We know this to be true: Scientology wants every last one of your dimes and pennies, even after you’ve gone to your great reward.
And that was demonstrated yet again at the latest “USA Heroes” event that Scientology held on August 11, which was summarized in another of those impossibly long fliers the church subsequently sends out to members.
This time, Scientology prepared its members for a fleecing with the help of comic book legend Stan Lee, who died in 2018. (Actually, it was Jim Meskimen, the impressionist and actor who has become Scientology’s most reliable celebrity stooge.)
We’ve seen these fundraisers evolve and change over the years, and now in this wheezing, careening final form of Scientology before Leah Remini sues it into the ground, it’s achieved a truly bizarre state.
Starting some 20 years ago, leader David Miscavige began a program of replacing local Scientology “orgs” in major cities with much larger and more expensive “Ideal Orgs.” (We tease him and refer to them as gleaming cathedrals.) Through the 2010s, it became a major focus under Miscavige, with local Scientologists put under a lot of pressure to raise millions of dollars to replace their local org with something far more ornate and complex than they’d ever need. We saw it happen in places as far-flung as Phoenix, Portland, Rome, Birmingham, and Atlanta, as each in turn became the focus of an intense money-raising effort, often with events featuring silly themes like Star Wars or gangsters or pirates.
Then, just before the pandemic hit, Miscavige apparently lost his patience for the way they were raising money for only one project at a time, and pushed his followers to raise funds for all remaining US Ideal Orgs simultaneously in places like Long Island, Hawaii, Battle Creek, and Albuquerque. And even if you’d forked over huge amounts for your local Ideal Org that had now opened, you were still pressured to give money for other cities in an “alliance.”
Then the pandemic hit and shut things down for a while, but the fundraising then simply moved online. So now, we’re left with this utterly strange result: An online, national fundraising party, where people are under pressure to give “humanitarians” ($100,000 each) for “alliance” Ideal Orgs in other cities that have nothing to do with them, and with Jim Meskimen pretending to be Stan Lee to get everyone pumped.
And it looks like it’s the usual anemic crowd of people we’ve become accustomed to seeing, from the Fabos Factor (Steve and Peggy Fabos) to Judy Norton and other older white folk who just keep giving and giving.
We did find this assertion especially interesting: "An incredible family from DC contributes to each USA Org and in doing so completes their 46th Alliance Humanitarian!" (That's $4.6 million.)
And hey, there’s a Leisa Goodman sighting!
We’ll never forget, watching an excellent MTV News program on Scientology in 1995, when Goodman, who was listed then as the church’s “Human Rights Director,” told Kurt Loder menacingly that Scientology was not a “turn the other cheek religion.”
She had all but disappeared after about 2005, which is what happens so often to Miscavige’s mouthpieces, so it’s interesting to see her pop up here, pitching in cash from St. Louis, apparently.
Well, your fortunes in Scientology’s executive strata may rise and fall, but the pressure to fork over cash never goes away!
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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
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Jim Meskimen the ultimate shill is still squandering his talent on one of the most toxic organizations in the world. Scientology’s crime of using creative talent to scam people is slowly coming to an end as more and more artists in all genres see through the lies and fraud. As a music artist I now get a chance to tell my story about how the cult destroyed my family and and my successful band PEOPLE! My documentary BROTHERS BROKEN had its world premier at Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose Aug. 20th, with one more screening on the 26th at the Icon Theatre in Mountain View.
And the LA premier is Sept 3 at the Laemmle NoHo 7 in North Hollywood. Please let your friends in those areas know about the screenings. The Scientology organization will continue to have its crimes exposed day by day, hour by hour until it is a pile of empty buildings.
How can anyone see someone impersonating a dead man (whose fame did not come from personal appearances) asking for your money, and think it’s not alarmingly tasteless?