How many OT Completions?

Question answered by honorarykid in Scientology

escapee asked this question on 9/30/2000:

I saw a similar question asked below, but the answers have too much to do with whether OT's are real or not. What I want to know is how many OT completions are there, that is, how many have completed NOTs, for example? I know every level like OT I, OT II etc. is a completion, so don't want to count the same person several times. So lets just pick on OT III as a major point, and say, how many people does the Church claim to have completed OT III? That is, how many have been permitted to attest to completion.

I would like to see how many people really are making progress on the bridge. About 20 years ago there were about 3,000 who had completed OT III.

Maybe an easier statistic would be, how many Clears are there now? Because Clears are numbered and there were about 7,000 20 years ago. I just would like to see what the current number is. I think some real statistics would be helpful in evaluating if the COS really is delivering any good technology.

Of course, of the 3,000 almost 20 years ago, 800 left in mass exodus in 1982-83. Some had died, and some had previously disappeared into the woodwork, or have since. Be curious how many Scientologists who were OT III or above in 1983 are still around and active in the COS? Really they should do a poll, and let us know.

honorarykid gave this response on 10/3/2000:

I have a few educated guesses for your informal survey.

Each time someone attests to the state of Clear in Scientology, they are assigned a unique, serialized number. When someone gets their Clear number, it's noted in various Scientology magazines. I believe the numbers of the most recent Clears are in the vicinity of 50,000.

If your number of 7000 was correct, 20 years ago, that would mean approximately 43,000 members had passed the Clear milestone in the past 20 years, or about 2100 new Clears per year, on average.

Of course, it's hard to extrapolate a current trend line from a curve with only two data points. Someone with the last few years of Auditor magazine or other publication could fill in the more recent monthly numbers <hint> <hint>.

And of course, these numbers presume nothing of the current status of any of those (approximately) 50,000 "Clear" people. We know that many of them are now out of Scientology and even declared as suppressives, and listed as enemies of the church.

Also, I just wanted to point out that recently, much to their chagrin, David Miscavige notified all individuals who have reached the milestone of OT-7 that their training was flawed, and that only 3 of the 59 (I believe it was 59, I could be mistaken about the exact number) required tools to become an OT were actually being used in the current courses!

Miscavige told them all that they'd have to go back on course to redo their training in the correct way.

So, even passing a milestone in Scientology doesn't necessarily mean that one will stay beyond it.

escapee rated this answer:

honorarykid gave this follow-up answer on 10/6/2000:

I said in my answer above, that advanced OT course Scientologists were told they were only being taught 3 of required 59 tools needed. As I was working from recollection, I waffled a bit on the 59 number. As it turns out, that number was wrong, and by a fairly significant amount. So I got the correct number, from a statement made by Tory Bazazian, who was on the OT-7 level course.

The correct number is 79. Scientologists who have completed their OT level courses were informed that they only received 3 of 79 tools (3.79%).

Also, they were told that for $25,000.00, Scientology will let them go back on course and get instruction in the other 76 tools.

Just think... there are people out there who'll gladly be forking over the requested $25,000.00 to the Church of Scientology.

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