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Celebrity Magazine Statistics - Preliminary AnalysisTAS : Celebrity Magazine Statistics - Preliminary Analysis Celebrity Magazine - Preliminary Analysis
Despite my earlier predictions, CC INT (Celebrity Centre International)
stats appear to be up.
However, new members don't stick around very long.
OVERVIEW
========
Now that I have about 40-50% of the Celebrity magazine completion lists in
my database, I thought I'd do a PRELIMINARY analysis of the data.
Here are the questions I was trying to answer:
Are CC's stats going up or down?
How long do new members stay involved?
How many services do new members take?
How long does it take to go Clear?
How long does it take to go OT?
Here are my EXTREMELY PRELIMINARY conclusions:
* Are CC's stats going up or down?
They're going up. Or, at least they're showing more completions than in
the late 90s.
* How long do new members stay involved?
Only about 20% stay involved for 3 years or more.
* How many services do new members take?
About 60% only take one service. Only about 15-20% take more than 3
services.
* How long does it take to attest to Clear?
It varies widely, but for some people it can be done in less than 2 years.
On average, it appears to take about 5 years.
* How long does it take to go OT?
Again, it varies widely, but it appears to take about 7-8 years, on
average.
ABOUT "SERVICES"
================
Within Scientology, the word "services" is often used to mean only
auditing-type actions, as opposed to courses. I HAVE USED "SERVICES" TO
MEAN ANY KIND OF COMPLETION. Anything that appears in a completion list is
called "services" in this analysis.
Anyone who would like to suggest a better word is welcome to do so.
ABOUT THE DATA
==============
With much help from Cerridwen, I have incorporated completions lists from
86 issues of Celebrity into my database, HORTON (Holder Of Records,
Tallier of Numbers).
There's a LOT of data missing - there may be as many as 120 more issues of
Celebrity with comp lists that I'll want to add to the database
eventually. However, I think some preliminary analysis can reveal some
potentially useful information.
NOTE that while I think this information is sufficiently well supported to
be worth discussing, it's very important to remember that it will need to
be reviewed and revised as soon as we have more data. In the meantime, it
should all be treated as PRELIMINARY and PROVISIONAL.
It's possible, of course, that my conclusions are severely distorted by
the missing data. However, I don't think so. In order to get an idea of
how distorted the conclusions might be, I analyzed a subset of the data.
The Recent Subset includes all data for people whose earliest appearance
in HORTON is between 10/1/2000 and 12/31/2002. Since HORTON has all
completions lists published in Celebrity from 10/1/2000 onward, analyzing
this subset of people prevents problems caused by missing data (that is,
we have all the data for them). I chose not to include people whose first
completion appeared after 1/1/2003, since they may have been involved in
Scientology for too short of a time to draw solid conclusions. (In other
words, it may appear that an exceptionally high number of them have only
taken one service, but that may change as we get the next two or three
completion lists.)
I worked with three datasets:
1. The Celebrity dataset simply includes all completions listed in the 86
issues of Celebrity I currently have in HORTON.
2. The Celebrity Plus dataset includes all completions from any source for
any individual who appeared on a Celebrity Magazine completion list that's
in HORTON. Thus, one individual may have done an art course at CC INT,
auditor courses at Flag, and the Key to Life course on the Freewinds; all
of those completions are included in the Celebrity Plus dataset, since
that individual has at least one CC INT completion. The Celebrity Plus
dataset lets me analyze continuing involvement in Scientology even as it
extends beyond the services offered at CC INT.
It contains tens of thousands of records:
38,970 Celebrity
2,472 Advance
644 Auditor
2,860 Freewinds
3,153 Source
25 other (Ability, Advance UK, Auditor UK)
3. The Recent Subset includes only people whose first completion appears
in a Celebrity magazine mailed out between 10/1/2000 and 12/31/2002, but
it includes ALL completions HORTON has for those individuals, including
those published in Advance, Auditor, Freewinds, and Source. It is a subset
of the Celebrity Plus dataset designed to let me examine records with
fewer gaps in the data, since I have fairly complete data for Celebrity,
Source, Freewinds, and Advance from 10/1/2000 through the present.
The Recent Subset includes 2977 individuals, who have done 5928 services.
ABOUT CELEBRITY CENTRE INTERNATIONAL
====================================
CC INT is posh and plush. Per policy, it caters to celebrities and opinion
leaders - thus, not just actors and musicians, but also upper class
professionals, including doctors, chiropractors, veterinarians, dentists,
and businesspeople.
The classy atmosphere of CC INT stands in stark contrast to many other
orgs, which often have a hard time keeping up a neat, prosperous-looking
appearance.
While CC INT is primarily a starting place for new Scientologists, some
Scientologists get their start in Scientology elsewhere - whether at a
regional org or someplace like Flag - and then may take services at CC INT
when visiting LA or after moving to the LA area.
In general, Scientologists taking services at CC INT are considered more
important to Scientology than those at other orgs. It follows, then, that
their members should accomplish the most in Scientology and should be
among the most enthusiastic, long-term supporters of Scientology.
I feel comfortable concluding that, if 80% of new people at CC INT drift
away within 2 years, the number is at least as high at other Scientology
orgs and missions. It seems highly likely to me that CC INT is
Scientology's most productive, most welcoming US org, and I believe that
long-term numbers for other Scientology orgs are worse.
ABOUT CELEBRITY MAGAZINE
========================
Of all the major magazines I've looked at so far, Celebrity is the least
consistent in terms of numbering and including completions lists.
Per policy, org magazines are supposed to come out every month in
alternating Major and Minor issues. Major issues are supposed to include
completions lists, and are supposed to be mailed to people who have done a
service or at least bought a book; Minors are not supposed to include
completions lists, and are to go to everyone on the mailing list, even
people who haven't spent any money on Scn.
Thus, a list of magazines for a year might look like this:
Issue Type Month
1 Major January
2 Minor February
3 Major March
4 Minor April
5 Major May
6 Minor June
7 Major July
8 Minor August
9 Major September
10 Minor October
11 Major November
12 Minor December
However, Celebrity has diverged from this policy for the start.
For the first several years, there was a Major and a Minor issue for each
number:
1972
1 Major
1 Minor
2 Major
2 Minor
3 Major
3 Minor
4 Major
4 Minor
5 Major
5 Minor
6 Major
1973
6 Minor
special issue
7 Major
7 Minor
8 Major
8 Minor
9 Major
9 Minor
10 Major
10 Minor
1974
11 Major
11 Minor
11 Major
12 Minor
13 Major
14 Major
14 Minor
This lasted through 1978. At least one or two Minor issues included
completions.
From 1979 through mid-1986, most issues had no issue numbers at all. There
are instances of several consecutive issues having completions, as well as
several consecutive issues having no completions.
Starting in 1986, numbering began again, starting with 200. (There had
only been 110 issues prior to #200.) Subsequent issues did not always bear
a Major or Minor tag, but in general, alternating issues had completions
lists.
Since 1987, they've published an average of 9 issues a year, managing
anywhere from 6 to 11 in any given year.
HOW MANY COMPLETIONS? HOW MANY INDIVIDUALS?
===========================================
ANSWER: 38970 completions / 18459 individuals
I used the Celebrity dataset for these two questions.
In these 86 issues of Celebrity magazine, I found
38,970 total completions
by
18,459 total individuals
I found
427 duplicates and
325 retreads (110 of those were more than one year but less than 2 years
apart)
This is a pretty low number of duplicates, compared with other magazines.
On the other hand, variant spellings are abundant, so all the counts of
individuals are on the high side. (That is, there are lots of people with
misspelled names, which inflated the overall counts.)
IS CC UPSTAT OR DOWNSTAT? ARE THEY GROWING OR SHRINKING?
========================================================
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: CC INT is upstat and growing.
I used the Celebrity dataset for these questions.
Completions Are Up
------------------
The missing data makes this question hard to answer definitively. However,
from the data we have, it seems clear that CC INT has had more completions
per year over the past few years than at any time in the past.
Total completions for the most recent years:
2001 2002 2003
2630 3217 2878
While some years in the early 90s had completion tallies in the low 2000s,
most years appear to have had much lower yearly tallies.
Individuals Are Up, But Not Highest Ever
----------------------------------------
On the other hand, looking at individuals completing services at CC INT by
year, I discovered that the early 90s had higher counts than recent years:
1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 2001 2002 2003
1753 2004 2221 1173 1951 1765 2166 1882
REMEMBER, THIS IS INCOMPLETE DATA!
Still, while we may have more completions happening during each of the
past few years, they're being done by a smaller number of individuals than
during the early 90s.
Of course, it won't be possible to be sure about long-term trends until
the dataset is more complete.
From my observations of the VERY sparse data I have from individual orgs,
I believe any uptrend at CC INT is a big anomaly. I think most orgs have
drastically lower annual completion tallies than they had 20 years ago.
While CC INT appears to be booming, I believe most US orgs are seriously
downstat.
DO NEW MEMBERS STAY INVOLVED?
=============================
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: 80% become inactive within 2 years.
This is the question I most wanted to answer.
Most of the data I've analyzed in the past has come from advanced orgs -
AOLA, Flag, and the Freewinds. While this data has been most informative,
it doesn't tell us much about new members. Introductory services are
occasionally delivered on the Freewinds and at Flag, but they're far more
common at CC INT.
MY CONCLUSION?
About 60% only do 1 service, and less than 20% do 4 or more services.
Here's how I arrived at those conclusions.
I used the Celebrity Plus dataset and the Recent Subset for these
questions.
Number of Services
------------------
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: About 60% of people only do 1 service.
Out of:
18,459 individuals in my Celebrity lists so far,
11,642 individuals only have a single completion at CC INT;
10,727 only did one service if I look at all completions in HORTON.
(So, 915 people did at least one additional service somewhere else.)
10,727 is 58.11% of 18,459.
How many services has each individual done?
1 10727 58.1 %
2 2670 14.5 %
3 1459 7.9 %
4 894 4.8 %
5 589 3.2 %
6 452 2.4 %
7 332 1.8 %
8 262 1.4 %
9 211 1.1 %
10 189 1.0 %
more than 10:
675 3.7 %
The Recent Subset (first appearance is between 10/1/00 - 12/31/02) shows a
similar pattern.
Out of 2977 individuals, how many services has each person done?
1 1876 63.0 %
2 449 15.1 %
3 244 8.2 %
4 145 4.9 %
5 83 2.8 %
6 75 2.5 %
7 35 1.2 %
8 24 0.8 %
9 12 0.4 %
10 9 0.3 %
more than 10:
25 0.8 %
So it seems safe to say that about 60% only do a single service, and less
than 20% do 4 or more services.
Length of Involvement
---------------------
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: 80% become inactive within 2 years.
Perhaps more instructive than number of services taken is a look at how
long each individual continues taking services.
Taking the earliest completion for each individual and the latest, I
calculated how long each person has remained involved.
Years People Percent
0 13293 72.0 %
1 997 5.4 %
2 676 3.7 %
3 454 2.5 %
4 355 1.9 %
5 267 1.4 %
6 303 1.6 %
7 259 1.4 %
8 or more years:
1856 10.0 %
Thus, 80% are only involved for about 2 years, and only 10% remain after 7
years.
A similar trend appears in the Recent Subset:
Months People Percent
1 2190 73.56 %
2-12 419 14.07 %
13-24 258 8.67 %
25-36 110 3.69 %
In this subset, only 15% continue their involvement after 12 months.
Note that this subset, the Recent Subset, includes only people whose first
completion appears in a Celebrity magazine mailed out between 10/1/2000
and 12/31/2002, but it includes ALL completions HORTON has for those
individuals, including those published in Advance, Auditor, Freewinds, and
Source.
CLEAR: HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE? DO CLEARS STAY INVOLVED?
======================================================
I used the Celebrity Plus dataset to answer these questions.
How Long Does Clear Take?
-------------------------
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: About 5 years, on average
It's extremely hard to tell how long it takes people to reach Clear. The
answer varies widely from individual to individual. In addition, I don't
always have the earliest completions for these individuals. I made no
effort to limit the analysis to people for whom I had an introductory
service; I simply included anyone from the Celebrity Plus dataset who had
a Clear attest listed. (Note that this may have excluded some people who
ARE Clear but whose Clear attest hasn't made it into my database yet. For
example, Al Phlips appears in HORTON twice: How to Achieve Your Goals in
1989, and OT III in 1994. I didn't count him as a Clear, though, because I
don't have his Clear attest completion yet.)
Also, it's important to remember that this measures how long CC INT
Scientologists take to reach Clear. It may be a very different, perhaps
much longer, trip up the Bridge for Scientologists at other orgs. CC INT
members, who may be wealthier, more motivated, and more highly encouraged,
may reach Clear faster than less wealthy individuals or staff members at
regional orgs.
The Celebrity Plus dataset has 863 Clear attests. 646 of these were listed
in Celebrity; the others were listed in Advance, Auditor, or Source.
On average, it appears to take about 5 years. However, the missing data
may be distorting this considerably.
I took a cursory look at individual completion lists. I found at least a
few cases where people seemed to reach Clear within a year or two of doing
an introductory service.
There were a few extremely high numbers - 20, 22, and 23 years. It appears
that some of these are reattests for people who have attested to Clear
before. However, it appears that some Scientologists do take more than 10
years to reach Clear. I believe Lisa McPherson took about 18 years to
attest to Clear.
How Many Scientologists Reach Clear?
------------------------------------
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: About 5-10%
While it's impossible to answer this question without more complete data,
it's worth noting that 863 Clears amounts to less than 5% (just 4.68%) of
the total of 18,459 individuals. Even if we find that as many as 10% of
Scientologists reach Clear once we fill in the missing data, it's a pretty
small percentage.
Do Clears Stay Involved?
------------------------
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: 65% become inactive within 1 year after going Clear.
Note that, since my completions for advanced orgs are so much more
complete than my completions for Celebrity, this number is probably more
reliable than many of the others in this preliminary analysis.
For each CC INT individual for whom I had a Clear attest listed, I looked
for the most recent completion of any kind in HORTON and calculated the
number of years between the Clear attest and that most recent comp.
Years People Percent
0 511 59.21 %
1 65 7.53 %
2 38 4.40 %
3 30 3.47 %
4 18 2.08 %
5 17 1.96 %
6 16 1.85 %
7 25 2.89 %
>7 143 16.57%
So about 60% of Clears become inactive immediately after attesting to
Clear, and only about 25% of Clears remain active 3 years afterwards.
Looking at all 863 Clear attests, HORTON shows that the average length of
involvement after attesting is about 3 years, with those who remain for a
long time being averaged out by those who immediately become inactive.
OT: HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE? DO OTS STAY INVOLVED?
================================================
I used the Celebrity Plus dataset to answer these questions.
How Long Does OT Take?
-------------------------
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: About 7-8 years, on average
HORTON lists 760 CC INT people who have done OT levels. (Some of these
DON'T show up as Clears, so it's not a direct subset of the 863 Clears.)
To answer this question, I calculated the difference between the earliest
completion I had for a person and the earliest OT attest I showed. HORTON
showed that the average time between these dates was about 8 years.
Do OTs Stay Involved?
------------------------
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: About 35% become inactive within 2 years after their
first OT attest.
Note that, since my completions for advanced orgs are so much more
complete than my completions for Celebrity, this number is probably more
reliable than many of the others in this preliminary analysis.
For each CC INT individual for whom I had an OT attest listed WHICH FELL
BEFORE 1/1/2002, I looked for the most recent completion of any kind in
HORTON and calculated the number of years between the earliest OT attest
and that most recent comp. I omitted those whose first OT attest fell
after 1/1/2002 because those people may not have had time to complete
their next OT level in the past two years.
Years People Percent
0 98 17.01 %
1 58 10.07 %
2 41 7.11 %
3 34 5.90 %
4 32 5.55 %
5 32 5.55 %
6 28 4.86 %
7 22 3.81 %
8 30 5.20 %
>8 201 34.90%
Almost 35% of OTs become inactive within 2 years after their first OT
attest. Another 5% become inactive with each subsequent year.
HOW MANY CC INT SCIENTOLOGISTS ARE NEW?
=======================================
PRELIMINARY ANSWER: around 65-70% during the past few years, down from
75-80%.
I am least certain of these numbers; it will be especially important to
re-run them and double-check them when I get more complete data.
However, at the moment, it appears that only about 65-70% of individuals
taking services at CC INT during 2001-2003 are newcomers there; in the
past, that ratio was more like 75-80%.
LOOKING AHEAD
=============
CC INT has reported about 4300 newcomers completing services since
1/1/2000. Of these 4300 individuals, if the APPARENT trends in this
PRELIMINARY report hold,
about 860 (20%) will be active in 2 years ( ... which means some of them
have probably become inactive already)
about 430 (10%) will be active after 7 years
about 215-430 (5-10%) will eventually attest to Clear
Approximately 400 new Clears from a period of 4 years isn't a whole lot.
I'm looking forward to following these trends over the next several years
and looking for new trends.
Your comments, corrections, and feedback are, as always, welcome. Oh, and
whatnot! Don't forget the whatnot.
ARSCC(wdne) Stats Wrangler, Fully Hatted,
Kristi
This page was last updated on January 14, 2004 by Kristi Wachter. |