I had to go in to the city anyway, so I took a look at the Russel Street office. A quick description of the location - it's as pictured on the official Scientology website. Right next to it is the Grand Hyatt Hotel. There's a Vuitton shop on the other side of the Hyatt. Easy access for any celebrity Scientologists.
The shop is well-lit, nicely carpeted, and warm inside. It looks quite nice. If I hadn't read all the stuff on Operation Clambake and elsewhere I'd have thought it was very nice, although IMO the cover designs on the books, CDs, DVDs etc was garish. Very unsubtle. There are various framed Hubbard quotes, etc framed around the walls. There is a bust of Hubbard easily visible from the front entrance, next to an area with leather sofas where you can watch DVDs. This is on the left, behind the bookcases. There is a Christmas tree in the corner here, with Berry Street Kids gift tags (Berry Street is an old and respected, genuine charity)
There is an office, decorated in 50's style, fenced off with a blue and gold rope.
On the right side of the room there are a couple of work desks, and a table.
There were about 8 - 10 people present. They seemed fairly young. None of them was more than middle-aged. There was a mother and two children in the waiting/DVD viewing area. The desks were manned and two women were seated at the table. One woman was explaining a computer printout (dot matrix) to the other woman.

I was greeted by a youngish man. His manner was fine for a sales assistant, if a bit overly rehearsed, but he seemed quite nice. If it had been a business I would have thought it was fine. But a church? Only the Church of Making Lots of Money.
We chatted for a bit. I mentioned that I had done a personality test years ago, but was put off by the prices. He [i[rapidly[i] directed me over to an old set of tapes of Hubbard, 3 for $10.
I made non-commital noises and said I'd just browse for a while. He went off to do other things and I continued looking around. Behind the bookcases, at eye level to the chairs in the DVD viewing area, was a framed Hubbard quote on Psychiatry, one about the inhumanity of electric shocks and drugging people being a way of exterminating them. Considering Hubbards views on those below a certain tone level and what should be done to them, this is grossly hypocritical.

Even more interesting was the sign above it, not framed but laminated. In large bold print, it stated that if anyone was come here to be cured of a physical illness, they would not be allowed to start treatment until they had been seen by a competent doctor and a course of treatment started. Then auditing would be arranged with a trained auditor, and the medical treatment must continue while the auditing was occurring.

Melbourne Org part 2....
They were currently on the last days of a fundraising drive to build an ideal org at an old convent in Abbotsford. There was a poster up with a map of the buildings, so people could choose naming rights for buildings. There was one day to go to get the funds in order, (this was a Wednesday). The clam explained to me that this was why there were "so many" people in the office at this time. apparently there's normally a lot less. "So many" means about 6 - 8 people, btw. I asked him were they likely to meet their target and he answered "yes", not that I'd expect any other answer. I'll have to go back another day and see whether that's true.
The clam asked me if I would like to watch a DVD on dianetics, and I replied that I'd quite like to see the "famous" orientation film. Apparently that's still kept on film, and you have to use an old-style film projector and it has to be set up. I asked why it was on film and not DVD, and he said he didn't know. I got the distinct impression that he did not like the film projector.
I turned down the offer as I had more Christmas shopping to do, and told the clam this. This is probably the most interesting part of the whole thing - when I initially said no, he nodded, but when I referred to "Christmas shopping", his entire manner changed instantly to a blank face and no animation. He completely shut down. It was so sudden and unnerving that I turned and left immediately.

Any comments?

Bad bad CD.
You invalidated that Clam completely. Poor guy can't afford to go Christmas shopping. Not that it matters all his close friends and family have been disconnected from

CD_label wrote


Is this something new for Scientology or just a discaimer that they had to put up? Are they starting to encourage people to get proper medical treatment?

Desert Rain

I've been to both the Adelaide and Melbourne Orgs and I've seen that same notice in the Adelaide one. The Melbourne Org building is quite nice (as is their screening room where I saw Orientation) but the Adelaide one looks pretty dowdy by comparison. Even so, no matter how you dress it up, a mousetrap is still a mousetrap....

There have been a few articles about the friendship between Cruise and Packer Junior laiming they (yes the "Them") were trying to reach the money through the friendship.

Did any one else pick this up or is it some bright spark in the media on a "long finger" of truth?

The disclaimer about the medical treatment is actually consistent to what people have been putting up recently in orgs, apparently.

In Australia, they would have had to put one up especially due to the fact that the Anderson Report's reasons for banning Scientology was because it practiced medical quackery without even a licence, and that it would be fraud to advertise forms of "healing".

You have to register for the website, but I imagine someone out there has a valid IAS membership they can use, I'd sure love to see what is on this website.



Here is a pic of the new building:

From December 19th 2006, just before they raised the full $6 million or so to buy the new building in Ascot Vale. If anyone can do a drive past, the address is 251 Mount Alexander Rd Ascot Vale. It's the old Mercy College building.

This from the 11th december 2005

An OT® Committee Ideal Org briefing was held in the org last night, with 63 Scientologists in attendance. OT Ambassador, Andrew Rinder briefed on where we currently stand with the fundraising. Nick Broadhurst, President of the Church of Scientology® then got up and briefed everyone on the current plan that the psychs are implementing. The Raffle was then drawn, and the results... Alex Tusken won 3rd prize: a set of the Congresses; Ken Frank won 2nd prize: a training package and 1st prize went to Jasmine Stone — 12 intensives of auditing. This couple had just minutes before decided to donate another $10,000. Some of the funds they have donated to date were intended for Mark’s auditing!

(this pic is taken in the div 6 area of the Melbourne Org)



At the OT Committee Ideal Org briefing, the Ceberano family announced that they were pledging $100,000 total to the new Melbourne Ideal Org building — becoming the most recent family to be added to this Honour Roll!


(Kate Ceberano & her mother Cherie Ceberano Balfour)



A picture of Pam & Ken Frank who donated $150k



Another pic of the Ceberanos



A picture of Patricia, Barbara & Andrew Rinder. Yes that's Mike Rinder's Mother (middle) and brother (right)

Sad, sad, sad. Imagine giving away $150k of your hard-earned money, your future, your retirement, for an evil scam. Imagine waking up and figuring that out.

A few months after my first visit to the Melbourne Org, I paid a return visit. One thing noticeable was that the light level inside was considerably dimmer than my previous visit. The furniture had also been rearranged, with a desk, similar to the one in L Ron Hubbard's office, placed so that it partly blocked the space between the two large bookshelves at the front of the org.

A very young teenager, no more than 16 years old, and more likely 14, sat behind the desk looking nervous and unsure. Just as she rose to greet me, a small, slim, fair-haired middle-aged woman hurried out to intercept - er, greet me, waving the very young teenager back to the desk. Her most notable feature was her flat, hard, fanatical eyes. No, there's no hyperbole there, that really is the only way to describe this ladies' eyes.

We talked for a little while. I asked questions like, what is this place, what do you sell, who is this L Ron Hubbard, etc. When I asked if I could listen to a sample of his talks, the lady bristled, saying that they didn't let just anyone listen to them, they were only for the "dedicated", and more or less indicated that dedication meant buying a copy. Apparently the difference between dedication and non-dedication is the money you hand over. I pointed out that with Dale Carnegie and other motivational speakers you see on TV, they provide a sample so that you know what you're buying, and that usual business practice was to let a customer try a sample.
This confused the fair-haired lady somewhat, and she explained that while she couldn't play the tapes for me, there was a DVD explaining dianetics that I could watch. I agreed to this, and after firmly and quietly instructing the nervous young teenager, (who was clearly worried about what to do without her torm - excuse me, mentor present), fair-haired lady escorted me to the indoctrin - sorry, another typo - I mean DVD viewing room. Inside there were instructional posters on topics such as the tone scale, what is dianetics, etc. After a fair wait, with regular checks to make sure I was still inside the room, I had to patiently listen to a lecture from fair-haired lady explaining all the information that I had already read - and reread - on the posters. She was determined to go through them all and didn't like it very much when I asked questions. Some questions she could answer easily, but others seemed to throw her off her stride a bit. After a bit I just tried to watch her attentively and nodded a lot.
After all this, I finally got to watch the DVD, which I can't remember much of, other than the laughable image of the "sinister" stage hypnotist. When it had finished, the fair-haired lady asked me what I thought of it, and I replied that while it was interesting and had given me a lot to think about, I was disappointed that I still hadn't seen any footage of L Ron Hubbard, and couldn't they show me some of the video of him sitting in that bookshelf right there? This confused the fair-haired lady and she briefly retired to consult with a younger man just outside the room, then returned to say that unfortunately, the video player was broken and they couldn't play it. I then left, after a few more comments on how interesting the visit had been, and how it had given me a lot to think about.

I only saw 3 people the whole time I was there, and the place was very quiet. There was always somebody nearby, and I wasn't allowed to wander around the way I had been the first time. This second visit was a lot more offputting, due to the tight control exercised over me the whole time, the clear fanaticism of the fair-haired lady (those eyes!) and the general dodginess of their business practices. What sort of self-help business claims it's founder is all these wonderful things, yet won't let you listen to excerpts of the great man's talks? You would have thought that they'd be playing a tape to inspire the troops but no, not even that. Even without Operation Clambake I would have thought that the place was a cult. And it certainly did NOT seem in the slightest like a religion. And what about the teenager at the front desk? She should definitely have been in school.
The whole experience was so disturbing that I put off posting my experiences until now, quite a few months later.