[Today’s guest post is by Bruce Hines]
Anyone who has been involved in Scientology likely knows about “FSMing.” FSM stands for Field Staff Member. In the 1960s founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote a policy letter that established this system.
In short, it enabled people who are not on staff in an organization to make money through sales commissions. The “field,” in Hubbard’s jargon, is made up of non-staff Scientologists who have taken service or bought something from the org. They were dubbed “staff members” even though they are not on staff.
If an FSM gets a person to pay for auditing or training at the org, they earn 10 percent of the amount that the person pays. If the person buys books, the commission is 15 percent. Obviously, the intent of the system is to increase income.
I am no expert on the policies related to FSMs. While I don’t know how or why, for a time staff members in “lower orgs” and even in the Sea Org could make book commissions. Maybe that is still true.
This all relates to one of the more surreal episodes in my Scientology life. It was in the mid-1980s when I was working in the Flag Service Organization. It involved two relatively well-known guys who were Sea Org members at the Flag Land Base at that time. One of them was Ron Norton, who was Captain FSO. The other was Jon Lundeen, who held the post of, if I remember correctly, Flag Finance Director.
These two guys made a lot of money in a relatively short period of time. They did this by getting well-to-do people to buy book packages. They would arrange to meet with their marks and then proceed to do a sales job. This activity had nothing to do with their actual jobs. The Captain FSO is the top boss in that organization, who is supposed to manage its activities with the aim of maximizing production. In other Sea Org units, that post is called “Commanding Officer,” but someone thought that at Scientology’s “spiritual mecca” the title “captain” sounded better.
The Finance Director is kind of like a CFO. Because those two guys were top executives locally, they could get some of their underlings to set up these sales sessions. The sale of books generally takes place in a relatively minor section in the organization chart, out of many, many other more important jobs. It was like the top manager at a Macy’s going to the shoe department to personally make sales.
This is not to say that book sales have not been a big deal. At that time, because L. Ron Hubbard was the author, he personally got a cut. I don’t know the specifics of that. But consequently, there have always been programs to get Scientologists and new saps to buy books and audio recordings by Hubbard. One such campaign involved the donation of Scientology publications to public libraries. Another was the purchase of large quantities of The Way to Happiness booklets for distribution by various front groups. The aim was to get Scientologists to buy huge amounts of books and book packages that would not be received by the purchaser, but would be set aside for use in broader dissemination efforts.
In the high-pressure sales meetings, the potential buyer would be hammered with the usual arguments of saving the planet and the individual’s responsibility of expanding Scientology. Some rich person might pay ten thousand dollars, or even much more in big transactions, to feel the satisfaction of, say, helping the make the words of Hubbard available to “wogs” (non-Scientologists) in libraries all across the country. Fifteen percent of 10,000 is $1,500. Adding up a few such sales per week, in a matter of months Norton and Lundeen had taken in a sizable chunk of cash.
There was an added benefit to those executives selling lots of books. That money taken in was included in the organization’s statistic of gross income (GI), in my recollection. In all Scientology organizations, that stat is one of main ones that the executives live and die by. It is generally the most important one and engenders the most pressure from the international level.
Norton and Lundeen were helping themselves in that way too.
So, what did they do with their windfalls? Well, they both went out and bought Corvettes. Sensible, right? For those who might not know, a Corvette is a fancy, high-end sports car put out by the Chevrolet company. And these weren’t old used ones. They were sleek and shiny and red. One would see those two driving to and from their “berthing” (in Sea Org parlance, that is the place where one sleeps and keeps some personal belongings) and the location of their work, which was the Fort Harrison Hotel at that time.
Sea Org members back then were allowed to have children, which was cancelled in about 1987. Both Norton and Lundeen and their families therefore lived in the “QI” (short for Quality Inn, an old hotel that the Sea Org had purchased for Sea Org members with kids), as did I. Those Corvettes would be cruising along U.S. Highway 19, where the QI was located, and Gulf to Bay Boulevard in and out of downtown Clearwater.
Were those two guys satisfied with flaunting their fancy rides? Oh no. They also had to get Rolex watches. As I recall they weren’t the lower end of the Rolex line, but were gold time pieces. These became a kind of symbol, in an odd way of thinking, for the success of Scientology. In addition, those recently flush Sea Org members acquired uniforms that were spiffier than everyone else’s.
This was all in stark contrast to the existences of almost all Sea Org members before that time and since. Low pay, budget food, cramped quarters, and the like has been the norm. The vast majority of staff at Flag would not have had the time nor opportunity to corner some wealthy public person somewhere to do a sales job on them. Most of us could only look on in wonder.
One might ask how these behaviors could be justified. A lot of people were asking that. As is often the case, pieces of the writings from Hubbard could be used, probably out of context, to excuse wild goings-on. There was the concept of “flourish and prosper,” which supposedly was the best answer to attacks against Scientology. There is also the idea of “havingness,” related to “beingness” and “doingness.” This is an abstract and far-reaching part of Hubbard’s weird philosophical system, which became over-simplified to mean how much stuff a person owns. This became equated, unfortunately and insidiously, with the power and influence of a being. To make matters worse, financial success is often thought of as a representation of how “OT” a person is. OT is an abbreviation for “Operating Thetan” and OTs are supposed to possess supernatural abilities. Hubbard even said that Sea Org members were supposed to be OT regardless of how much auditing they had received.
In any event, Norton and Lundeen showcased their new-found success. Many folks — staff and public alike — came to view it as cool and somehow gratifying. “See, this is the power of Scientology!” Even I, who at first resented what was happening, came to admire their ingenuity.
But it turned out that their little dash through glory was not meant to be. While I don’t know the details, someone in international management got wind of the situation and put an end to it.
Jon and Ron sold their cars and did something with their watches. Possibly they had to pay back some of their commissions, though I’m not sure. Certainly they had to go through some kind of “ethics handling” behind the scenes. Then life in that crazy world went on as before.
What a strange little interlude.
— Bruce Hines
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In re: staff taking monetary advantage of their post, the guy who headed the GO at ASHO (and probably LA Org) in the mid-'70s (I forget his name) wore expensive suits, his hair was always perfect, he wore a gold watch and pricey shoes and strutted himself about as if he were posing for the cover of GQ. He'd come into the course room (where I was a supervisor) and emanated wealth while doing what appeared to be nothing. Then there was a kerfuffle involving him, but I wasn't high enough on the food chain to know what it was about until it was over: it turned out he'd used refund requests as a way to pocket money. His scheme: he denied the request to the person asking for the refund, then put the request through the finance guy for payment — to him to ostensibly send to the person who'd asked for it — and which, of course, the GO guy kept and obviously spent on his lifestyle. I have no idea how much he made by doing this. At the time I was set back: how could a staff member THAT high in the org be so unethical? (I never said I wasn't naive.) The FSM book sales would have raised the same question, but I long-ago came to know not everyone who's "in" is ethical. Take DM for example. He's got the Baxter's believing they're bringing order to the planet by paying for buildings. Amazing.
Thank you Bruce Hines, your testimony is very enlightening. Bruce's screed proves how all of the $cienoverse is based on salesmanship and money brought in. Gross Income is the name of the game and I wonder how that plays out in today's whale harvesting? How much commission does an FSM who harpoons a whale get?
When the Duggan's pay out a million, how much does the FSM get? You can be certain that 10% does not go in the Clam's pockets. Or does Miscavige himself do the sales and get the commission? Davy could be sitting on a huge gold mine just from this scam. It proves that $cientology is a pyramid scheme where those higher up get to use the system to enrich themselves. Or is it just get themselves 'ethics protection' and good 'stats'?
I love how the Baxters wrote up their exhortation to the masses. I am certain that no one helped them write as it surly came from the heart. The Clampire lives and dies by the testimonial and the poorer Baxters are just another proof of that.