From numerous sources, we’ve received various reports that Scientology’s vaunted “Ideal Orgs” are struggling.
Designed by church leader David Miscavige to be magnets for new members, newer Ideal Orgs have been built off main pedestrian areas, Scientology’s reputation has never been worse, and we receive regular reports that the places are mostly empty.
So what do you do all day if you’re a staffer at a Scientology org with no customers to serve?
We have to applaud the folks at the Buffalo Ideal Org that put together a fun short video with their fantasy of what it would be like if they had anyone actually coming in for courses.
To help us understand what we’re seeing here, we asked Phil Jones, a former Scientologist, who had a little fun describing what the video shows…
Two lonely Scientology staff members, Chris and her partner Serge, the plucky Canadian illegal immigrant, were stuck in far-off Buffalo Org for years without seeing a single soul cross their doorway. Daily, their voices would echo down the empty halls, offices, and throughout the large courseroom as their futility in expanding the Buffalo Org grew.
One day, after a grueling call from Scientology International for them to "do something" they finally cracked. And at that moment Serge had what LRH would call, "a bright idea." He booted up the only remaining working computer in the Org and dug until he opened up the Org's student files.
Not having too many student files to go through, Serge quickly found the last two students who had attended the courseroom from four years ago, and printed off their images on the old color printer. Chris and Serge then stuck the images onto their foreheads and proceeded to make a video of their "students" routing onto the Scientology Student Hat course. It was an epic achievement.
After they had edited the video and sent it uplines to Scientology International, they proceeded to load it onto their Buffalo YouTube channel. Then all they needed to do was sit and wait for their Christmas tree from 2019 to finally lose all its needles.
An "upstat" day in Buffalo for sure.
Well, pretty close, we reckon.
We asked Phil to be a little more serious and help explain some of the vocabulary used in the video.
The “Student Hat” is a Scientology course on learning how to study by Hubbard's method of looking up definitions of any word you may not understand, doing clay demos of the concepts you are studying, and not to 'skip a gradient' (go past where you're comfortable learning). It is basically just learning to study using his method, and only his method.
A "hat" in Scientology is a learned skill either for a post (job), or even for a student. If you are "hatted" as a student you have studied the materials to learn how to be one. In the video they are using the double meaning of the word "hat" when he puts the cutout of a hat on his head. He's just trying to be funny.
Scientology is well known for accepting credit cards for all their very expensive courses. That's where the 'large' credit card comes in. You'd need a large limit on your card to be able to take any Scientology courses.
The two packs that Chris is carrying when she enters the courseroom contain Hubbard Study Tapes. There might be 8 or 10 tapes per pack if I remember right. There are many, many tapes on that course.
Thank you, Phil.
Even without knowing all the vocabulary, it should be pretty obvious even to the uninitiated that a couple of staffers fantasizing about how great it would be to have a couple of customers in an otherwise deserted building is a pretty good representation of latter-day Scientology.
Oh wow, it’s grim in Buffalo. And probably in many Ideal Orgs around the world.
Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:
Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history
Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea
Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time
Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology
Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain
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A video that answers, what's it like in Scientology with business so down these days?