They say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.. but I’m afraid I’m about to break that rule.
For the last week I’ve been on holiday, or as the Americans say, vacation here. It was a well-needed break before the start of a very busy summer work season and an opportunity to meet the cluster of all SP clusters at Janis Gilham-Grady’s 70th birthday party.
But while I was in town, I also met up with an under-the-radar Scientologist who gave me the low-down on Vegas Org, and it’s an interesting snapshot into how Scientology is doing on this side of the Atlantic.
First, its size. Las Vegas Org went Ideal in 2010. Janis tells me that in the early days, her mother opened the Celebrity Centre, which was housed in a totally separate building. Now, all three orgs operate out of the same property — Day, Foundation and CC. For those that weren’t already aware, the Day Org typically runs the show 9am - 6pm, Monday through Friday. Foundation covers the evenings and weekends and Celebrity Centre offers services exclusively for creatives, opinion leaders and VIPs. My source tells me Vegas Org currently has 25 staff members in total across all three Orgs, which I expect means on a typical day, there are ordinarily no more than 10 or 12 workers in the building at any one time.
The Org makes about $2,000 Gross Income (GI) a week. This is one of the most important statistics in an Org and paints a dire picture for the state of Scientology in Las Vegas. For context, when I was on staff at London Org in 2014, I recall our typical weekly GI being about $15,000 US. All of the Org’s expenses come out of this figure — including rent, utilities, and maintenance bills, and payments to Flag and RTC. Last on the list of priorities is staff wages, and I earned an average of £20 a week at London Org. With a GI of $2,000 I would be surprised if Vegas staff are walking away with any pay whatsoever.
Next, the Org itself. There is a new kids’ course room but this, the Div 6 (introductory) course room and the Academy are typically empty with no more than a handful of public studying at any one time. There is no Director of Special Affairs (DSA), LRH Communicator (LRH Comm) or Flag Rep — and these are three of the most important posts to fill in a Scientology Org. The DSA acts as OSA’s eyes and ears in a city-level church and is responsible for safe pointing local officials and expanding the reach of Scientology’s front groups like CCHR, Foundation for a Drug Free World and United for Human Rights. Every Org should have an LRH Comm posted as this person is considered an ambassador for L. Ron Hubbard. Their job is to ensure administrative policy is applied correctly, the ‘tech’ remains pure and they report directly to senior management, rather than the Org’s Executive Director.
I asked Danielle Chamberlin, who was once the Senior LRH Comm for Scientology Orgs in the UK, what she thought. She says “it’s very surprising to me that the Vegas Org doesn’t have their own LRH Comm in place.”
“The role is vital in ensuring strict adherence to LRH’s scriptures, including all auditing and training and the smooth running of communication between various factions, the adherence to ethics rules, regulations and policies, and the maintaining of each physical LRH Office in each of their Orgs. This says to me that they are running without central leadership and are probably operating in a vacuum, therefore rudderless.“
The Flag Rep is usually a Sea Org member who acts as the eyes and ears of Scientology’s headquarters in Clearwater, Florida and holds an Org’s executives to account, ensuring orders from up lines are carried out and programs are completed.
Vegas Org does, however, currently have Sea Org staff posted in the Org on a recruitment mission from the West US Continental Liaison Office (CLO). Scientology’s operational structure is set out in such a way that city-level Orgs fall in to ‘continents’, with the US being split between East and West. Think of the CLO as area managers, who report up to the executives who work at an international level. I’m told the mission currently at Vegas Org have been tasked with recruiting five new people to join staff and head to Flag for training on the new ‘Golden Age of Admin’, with a deadline of July 4th. According to my source, there are 14 people on their list of potential recruits but are yet to sign up a single staff member on this new program.
As a former staff member, this confirms a suspicion I have had for some time about how Captain Miscavige has shifted the focus for Scientology at an international level. Orgs are no longer prioritizing delivery. The goal is to get new people in through the doors and signed up to join staff so they can shipped off to Flag for training. In Scientology terms, he is applying the Non-Existence formula. In normal speak, Miscavige has a crisis on his hands: the Orgs are empty, nobody’s walking in off the street and joining Scientology and he is hoping the new Golden Age of Admin will reverse the church’s slow, yet constant decline.
— Alex Barnes-Ross
Bonus items from our tipsters
And another one from Alex…
I am a full Basics Books and Lectures completion, I have completed up to the Professional Metering and I am a New OT VIII, but the one course I hadn’t done was the PTS SP course, this I have just completed!
It is a truly amazing course that’s given me the tech to be able to protect myself and my fellow Man against suppression from here on out into eternity. If you’ve not already done it, do it!
I’ve had many wins and cognitions while on this course. It’s been like putting a coat of Theta armour on that cannot be penetrated by suppression ever again. For example, there was a section on Black PR on the course, this is something I didn’t have a lot of interest in. But… when I read it and did the drill I realised: not only did I understand it, I could apply it and that was a major win!
One day I was going into town and I saw a very drunk man screaming around and a few other men running towards him to start a fight. With the material I have learned, I confronted them and I completely stopped the fight!
Another thing I noticed was that the people in my flats were coming to me more and more about their problems. So, I just decided and started applying the PTS tech, and started hatting them and giving them PTS handlings! It was so simple and easy! I am also now very quick now to pick people up that make introverting remarks. It’s very easy to spot if they are SP, they shatter and if they are PTS, I can now handle them with this tech under my belt, I feel totally naturally confident because this course has given me my stability to handle life!
I want everybody to NOT be the effect of suppression and this is the tool that everyone needs!
The HowdyCon agenda update!
We’re excited to announce Geoff Levin will be joining us as a speaker at this year’s HowdyCon. His documentary, Brothers Broken was recently released on all major streaming platforms and we’re looking forward to hearing from him in September.
The agenda has been updated to reflect Geoff’s addition to the line up, which you can view here.
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I’ll bet we’d find that almost all the Ideal Orgs outside LA, London and a couple other larger cities is the same as Vegas. Staff numbers that make you wonder how they even keep the place going, laughable amounts of money coming in, no one walking through the doors.
I just saw a post this morning that shows that thanks to this speed running social media trend, the Chicago Org has removing the handles from the outside doors and they’re not the only one. Loads of people on the post are talking about fire safety etc, but that’s not important here, there’s plenty of open out fire doors in the world.
What this means is no one can walk in off the street to get services. Which is great because I don’t think anyone on earth needs this stuff, you’re good enough as you are, but if unsuspecting people can’t even walk through the doors, then great.
I also noticed a big sign on the window that said CONDITIONS OF ENTRY on it. I don’t know if that’s a standard thing and I couldn’t read what the sign said due to the quality level of the photo, but I haven’t seen that before in an Org window, a sheet with conditions of entry on it. Maybe it’s on all of them and I’ve just not noticed. Maybe it’s new. Maybe it’s Maybelline.
But it does lean into the picture we’ve been given by Mr Barnes-Ross. They really don’t care about getting the masses into the Orgs anymore, Ideal or not. The Orgs literally only exist to funnel slave labor to the larger Scientology hubs.
$2000 a week is $285 a day. I used to work in a candy store in a dying mall that earned more than that in a day.
I’d argue Scientology management has to be covering the expenses here. It absolutely has to cost more than $285 a day to run the place. Which means they’re operating at a total loss there, and again, they aren’t only one.
Unfortunately they have so much money that it would take decades for them to run out while operating at this kind of loss. So on the one hand, this is excellent news and their fortunes are heading in the right the direction, the gutter, but on the other, this is just how they’re going to be operating for many years to come until they burn through enough money and their big whales are all dead and gone. Then the real shrink will begin.
The thing with Scientology is that if they own a $10 million building and it’s all going wrong, all they have to do is sell up and move to a $5 million building, things look the same to the members but they’ve freed up $5 million and $5 million is a long time of operating costs for an empty building, cycle starts again.
Maybe at some point once the money has been burned through, we’ll see them liquidate and liquidate to the point where they’re back in dumpy storefronts and strip malls again.
All I know is, I’m eating healthy and getting my exercise to live long enough to see as much of this fall as possible.
During Scientology's so called 'heyday' there were about 100 thousand members worldwide, and even that is a small number with a population of 7 billion. With the number of members down to around 20 thousand, it's pathetic that anyone is still involved. Can't they see that Scientology is at best on life support? At the Vegas org and almost every Scientology org around the world, there's likely an average of about 10 staff members. Vladimir Lenin had a description for the type of people who still support the cult of Scientology, 'useful idiots'.