[Today’s guest post is by Bruce Hines]
It has been commented many many times that statistics are a really big deal in the nutty world of Scientology. It is part of founder L. Ron Hubbard’s “management technology.”
Every staff member on the entire planet has their individual statistic, by which they pretty much live or die. Anybody with some familiarity with Scientology likely knows something, or a lot, about this subject. But I’ll explain a bit anyway.
Staff members, in missions, in local orgs, and in the Sea Organization, are supposed to be productive. They need to pull their weight. “Production is the basis of morale,” as Hubbard wrote. They need to be “in-exchange” (i.e. what they give to the organization should be equal to or exceed what they get in return). Those who are productive should get rewarded and those who aren’t get punished.
The measure of a staff member’s production is their statistic. If a staff member’s post is “Book Seller,” their stat would be “number of books sold.” If the post is “registrar,” their stat would be “gross income” (the amount of money that staff member brought into the organization).
In Hubbard’s policies, a week begins at 2:00pm on Thursday and ends at 2:00pm the following Thursday. A person’s stat for the week must only include the things “produced” between those two points in time. If the weekly statistic is higher than the previous week’s, the staff member is considered to be in a good “ethics condition.” If the stat is down, the person is then in a bad ethics condition.
I won’t go into the ethics conditions here, as that subject is pretty complicated. Suffice it to say that life is relatively easy if a staff member’s stat is up, and pretty unpleasant if their stat is down. Thursday morning, or maybe Wednesday night, there is often a mad dash to try to improve one’s weekly statistic.
At the international headquarters of Scientology near Hemet, California, for external-facing managers the counting of stats was an involved and complicated affair. Every Thursday night there was something called “stat evolution” that went on for hours.
By way of example, there was a person in the “Executive Strata” (a part or level of international management) whose post was “Books Exec Int” (BEI). This person was supposed to oversee the sales of books in the entire world. They were supposed to write “programs” and get them approved by people senior to them in the management hierarchy. These programs were a step-by-step series of actions to be executed in lower organizations in the world. Some staff members in the lower-level organizations would then get pestered to complete “targets” on these programs. One such staff member at a local org would be the “Book Store Officer.”
Getting these programs done were supposed to result in ever-increasing sales of books in the world. And so, the BEI’s stat would be something like “total book sales internationally.” I’m not sure if their statistic was the total number of individual books that got sold in that week or the dollar value of books sold in that week. Maybe it was both. Part of the stat ev, as it was affectionately known, was to get all the local organizations to report their book-sale numbers “up the lines.”
The book-sales stats were some of many, many numbers that the local organizations had to report up to management. Someone at the org had to send a “telex” with a long list of weekly statistics up to the “Conts” (which stands for continental, referring to the middle-management units — the Continental Liaison Offices or CLOs — in LA, NYC, St. Hill, Denmark, Mexico City, Toronto, and Sidney). Each Cont then compiled all of those statistics from all of the orgs in their area into a larger telex that got sent to international management in LA. There the statistics for the whole world were added up and forwarded up to the Int Base near Hemet.
The BEI, for example, and other people at the international headquarters, had to wait for that whole process to complete in order to know what their own statistic was for that week. Also, because there were different time zones involved, stats from around the world came in at different times. The CLO in LA (which was responsible for the western U.S.) had to wait for the Hawaii org, where their 2:00pm was three hours behind Pacific time. The Australian orgs were the first to report their stats and the West U.S. orgs were the last. The whole thing would invariably get delayed because some person or org or computer had problems. Imagine getting a long list of statistics from Harare, Zimbawe, to Johannesburg then to Copenhagen then to LA then to the Int Base.
By the way, from what I have read, there is no longer the position of Books Exec Int. Nor do most of the management posts at the Int level still exist. That is a whole other story that has to do with the current head of Scientology. So, I doubt that all of this stat gathering happens any more, or at least not in the same way.
In the late 80s and early 90s, I happened to have a post at the Int level and my own stat was one that depended on what had happened that week in all of the local orgs in the world. That meant that I had to take part in the weekly stat evolution. It was generally an ordeal. Beginning Thursday evening, and usually lasting until about 6:00 Friday morning, we all sat in front of computer screens. There was an internal network of personal computers sitting on desks in many offices belonging to various management units. These computers were not connected to the Internet. They were part of Scientology’s own system. We could log on to our own account. We could send a type of email to each other called “mercs” (short for Mercury, a name somebody came up with that was supposed to indicate speed or quickness). We could also send “telexes” from our account.
My post title was “Tech Correction Director International” and my stat was “FN%” internationally, which was the average of the FN% stat of all orgs in the world. After every auditing session, the person being audited is supposed to go to the “Examiner.”
There, the Examiner puts the person on an E-meter and looks to see if there is a “floating needle.” The percentage all sessions given in a particular org that ended in an FN at the Examiner was what my stat was based on. It was supposed to indicate the quality of technical delivery.
There I sat for hours, staring at the screen and typing, sending messages to try to chase up my stat, doing “stat analyses,” composing telexes that would go to the “Senior Case Supervisors” in each Cont, and getting these telexes approved by some special people in the Religious Technology Center (RTC, the most senior body at the Int base).
In retrospect, I think it is funny that we typed telexes in all caps. That was because the earlier actual telex machines sent messages in that form. Kind of like old telegrams. There were a number of archaic policies related to telexes that Hubbard had ordained, which we had to follow.
At some point in the middle of the all that commotion, we got “midrats,” which stands for midnight rations (another U.S. Navy term adopted for use in the Sea Org). People who worked in the galley in Golden Era Productions, who were responsible for feeding the whole base, put some sandwiches, coffee and other things together, and brought them up to some of the management buildings. I always looked forward to that little break.
Once we got our telexes approved and they were sent out, we could go to bed. We still had to be present in fresh uniforms at the after-lunch muster, which meant we typically got four or five hours of sleep. The telexes were supposed to be instructions to people at Cont level, and from there to local orgs, that would get staff members to re-inforce successful actions and/or change things that didn’t seem to be working. It included the assignment of an “Ethics Condition.” It was all with the aim of improving statistics.
There was a particular small org in Mexico City that had no auditors and did not deliver any auditing. There was a term in use back then, “small and failing orgs.” There were a number of such orgs in the world, despite the boasts from the top people in Scientology about how great the expansion was. If that org reported zero as their FN%, it had a significant effect on the international stat. It had an even bigger effect on the stat of the Snr Case Supervisor LATAM (for Latin America), who was posted at another, larger org in Mexico City. That person came up with a solution for this, which also solved it for me and for the Senior Case Supervisor International, my direct boss. That guy traveled across town in Mexico City to the small and failing org, found someone to whom he gave a “Touch Assist,” and then gave him an after-session exam to get a floating needle. Then that org’s stat got reported as 100%.
All of the policies and activities associated with the weekly stat evolution were based on some idea of many active, large or at least large-ish, organizations delivering lots of Scientology services. While there were some local orgs like that in those days, there were many that were not. Many orgs had maybe ten staff and not even a Book Store Officer. Nor were many other posts filled, which had statistics assigned to them that had to be reported in those weekly telexes. All of the required activity and terminology and self-importance was more like a pretend army in a banana republic. What’s more, since the early 90s, orgs have shrunk and shrunk, almost without exception.
Fast forward to 2002, which was my initial motivation for writing this piece. By then I was in New York holding a low post in the CLO there. The New York org building was going to be renovated. Then it would be an “Ideal Org.” That meant that the staff of the org had to be relocated while the renovations were going on. After all, there could be no drop in production just because everyone had to move out of their offices.
The unit I was part of got tasked with organizing this move. A building had been rented, located on 43rd Street and about 6th Avenue. I remember looking towards the east up 43rd and seeing Grand Central Station. We had to move all of the furniture and files and stuff, occupying seven floors in the NY Org building, located on 46th Street, just west of Times Square where Broadway and 7th Avenue intersect. While it was only a few blocks, it was still a major task through the traffic and bustle of Midtown Manhattan.
Now, one very odd thing, in my mind, was that the building into which we were temporarily relocating the org belonged to the Moonies (Unification Church). The way I understood it, the Moonies had their headquarters for the U.S. in NYC in that building, but they were moving this management center to Washington, D.C. I’m not exactly sure, but that’s how I remember it. The Moonies were moving out as we were moving in. Their offices occupied several floors in that building.
One morning, the time arrived when we were to go to the Moonie building and start laying out various spaces where parts of the Scientology org would be operating. I and other members of the unit I was part of arrived there around 9:00am. Somehow we had access to the building. We went in and began going through the premises. Much to my surprise, I saw in a few rooms people sitting staring at computer screens and typing.
They were wearing some kind of uniform. They appeared to be from Korea, as one might expect. When we got there, these people logged off and stumbled, bleary-eyed, out the front door. It appeared they were going someplace to get some sleep after being up all night.
It would have been about 10:00pm in Seoul at that time. Were they sending and receiving emails from some people there? Were they sending management-type instructions to other Moonie centers in the U.S.? I can only guess.
Witnessing that scene was a significant moment for me. It was uncannily similar to my own experiences as part of the stat evolution at Scientology’s international headquarters some years earlier. This created another breach in my Scientological worldview. I suddenly came face to face with people in a cult doing cult-like things wearing cultish clothes. Complete with sleep deprivation. It was like someone holding up a mirror so I could take a look at aspects of my own existence.
I was able to dismiss such thoughts. After many years of indoctrination along with various thought-reform techniques, I had mental mechanisms (like thought-stopping cliches) in place. Any thoughts or observations that went against the false reality of my own cult became instantly devalued and chalked up as results of my own failings. That memory persisted however — seeing those poor Moonies in a predicament eerily similar to my own. A few months later, after my conditioning had gradually unraveled, I was able to escape from all that craziness.
— Bruce Hines
Previously, by Bruce Hines…
May 24: Scientology has always protected abusers and always will
March 30: Life as a Scientology ‘Flag auditor,’ bending the minds of Neil Gaiman and others
Oct 15, 2022: Scientology’s deposed queen: What it was like to ‘audit’ Mary Sue Hubbard in exile
Aug 18, 2022: An eyewitness account of the place where Scientology is keeping Shelly Miscavige
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Great article, Bruce! It brings to mind 2 pm on Thursdays at Flag, Clearwater, Florida, from December 1975 to 1980.
As the Supercargo, or the HES (Hubbard Executive Secretary), of the Flag Service Org, I was responsible for the Gross Income (GI) stat. If I remember correctly, Bill Robertson, Greg Wilhere, Sandy Wilhere, and Carl Carlson—all COs of the FSO—had GI as one of their personal statistics. The FCCI PO (Flag Case Completion Intensive Product Officer), Bonnie Meadows, had GI as one of her personal stats. The four registrars in Div 2, Dept 3, David Foster, David Light, Judi Light, and Jim Grant, all shared the GI stat. And so did I, as the HCO ES or Supercargo of the FSO. Gwen North, the OEC (Org Exec Officer), did not have GI as a statistic, but she kept her eyes on it as income meant she had more students and preclears to train and audit.
And so did Hubbard. In the background, away from Clearwater for most of those years and wherever he was, he had his eyes glued to his telex machine for news on how much the FSO was making each week. As Hubbard received GI news, sometimes hourly, he would be silent. Or he would push, groan, urge, shout (it's possible to shout in a telex), and even threaten everyone to get the GI up.
This insane "push for GI" began every week after Thursday at 2pm. And each week, the push took on its own energy. If the registrars managed to get a good start on the week, things were fairly smooth in the Reg Office. The FSO executives would stroll into the Reg Office now and then to get a feel for "how things were going." If the week wasn't going well, all hell would break loose to various degrees.
If the GI stat wasn't up, no one was strolling. Execs would be rushing into the Reg Office at all hours, sometimes on their own or in two and threes, standing over the regs who might be on the phone, throwing out questions and demanding answers about how much money had come in in the last 5 minutes, what each reg had lined up to bring in that day, for Wednesday and Thursday morning, how they planned to achieve it, and giving random suggestions and orders to speed up the process.
The registrars would be badgering the Technical Secretary, Directors of Processing and Training to find out how well their preclears and students were processing and if they were doing well enough case-wise for the registrars to try to get them to sign up for more auditing and training.
And if the registrars were expecting payments from other countries, we would ready FSO staff to fly to that country, pick up the money, and get it to Flag before 2 on Thursday. That meant getting flights arranged and ensuring passports were in order. It meant providing costs for accommodation, car rental, gas, and meals.
Hubbard never wrote a truthful policy letter on what we all had to do to get him his rising "GI" stat each week. He had us all so well manipulated that we scurried around and around in a very small Hampster Wheel, falling over ourselves in a rush to get orders that served only his interests executed.
Great job Bruce. The 'management by statistics' thing was a fad that blew up when McNamara used that trope to run the Vietnam war. Just counting dead enemy bodies did not show how the war was going. Businesses used that model and learned the hard way that using that approach did not get the full picture and they changed the way they managed their businesses.
I can see how seeing another bunch of bedraggled members of another cult would overload the Camels back. Good for you for seeing that dichotomy and starting down the escape road.
"Nor do most of the management posts at the Int level still exist." I wonder how the boss man is getting responsive answers to who is to blame for 'stat' shortfalls? Maybe everything is in free fall and 'stats' no longer matter. That must be a huge relief to any surviving "execs".