In some parts of the world — namely, in various parts of
Europe — Scientology can't keep things as secret as they do in the US, and they're forced to open their books for inspection. Recently, a number of new Scientology financial reports became available, and we turned to our financial maverick,
John P. Capitalist, to dive into the numbers and tell us what they mean.
Narconon Trust
UK Financial Statements
Narconon is required to release financial records under UK law. The financial statements for
2017 were prepared according to the usual financial reporting standards by an outside accounting firm and contain a wealth of information in the footnotes, as well as some useful perspective in the numbers themselves.
Interestingly, the organization says in the introduction that "the activities of Narconon Trust have been facilitated by grants from the
International Association of Scientologists, which is currently its main funding source." Longtime Scientology watchers have long suspected that the IAS slush fund has been employed to bail out failing tentacles of the
Scientology organizational octopus for some time, but this is the first time I'm aware of Scientology admitting this in print. There have certainly been some questionable loans on various financial statements, and there have been other indications, such as the ability to complete the
Orlando Ideal Org quickly when there are perhaps fewer than 100 Scientologists in the area, and when there wasn't a sustained fundraising campaign to buy the building. But this is the first time that the organization has stood up and said that the IAS is putting some of the $1 billion plus that I estimate they've collected over the last 20 years to work.