Friday, August 17, 2007

Church of the poison mind

My spy at Whitecliffe College tells me that the college administration is busy making the building pretty for its forthcoming transfer to The Church of Scientology. Thirty grand has been spent on the floors and students have been banned from using oil-based paints; yes, in an art college. Interestingly enough, the college administration has yet to tell students anything of the sale of the building or their dreadful fate: the college is moving to Manukau (Face of the Future).

You may be wondering, at this point, why the Church of Scientology needs such a large building. Well, according to the Herald the building will cater for 200 students and 100 staff, which is a high student-to-staff ratio. In time-honoured Scientology tradition, many of the staff will be paying off the exorbitant fees for their own training by training the noobs.

In any case, the Church obviously needs a big building; according to spokesman Mike Ferris, they have about 5000 members in New Zealand. Quite where they all are is something of a mystery, since the 2006 census found only 357 souls prepared to stand up and be counted as children of Ron.

I guess we could blame that on the margin of error but the Church has had some difficulties with maths elsewhere. In Britain, the ratio of imaginary to real members is 100:1. Worldwide, the Church claims eight million adherents, although the real number seems to be more like half a million.

It seems that Church is having something of a worldwide spending spree, buying buildings that are rather grand but somewhat aesthetically incorrect, perfectly suited to the Church's downright tacky interior design style.

Whilst we are on the subject, whatever happened to Scientomogy, the locally-owned website whose owner endured threats and harassment from the Church?

Here's Culture Club:

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

L Ron was a crap SF author anyway.

Incidentally, do you have any new info on the number of Moonies in NZ? Last time I checked it was about three hundred or so.

Oh, and apparently Scientologists have popped up in Israel...

Craig Y

Paul said...

One Hundred and Five: so good it is worth writing as words with unnecessary capitals. The Unification Church is one 70s fad that is not retro-cool.

Anonymous said...

They've halved?! -ish.

But where would they go???
And as for Scientology, have you read L.Ron's wikipage? heh heh heh...

Craig

Diving into the wreck said...

mmm not that many....

The purchase of the Whitecliffe art schools building by the Church of Scientology is pretty old news... has been circualting around for months.

Paul said...

Follow the links: I covered the story when it first broke.

Diving into the wreck said...

thanks Paul, didnt look at links.