THE UK – PART ONE

THE IAS AND BRITISH SCIENTOLOGISTS

It’s no secret that the British are a polite people and intensely loyal. Without that loyalty Lucy and I both know we could not have built Birmingham Org. So it pained us greatly when the IAS would come around, toying with those loyalties in order to extract as much money as they could from Birmingham public. And I’ve explained before how in one evening alone the IAS managed to rake in around $120,000 from the hard working Scientologists of Birmingham. And how the MC that evening (Jeff Pomerantz) walked away with $12,000 of that money as his “fee” which made me want to throw up.

Now, while it was happening I actually thought that $120,000 night was a one off, a single big hurray for the IAS. How wrong could I get? They were just warming up and that was before 9/11, after the attack on the twin towers collections became even more voracious as David Miscavige callously used that disaster to justify making even greater demands on the bank accounts and credit lines of Scientologists in the UK and elsewhere around the globe.

And it troubled Lucy and me when during their events the IAS would play the “trouble in France and Germany” card with the Birmingham and other UK public. Parts of the UK (London, Birmingham – particularly nearby Coventry) were absolutely flattened by bombing during WWII and those memories still lingered and the IAS would intentionally stir them up when they fallaciously and cynically called on the UK public to “once again take responsibility for Europe” and “stop the trouble in Germany from invading England” (an actual line they used to extract money from a Birmingham business man which included the implication that the “German trouble” if not handled, would ruin his business).

But what pained Lucy and me the most was the frequency with which the IAS dog and pony show rolled into town and the tactics they used upon their arrival. They would hit each UK org with on-site events as often as every few weeks, and then add to that routine with lavish events held in local hotels. We just didn’t understand it because we knew the numbers, we knew how many active Scientologists existed in Birmingham and other areas of the UK and never understood why they were pummeled so hard and so often after they had already given everything they could and then some.

And as a result of IAS tactics, we saw many British Scientologists put into debt, serious debt and for a great many people we knew it meant a very major personal sacrifice – no auditing or training for some time because they’d just given that money to the IAS. Under extreme and inordinate pressure from the IAS, we saw many sit politely through the pounding and then promptly take out loans or go into other forms of debt to pay the IAS in lieu of paying for and doing LRH’s bridge. To the IAS it was just a matter of “give us your money” and no other consideration seemed to be of any concern to them. Such tactics actually blocked many students and PCs from moving up the bridge, more than Lucy or I could easily count.

THE GREATEST GOOD IS GONE

IAS tactics seemed to exclude any genuine concept of the greatest good, though I noticed how quick they were to push that button with the people they hammered for money. Ever notice how the IAS never took individual circumstances into account which is the only way you could correctly apply the law of the greatest good – by weighing up all sides and aspects before making a decision. Instead the IAS seemed to operate on the fixed, unalterable ideas that “you can always give more money” and “what you gave a few weeks ago no longer matters.”

But that’s not what LRH says. In HCO PL23 October 1969 PROGRAMMING, he states:

MAXIM SEVEN: The best programme is the one that will reach the greatest number of dynamics and will do the greatest good on the greatest number of dynamics. And that, my people who want to become victims by going broke, includes dynamic one as well as dynamic four.

UK ORGS AND PUBLIC

And if you were looking for reasons the UK does not seem to expand you must realize that one of the things that hampers and holds back an org is the phenomena LRH referred to as “distraction and noise”, amply covered in his Admin Know How Series 24 and 25. Well, I can tell you for free that the biggest cause of distraction and noise for UK orgs was and is the IAS, matched only by that other fund raising nonsense, the so called Ideal Org “strategy”. These two plagues cause staff to be off post setting up events, calling the public, coercing the public for donations, dealing with the mess left behind and so on. In addition to the visible and incessant pounding of the public you have a behind the scenes continuous pounding of the staff telling them that their posts are not important because raising funds is the only truly important thing which is simply a lie as well as a total falsehood. Public being left alone to go up the bridge, assisted by staff left alone to do their jobs are the most important things in Scientology because they are the two most fundamental LRH programmes we have. And that is pure LRH because in HCO PL23 October 1969 PROGRAMMING, he also states:

MAXIM TEN: A programme is a bad programme if it detracts from programmes which are already moving successfully or distracts staff people or associates from work they are already doing.

On that basis the IAS is a very bad programme indeed.

In the UK, such an all-out push to raise funds resulted in some money raised for sure, but that was the only result, and at a cost of shattered lives and orgs, because LRH also said: “you get what you push”. And what we saw pushed increasingly harder in the UK for the last 10 years of our stay was IAS donations and fund raising. What was progressively pushed the least was staff and public moving up the bridge which is a travesty because that is the real purpose of Scientology and orgs.

The case of a Birmingham Scientologist in the year 2000 illustrates my point. She was heavily regged by the IAS even though she had already paid $40,000 to them, was on the edge financially and was clearly intoxicated at the time of the reg cycle. None of that mattered to the IAS staff member who regged and took an additional $10,000 from her that night. Next day the Scientologist came to her senses, realized what had happened, the circumstances under which it had happened and desperately called the IAS to reverse the cycle. The IAS refused her pleas. As this $10,000 was the final shove that pushed her over the edge, she had no choice but to file a formal request for the return of all her monies from the IAS. And since it was then made clear to her she would not be allowed to do Scientology services ever again she, with sadness, also requested repayment of unused monies on account with the church. She received her repayment and the IAS returned all the money she had given them. But my point is that voracious IAS regging cost us a Scientologist that night just as LRH said it would when he stated that dishonest regging is a major cause of refunds.

But none of this explains why the IAS continued to pound the UK in an incessant visit-each-org-every-few-weeks barrage. Nor why no other country in the world gets this kind of blanket attention and treatment from the IAS.

Then one day it we found out why. Lucy and I were invited down to London (as observers) to yet another IAS event being held in a posh hotel (paid for not by the IAS but by London org of course – which broke them financially). It was late 2001 and at the event we saw that for once the London Scientologists were starting to resist, for once they weren’t forthcoming and little was being raised. The night dragged on, money came only in dribs and drabs and a top IAS executive on the scene was not happy at all, he became quite nasty with UK Scientology executives about it all and threw his weight around -- it became quite clear to us at that exact moment who ruled the roost in Scientology and why the IAS was able to override management and push so hard on the public. So, since the public were not donating and since, in the view of the IAS executive, the London Org staff members weren’t “making it happen”, the London Org staff had to pay the price, literally. They were forced to donate tens of thousands of dollars to the IAS themselves and “save the day” but at what cost to London Org and at what cost in terms of the delivery of Scientology to the public?

Later that evening, that IAS executive was clearly much happier and smug about it all and he obviously wanted to impress a number of other things upon us (which is why we were invited to the event of course). In an attempt to impinge on Lucy further he swore her to secrecy (didn’t want any public in the UK to know) and while crowing about it he told her that on average the IAS made more money per IAS reg cycle in the UK than anywhere else in the world. The UK Scientologists were simply easier to extract money from. And for that reason, and that reason alone, they were going to keep targeting the UK and keep right on pounding. And they have. I cannot imagine why for a moment he thought that would impress Lucy or me, even back then we starting to harbour thoughts that the IAS was perhaps a scourge upon the land.

WHAT THE IAS DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW

Since leaving the UK and returning to management in Los Angeles in 2005, we’ve become aware of the international scene, viewed stats and data files and gained vital information from a number of people we’ve known for many years, people we trust who held very high positions in the church. In all this we uncovered some outrageous facts about the IAS.

Firstly, the direct boss over the IAS is David Miscavige. Interestingly, he was also the direct boss over ASI (Author Services Inc. – Chairman of the Board ASI in fact) during an earlier fiasco, the selling of the so called “special properties” (special edition books and paintings -- See "Miscavige: Selling Soft Core Porn" by Thoughtful) that were going to “rocket in value” so they were “the perfect investment” for UK and other Scientologists if they’d just hand over large amounts of cash to purchase them. The problem was these special properties didn’t give the return on investment that was so ardently promised. In fact, in the end many “special properties” were worth less than what Scientologists paid to David Miscavige’s organization in the first place. And I know a number of Scientologists and even non-members of the church in the UK who were stung by that scam.

Secondly, contrary to all the pleas and demands made by the IAS to the UK public about how desperately they needed money and how they needed it now, now, now, the majority of IAS money has NOT been spent at all, it has been horded. That’s close to a BILLION DOLLARS kept under lock by none other than master swindler and extortionist supreme David Miscavige.

Thirdly, and it’s a huge secret, David Miscavige, IAS executives and others have become wealthy and have lived the high life by what they’ve skimmed from donations. Yes, that’s right they’ve feathered their nests using the money many people went to extraordinary and painful lengths to donate. No wonder that top IAS executive pushed so hard in London -- he got huge pay, large bonuses and ate $300 a plate meals in fancy Caribbean restaurants on a regular basis.

And of all the points I’ve made, these last two get my blood really boiling because they make a complete and utter mockery of every tactic the IAS ever used and everything they ever said to extract money from people. If it was so damn important that they hurt orgs and individuals to get the money why did they squander it on themselves and horde most of the rest?

I really never thought I’d see the day when greed, graft and corruption -- not uncommon in the world at large -- became a part of Scientology.

Lastly, there is absolutely no LRH Policy authorizing the IAS and their fundraising, and there never has been. Quite the contrary, he would NOT have approved.

So the next time they come around, if you really have to be polite ask David Miscavige and the IAS what LRH policy they are operating on because I assure you there isn’t one. And please don’t fall for any guff about the HASI (Hubbard Association of Scientologists International). That was a straight up membership organization for nominal fees only; it was not a fundraising organization in any way and is absolutely no precedent for what David Miscavige and the IAS have done.

And since the IAS are so found of using the generality “We are the IAS” which is their clever way of saying “our problem is your problem”, you could turn it back on them and say: “since we are the IAS, I’d like to see our books and what you’ve done with all our money!”

But if I were you, I’d just tell them to go …

Written by T Paine
(Haydn James)

Click here to read THE UK -- PART TWO: A CLEAR UK DISASTER