Class VIIIs | LRH vs COB
LRH — Founder of Dianetics and Scientology
In 1974, ASHO’s Auditor Mag Issue #98 listed out the names of every graduate of the AOLA and ASHO Class VIII Course, from its release in September, 1968, to the publication date of the magazine in April, 1974.
The total: 242.
This is an average of just under one new Class VIII per week in the West U.S. alone.
These numbers were the result of LRH’s constant insistence on the necessity of producing Class VIIIs in volume:
“No org can afford to be without at least one Class VIII. These are the Custodians of Standard Tech.”
HCOB 23 January 1975
The Purpose of Class VIII
(Tech Vol X, p. 679)
“Do you know that absolutely, standard tech (complete, utter hairline standard tech) used in organizations throughout the world will at least triple the stats of each org within ninety days. Couldn’t help it.”
Tape 24 September 1968
Welcome to the Class VIII Course
“To let standard tech go out is an act of treason as Scientology then loses all meaning in an org.
“This is why I am teaching a Class VIII Course.”
HCOB 28 August 1968, Issue I
Out Tech
(Tech Vol VIII, p. 186)
“To throw a Class VIII Course out of line and defeat its purpose — gives an automatic Treason assignment.”
HCOB 20 October 1968
The Purpose of Class VIII
(Tech Vol VIII, p. 256)
David Miscavige — SELF-APPOINTED CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, RTC
Immediately following COB’s release of the Golden Age of Tech in May, 1996, the doors to every Class VIII course room on the planet were closed, pending students completing the new Golden Age Briefing Course (or Class VI Certainty) and its Internship.
No Class VIII course room had ever been closed up before — not even for a few days, much less for 4 years.
When AOLA’s Class VIII course room finally reopened in 2000, it took an additional 4½ years to produce a Class VIII — the first Class VIII made in the West U.S. since the release of the Golden Age of Tech 8 years earlier.
Since then, the flow has increased, but only by a trickle. At the end of the first decade of the Golden Age of Tech (1996-2005), for example, AOLA had graduated only five Class VIIIs — an average of one every two years.
Compared to AOLA’s average of one a week in the late 60s and early 70s, this represents a statistical drop of 99% — the single largest crash of any training stat in the history of Scientology.
(The Auditor magazine featuring these early Class VIII stats can be found in the “What Happened to Training?” section of this web site.)