Freeminds
Bitter defrocked apostate
Today I’ve been musing on the long-term future of the group of businesses collectively known as the ‘Church’ of Scientology, and indeed on the future of other groups and individuals that offer Scientology services. Here, I present my thoughts, and I’d be interested to hear yours.
For the purposes of this analysis, I’m not discussing the morals of Scientologists, nor the plausibility of the ‘science’ at its heart. Instead, I’m trying to study the viability of the business empire, in isolation. There are plenty of other articles – and threads right here on ESMB – that discuss all the claims such as war hero status for Hubbard, thetans, being demonstrably ‘clear’, having OT powers and so on... this is just about the commercial operation.
So: what does any business need?
1. Unique selling proposition,
2. Liquidity,
3. Reputation, and preferably...
4. Ability to expand
Let’s take each of those one at a time.
1. Unique selling proposition
A business needs a unique selling proposition. It needs to differentiate itself from all the rival ‘solutions’ that exist out there. You might control patents to vital technology, or have better staff, or be situated in a more convenient location... but you need to offer something different, to stand out from the crowd.
The field of self-help services remains highly lucrative, but it’s also very crowded. There are books, hypnosis tapes, ‘complimentary’ medicine practitioners, therapists, groups and so on... Scientology is just one potential choice among a growing number. Perhaps the most damning thing here is that Scientology doesn’t offer anything new. The ‘source’ has been dead for a quarter of a century, and a misogynist ‘tech’ that claimed to hold a cure for Cold War worries such as radiation burns doesn’t really address 21st century problems.
The Freezone’s unique selling proposition is either (a) that cheapzone auditing is a less expensive alternative to auditing within the ‘Church’... or (b) that the ‘Church’ is using corrupted methods that don’t work. By falling back upon pre-80’s Scientology methods, the Freezone actually makes itself less relevant to the populace than the squirrelly version found in the Miscavige cult. One thing that the FZ has omitted, in their rose-tinted version of Hubbardism is the recognition that Hubbard was always altering things whenever it was expedient to do so. In effect, he was the greatest squirrel of them all.
Neither the ‘Church’ nor the Freezone actually have much of a unique selling proposition anymore, as a result of all the leaks, from Scamizdat onwards, plus the documentaries and news reports that have told the general public just enough about Scientology that they have apparently decided they don’t care to learn any more. Those who learn about Space Opera are ‘inoculated’ against Scientology.
If we subscribe, momentarily, to the nonsense that Scientology is some kind of ‘religion’, we might say that Scientology’s unique selling proposition is that it is the only route to salvation. This is, of course, a common ‘selling point’ that has been employed by real religions for centuries.
Which means it isn’t unique. “We are the only route to eternal life” is an inevitable claim, and one that the 21st century populace are increasingly unlikely to fall for. Heard it too many times before! Also, if we press the analogy that Scientology is some kind of faith (laughs) once more, we might say that the Freezone is like a form of Protestantism: it rejects the idea that one must rely on the monolithic structure of the ‘Church’ to intercede on your behalf, to give you salvation in exchange for your tithes while you remain ignorant of the workings of the ‘tech’. This is like people trained by the church in Rome doing mysterious things in Latin. For centuries now, we’ve had the printing press, and bibles printed in native languages such that you can study it for yourself, instead of relying on the mysterious wizard/priest/shaman/rabbi doing it on your behalf.
What started with Gutenberg continues with the Internet: you can take the holy scripture (or Hubbard spew, in this case) and study it for yourself. Which means, quite simply: the unique selling proposition no longer exists.
2. Liquidity
All businesses need liquidity. It doesn’t matter how much you’re worth, on paper... if you can’t pay your bills, you’re ruined. Even if you own patents and trademarks all over the world.
The ‘Church’ of Scientology has a lot of cash, and a lot of fixed assets too, courtesy of the Ideal Org scam. Paradoxically, it also suffers from a lack of liquidity in a strange way that no other business has ever exhibited. I can’t think of any other business that would sit on a pile of cash, while simultaneously knowing that most of its customer-facing outlets don’t have sufficient liquidity. We’ve seen bizarre situations where those performing supposedly important functions (promoting and delivering Scientology services) aren’t paid – even at the deplorably low level that they are promised – while the paying public find themselves receiving expensive services in buildings where the management can’t or won’t run the air conditioning. Much of the cash that Scientology does still rake in appears to be expended upon PR stunts, legal fees, and sizable out-of-court settlements. Boondoggle projects like the laughably overdue and over-budget ‘Super Power’ Building soak up still more, as does operating the Freewinds as a private yacht for COB.
Scientology’s liquidity problems will become catastrophic, branch by branch, when each has a judgment against them. This could be for back taxes, or perhaps as the result of a court case for minimum wage, brought by a former victim. The strategy of never passing money back downwards, requiring that any refunds or payments are made from new income, means that the highly lucrative Scientology ‘Church’ actually performs like an ailing business, even though it has huge reserves. I see this hastening the end of organised Scientology far more swiftly than any external factor, such as Anonymous, Nick Xenophon, Anderson Cooper or anything else. Eventually, we’re left with nothing but an asthmatic dwarf sitting on a pile of money, surrounded by a very few henchmen, with no purpose and no plan. This is no less an end to Scientology than outright bankruptcy.
Liquidity in the Freezone is largely irrelevant, since the Freezone is effectively a gaggle of cottage industries. Effectively, it fails to act in a businesslike manner... which is bizarre because Scientology, as designed by LRH, was first and foremost a business. Still, if you operate out of your own home, while no longer forwarding incomes ‘up-lines’, you can probably afford to survive for a long, long time. It seems likely that some Freezone entrepreneurs will still be solvent and practising after organized Scientology has ceased to exist. (See part 4, though.)
3. Reputation
Businesses live or die by their reputation – unless they have a rock-solid monopoly. Scientology does not have any such monopoly, as we established under ‘unique selling proposition’, so how is their reputation?
It’s never been worse. Scientology has been churning out disaffected members for half a century, of course, but the terrible image they have in the eyes of the general public is relatively new. The death of Lisa McPherson, while supposedly in the ‘care’ of Scientology was a pivotal moment, at least insofar as she has become the ‘poster child’ of Scientology’s more recent critics. In truth, she is only one of dozens of people who died younger than they might have done, as a result of Hubbardism... but the damage is undeniable.
Respectability has always eluded Scientology. Endorsements from celebrities have provided publicity, which is not the same as the bricks-and-mortar solidity it needed. At worst, it got nothing but notoriety, such as in Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping antics. In recent years, all media scrutiny has been uncomfortable for Scientology. Some speculate that this is because it’s now become ‘safe’ to criticise the cult, which it certainly wasn’t in the days of Paulette Cooper’s article and book. Certainly, it’s a lot easier to write a critical article now, given the growing number of people who are prepared to tell their stories of life within the cult. The New Yorker’s meticulous article is a useful indicator here, although it contained no huge revelations.
The Freezone contribution to Scientology’s reputation has been to rubbish it further, although I’m sure this was not the intention. For example, Mike Rinder says David Miscavige beat his staff. Tommy Davis says that it was Rinder who was responsible for the beatings... Who cares? Regardless of what is true here, the general public take away exactly one snippet of information from this tit-for-tat exchange: there are beatings in Scientology.
That’s all it takes. Mud sticks. In the eyes of the public, Scientology is an abusive cult. Even Scientologists understand that their name is mud now, and try not to mention Scientology when they’re giving the Oxford Capacity Analysis.
Ain’t nobody new wants to get involved with Scientology. Not anymore.
4. Ability to expand
It doesn’t matter whether you’re washing somebody’s windows, clipping their pets’ fur, or auditing away their body thetans... 21st century management theory says that your business can’t grow if the limiting factor is you.
Lots of people manage to set up their own small business, and good luck to them... but working hard to get your business through the early years needs to transition into something where you can ease off. Nobody is healthy forever.
Hubbard understood this: “Make money. Make more money. Make other people produce so as to make more money.” (HCO Policy Letter, 9 March 1972, MS OEC 384)
Make other people produce. This is patently something that doesn’t happen in the Freezone. If a person has influence over a few former Scientology victims, he might find himself doing a little bit of Cheapzone auditing... but there isn’t any structure that would allow growth of the kind that used to happen in the ‘Church’ of Scientology. If somebody else produces, they keep the cash. This would appear to doom the Freezone to remain a cottage industry, where any growth can only lead to increasing fragmentation – and also price-based competition.
As we have seen under ‘reputation’ previously, there is now no potential for growth in the ‘Church’ of Scientology. In fact, we see it shrinking at something like 11 people per day in the USA (figure based on the difference between adherent numbers in the two most recent ARIS surveys) so maybe 20 per day, worldwide. This also provides an upper limit for Freezone recruitment, since it seems nobody enters the Freezone other than as a former victim of the ‘Church’. (Well, maybe a very few children of younger Freezoners?)
The modern economic model is geared towards growth (and inflation – and you can see what the shrinkage in Scientology membership has led to, in terms of inflation in demanded donations)... and obviously, in the absence of any membership growth, the number of people who might one day become Zoners is limited to the total number of present-day Scientology victims. This is probably enough to keep Marty Rathbun going for a while, but it’s not going to provide him with enough cash to declare war on the psychiatrists any time soon.
In conclusion:
Neither Scientology nor Independent Scientology appear to present what would normally be considered a viable business model in the long-term, although the former’s huge cash reserves and the latter’s low cost-base as a ‘cottage industry’ mean that they are unlikely to completely disappear any time soon. Still, the growth phase ended a long time ago. Scientology peaked, and is now slipping into obscurity. Nobody's name got "smashed into history." Not permanently.
Both 'Church' and Freezone are in the doldrums. Remaining adherents will find themselves bypassed and surpassed by those who make an entirely clean break from Scientology, to enjoy more spending money, more free time, more personal freedom – and better mental health!
(But I’d love to know what you think.)
For the purposes of this analysis, I’m not discussing the morals of Scientologists, nor the plausibility of the ‘science’ at its heart. Instead, I’m trying to study the viability of the business empire, in isolation. There are plenty of other articles – and threads right here on ESMB – that discuss all the claims such as war hero status for Hubbard, thetans, being demonstrably ‘clear’, having OT powers and so on... this is just about the commercial operation.
So: what does any business need?
1. Unique selling proposition,
2. Liquidity,
3. Reputation, and preferably...
4. Ability to expand
Let’s take each of those one at a time.
1. Unique selling proposition
A business needs a unique selling proposition. It needs to differentiate itself from all the rival ‘solutions’ that exist out there. You might control patents to vital technology, or have better staff, or be situated in a more convenient location... but you need to offer something different, to stand out from the crowd.
The field of self-help services remains highly lucrative, but it’s also very crowded. There are books, hypnosis tapes, ‘complimentary’ medicine practitioners, therapists, groups and so on... Scientology is just one potential choice among a growing number. Perhaps the most damning thing here is that Scientology doesn’t offer anything new. The ‘source’ has been dead for a quarter of a century, and a misogynist ‘tech’ that claimed to hold a cure for Cold War worries such as radiation burns doesn’t really address 21st century problems.
The Freezone’s unique selling proposition is either (a) that cheapzone auditing is a less expensive alternative to auditing within the ‘Church’... or (b) that the ‘Church’ is using corrupted methods that don’t work. By falling back upon pre-80’s Scientology methods, the Freezone actually makes itself less relevant to the populace than the squirrelly version found in the Miscavige cult. One thing that the FZ has omitted, in their rose-tinted version of Hubbardism is the recognition that Hubbard was always altering things whenever it was expedient to do so. In effect, he was the greatest squirrel of them all.
Neither the ‘Church’ nor the Freezone actually have much of a unique selling proposition anymore, as a result of all the leaks, from Scamizdat onwards, plus the documentaries and news reports that have told the general public just enough about Scientology that they have apparently decided they don’t care to learn any more. Those who learn about Space Opera are ‘inoculated’ against Scientology.
If we subscribe, momentarily, to the nonsense that Scientology is some kind of ‘religion’, we might say that Scientology’s unique selling proposition is that it is the only route to salvation. This is, of course, a common ‘selling point’ that has been employed by real religions for centuries.
Which means it isn’t unique. “We are the only route to eternal life” is an inevitable claim, and one that the 21st century populace are increasingly unlikely to fall for. Heard it too many times before! Also, if we press the analogy that Scientology is some kind of faith (laughs) once more, we might say that the Freezone is like a form of Protestantism: it rejects the idea that one must rely on the monolithic structure of the ‘Church’ to intercede on your behalf, to give you salvation in exchange for your tithes while you remain ignorant of the workings of the ‘tech’. This is like people trained by the church in Rome doing mysterious things in Latin. For centuries now, we’ve had the printing press, and bibles printed in native languages such that you can study it for yourself, instead of relying on the mysterious wizard/priest/shaman/rabbi doing it on your behalf.
What started with Gutenberg continues with the Internet: you can take the holy scripture (or Hubbard spew, in this case) and study it for yourself. Which means, quite simply: the unique selling proposition no longer exists.
2. Liquidity
All businesses need liquidity. It doesn’t matter how much you’re worth, on paper... if you can’t pay your bills, you’re ruined. Even if you own patents and trademarks all over the world.
The ‘Church’ of Scientology has a lot of cash, and a lot of fixed assets too, courtesy of the Ideal Org scam. Paradoxically, it also suffers from a lack of liquidity in a strange way that no other business has ever exhibited. I can’t think of any other business that would sit on a pile of cash, while simultaneously knowing that most of its customer-facing outlets don’t have sufficient liquidity. We’ve seen bizarre situations where those performing supposedly important functions (promoting and delivering Scientology services) aren’t paid – even at the deplorably low level that they are promised – while the paying public find themselves receiving expensive services in buildings where the management can’t or won’t run the air conditioning. Much of the cash that Scientology does still rake in appears to be expended upon PR stunts, legal fees, and sizable out-of-court settlements. Boondoggle projects like the laughably overdue and over-budget ‘Super Power’ Building soak up still more, as does operating the Freewinds as a private yacht for COB.
Scientology’s liquidity problems will become catastrophic, branch by branch, when each has a judgment against them. This could be for back taxes, or perhaps as the result of a court case for minimum wage, brought by a former victim. The strategy of never passing money back downwards, requiring that any refunds or payments are made from new income, means that the highly lucrative Scientology ‘Church’ actually performs like an ailing business, even though it has huge reserves. I see this hastening the end of organised Scientology far more swiftly than any external factor, such as Anonymous, Nick Xenophon, Anderson Cooper or anything else. Eventually, we’re left with nothing but an asthmatic dwarf sitting on a pile of money, surrounded by a very few henchmen, with no purpose and no plan. This is no less an end to Scientology than outright bankruptcy.
Liquidity in the Freezone is largely irrelevant, since the Freezone is effectively a gaggle of cottage industries. Effectively, it fails to act in a businesslike manner... which is bizarre because Scientology, as designed by LRH, was first and foremost a business. Still, if you operate out of your own home, while no longer forwarding incomes ‘up-lines’, you can probably afford to survive for a long, long time. It seems likely that some Freezone entrepreneurs will still be solvent and practising after organized Scientology has ceased to exist. (See part 4, though.)
3. Reputation
Businesses live or die by their reputation – unless they have a rock-solid monopoly. Scientology does not have any such monopoly, as we established under ‘unique selling proposition’, so how is their reputation?
It’s never been worse. Scientology has been churning out disaffected members for half a century, of course, but the terrible image they have in the eyes of the general public is relatively new. The death of Lisa McPherson, while supposedly in the ‘care’ of Scientology was a pivotal moment, at least insofar as she has become the ‘poster child’ of Scientology’s more recent critics. In truth, she is only one of dozens of people who died younger than they might have done, as a result of Hubbardism... but the damage is undeniable.
Respectability has always eluded Scientology. Endorsements from celebrities have provided publicity, which is not the same as the bricks-and-mortar solidity it needed. At worst, it got nothing but notoriety, such as in Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping antics. In recent years, all media scrutiny has been uncomfortable for Scientology. Some speculate that this is because it’s now become ‘safe’ to criticise the cult, which it certainly wasn’t in the days of Paulette Cooper’s article and book. Certainly, it’s a lot easier to write a critical article now, given the growing number of people who are prepared to tell their stories of life within the cult. The New Yorker’s meticulous article is a useful indicator here, although it contained no huge revelations.
The Freezone contribution to Scientology’s reputation has been to rubbish it further, although I’m sure this was not the intention. For example, Mike Rinder says David Miscavige beat his staff. Tommy Davis says that it was Rinder who was responsible for the beatings... Who cares? Regardless of what is true here, the general public take away exactly one snippet of information from this tit-for-tat exchange: there are beatings in Scientology.
That’s all it takes. Mud sticks. In the eyes of the public, Scientology is an abusive cult. Even Scientologists understand that their name is mud now, and try not to mention Scientology when they’re giving the Oxford Capacity Analysis.
Ain’t nobody new wants to get involved with Scientology. Not anymore.
4. Ability to expand
It doesn’t matter whether you’re washing somebody’s windows, clipping their pets’ fur, or auditing away their body thetans... 21st century management theory says that your business can’t grow if the limiting factor is you.
Lots of people manage to set up their own small business, and good luck to them... but working hard to get your business through the early years needs to transition into something where you can ease off. Nobody is healthy forever.
Hubbard understood this: “Make money. Make more money. Make other people produce so as to make more money.” (HCO Policy Letter, 9 March 1972, MS OEC 384)
Make other people produce. This is patently something that doesn’t happen in the Freezone. If a person has influence over a few former Scientology victims, he might find himself doing a little bit of Cheapzone auditing... but there isn’t any structure that would allow growth of the kind that used to happen in the ‘Church’ of Scientology. If somebody else produces, they keep the cash. This would appear to doom the Freezone to remain a cottage industry, where any growth can only lead to increasing fragmentation – and also price-based competition.
As we have seen under ‘reputation’ previously, there is now no potential for growth in the ‘Church’ of Scientology. In fact, we see it shrinking at something like 11 people per day in the USA (figure based on the difference between adherent numbers in the two most recent ARIS surveys) so maybe 20 per day, worldwide. This also provides an upper limit for Freezone recruitment, since it seems nobody enters the Freezone other than as a former victim of the ‘Church’. (Well, maybe a very few children of younger Freezoners?)
The modern economic model is geared towards growth (and inflation – and you can see what the shrinkage in Scientology membership has led to, in terms of inflation in demanded donations)... and obviously, in the absence of any membership growth, the number of people who might one day become Zoners is limited to the total number of present-day Scientology victims. This is probably enough to keep Marty Rathbun going for a while, but it’s not going to provide him with enough cash to declare war on the psychiatrists any time soon.
In conclusion:
Neither Scientology nor Independent Scientology appear to present what would normally be considered a viable business model in the long-term, although the former’s huge cash reserves and the latter’s low cost-base as a ‘cottage industry’ mean that they are unlikely to completely disappear any time soon. Still, the growth phase ended a long time ago. Scientology peaked, and is now slipping into obscurity. Nobody's name got "smashed into history." Not permanently.
Both 'Church' and Freezone are in the doldrums. Remaining adherents will find themselves bypassed and surpassed by those who make an entirely clean break from Scientology, to enjoy more spending money, more free time, more personal freedom – and better mental health!
(But I’d love to know what you think.)
