Inside Scientology - Janet Reitman [184]
But it is likely that this problem did not affect the Church of Scientology as a corporate entity. "As a money-making scheme, the Ideal Org plan is pretty good," said Mat Pesch, a former Sea Org official who was an executive in the International Landlord Office. Though he lacks current financial data, which remain confidential (Pesch left Scientology in 2005), he said, "What I would expect to find based on the indicators and data that I have is that cash and real estate are growing by leaps and bounds. On the other hand, the staff and public and structure of the church, other than real estate, are breaking down ... even the best PR will not be able to cover it up or slow it down."
In the summer of 2010, Mike Rinder conducted an online survey of former Scientologists to find out what had motivated them to leave the church. Of the hundreds of respondents, most cited the unremitting pressure, sometimes called "crush regging," to donate to various Scientology causes, like the Ideal Org program. Rinder dubbed it the "vulture culture."
Mike and Donna Henderson, onetime Scientologists from Clearwater, were victims of this culture. OT 7 and OT 8 respectively, they were nearly bankrupted by their involvement with the church. Today they are two of a growing number of ex-Scientologists who predict that in these dark economic times, Scientology's "unvarnished demand for money," as Mike puts it, may lead to its demise.
Mike joined the Church of Scientology in 1971, as a nineteen-year-old in Los Angeles. By 1973, he'd signed a billion-year contract with the Sea Organization and was sailing with L. Ron Hubbard aboard the Apollo. When Hubbard moved onshore, Mike, eager to strike out on his own, went through the appropriate steps to leave the Sea Org. He moved back to L.A. and became a public Scientologist, ultimate reaching the very top of the Bridge to Total Freedom, as did Donna, his second wife, whom he married in 2003.
Along the way, Mike contributed to a wide range of causes and programs, ranging from the Golden Age of Tech to the release of a sophisticated new E-meter. To further Scientology's "planetary dissemination," he and Donna bought extra copies of Dianetics and other books by Hubbard to send to libraries all over the world. They helped fund a project to translate the Founder's writing and lectures into languages spoken by relatively few people, such as Lithuanian. To preserve Hubbard's technology for eternity, the couple gave money to the Church of Spiritual Technology, a special entity that has spent the past twenty years preparing and storing all of the Founder's handwritten notes, policy letters, and science fiction in secret, underground vaults spread across three remote locations in California, as well as one near Trementina, New Mexico. The Hendersons also regularly took cruises, costing $10,000 to $20,000, aboard Freedwinds, and they gave generously to groups such as Narconon, Applied Scholastics, and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights; they were listed in church publications as patrons of the International Association of Scientologists, signifying they had contributed at least $50,000 to the church's legal war chest.
Joining the IAS was not optional. Every Scientologist must be a member, though when people first become interested in Scientology they are offered a free six-month membership. After that, members are prohibited from taking further Scientology services until they buy either a yearly or a lifetime membership. A yearly membership costs $300 and a lifetime membership costs $3,000. "The thing is, you are pretty much expected to become a lifetime member, and they hit you up for money all the time," Mike said during an interview