Certain posters have been telling me that small donations to IAS are decreasing and the burden of supporting IAS has now shifted to a smaller group of Scientologists who are making larger donations.

I compiled stats from the IAS magazine, Impact, using Wachter's site as a resource, to see whether the data agreed with this idea.

Impact magazine began recording $5,000 donations (sponsors) in 1986.
(The lifetime membership level was at that time $3,000.)
..........................................1112?
..................................................................................1031
...........................................................................................960
.........886?
.................................................................859?
............................663
...................550?...........629...............................587
510?


........................................................169
'86----'87----'88----'89----'90----'91----'92----'93----'94----'95----'96

The question marks indicate that issues of Impact were missing from Wachter's database, so I had to do an average and approximate the number.

It's easy enough to see that sponsor stats went from the 500/year range
in the mid 1980s to a range twice that by 1996. Also there was a horrendous stat crash in 1992 in the sponsor range.



........................................................................................... 2040?




.......................................................1568

....................................1386


.........906?.....?

795......................741?
.............................................632
...................................................................?........?

'97----'98----'99----'00----'01----'02----'03----'04----'05----'06


Again, I had to approximate by averaging more than once due to missing data, but this graph does not appear to support the notion that donations at the $5,000 level are decreasing.

A new level, $10,000 donation (Crusader) was introduced in 1996, and in that year there were 46 such donations. In 2000 there were around 506 Crusader donations, they went to 678 the next year, rose to 762 in 2002, and there were about 715 of them in 2003. Although there is no data for 2004 and 2005, it appears that there were around 852 Crusader donations for 2006. (Rough guess obtained by averaging.)

Anyway, I do not want anyone to claim that my figures presented here represent total IAS membership, because they omit all the lifetime ($3k) donations, all the yearly renewal donations, and all the donations above $10,000.

It's just that I wanted to find out for myself whether there was a basis in the (IAS) stats for what various critics were telling me.

What kind of church demands $10,000 "donations"? Posting that there are more people making more donations only leads people to think that your "church" might be a little, dare I say it, money hungry.

I don't think that proving this point is going to help your argument any.

What you do not seem to understand is that IAS donations are voluntary.

It isn't a case of IAS making 'demands' of parishioners; there are no punitive actions taken against a Scientologist for not joining or donating to IAS. There are perquisites for IAS members such as discounts on services, and an auditor must have current IAS membership to keep certificates in force, but if you do not contribute to IAS, you don't get expelled from CoS or anything.

Back to the numbers:

The total number of Sponsor ($5k) donors by 2006:...... 16,024
The total number of Crusader ($10k) donors by 2006:.......3,559
The total number of Honor Roll ($20k) donors by 2006:......2,634
The total number of Patrons ($40k) donors by 2006:......4,594
The total number of Patrons Meritorious ($100k) by 2006:.....196
The total number of Donors of More than $100k by 2006:......203

These figures when added sum to.....................................27,210

This is an undercount of IAS members; it only goes to 2006, it is based on an incomplete database in which many issues of Impact are missing, and records for entire years (1999 & 2005) are omitted. Moreover, the lifetime memberships and yearly renewal memberships are not included here, and they amount to thousands (lifetime) and tens of thousands each year.

No one should propose the number 27,210 as the lowest possible number of Scientologists in the world, since it omits Sea Org and staff (at least 16,000 people), and the majority of Scientologists do not have IAS membership.

However, I did notice that when you add the Sea Org and Staff number to the 27,210 number, you get 43,210, which is very close to the number for Scientologists worldwide that Little Bear Victor has been proposing.

Did I stumble on the rationale for that number? It's not inside info after all, it's a guesstimate based on Wachter's Impact data?

Heh.

Is that something where you resurrect old threads in order to bury a new thread that you don't like?

That's probably also because OSA doesn't trust any new Scieno either as all the names in the IAS mag run through OSA Clearances to see if there is anything negative on that person that makes them look bad.

I mean look for Reed Slatkin or James Barbour who we know have donated more than $10K to them.

Hasta, Enrico

Did someone mention Reed Slatkin the scientologist who orchestrated one of the largest ponzi fraud schemes in U.S history?

http://www.slatkinfraud.com/index.php
http://www.cnbc.com/id/23163763/site/14081545/

Did scientologist James Barbour, who was recently sent to jail for sex with a child/minor also get mentioned?

http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php ... ur&t=21645
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tca-FCcBbAc


"Somebody some day will say "this is illegal." By then be sure the orgs say what is legal or not."

- L. Ron Hubbard



HIP HIP HOORAY
HIP HIP HOORAY
HIP HIP HOORAY

Looks like a fair assessment SuzanneMarie, but does this mean that all auditors must pay $5,000/year IAS membership dues for the right to audit anyone? With the lion's share of income from the auditing also going to the "church"

Lermanet quotes a 'reliable source who does not wish to be named' on his website, who claims that in 1995 the IAS membership was 65,000.

We have Wachter's Impact magazine figures on the number of sponsors and patrons through 1995; 8434. That establishes a ratio, 8434/65,000, or about 1:8. So if this ratio holds true for later years, assuming that 65,000 was correct for 1995 in the first place, then there are 8 times as many IAS members as are showing up as $5k+ donors in Impact magazine.

So 27,000:216,000. Then 216,000 was the actual number of IAS members in 2006, if that ratio holds true.

And since more than 90% of Scientologists do not have IAS membership, the actual number of Scientologists could well be between two and ten million.

Think about it. What percentage of Scientologists can donate more than $5,000 to IAS?

A lifetime membership in IAS used to cost $3,000 USD, then it was increased to $5,000 more recently. An auditor who pays yearly will be paying only $500 each year for IAS membership, not $5,000 each year.

Anyway, IAS membership does not cost five thousand a year.

Aren't both of those guys expelled (Slatkin since 2002)?

Suzanne Marie, I haven't been posting here long so I'm not real familiar with your personal viewpoint but you sound relatively rational and I was sincerely wondering...there's a huge number of negative, even horrific sometimes, personal experiences with scientology posted here and claims of crimes being committed, lives ruined intentionally etc. Do you disagree with them all? Do you see them all as exaggerations, lies, hallucinations or incidents deservedly pulled in? Do you ever read one of these items and say to yourself something like "I hate to admit it but that's probably true, I have seen things like that happen, we probably shouldn't be doing that"?

Yes, I sometimes (rarely) see an account of some stupid/dreadful thing that happened and say to myself, 'yeah, that's probably true.'

But most of the atrocity stories are just that. They point out some human error or act of malice that has nothing to do with church policy, and make the case that the church is to blame for it.

What is wrong with individual responsibility? Does no one here believe that a person is responsible for his acts?

PS-- On the other hand, I am sure that some of the atrocity stories are invented. Also, some critics are mentally ill and do not know what is real and what is not. Such a person should not be treated harshly and can not be held responsible for harm caused by untrue information they give out.

Thank you for answering my question.

Mewba............My suggestion is read yourself and connect the dots.

"Human error"? Is Scientology's Disconnection human error? No, it's Scientology POLICY.

Stopping of free speech, free thought? No, again, it's backed up fully by
Scientology Policies.

Scientology medical abuses? Again, backed up by "the tech".

"Fair Game"----despite Scientology insisting "That isn't used any more, that PL was canceled" (And trust me *I* know, as *I* used to say that).....
Yes, the Term "Fair Game" was canceled, however at the bottom of that very cancellation, it says: "This cancellation does not apply to SPs".
(Which are the very people Hubbard said it was OK to Fair Game!)

Scientology loves to speak about responsibility, yet they almost NEVER are willing to take responsibility for their own actions. If they were, I wouldn't be typing this here.

Tory/Magoo~~ Happily an Ex-Scientologist. In for 30 years, escaped out
in 2000: FREE AT LAST!
www.youtube.com/ToryMagoo44
www.xenu.net
www.xenutv.com