They do this on purpose to create a jargon that only an “elite” group can understand.

Yeah, I’m listening to it again right now.
Sets quite a mood immediately. It seems dreamy, smoky, foggy. Who the heck were the players, producer? Must find out.
I’m listening to more from them,now, and they all have this lush quality to it.
It’s amazing this is legal. It’s pure foreplay. I don’t think anyone you try to seduce could possibly resist.

Love this song!

Your ideas are very interesting and I will continue to think about them. I wonder if there will be an attempted take over. I am sure that, at least at one time, Miscavige perceived Marty Rathbun’s actions to that that. I perceived them that way.

It had never occurred to me that Miscavige has no “Captains” or Junior Commodores. Someone suggested that Warren McShane is now the second in command. Whatever the case, if there is any power sharing I don’t get wind of it.

The reconstruction after Scientology goes down will be a site to behold. I wish I had kept my receipts.

At some point after he went to sea, Hubbard became ineffective. He was physically and mentally ill and avoiding treatment. Despite this, the CofS continued to function the organisation had taken on a life of its own.

Many ‘leaders’ of large organisations are less powerful than is generally assumed. The freedom of action of heads of large corporations is limited by the law, economic fluctuations, organisational culture and so many factors.

I think Miscavige is in this position – the CofS continues despite, not because of him. After his ruthless tactics obtained the IRS concessions, everything he has originated has failed and missed the point – principally the ‘Ideal Org’ strategy.

A capable leader would recognise that Scientology will be dead very soon unless it recruits new members – and would throw all the organisation’s resources into a last-ditch effort to achieve this. What is Miscavige doing? – running a pyramid scheme in reverse – trying to extract more and more money from fewer and fewer people apparently blissfully unaware that this strategy is unsustainable.

As for poor, pathetic Heber Jentszch – CofS has no arrangements whatsoever for an orderly transfer of power. Miscavige would not hand even the appearance of power to a figurehead, because this would introduce the intolerable possibility that he will not always be COB.

I sometimes wonder if we are reaching the point where we should hope that Miscavige will be deposed – because the CofS would never recover from the subsequent power struggle.

Finally, I believe that, even after Scientology is dead and gone, there will be much to learn. The story of East Germany did not end when the Berlin wall came down.

1) All those people who suffered under the regime had to be integrated into an unfamiliar society.
2) All the records that were abandoned by their rulers and the secret police had to be examined so that wrongs could be righted and we could (finally) understand what had really been happening all those years – and learn a little about how to prevent it happening again.

The post-Scientology world will still have a place for Scientology watchers (although I look forward to that party in Clearwater).

But some of them were my friends. I won’t wet-nurse them, but I’m still here for them in case they wake up of their own accord (as some have already done).

Maybe they could just add the scientology places to the “gangster tour.”

Thanks, again, for taking the time to explain your point of view. This is what we have to do when we can’t control time– come up with plausible scenarios of the future. Yours is perfectly plausible.

Someone here suggested, again plausibly, that Miscavige knows it is a big con. Rathbun and Rinder didn’t seem to understand that. I don’t know if Tommy Davis quite got that either. The notion was that Miscavige had spent enough time around Hubbard to know that he was nothing special except in his earlier life as a middle aged conman. Couple this with Miscavige stealing his money and gambling it away in Las Vegas and Miscavige being stuck on the OT levels and you have a good argument for someone who knows just what he is doing in fleecing the flock.

Now, everything else I have heard about Miscavige is pure hearsay. With that, I still see him as a very effective leader. I realize that his leadership involves cruelty, fraud, likely the embezzlement of funds, likely human trafficking, possible kidnapping, assault, likely blackmail and those are just the crimes. He is also vane, materialistic, and fawning. But this is Scientology, after all. We couldn’t expect to have a decent person running it. On the other hand and all things considered, he is a good organizer, knows what has to be done to keep the cult afloat, is able to change his game plan, lies well, speaks well, is willing be take responsibility and is a sharp dresser with a good hair stylist. I think everything in the last sentence is arguable except for the parts about his ability to buy a good custom made suit and get the right haircut at the right time.

Well, I can’t be too serious in my reading of him. Time will tell what he does. The future of the cult could involve his abdicating power to a figure head like Heber Jentszch, placed there to take future blame and go down with the ship, or Miscavige might remain the tiny dictator of a tiny cult.

Travolta seems to almost understand that talking about Scientology doesn’t do him any good. The story is that Cruise was drifting from it when married to Nicole Kidman. After his divorce though, he wouldn’t shut up. Kristie Alley doesn’t seem to have a clue. When the church is dead, I think it will die because of lack of interest brought on by media exposure from books, newspaper articles, movies, and most of all the internet. We have already seen a few of the celebs like Paul Haggis, Leah Remini, Mimi Rogers, Katie Holmes, Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Fairman skip out. Some have been noisy about it; some have slunk away. I think that part of the cult ending is that the top celebs will either quit, quiet down or come out and admit their mistakes. At the very least, it would be nice if the big celebs became so irrelevant, and I don’t think we are there yet, that the newspapers stopped picking up their pronouncements. Again, we will see what the future brings.

About twenty years ago I spoke to a friend about Scientology. The protests were in full bloom in Toronto and I was very excited. My general rule remains, don’t bore people with this. If you have to talk about it, keep it to a minute. But I was pretty stoked. I went on for a good ten minutes. My friend was a very intelligent and respected man, a cornerstone of the community and loved by all who knew him. Really, he was that good a man. When I stopped for a breath I realized that he thought I was talking about Christian Science. To him, Scientology was dead, in fact it had never lived. Most people I have talked to refer to the founder as Ron L. Hubbard. The cult is relevant to people who have been hurt (or occasionally helped) by it. In my case seven family members were in, including me. One was in for 23 years. I was in for two. It is very relevant for me.

For me it will be dead when it can no longer suck it a seventeen year old university student who is mad at this parents and not doing well in school. It will be a question on Jeopardy and an answer in trivial pursuit. L.Ron will be no better known than Madame Blavatsky. I will be able to go through a year of garage saling and used bookstore perusing and not see a book by Hubbard. SF writers like Rob Sawyer will stop supporting Writers of the Future. A few more governments will get after them and the criminal prosecutions in France, Belgium, Russia and Holland (I think) will start being replicated in the US and Canada. Time will do a story on cults that features not Miscavige or L.Ron but people like Tony Ortega and Mark Bunker who helped to kill the cult. I will stop searching for news on Scientology and devote the time to raising gladiolas or teaching kids to read. I will drive around the local cult office with my car fixed up like it is at an Italian wedding, blasting the horn over and over. And I will fly down to a party in Clearwater where I will finally meet you and the other critics. We will laugh, shake hands, pat one another on the back and never meet again because what held us together will be gone.