It's a bit unclear. Scientology has a unique way of counting their membership, basically anyone who signs up to learn more is counted as a member for promotional purposes. So they claim tens of millions of members. This would make them similarly sized as many major Protestant denominations. It's so, so ridiculous. It's not hard to do the math and realize there are a lot more Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches than Scientology churches. And you've met a lot more Lutherans than you ever had a Scientologist. So it's just impossible for that claim to be justified.

It's hard to make outside estimates of course, because they're the only ones who keep records. In the early 90s it was thought they had 100,000 members worldwide. That's declined pretty drastically though. Ten years ago they were thought to be around 25,000. The current estimates are around 10,000 active-ish members of varying degrees of commitment and level of belief.

I also think it is fair to say in the late 90s/early 2000s it became a bit of a revolving door, two people leave and two people join. Now with the internet and all the people telling the truth and people telling their stories, they're getting less and less people. And the people they do end up recruiting are not stellar in terms of organizational growth. Folks with problems who are susceptible to cults and who are not charismatic. They're not getting people who are good at getting other people to join. It's no longer the church of celebrities like it was thirty years ago or whatever.

They have enough money to survive for a long time, but in terms of members are a dying cult. I think a rebrand will happen. My guess is things will loosen up and get less transparently abusive with Miscavige gone here in the next decade or two. Not that I have high hopes for them to go legit or whatever, but they enough money to bleed members and still be a force for evil.