Inside Scientology: "Financial Irregularities"

Welcome back to another week of me apparently begging Scientology to come for me 😬 In all seriousness, I'm well aware that I'm not even a gnat in their ear at this point. I am just one person. But I am one person who was on staff, as a counsellor/interrogator, at one of the most corrupt Scientology organizations in America (no data on the rest of the world, but it wouldn't surprise me if we were top 5) during a time when we were silently investigated by the FBI for "financial irregularities."

I didn't question all of the people responsible. But I sure did question a lot of them.

It's no secret that Scientology is a cult for the rich and powerful, manned by the lost and broken. But they have done a very good job at hiding just how very corrupt they actually are.

Let's get into it.

Sharks in suits.

Scientology's Twisted Pay Scale

Before we continue, we need to make one point very very clear here:

Scientology does not actually care about helping people. They are a money and power making machine. That's it.

Now that that's all cleared up, let's break down how they pay their staff, and how that fuels their obsession with money and status.

As we talked about last week, the staff gets paid on a weekly basis. There is no salary, no hourly wage; when you join staff, you sign a contract agreeing to work as a "volunteer" with no firm pay. There were many weeks that I worked for free. If you're in the Sea Org, those weeks aren't really the end of the world as all of your housing and food is paid for. But all those other Scientology centers you see all around the world? Nothing is paid for. You're "supposed" to have a set schedule so you can work another job, but that rarely happens. If you're on staff, your only priority is the cult. I worked 16+ hour days for weeks on end regularly.

The weekly pay that staff receives is based on a few things. Everything comes out of the money that was earned that week; when we were doing our best, we were regularly bringing in $80K+ in a week. Large chunks of that immediately leave the church and go to the different headquarters, utilities, etc. The remaining money is then divided amongst the staff based on both the area in which they are working, and then on their own weekly "stats." The executives, the people running that specific church, always made the most money, and it would be based on the statistics of the general areas they ran. Then the staff below them would be paid based on what job they had, and their own numbers for the week.

For example, we'll look at my area. I was an auditor, which is like a therapist or a spiritual counsellor. That means that my pay was based on how many hours I spent "in the chair" auditing someone, right down to the minute. And the people above me, their pay was based on the total hours all the auditors made together that last week.

Breaking this down further, you weren't just paid "by the hour." There were levels to the pay you would receive. Full disclosure, the math to this pay system never made sense to me, so my brain never fully absorbed it. But it was all based on "credits." The money would be broken down into amounts called "credits," and depending on your production for the week you would get half credits if it was low, whole credits if it was average, or whole plus bonus credits if it was a higher number. I can not give you a better description than that, I apologize, I did not get the math autism.

They do it this way because, as is the norm with Scientology, they are now no longer responsible when people get upset about their pay. "Oh, you're not making enough money? Work harder." Of course, this isn't the explanation that they give.

According to them, this kind of pay scale "encourages productivity," and rewards people for being "upstat" meaning their statistics/numbers are up for the week. (Sidebar: they have an entire dictionary of their made up words, I'll keep breaking them down as they come up.)

It goes beyond just the numbers of your one area, or just your church. Every week, all the numbers are compiled, and churches across the world are in competition with each other. The year ends in March, on Hubbard's birthday shockingly, so it's called The Birthday Game. You want to be the best, across the world, because then you have the status, awards, a big gala, Miscavige comes out, it's a whole big to do. I can't remember if we won while I was there, there were a lot of events, but Cincinnati was usually near the top.

What does this pay scale actually do, though? It breeds corruption. Plain and simple.

David Miscavige every time someone buys a Clear Package

Financial Irregularities

Having a staff of 100+ people depending on a paycheck based solely on the money brought in that week can create a lot of pressure. Especially when you consider that it's not a legitimate business, it's a cult disguised as a religion, depending wholly on other cult members to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars at a time for "courses and services," if not just generous donations. Yeah, it gets messy.

The church where I worked in particular was especially corrupt, and it was known. The people who ran the joint were nicknamed The Cincinnati Mafia by other churches, and it was a running joke that we would accept literally anybody, as long as they came with a credit card.

The people who sold the services etc. worked in Registration, so they were called the "Reges." They were the money makers, and they made used car salesmen look like choir boys. Did you know that if you apply for a bunch of credit cards all at one time, and just full out lie on your application, you can easily get approved for over $50K in less than 24 hours? The banks don't have time to communicate with each other if you do it all at once, so you can get approved for ungodly amounts of money. And then charge it all right back to Scientology. They called it a "blitz" and they did it all the time. One of them even confessed to me that they doctored someone's paycheck to make it look like more to get them approved for a higher amount.

Disclaimer: DON'T DO THIS. IT'S CALLED CREDIT CARD FRAUD AND IT IS HIGHLY ILLEGAL.

Scientology makes a real point of "following the laws of the land." They can not afford to be investigated again, and they know they're on the brink of destruction so any further bad PR could end them. However, their golden rule is to do "the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics." Dynamics meaning the different areas of your life: yourself, your family, your friends, other people, your home and possessions, the world, you get it. So, if breaking one little law with a high probability of not being found out, while simultaneously bringing in almost all the money you need for the week so everyone can get paid? Sounds like the greatest good to me!

This went on for years. I myself was a victim and had over $10K in credit card debt because I "broke a contract" by leaving one church to work at a different one and had to pay them back for a few courses. That was the first time that I was introduced to the credit card blitz.

Sometime in 2019, their financial irregularities started getting too much attention. True story, a lot of people there banked with Chase Bank. So many people got credit cards through them in large amounts, maxed them out at the Scientology church, and then defaulted on their loans, that Chase Bank refused to do business with that branch of the church. My husband (at the time) banked with Chase, and when he tried to buy a can of pop in the café, his card was declined. It worked everywhere else, but nowhere within the church. I didn't know banks could do that, but apparently they can. Their cards no longer worked when being charged to that church of Scientology.

And then... they were investigated by the FBI. I have no idea how this didn't go anywhere, they worked really hard to make sure no one knew about it, but I could tell there was a serious vibe in certain areas, and I eventually got someone to crack. I don't remember the exact amount, but I believe millions of dollars had been loaned to people via credit cards that were maxed out at the church, and then defaulted. Eventually the scary people in suits stopped showing up, and that was the last I heard about it. Granted, I left the country shortly thereafter.

Within the cult, everyone responsible was shipped off to the headquarters in LA, and they received "disciplinary actions." But none of them were kicked out. It took a few months, but they all returned. They just weren't the Executives anymore. A Sea Org crew came in and took over in an effort to right the ship. Then covid happened, and that's when I was able to get away. For all I know, they could still be being investigated, but I'm still on all their email lists (it doesn't matter how often you block and report spam, they always find a way) and it looks like they're still operating, business as usual.

Even if they aren't able to go through every bank anymore, they still have other options.

Never rely on one source of income

People as Banks

Remember: Scientology is a cult for the rich and powerful.

The parallels between the MAGA cult and Scientology really need to be studied.

Scientology is used as a tool by the rich and powerful to gain more money and power, and it's run on the backs of the lost souls who are just looking for answers. (or in the case of MAGA, hateful people looking to justify their bigotry)

However, having access to the perks of Scientology comes at a price.

There were so many millionaires who walked the halls while I was there. I even took some of them in session. I won't name names, but if you live in the states, you've probably enjoyed their butter 😇

Being a Scientologist as a staff member is one thing. You're worked crazy hours until you break, and then you're blamed for breaking.

But I am still so grateful that I was never one of the people in Scientology with money.

Not only were they milked to pay for courses and services well above and beyond what they would be able to use in one lifetime, one man I knew died of old age in his 90s and still had millions left on his account. But they were forced to pay for others as well.

Some people, unfortunately, became a one-person bank. They would go hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, loaning out "packages" to other people, and charging interest in return. More often than not, they wound up never being paid back, and were solely responsible for those loans. I believe after they were investigated, all those people were paid back in full by Scientology. I forgot about that detail, I still don't know exactly what happened with the FBI, but I do believe they made that happen. Shout out to the FBI on that one!

Other people just bought packages as donations for other people. One man in particular was a really sad story. I won't name him out of respect, but he always seemed like a good man. He was very rich, donated millions to help build the new church, as well as buying lots of training packages for surrounding churches all over. Even in Canada, which is how I wound up going to Kentucky. He kept doing this the whole time I was there, paying for so many people to go in for services, because he genuinely thought that he was helping. He tried to help a homeless man by bringing him in for the Purification Rundown and finding him a place to stay. The church then exploited this mentally unstable homeless man, and made him go over $50K in credit card debt. This good man stood up for him, and they attacked him. They kicked him out. And he took his own life sometime after I left, by driving headfirst into oncoming traffic on the freeway.

I hope they never forgive themselves.

I am not accusing anyone of anything. But if someone dies directly because of your actions, you have blood on your hands.

That Got Dark

I'm really trying to keep these stories light, but the sad reality is that Scientology is dangerous. Destroying somebody's credit is no joke. Making someone go millions in debt and then kicking them out because they dared to ask a question is no joke. And then there's the age old question: Where is Shelly Miscavige? Hers is not the only story I've heard. A woman I worked with had been around for decades, and she told me a story of one time she was being investigated for potentially being a Suppressive Person (a bad guy in Scientology that needs to be kicked out) so they locked her in the rat-infested basement for weeks. This was a verified story, lots of old-timers around. Everyone laughed about it. She laughed about it when she told me. She said that she had done something wrong and that she deserved it. Yes, seriously.

That's what they do. They get into your mind, they rewire how you think and how you perceive, to the point where you truly believe that you deserve every bad thing that happens to you. They convince you that it's in your own best interest to go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, because Scientology saves you for lifetimes. Who care about credit when you're talking spiritual freedom? They are dangerous. And they need to be stopped.

🐦 If you're reading this, you never deserved it. Please get out ❤️🫂