To celebrate the new year the Church of Scientology’s UK headquarters, Saint Hill, sent parishioners a ‘year in review’ newsletter with statistics evidencing their slow decline and struggle to attract new members.
“As we wrap up 2024 with record-breaking releases, auditing hours, auditors made and OTs, we are more ready than ever to help you, your family and friends make it to the top of the Bridge” the newsletter states. “You could be auditing on Solo NOTs by the end of this year. All you need to do is arrive at Saint Hill, and we’ll handle the rest to help you achieve Clear, OT and become a 100% competent auditor.”
In Scientology, an auditor is somebody who delivers what they describe as “spiritual counselling” with the view to rid somebody of their ‘Reactive Mind’, the subconscious part of the mind responsible for one’s troubles according to L. Ron Hubbard’s pseudoscience ‘Dianetics’.
Scientologists are expected to not only receive auditing, but to train to become auditors themselves in order to deliver the service to others. The highest levels of their ‘Bridge to Total Freedom’ are attained through a practice of solo auditing, which requires prior training and understanding of the process and cannot be achieved without training. Saint Hill’s newsletter claims the centre, which is Scientology’s UK headquarters and considered the group’s ‘spiritual home’, made “250 new auditors” last year. That’s an average of just less than 5 a week.
For perspective the population of East Grinstead, where Saint Hill is located, was 26,383 at the last census meaning at their current rate it would take them 49.5 years to train just the local town in how to deliver Scientology services.
Once somebody is free of their reactive mind they are said to have reached the state of ‘Clear’, allowing them to move forward onto the confidential ‘Operating Thetan’ (OT) levels, which cost thousands of pounds. There are eight OT levels in total, but Saint Hill can only deliver up to OT5. Parishioners are then sent to Flag, Scientology’s compound in Clearwater, Florida in order to complete OT6 and 7. The highest level, OT8 can only be studied aboard the Freewinds, their cruise ship based in the Caribbean.
According to the newsletter, Saint Hill produced “680 Clears & OTs” in 2024. That’s an average of 1.86 a day. At that rate, it’ll take Scientology 38 years to clear East Grinstead (population 26,383), 2,504 years to clear Sussex (population 1.7 million) and 100,677 years to clear the United Kingdom (population 68.35 mil).. and that’s not accounting for population growth.
Scientology claims to be the “fastest growing religion on planet Earth” and the newsletter states it was a “record-breaking year”. It’s therefore reasonable to assume the rate of 1.86 Clears & OTs a day is higher than in the past. However even at this rate, Saint Hill could not have made more than 44,128 Clears and OTs since it opened its doors in 66 years ago.
These statistics do not account for Scientology’s city-level ‘Orgs’ such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, Plymouth and Sunderland or it’s smaller ‘Missions’ like Bournemouth & Poole in Dorset.
Auditing is charged by the hour but discounts are offered when parishioners pre-pay for services in advance, with packages of 12.5 hours known as an ‘intensive’. Saint Hill’s newsletter claims “8,856 intensives” were completed in the year and the centre delivered a total of “184,000 auditing hours”. 8,856 intensives equates to 110,700 hours, which suggests 73,300 hours of auditing were delivered on the more expensive pay-as-you-go basis, which can run into the £1000s per hour.
Former Scientology International spokesperson Mike Rinder published a price list in 2013 which shows the sliding scale of auditing fees charged by city-level Churches, known as ‘Class V Orgs’. One intensive (12.5 hours) is listed as $2,500 USD, or $200 per hour. Paying for 4 intensives at a time gets you a discount of $500 and 12 intensives is priced at $22,500 – a discount of $7,500. As an Advanced Org, Saint Hill’s auditing fees will be considerably higher, especially for upper level courses that are not delivered at the city-level.
An intensive typically costs in the region of $5,000 USD (£3,960 GBP) at an Advanced Org, which indicates last year Saint Hill likely made more than $44 million (£35 million) in intensives alone. Scientology’s accounts for 2023, which are filed in Australian dollars and include the total revenue for all of their UK branches show an income of $20,693,573 AUD ($13.2 million USD / £10.4 million GBP) from “parishioner donations for religious services.”
Their accounts for 2024 aren’t due until the end of June, but if they do not reflect a more than doubling of revenue since the previous year it could suggest either their reported statistics have been inflated, or their income has been misreported.
Saint Hiller also states there were “4,768 PC completions” in 2024. PC stands for Pre-Clear, meaning somebody who has not yet achieved the state of ‘Clear’. Divided by 365 days, this makes just 13 course completions a day despite Saint Hill being the busiest and most well-known Scientology centre in the UK.
