmares already !!! Run little girl ,Run !!!!!

please tell me that's honey booboo!

http://knowyourmeme.com/mem...

mark, that was a marvelous education, although i am going to preserve the initial interpretation of honey boo boo, cause all art is subjective right?

Agreed.

There's a lot of great material to snark at, but due to the weekend schedule involving yachts and a roving contingent of supermodels, I slept in late and the satellite connection from Bermuda isn't working all that well, so I don't have time to write in depth this AM.

Just wanted to say that the numbers at the top of the story for membership do seem accurate. I have not done a lot of work on membership size in the last two or three months, but I believe that 30,000 is an upper bound of worldwide cult membership, though my best guess is a bit lower -- perhaps 22,000 to 23,000 by the end of 2014, with about 1,500 to 2,000 departures during the year.

I also think that active participation in terms of people seeking to actually "do" Scientology (i.e., auditing, courses, etc.) is substantially less. And active participation includes people who occasionally give $100 or $500 to IAS when they can't dodge fundraising calls even though they are hardly true believers. In other words, the number of "under the radar" and "sideline" folks are an increasing percentage of members. That's really bad for the economics of the cult going forward.

I would also observe that the number of non-Sea Org staff appears to be in decline; I have had several people report that they have recently been getting far fewer calls to try to get them to events than in the past. It's not a gradual decline; the number of calls for some people has dropped by 2/3 in the matter of a month or two. There's either a major exodus/purge of staff members or they're desperately trying to realign resources for some other purpose. I suspect it's a major exodus of non-Sea Org staff who are feeling the futility of the organization. That means, by the way, that the Sea Org will be the only staff left in the cult in the not so distant future.

One thing struck me particularly about one of the flyers this week: the Valley Ideal Org Autumn Gala is hysterical. They're talking about "traveling in a convoy across the mountains" from Pasadena to North Hollywood to help raise money yet again for the foundering Valley Ideal Org campaign. While this could just be an attempt at humor, I love how they're trying to echo the incredible hardships of our pioneer ancestors making the wagon train trip to the west coast through unimaginable hardships. We're talking about 15 minutes on the 134 Freeway to go from Pasadena to North Hollywood. Sure, there's kind of a little hill between Glendale and Eagle Rock, but it's hardly the Rockies. Dim attempt at humor or self-congratulatory puffery? You be the judge.

Wagon train: There is a certain resemblance to the Donner Party.

"We're cut off and starving for cash. Let's reg grandma!"
"I'm not dead yet!"

I noticed an abrupt end to the mailers a few months back. Now I only get mail from St Hill and offers to join IAS. It is my sincere hope they are giving up on me. Mind you this is after having nothing to do with the cult for over 20 years.

I believe that there has been a mass defection of staff. The main reason is that they probably have no income, since so much goes up the chain of command to COB.

Maybe that's just my prejudice towards validating my prediction that there will be an organizational collapse of Scientology this year. The erosion of the number of workers in a labor intensive organization that will not make changes because of an structure that is set in stone cannot be good.

This December will be telling, when several big events will be forthcoming.

Here's a prediction: since the IAS event is back at Saint Hell this year, the number of security there will outnumber the attendees.

I certainly hope so.

Yeah, but the traffic, the traffic!

"We got a great big convoy, ain't she a beautiful sight?"

I was in Bermuda the year Ross Perot blew up a chunk of the reef to be able fit his big yacht through. Residents were not happy. I've been a dozen times. Love it there. I wonder if there are any Scilons living in Bermuda? Bermudians in general are a very religious bunch. I think they have one of the highest ratios of landmass to churches worldwide....well, that and ratio of golf courses too.

Only the ones that have been paid off to keep their mouths shut about what goes on inside management. So it all works out, haha.

Well, at 28 miles in length, it wouldn't be a hard record to set. I loved my trip to Bermuda! Perfect weather. Pink sand, aqua water and that marvelous, old, fusty Britishness that nothing seems to be able to erase.

I agree - I pictured a wagon train too and Cookie making their meals over a campfire.

It's a Draggin Train, and it's difficult to yank all those kicking and screaming tired of being finacially busted clams that far. Obviously, it takes a CONvoy.

Spoutologists for you!

They have lots of Operating spouTees.

The ones left have gained the ability to act Miscavige-appropriate and spout hyperbole just like him.

Puts me in mind of a Firesign Theater exchange (can't remember which album), "Man, I'm so tired of pushing west. Ain't we ever gonna stop? How long ago did we leave Goshen?" -- "Bout three hours."

From 'Waiting for the Electrician'.

Thank you, I knew there would be a fan somewhere on this board.

Don't Crush that Dwarf, and Hand Me the Pliers!

"I have had several people report that they have recently been getting far fewer calls to try to get them to events than in the past."

I wish this was true for me, John. Since I was on staff and had some training\auditing in the past, they are after me like white on rice. I must get at least 4 to 6 calls a week. The calls are bizarre. I'm getting calls from Bridge Publications, Flag and California. Bridge never called me before. That's new. One call was thanking me for buying the Basics, which of course never did. I've been out of the cult for 24 years, but they managed to track me down even after I moved. I'm constantly getting letters from Sea Org who have no idea who I am, but think they can use 'fair roads, fair weather' tactics to convince me to come back. I receive promo on a weekly basis, including those expensive glossy ones they send out quarterly. What a waste of paper. But the are relentless.

Yesterday, I was feeling frustrated over something personal. I received a call from the cult and decided to take the call instead of ignoring it. I took out my frustration on the cultist and tore him a new asshole. Poor guy. He never knew what hit him. I seriously doubt I'll receive a call from him again. But then again...they are desperate.

"there's kind of a little hill between Glendale and Eagle Rock, but it's hardly the Rockies"

I guess in their minds it's a mountain on the cult theory of "what's true for you is true for you".

Is this the first or second generation of SO recruits that has never known a time when there wasn't an internet?

Pete nailed it.

Well, certainly when it comes to you, Pete. They don't want to communicate with you, have no affinity for you and don't understand you.

Of course they have little reality with the outside world, because they don't communicate with the outside world on internet.

So you think Hubbard was right with his ARC-triangle?

and i could also say that c, r and a mean connection, rootedness and awe,
and tell you these three states of consciousness together are the keys to
peace but then that would be c+r+a=p and you would have new memes to chew.

"Of course they have little reality with the outside world..."

They have little reality with the INSIDE world. They don't know the truth about LRH the sociopathic lie machine and his drug-soaked death. They don't know the truth about COB the megalomaniacal dictator and his emperor-like lifestyle. They don't know how the church really works. They don't know their own real purpose in it. And they don't know how their Scientology rewired their brains exactly opposite what it promised, replacing free thought with self policing, critical analysis with rote processing, confidence with fear, and purpose with obedience.

Putin?

Wow, EO, you started early today on your LRH love-fest!

No Sir, in my country it isn't that early.

I think Pete was saying Hubbard was right about the ARC triangle. What do you think?

Or don't you know what Hubbard wrote about ARC?

The 'ARC triangle' is a perfect example of unconvincing pseudo-science.

1) It is written in what the author imagines is a scientific style
2) Like "The way to happiness" its only content is empty platitude - "If people talk to each other they might get on better".
3) It cannot be applied to tell you anything about human nature that a reasonably observant person does not already know (unlike real scientific ideas, it has no predictive power)
4) It is spoken of by believers as if it is a deep insight that could transform human relations.

Hubbard wrote so much that you can cherry-pick statements like this - they sound as if they make sense (although you usually have to take them out of context in order to do so) but they are empty of meaningful content.

The real test of Hubbard's ideas is to stand back and examine his body of work as a whole. When you do this, you come across (for example) the things he wrote about radiation and 'drugs' - which are at
best dangerously wrong, and at worst totally incoherent.

You do not keep a broken clock because it seems to be right twice a day. You throw the whole thing out, and start again with a new timepiece that really does work. Scientology is less practical use than a broken clock.

The only rigorous, reputable experiments which have examined Hubbard's claims have have shown the most basic to be just plain false. http://scicrit.wordpress.co... and http://scicrit.wordpress.co...

Finally, if only a tiny fraction of Hubbard's claims were correct, it would surely be easy to mount astonishing demonstrations to ignorant outsiders like me. I have never seen not heard of any such thing.