Site report: Scientology not looking very 'Ideal' these days

Our thanks to the longtime reader who sent in this report…

A friend recently dropped in on the Long Island org in Bethpage, NY on a weekday morning. It's on the back side of a small office complex that fronts on the town's Broadway — and backs up on railroad tracks.

The complex is actually on a corner with a side road that's at the left in these photos. And facing that road is where Scientology has one of its entrances, which though it has their name and hours on it, is apparently normally kept closed.

Their actual entrance is on the back side of the complex. That leads into a vestibule full of literature, with a door to a reception area that was empty.

The door had a keypad on it -- no sign of an intercom — but wasn't locked. A woman appearing to be in her mid-30s finally showed up. We’re told she’s probably the HES or second in command, a second generation Scientologist who's been on staff since they were a teenager, and my friend excused herself for not needing any help, and slipped away.

The especially interesting part is that the unused side door, opens into some sort of meeting or class room. And there is the infamous org board.

It looks like it may have the org's name crossed out — I wonder if that has or is being changed. And there are only two names holding 'hats' at the top of it. We’re told that probably indicates that there are only two full-time staffers at the org, particularly since there was no one else but one of them to watch the front door.

And this is the org for which a 'whale' just bought a $15.2 million dollar 'Ideal' building. How they would ever staff a 62,500 square feet facility is a question that may never get answered....

Thanks again to our reader for having a friend go by the org. We didn’t realize just how out of the way and forlorn the current org is in Bethpage.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a Scientology center being small, obscure, and so little used that the public finds a door with a keypad and strange hours on it. And we agree that having only two staffers named on the giant org board suggests that almost no one works here.

Such is the state of Scientology today: The public just isn’t interested.

Which is why it’s all the more strange that so much money is going to “Ideal Orgs” where they aren’t needed, monuments to David Miscavige’s ego and fake examples of “expansion” to keep the big donors turning over millions.

Speaking of fake displays, later today a couple of thousand Scientologists will keep up the fiction that Scientology is thriving by assembling for the L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Event at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Florida.

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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

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