Yesterday, former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder posted a stunning new flier at his blog.
The flier was part of a series describing the fundraising for a project to replace the Mountain View, California church with a new facility that will be known as the “Silicon Valley Ideal Org.”
More than 10 years after it started, Scientology leader David Miscavige’s “Ideal Org” push has put church members under intense pressure to donate huge sums so expensive buildings can be purchased and renovated, in many cases so they can replace normal “orgs” which may not really be deficient or need replacing.
This is mostly done for public relations purposes, and so Scientology’s spokeswoman, Karin Pouw, can answer any question about the church by reeling off the list of Ideal Orgs that have been purchased, renovated, and opened in the last decade: Berlin, Brussels, Buffalo, Cambridge (Ontario), Cincinnati, Clearwater (Florida), Dallas, Denver, Hamburg, Johannesburg, Kaohsiung (Taiwan), Las Vegas, London, Madrid, Malmö (Sweden), Melbourne, Mexico City, Moscow, Nashville, New York, Padova (Italy), Phoenix, Portland, Pretoria, Quebec City, Rome, Seattle, St. Paul, Tampa, Tel Aviv, and Washington DC, as well as several in California: Inglewood, Los Angeles, Los Gatos, Orange County, Pasadena, Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Jose.
And still, more are being pushed as Scientology’s “continents” are pressured to “go ideal” — in California alone, there are Ideal fundraising projects underway in the Silicon Valley, San Fernando Valley, and San Diego. In order to raise all that money, Scientologists are constantly urged to “up their status” by turning over bigger and bigger amounts — and those status levels have names. Once you’ve donated $100,000 to the cause, for example, Scientology names you a “humanitarian.”
As the flier Rinder posted indicates, the newest “humanitarian” in the push to raise money for the Silicon Valley Ideal Org is a 10 year old girl named Quinn Bennett…
“I looked at it and went, this is the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Rinder told us last night by telephone.
When he posted the flier on his blog yesterday, Rinder didn’t realize how much money the girl had donated. Only later did a commenter point out to him that the “humanitarian” moniker requires a donation of at least 100 grand. Rinder says he’s still stunned.
And what is young Quinn getting for her money? As we learned from Chris Shelton, a recent church defector who actually worked at Ideal Orgs, replacing churches with expensive new buildings isn’t leading to a stampede of new members. In fact, Shelton says, the effect is the opposite — the Ideal Orgs are keeping away the public away in droves.
Documents that Rinder has been posting lately back that up. He’s posted spreadsheets and other internal reports that show Ideal Orgs are producing pitiful results.
“In the reports, they make it sound like a major accomplishment, but they’re talking about an Ideal Org getting one person on course. For a $10 million or $20 million investment, you think you’d get more than some excitement about one person going on course,” Rinder says.
“They try and keep the actual state of affairs clouded and masked with hype, but this kind of stuff leaks out at the edges. And if you know what you’re looking at, you can see that nothing is happening…But the pretense for the clubbed seals is that all of these Ideal Orgs are doing wonderful and are flourishing.”
That message was apparently attractive enough to convince a 10-year-old girl to turn over $100,000.
We’d like to know who Quinn’s parents are — if you have information about that, please drop us a line. We’d like to call them up.
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We have videos!
We noticed that Mike Bennitt has put together a summary of Monique Rathbun’s harassment lawsuit against Scientology, and we appreciate the shout-out for the Bunker…
As for the latest in the case, we double-checked with Monique’s attorney, Ray Jeffrey, who confirmed that Judge Dib Waldrip can technically keep open the recent hearing on Scientology’s “anti-SLAPP” motion until next Tuesday, and then he has 30 days to issue a ruling. In the meantime, expect Jeffrey to bolster the motion for sanctions that he had submitted earlier. We’ll let you know if we learn about a hearing date on that.
And finally, here’s another fascinating video about Gary Weber from Karen de la Carriere, J. Swift, and Angry Gay Pope…
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Posted by Tony Ortega on February 12, 2014 at 07:00
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Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…
BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41
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