This question has been bothering me lately. We know the cult is imploding, but what is the impact on the cult when members leave? What were their contributions? From what i understand about the cults business model, each member was both an employee, AND a customer. So the loss of any member is far more significant then we may at first believe. Sure, they have a lot of money coming in from whales and fronts, but they also do not have the manpower that they used to. the manpower is the key here. We would have to see what the members do, quantify what they do, and estimate how their loss would affect the cults operations, and what the cult would do to make up for said loss. If we can figure this out, then we would have an extremely powerful tool for bringing down the cult, as well as a better understanding of their operations.
If the person leaving is/was an IAS member, that's USD $5,000.00 per year the cult can kiss goodbye, unless the fee has increased since I read about the USD 5K. The exes can weigh in on the rest of it. I've a never-in so I have no further information.
Not an easy one to quantify if you think about it. If Cruise and the bigger names left the financial losses would be substantial. For the rest it's likely to be incremental depending on what they are actually worth. By the time you begin to calculate what Sea Ogres are worth you're at the button stage. Like Night Owl I'm a never in, so it's guesstimation really.
I believe the greatest value of the members-as-employee (rather than as cash cows) is in recruiting and getting people to buy ever more expensive bullox. The minutiae of the OT meetings Rinder posts on his blog all revolve around keeping activity up: Getting more people in the door, selling books, get people to redo their purif etc. Here's where channology have thrown a spanner in the machinery by stopping the influx of new members. The members aren't as valuable as employees any more because there are fairly few new people to love bomb and "handle". Thus the cannibalization of the organization which we see today. So yes, the cult looses money when people leave, but not as much as they used to because their function as employee isn't al that profitable any more. These days it seems the cult rather need the members as org staff, sea ogres or extras to squeeze more money from the whales. We have seen quite a few recruitment posters for staff positions for the less well off members posted both by Ortega and Rinder.
Right, the thing about it, is if the people contributed a small amount of money, but that money required lots of effort to process, then losing people would SAVE them time and money(yeah, its counter intuitive, but some business hit that stage from time to time when they grow too big) but how do they get sea org recruits? the die hard scilon families are getting smaller, declared, or leave, so that is slowly shrinking their base. Furthermore, who reads encyclopedias anymore? there insistence on new members reading and buying the basics, is probably cutting off their recruitment base. This along with huge changes in society is probably what is speeding up the cults implosion more then anything else. Also, if i understand correctly, they no longer allow the books inside their orgs or missions, so this is going to cut recruitment down a bit. Who has 5 grand and space to buy hard to read books? The other big question, is how many people do they need to continue to successfully operate. What sort of skills do they need to recruit. Chances are, the cult is not thinking about their own logistical needs. These are important things to know if we want to anticipate the cults moves, and inoculate future victims from them. But yeah, if the cult no longer makes money off of people, then that explains the huge price increases, and the change in policies. They realize that all they need are whales, so they are redefining themselves from being a body snatcher cult, into a eyes wide shut 1%s only alien country club type of deal. this would explain why the seem to be kicking a lot of members to the curb now.
The Scientology corporation only ever declares people as "Suppressive Persons" when the company knows that they can no longer squeeze any more money out of them. Thus the declares have no impact on the cult's finances since these were people who had already stopped giving the cult money or slave labor. The main thing now is that these victims are blocked from communicating with friends and relatives that remain in the cult so as not to lose any further members, and in the worst case preventing a domino effect leading to a mass exodus.
Personally, I believe the cult to be a worst case scenario intrusive book club. Even today, with most information in industrial societies being in some electronic formate, "books sold" is an important stat, reported along with auditing and gross income. Even though there's just one or two books sold only (and it could easily be rolled into the gross income stat), books sold seems to be important. The thing is, book clubs worked well up into the 1990s, now, not so much. Book clubs increasingly change to other products or target the older segments of the population who prefer the dead tree thingys. The cult has a product that's very hard to adapt to new audiences, and is more or less worthless in electronic form. Ad to that, books used to have a nice profit margin. As sales has slumped, they have increased prices by selling high end books and buying a printing press to increase margins further. E-books on the other hand are fairly cheap. Margins for the middle man (i.e. the cult) is limited. To make matters worse, anyone likely to buy and read a Kindle is also likely to know enough about the cult to stay far away from anything related to it. So, they can't sell ratty books for a high margin, can't sell high end books much longer and won't sell electronic versions. Dead duck is dead. How many people do you need to create the illusion that the cult is successful and "going places". They used extras for some of the promo for Super Power opening (and possibly event itself). Along your point of getting rid of people whose money costs to process, I believe the return the cult get from keeping someone around just to keep the buildings looking populated is no longer worth the effort to keep them in. I believe the cult will actually be more effective if they simply hire people. Actors generally look better too, making the cult a (at least visually) better place to be too. The question is how many staff do they need if they can hire people for events?
In reality the cult has to start thinking outside of the box in order to make real money, and the big question is are they capable?
Hubbard's motto and belief from the 1950's, 60's, 70's, and until he died in 1986 screaming at body thetans, was "Books make Booms." That notion is less realistic today with the "evil internet", but then again, scientology still uses teletype.
Exactly my point! They cannot progress beyond what they are now if they continue to enforce the disconnections and failure to embrace what's new in society and cultural practices. Look at the last part of Quentins comment saying they still use teletype is a classic example of their unwillingness to look at new technology, new for them that is. Orgs are dying all over and the numbers diminishing on an almost daily basis and with it their income. This is all good news to us but for Scientology it's not and somehow I doubt it will improve.
I disagree somewhat with the bolded statements. They will brand someone an SP if they think the person will poney up money to "get back in good standing", in other words, rejoin the system of fraud, abuse, and extortion. And when they brand somebody SP, I recall less than 5% are dumb enough to get back in, so they do lose money, but in scientology, dogmatism wins over pragmatism.
There is a problem with hiring people: they require pay, benefits, and will tell the police if you do something illegal. If the cult is hiring people, then its only a matter of time before they get raided by the fbi or homeland security or anyone else for that matter. This is another thing that is bothering me. If they still use teletype, then they have not modernized at all. So there is a strong possibility that they may not know their own numbers. That is a serious recipe for disaster. contrary to what you may be told, big companies love the IRS to an extent. The irs, and other accounting firms, tend to find problems with the numbers and start asking questions. Usually its a bookkeeping error that under reports earnings, misreports earnings, or they find earnings that get lost in the pile of crap. Having an outside set of eyes helps organizations a lot. Especially if some retarded middle manager tries to hide earnings so that he can embezzle them later. Scientology being a religion does not gain this benefit. A lot of their front tax forms seem to go through the same guy in hawaii. That is a huge mistake. especially since he is probably crooked since he is associated with Scientology. For all they know, he is scamming the fuck out of them, and they would have no idea. But once more, this is why i question the cult's financial soundness. They have all these people working for them, but really, what do they do? Just because these people do not get paid, does not mean that they do not cost the cult money. there is a reason why volunteer organizations have limits to the number of volunteers they hire. Employees have costs associated to them. Scientology is a bureaucracy, so its workers have overhead costs. I am glad i got in on this channology stuff, cause when this cult implodes, there are going to be a lot of analysts, world wide, who will want to know what the fuck is happening.
One thing we're forgetting here is the pressure to get new people in and to bilk people for as much as you can get out of them. Of course getting 3 people to donate an average of $10,000 doesn't keep the electricity on, but it keeps other scientologists from cannibalizing you for not keeping your stats up. The pressure must be tremendous for cultists trying to reg money when the middle and lower income scilons are blowing. And that's a very good thing.
I find it disturbing (as all of you must) that the cult is moving into Asia, eastern Europe, and Africa in an obvious attempt to expand into a part of the world that may be somewhat unaware of the fact that Scientology is a joke, a fraud, and a dangerous cult. The future whales may come from there also.
People blowing also weakens the bubble. There aren't as many other Scilons surrounding the ones left, so the real world might start leaking in.
Do they have the infrastructure to properly expand into these countries though? Its not just books in other languages, its also understanding the local culture. These eastern cultures have a very high risk avoidance, so they will not be getting millions of people into the doors. Granted, if they show tom cruises face plastered on everything, that would work to some extent. Keep in mind too, that these foreign governments are not like the US government, and will not hesitate to throw someone in jail, especially if their religion is creepy. While this is not officially a business, so they may bypass business regulations, there are foreign regulations that they will have to deal with. Also, they still use teletype machines. you can not expand globally without using technology. I am not too familiar with tax laws overseas. Religions may not be as tax exempt in those countries as they are here. Furthermore, it requires a lot of experienced manpower to maintain a foreign presence. Do they have the skilled people to do this? This goes back to the main question, as well as raise another: What is the skill set of a sea org employee? can they use excell, are they good at professional writing? what exactly are they doing all day long inside the orgs? Are they just analyzing and doctoring numbers? that's the thing about scams, they hit an implosion stage once the money no longer comes in. two things happen: 1. they implode and people go to jail, 2. they find a new way to scam and continue to survive on borrowed time. seriously, the more i look at Scientology, the more it looks like the religion version of Enron. What helped bring down enron, was people asking two important questions: what exactly do they do, and what do their books look like.
See, that's the thing, we have been studying, analyzing, and protesting the cult for years. We even have a lot of ex members. here. Yet, why have we never looked over our resources and asked ourselves "what is this cult REALLY capable of?" , how do they get their money, where does the money go? this is something stupid on our part. Granted, everyone here seems to be knowledgeable about computers, but not very many vocal business types. From my interviews with people here, it seems all the ex scilons were abused office interns. Granted, the cult did not have to pay taxes, but plenty of companies pay little to no tax, AND get grants and tax money, and they STILL go under. So what is the cult doing right to stay afloat? Is tom cruise and the whales REALLY responsible for keeping the cult afloat, is there no other source of money? Cause what i am seeing here, when i fall back to basic accounting, is a shit load of overhead expenses, and not a lot of incoming cash flows. Sure, a few rich fucktards give them a lot of money, but bills add up. paper, office supplies, utilities, gas money, beans, and everything else, costs money. And you want to know what else costs money? Ships, yard periods, berthing fees, pier services, and etc etc. My suspicion, is that the COB, has figured out that they can no longer sustain the traditional business model. So they are pricing out the members that are costing them more then they are bringing in. This is my theory behind the new price increases. Because, as of today, i can not find a single useful thing that they everyday scilon does for the cult besides be a source of overhead expense.
Janet Reitman mentions in Inside Scientology (Chapter 17) that Scientology might be switching its business model to real estate: "...No longer is the church depending on services -- sales of auditing and course packages -- for income; the onus is now on the local organizations to succeed, and if they don't, the Church of Scientology, whose investment in the Ideal Org was minimal, is none the poorer…" The question remains of how the local orgs raise money if not through services. (A local ex remarked that they simply rotate the staff: some go public for a while to work real jobs and bring money in, then join staff again.) Even if the orgs and missions are struggling, it doesn't seem that Miscavige & co. have much to worry about, at least for a while.
Scientology is mainly an anglophone phenomenon. They have trouble getting more than a token presence in non-Anglophone countries, even in ones where people generally speak English well, like Scandinavia. There are a few prerequisites for the cult to succeed: - A culture for self improvement - A general high regard for religion - A large portion of the population with medium education (not too high, not too low) - A decent mean income - A tradition for suing Perhaps most important is a language where Hubbard's bamboozling verbal diarrhoea comes through well. It was written using all the tricks in the book, and quite a few of those does not translate very well, particularly in languages remote from English.
Man, if they did invest in real estate, it sucks to be them. Though the market is picking up. So if they do generate a lot of income off of the regular scilons, why are they so quick to boot them? and why are they pricing them out of the cult? If the scilons are able to get good real jobs, then that means that they have useful skills, so they are doing something in the org. The cult reminds me a lot of enron. On the surface, enron looked like it was a super rich company. But when people asked questions about where the money was, and how they produced it, they got REAL defensive. Ultimately, things started collapsing when it was revealed that they could not show a journalist for Forbes their earnings statements. This set off the smart people's bullshit alarms. One reason why i am suspicious that the cult is on shaky financial ground, is because of the super power opening. Here you have the most important event in the cults "history", and all they have is cheese and cheap ass party snacks. this is not the only thing that makes me suspicious though. Other things are just not adding up. A lot of scams are propped up by expensive illusions. The best way to answer my suspicions, is to figure out what overhead is generated by their operations.
A token presence over seas is great news for us. Unless that presence consists of super rich people, it will be a huge drain on their resources to maintain, and will subject them to more scrutiny from governmental agencies.
