Blog: Brave New Scientology - 2009-07-15
Brave New Scientology July 15, 2009,
Looking through the latest issue of International Scientology News, I was amazed to see a full 26 pages (out of a 72-page issue) devoted to buildings. That's right, buildings. Big, empty buildings.
Like the one downtown in my city. I sometimes walk by it. It's a huge, massive office building. Far more space than my local org needs or can immediately use. And it's been empty for two years. It was bought, not with Church building reserves, but with donations from local public. A few people ponied up millions. Others gave what they could. And the building was purchased. It has stood empty ever since. Now, we are told there are many more millions needed to do the renovations. And guess who pays? The main display in an Org used to be the Grade Chart. Now it's a thermometer of donations. Apparently at the latest OT Committee meeting that's all they talked about - how to raise money to renovate our "Ideal Org."
"Ideal" by whose standards? My ideal isn't a big empty building, it's an org packed with people, alive, excited, inspired. That's the way I remember Orgs when I first got into Scientology in the late 1960s. We didn't have fancy buildings. The old LA Org was a two-story house. The offices were cramped, the courserooms had bare concrete walls. But the place was electric.