> Are there many young people on staff in Scientology?
>
> We find that young Scientologists enjoy the lifestyle of working in the
> Church, and many staff members are between the ages of 22 and 35. It
> may be that due to the expansion of Scientology they find that there
> are opportunities to achieve responsible positions quite rapidly. Many
> families have three generations in Scientology. But bear in mind that
> there are also a great many older people in Scientology, so it is not
> uncommon to meet staff who are 50, 60, 70 or even 80 years old.
>
> Robert
Two comments. The second is considerably longer.

I still have my W2 form showing my income of $1200 for the ENTIRE YEAR in 1978, and that was a pretty good year. As a young man then, I can remember having to pool money with the only other person in my division so that we could afford to go to a smorgasboard restaurant together and eat that day. What a life! What a testimony as to how well it was all working and doing so well. And to top it off I was always one of the upstats!!

It has not changed much today. Many org and mission staffers that I know are having to moonlight at another job to pay the rent and eat.

Not much money unless you are a reg, bookstore officer or auditor. And even that is a definite maybe! It is a very low income, poor lifestyle ultimately, but when I was younger I thought I was actually saving the world so it all seemed worthwhile and I was adventurous so at this point I have no regrets. Would I do it again now?? Not on your life!

Secondly, the notable recruitment situation now and for the past couple of years is to prey on the teenage children that are growing up in Scientology. And I do mean literally prey on, harrass, and try and wear down these kids, sometimes with outright lies to recruit them into the Sea Org. This is the current major recruitment pool for the SO and is a strategy all in itself. I've even seen recruiters waiting outside the courserooms waiting for their young targets, and even another SO member commenting on how the vultures are lurking.

The baby boomer scientologist's kids are growing up to be teens now. A teenage child cannot literally spend any time in an org without finally being constantly pressured to join, see the Sea Org slide show, come meet with us right now! And the recruiters go to the scientology schools - like picking apples off the tree. That is a fact. What they don't seem to realize is their recruit activities alone are angering and alienating many kids and parents alike. And some that join stay in (at least for now) and many do not. The experience of those that I personally know is about a 50% retention rate (which is no scientific survey of the actual stats).

And the ironic thing is that once one of these kids routes out of the SO after only being in for a short time, they now owe the church "freeloader" money and, get this, they cannot be on staff anywhere else in the church now. Maybe that's a blessing. But isn't it funny how just by being in the SO, even if these kids wanted to still work for the church they could not do so anywhere else now (except back into the SO). An ex-SO member is considered a DB per a Hubbard issue (of course, until they join in again). Make sense of that!

It has even been a source of controversy from time to time that an ex- SO member could not even join a private company that was a member of WISE. I don't know what the latest enforcement of that is these days - probably just applies to the privately owned consulting outfits and "academies." I'll have to ask sometime.

Enough rambling on for today!

Alfred E. Noumenon "What, me worry?"

> Are there many young people on staff in Scientology?
>
> We find that young Scientologists enjoy the lifestyle of working in the
> Church, and many staff members are between the ages of 22 and 35.
Errrm... They are told they can't have any "auditing" because they don't have any money and are told that they will get auditing on staff if they have high stats. So they sign a five year contract, get given expensive "training" and then they are told that if they leave before the 5 years are up then they will have to pay back the thousands of pounds/dollars worth of training they have received. And of course they dont get any auditing either because the stats are never going to be high because the public is aware that $cientology is a scam even if they are not aware of it. And getting no auditing is, in a sense, a good idea because it can lead to insanity.

Most young people are so frightened of the "debt" they have run up through training that they won't reveal it to friends and relatives.

They are not "staff". They are financial prisoners.

Roland
--
"I notice that we all believe that Venus has a methane atmosphere and is unlivable. I almost got run down by a freight locomotive the other day -- didn't look very uncivilized to me." - L. Ron Hubbard, "Between Lives Implants" lecture, SHSBC #317. 23 July 1963.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~xemu/rams/Venusloc.ram

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