Scientology Ideal Orgs as Destroyers of Wealth, Part 1: The Strategy

In this series, we will finally collect what we have learned about the Ideal Org program and the strategy behind it in one place.  Here, we’ll take our best guess about why Scientology is so focused on building lots of expensive new churches that nobody visits.  There is a strategy behind it, and there are rational reasons why Scientology leader David Miscavige thinks this is a good use of cash, but the logic behind the strategy may surprise you.

Part 1 looks at what Hubbard thought made a Scientology org ideal, and we’ll look at why Miscavige took the idea and turned it into something very different.  There’s an underlying strategy as well as the usual cult needs to exploit both staff and members.   Continue reading “Scientology Ideal Orgs as Destroyers of Wealth, Part 1: The Strategy”

Hey Rocky! Watch Me Open a Scientology Mission in Košice, Slovakia!

I explore the reasons why Scientology opened a “mission” in Košice, the second-largest city in Slovkia, a small central European country, and what it might mean for the lucky Scientologist who paid so handsomely for the privilege of operating it. In this note, we estimate how many potential recruits there might be in Košice, how much money the cult makes, and what the strategic thinking might have been behind this decision. The reasons they did this are not what you might think.

On January 3, 2018, Mike Rinder published a blog post detailing some of the data points showing the contraction of Scientology around the world.  One of the more interesting data points was the announcement of an “Ideal Mission” in Košice, the second-largest city in Slovakia.  Slovakia is half of the former Czechoslovakia, a country that underwent a peaceful “Velvet Divorce” at the end of 1992.

We estimate the potential number of Scientologists that the Košice mission might serve and the money that the cult might generate from those customers, and then we come to a surprising conclusion about whether this was a good decision or not.

Continue reading “Hey Rocky! Watch Me Open a Scientology Mission in Košice, Slovakia!”