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[News Thetan]

Former Scientology insiders describe a world of closers, prospects, crushing ... - Tampabay.com
12 November 2011, 6:07 pm
By Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Sunday, November 13, 2011


Hy Levy lived in terror of what would happen if he didn't make his number, a weekly sales target of $200,000. The money was due every Thursday by 2 p.m.

No excuses.

Often when he failed, his bosses exiled him to the kitchen to scrub pots. Sometimes they made him eat only beans and rice for a week. They publicly humiliated him, calling him a loser, a saboteur. They got in his face, screaming, swearing. You soulless bastard!

He said they used profanity a lot where he worked: the Church of Scientology.

• • •

For 16 years Levy was a "registrar" selling Scientology counseling and training services at the church's worldwide spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. He toiled morning to night, part of a team driven by fear and religious conviction to bring the church millions of dollars each week by "closing" people — church terminology.

His second Thursday on the job set the tone for the years ahead. German Scientologist Ulrich Katzschmann was backing off his agreement to buy an expensive counseling regimen. Levy had to change his mind, fast.

Levy and fellow registrar Dave Foster tracked down Ulrich's wife, Wilma, who was in Clearwater for her own Scientology counseling.

Please call Ulrich, they pleaded. He really needs this. Wilma dialed Germany from Foster's office.

It was 1:45 p.m., 15 minutes till deadline. Capt. Debbie Cook, a top church officer in Clearwater, glared at them through the panes of a French door. Another top executive, Mark Ingber, pressed Levy: "Are you going to handle this?"

The clock ticked.

Wilma got Ulrich to relent. Still on the phone, she filled out a check for $45,000 but didn't sign it. Levy's heart thumped.

It was 1:59 p.m. Wilma and her husband kept chatting.

Levy interrupted with a desperate whisper: "Sign the check!"

She did, just as the clock struck 2.

Time to start on next week's quota....

Much more, including video at http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1201166.ece

[ethercat]

Great!  New stuff from Childs and Tobin at the St. Pete Times!  Look how well they "shuddered into silence".

[mefree]

Looks like this is going to be another important series of investigative articles. Coverage from Village Voice:

Scientology, "The Money Machine:" Explosive New Series by the St. Pete Times - Village Voice (blog)
13 November 2011, 12:53 am



This is the one we've been waiting for, the next big investigative project by Tom Tobin and Joe Childs, the deans of Scientology reporting, who toil for the (formerly) St. Petersburg Times (which for some reason recently changed its name to the Tampa Bay Times -- Go Bucs, or whatever).

We only have a minute to alert our readers to this new bombshell from Tobin and Childs -- it looks like they're going to be revealing multiple chapters this week in their harrowing look at what it was like to work as a Scientology "registrar," and pressure church members to turn over huge amounts of money for counseling, memberships, and books.

We'll be following along and we'll also try to keep up with supplementary material from our own sources about the money-mad church. This should be an exciting week!

Source http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/11/scientology_the_1.php

More on this series from Tampa Bay Times: http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/about-the-latest-st-petersburg-times-investigative-series-on-scientology/1201476

Series link: The Money Machine

[mefree]

New Investigation Into Scientology Offers Scathing Details - Technorati
13 November 2011, 10:02 am



A St. Petersburg Times investigation offers new insight into the Church of Scientology from former “registrar” Hy Levy. Required to bring in $200000 in sales each week, Hy Levy suffered through verbal abuse, intimidation and threats from his bosses for ...

http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/new-investigation-into-scientology-offers-scathing/

[mefree]

Pervasive pitch: Scientology book and lecture series, 'The Basics,' unleashes ... - Tampabay.com
13 November 2011, 7:14 pm



Tom Cruise applauded vigorously as Scientology leader David Miscavige strode to center stage at Clearwater's Ruth Eckerd Hall. John Travolta and Kelly Preston beamed from the front row.

The date was June 30, 2007. Behind the cluster of stars, a capacity crowd of Scientologists looked on in anticipation. This was to be a grand night.

Over the next three hours, Miscavige explained why.

The church had found low-quality audiotapes of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's early lectures. A special team of technicians had digitized 2,000 recordings and restored them to perfect clarity.

The team also corrected Hubbard's published texts, which were incomplete, with chapters out of order and errors in transcribing his dictation.

Standing before a 20-foot-high display of book and CD covers, Miscavige announced the release of the improved scriptures — 18 volumes of books and 280 digitally enhanced lectures called "The Basics."

"If the reality hasn't sunk in yet, it soon will. This is the event you have been waiting for … in terms of your past, present and future as a Scientologist.''

For the 53-year-old Church of Scientology, this was a "golden age of knowledge,'' Miscavige said.

With the Basics going for $3,000 a set, it was also a golden age of revenue. Selling the scriptures would become an obsession within the church.

Longtime Scientologist Luis Garcia of Irvine, Calif., didn't get a seat at Eckerd Hall but watched Miscavige on closed-circuit TV with an overflow crowd of 600 in the auditorium of the church's Fort Harrison Hotel in downtown Clearwater.

As he headed out, he noticed something unusual: Church staffers were in the concourse, holding clipboards and standing firm, like colonial soldiers.

They stopped Garcia and other church members as soon as they filed out.

Cash or credit? staffers asked. How many sets are you getting?

Garcia, tipped off about the big announcement that afternoon, had already bought two, one in English, one in Spanish, paying with an American Express card.

But as he milled around the snack tables, church staffers kept hitting him up.

Garcia told them: I bought two.

In his 25 years in the church, he had grown accustomed to Scientology sales pitches. But he wasn't prepared for what staffers said next.

You bought two? Buy more......

more at http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1201177.ece 

Tony O's take at Village Voice http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/11/scientologys_sa.php

[ethercat]

"I would tell them I do not have the money,'' said Working, 40, an auditor for a CPA firm. "And then another staffer would call me 10 minutes later and ask me the same question. And then the first staff member would call me up later in the day and ask me to donate for something else.''

Working recalled the desperation in the voices of the callers:

You must be able to borrow from someone.

Can you take an advance on your paycheck?

Is there a family member you can borrow the money from?

Can you call your dad?

What's your dad's farm worth?

The church said there is "nothing sinister" about setting fundraising targets to motivate church staffers.

"Nothing sinister."  These two words are enough to let anyone who reads this just how out of touch with reality they are.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1201176.ece

Carisa Marion, 50, of Spokane, Wash., once owned a bungalow in Clearwater near the Scientology campus. The church wanted the property to make room for expansion. In October 2005, it paid Marion $1 million for it.

As part of the deal, Marion agreed to return $500,000 to the church, putting it in an account for her and her family to use for services.

When the Basics went on sale, Marion, then living in Castaic, Calif., still had more than $350,000 in the account. The big balance likely made her a target, she now thinks.

We have something posted about this, from 2009: http://forum.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/index.php/topic,2327.0.html

Sometimes I wonder if we need to do anything about scientology - they seem to be doing themselves in, slowly but surely.

But then there's narconon...  and CCHR...  And WISE...  and...

[mefree]

Scientology amped up donation requests to 'save the Earth' starting in 2001 ... - Tampabay.com
19 November 2011, 6:01 pm

Lynne Hoverson and Bert Schippers quickly pitched in with a $12,000 donation when Seattle Scientologists started raising money for a new church in 2000. They later boosted their gift to $160,000.

On a late-autumn evening in 2005, a trio of church fundraisers arrived at the couple's home. They wanted more cash for the $13 million project.

Ninety thousand dollars.

Hoverson explained that she and her husband already had borrowed heavily to donate to church causes. Borrowing $90,000 more would mean another several months of payments.

She told them no.

A few days later, one of the fundraisers sent a complaint called a "Knowledge Report" to church officials. She was turning the couple in.

Their sin: insufficient generosity.

"The fact that it would only take them 1 ½ years to handle their debts if they donated this amount to the building tells me that they can do more if they were willing to," wrote Kelly Brown, a member of Scientology's religious order, the Sea Org.

Hoverson and Schippers were aghast when the Knowledge Report came in the mail.

more at http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1201989.ece

[ethercat]

If I would have ever considered becoming a member of scientology, just reading the comments of the scientology supporters on these articles would assure me that these are not the sort of people I would want to surround myself with when I'm in church - let alone what the articles themselves say.

[mefree]

If I would have ever considered becoming a member of scientology, just reading the comments of the scientology supporters on these articles would assure me that these are not the sort of people I would want to surround myself with when I'm in church - let alone what the articles themselves say.

Seriously. I don't know what is more glaring, the fact that cult commentators have not read the article or that they continue to support such a soul-sucking organization in the same robotic fashion.

[mefree]

CoS responds.

SCIENTOLOGY: Parishioners 'enthusiastic' - Tampabay.com
19 November 2011, 6:13 pm

The Church of Scientology disputes the accounts of its former members.

"Contrary to the St. Petersburg Times' mischaracterizations, parishioners donate to the church because they enthusiastically support their chosen faith," spokeswoman Karin Pouw said.

"They continue to do so because those donations fund programs that parishioners are proud to support: The opening of new Ideal Scientology Churches throughout the world, and the implementation of global humanitarian initiatives and social betterment programs."

Those parishioners, in the thousands, far outweigh the "handful of disaffected apostates" who spoke to the Times, the church said.

It said apostates harbor strong emotions against their former religion, compelling them to lie about their experience. The church cited the work of the late Oxford professor Bryan Wilson, who wrote in 1990: "The apostate is generally in need of self-justification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past, to excuse his former affiliations and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates."

...

more at http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/church-of-scientology-responds-parishioners-donate-because-they/1202000

[mefree]

Giant 'Super Power' building in Clearwater takes a pause, yet millions keep flowing in - Tampabay.com
By Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Monday, November 21, 2011


The seven-story Super Power building, also known as the Flag Building, sits on a full city block across the street from the taller Fort Harrison Hotel. In the foreground is the church’s power plant (L-shaped orange roof). It will heat and cool Super Power. Next to it is the church’s parking garage, both styled in the Mediterranean Revival architecture of the other church buildings. Scientology plans to build a seven-story, 3,500-seat auditorium on property it owns south of Super Power.

Maybe they're out of money.

That speculation — irresistible to many Scientology watchers in Clearwater — never died after the church suddenly stopped construction on its massive, downtown "Super Power" building.

The church had spent five years and $45 million erecting the shell of the seven-story colossus that covers an entire city block. But in 2003 it shifted the project into idle, offering little explanation.

Always mysterious since coming to Clearwater under a fake name in 1975, the church became all the more inscrutable as its big building just sat there, finished on the outside, raw inside.

But unknown to those wondering about the delay was the whirl of activity just across the street.

In an office off the mezzanine in the church's Fort Harrison Hotel, a savvy team of fundraisers was raking in millions.

The Super Power project has been a bonanza for the Church of Scientology. Far from a financial burden, it has been a money magnet, a powerful come-on for L. Ron Hubbard's master vision.

Pay for a building. Save the planet.

A St. Petersburg Times analysis shows Scientology has raised at least $145 million for the project, far more than the $100 million cost consistently cited by the church's Clearwater public affairs team through the years.

In a single week in March 2003 — the year construction stopped — fundraisers brought in $23 million in parishioner donations, according to a former member of the team.

That figure is "absurd,'' the church said. It declined to provide the amount collected that week or the total raised during two decades of fundraising.

But it generally acknowledged the triumph of the Super Power fundraising campaign.

Dollars donated "under the banner of Super Power'' paid not only for the skyline-altering building and its elaborate furnishings, but for a $4 million power plant and a parking garage. Still going strong, the campaign is raising the millions needed for a planned 3,500-seat auditorium, L. Ron Hubbard Hall.

"This and a number of other outstanding projects remain to accomplish the goals of Super Power,'' the church said.....

more at http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1202006.ece

[mefree]

Posted by Marty on his blog today:

Hy Levy is in the Hereafter

Hy Levy passed away in his sleep last night. A couple weeks earlier he told Mosey and me that this was just the manner in which he wished to pass. He died of complications caused by cancer.   Hy was diagnosed late last year.  He chose not to fight it...

more at http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/hy-levy-is-in-the-hereafter/